Google AI Overviews: What The Update Means For SEO

What Is Google AI Overviews?

With Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking the world by storm, the future of search and SEO has become a tad confusing.  By now, you might have heard of Google’s new generative AI search update: Google AI Overviews. Initially announced in May 2023 under the name Google Search Generative Experiences (SGE), Google’s cutting-edge technology has since seen a rebrand. In May 2024, the new name, Google AI Overviews, and new updates were launched on Google Search Labs in the United States.  As of November 2024, AI Overviews is being rolled out in more than 100 countries and territories worldwide. Earlier this month, it started landing on Australian devices, much sooner than planned.  AI Overviews aim to help you:

• Learn about a topic quickly through an overview 
• Summarise key takeaways 
• Get speedy answers to questions and instructions 

Soon, more than 1 billion global users every month will experience their Google search engine results page’s (SERPs) new look. 

What Are The New Features Of Google AI Overviews?

Google’s new AI search experience will showcase a range of exciting new features designed to make your search experience quicker and easier. 

AI-generated summaries

On traditional Google SERPs, results were displayed as a list of different sites.  With Google AI overviews, the first result will be an AI-generated summary, providing simple answers to complex questions. Powered by the new Gemini model, the overviews aim to deliver a more conversational answer to your questions, allowing you to expand your query further with suggested next steps. If you have a multi-step query, say goodbye to multiple searches. This new update allows you to ask your questions in one search. 

Language support

Google’s new update now extends to language support. If you’re in any country with AI Overviews, you can now get results in any of the support languages which include English, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. For example, if you’re based in the United Kingdom and you’re a native Spanish speaker, you can see AI Overviews in your preferred language. 

Simple answers

Is your search subject blowing your mind with complexity? Choose ‘simpler’ or ‘break it down’ to get an easier-to-read answer. Google’s new multi-step reasoning lets AI handle difficult questions by breaking them down into smaller chunks of information.

Meal & trip planning

If you’re not sure what you want to cook this week or what to do on your upcoming Europe trip, AI Overviews can help. With its new abilities, Google can write you a meal plan or create a travel itinerary. Soon, Google will be adding more features to help narrow your search down further for specific events like ‘date nights’ and ‘parties’. 

AI-organised results page 

Search will soon begin using generative AI to organise your search results into helpful and unique categories that are easier to explore. 

Video search 

For users struggling to find the words for their problem, Google will allow you to search with videos. Just take a short video, upload it, and Google will give you the steps to answer your query. 

Who Will AI Overviews Impact The Most?

AI Overviews will affect all websites, at least to start. Semrush’s study of 200,000 keywords has shown AI Overviews displays queries with an informational intent most in the SERP. In contrast, transactional keywords made up less than 3% of the study.  The study demonstrated the industries popping up in AI Overviews the most are:

• Healthcare
• Technology
• Insurance
• Education

But whatever industry your business is in, AI Overviews will have an impact and your team will need to respond. 

How Can I Prevent Google AI Overviews From Impacting My SEO Rankings?

Google designed these new features to enhance the user experience, rather than disrupt it. AI often prioritises websites with high-quality and useful content, so excellent sites are likely to benefit from the updates. If you want to be a step ahead of your competitors, make sure you:

Focus on quality content

To get to the top of the page in the new AI summaries, make sure your content is well-structured, authoritative, and high quality. Dive deep into your research strategy when you’re writing content to really get to the root of what you’re trying to tell your site visitors.

Add Multimedia

Visuals are a brilliant way to enhance your content. AI Overviews can understand text, images, videos, and voice. Create and add custom media to your content to enhance its visibility and appear in search results.

Improve user experience 

As Google’s new AI search rapidly churns out answers, it’s more important than ever to focus on user experience. Optimise your websites for speed, mobile-friendliness, and overall ease of use. 

Structure for featured snippets 

Increase the likelihood of a feature by organising your content with a clear structure. Prioritise the use of headings, subheadings, and bulleted lists. Add useful (and relevant) photos, graphs, and videos to complement your content. 

Highlight positive reviews 

Genuine, positive, customer reviews will demonstrate your expertise to searchers, ultimately building their trust. Encourage your customers to leave a review on Google to stand out against AI advancements and drive visitors to your site.

Is Google’s AI Search Going To Make My Website Rankings Tank?

For many sites, organic traffic is likely to decrease, at least at first. By providing searchers with an AI-generated summary, Google will reduce the need to actually click on a website. We’re all secretly a bit lazy, so why would we spend time scrolling through websites to look for an answer when it’s already been provided? This is particularly true for informational searches where users want a quick answer.  It’s not all bad news though. Traditional SEO practices will still be relevant, just less so. Instead, with the new AI introduction there will be more emphasis on the relevance of your content, the context, and the user experience. 

Stay Ahead In The Digital Landscape With Bloom Digital 

Feeling unsure about what the future of search will mean for your business? There’s no need to worry! Keep an eye on your analytics and continuously optimise your content to stay ahead of the curve.  But if you need extra support, call in our expert SEO team in Perth today for some help.