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This year, many digital marketers and content creators are still grappling with how to adapt to AI Overviews (AIO), the biggest shift in Google search since the original PageRank algorithm. With searchers skipping traditional SERPs in favour of AI’s fast results requiring fewer clicks — and recent research by BrightEdge showing that the presence of AI Overviews grew to nearly half (48%) of the queries they tracked over a year — it’s clear that content strategies must go beyond SEO, and include visibility tactics such as GEO and AEO.
If you’re a content creator, learning how to appear in AIO should be a key goal for 2026. To help you ensure your brand stays relevant in this game-changing AI search landscape, here we provide 10 top techniques to increase your chances of getting cited within AI Overviews, boosting your brand’s AIO “share of voice”.
What are Google AI Overviews and why do they matter?
As we outlined in a previous blog, Google’s AI Overviews (powered by Gemini) deliver summarised answers drawn from several sources at or near the top of search results, reducing the need to click through to individual pages. This has naturally hit organic traffic hard, with recent research by Ahrefs showing that the presence of an AI Overview correlates with a 58% lower average click-through rates (CTR) for the top-ranking page (though this varies according to query type and vertical). With the race to get recognised on Google now intensified, here are 10 ways to align your content to AI crawler preferences…
10 Best practices for optimizing your content for AI Overviews
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Follow Google’s E-E-A-T framework
In another blog, we explained why Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) is the most important framework for helping get your brand’s content picked up by AI crawlers. As AI agents assess whether you have the relevant experience and inside information on your topic, you need to prove your authority. The best way to illustrate the potential effectiveness of amplifying your E-E-A-T efforts is through the below instructive case study:
Case study:
After Google’s March 2024 algorithm update, HubSpot experienced an alarming 70–80% decline in organic traffic (2024 — 2025). Why? Their content was devalued by not aligning closely enough with their core offerings. Their top-of-funnel topics had strayed from their main CRM platform service.
So they focused on optimizing for inclusion in AI citations. Some of the strategies they used tie into E-E-A-T:
Experience: They developed content written by practitioners with actual experience and informed perspectives.
Expertise: They pruned irrelevant content and aligned topics with their main services. They also used “semantic triples” sentence structures to write standalone statements that AI crawlers could easily read.
Authoritativeness: Schema markup was used to identify the professional contributors and their organisation. In addition, HubSpot boosted their community and third-party presence (using PR, Wikipedia updates, Reddit threads, etc.).
Trustworthiness: HubSpot writers spent more time refreshing old content than generating new posts, while keeping canonical URLs. This helped the LLMs register their site as credible enough to cite.
The result? A remarkable turnaround that included a 642% increase in AI citations, and fourth place on Semrush’s AI Visibility Index (for the business and professional services vertical).
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Answer questions clearly
Google’s AI responses tend to fall into four main categories:
- Discovering new subject matter
- Instructions, How Tos and troubleshooting tips
- Gathering opinions for informed decision-making
- Product comparisons
Consider the main questions your potential customers would ask within each category. Then create content that answers their queries as clearly as possible.
Content should also be written conversationally. With more users searching using natural language and AI picking up on this in its responses, you should mirror this pattern. Address questions in natural-sounding language that cuts to the chase.
Top tips:
- Give succinct answers that directly respond to queries.
- Provide 40- to 60-word ‘answer capsule’ summaries at the top of article sections, so that AI can draw from them.
- Include FAQ and clearly mark them as such using FAQ schema.
- Use question-based subheadings.
- Consider other questions that may pop up under “people also ask” — the most common SERP feature, according to Search Engine Journal’s STAT whitepaper on SERPS (April 2026) — and answer them in your content. Thanks to the “query fan-out” technique AI systems use, this broadens the range of queries you could be cited for.
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Use structured data smartly
Structured data helps AI systems parse, index and understand your content contextually. Schema markup feeds Google’s Knowledge Graph, improving your chances of appearing in AI-generated summaries. Use HTML tags and schema.org annotations wisely, and be sure to add the right schema type for the content to improve your chances of getting noticed. Nested schema structures are also a smart move, as these create entity relationships that AI detects when searching for authoritative results.
Schema types to consider include:
- FAQPage and HowTo
- Article or BlogPosting
- Organisation and Person (for E-E-A-T signals)
- Product (especially for e-commerce pages)
Top tips:
- Label important details like author, topic and publishing date clearly
- Implement Article schema, How To schema, etc.
- Use Google Search Console (GSC) Structured Data Reports to check your schema coverage
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Optimize content structure
Another way to earn a spot in an AI-featured snippet is to pay attention to how your content is structured.
Ensure your content hierarchies are easy to scan: Use a clear heading structure that flows logically. Be sure to incorporate question-based long-tail keywords into subheadings. Each sub-section should contribute to the overall article, but also be capable of standing alone.
Use the journalistic ‘inverted pyramid’ structure: Don’t bury the answer in a long blog with an overly long introduction. Lead with the answer in an easy-to-parse format (e.g. short-form answer, list, definition, how-to). Thereafter, place all the important information at the beginning of each content section. Flesh the explanation out after. This ‘answer first’ approach not only saves the hurried user from unnecessary scrolling, it makes it more likely that AI will scan your content.
Use a varied format that allows for more white space by adding ‘extras’: Think including a table of contents, bullet points, numbered lists, H2 and H3 headings, and FAQ at the end.
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Use multimedia and ensure fast, accessible page delivery
AI models are multi-modal. Since AI pulls from more than just text, it’s best to add multimedia assets to your content. Ideas include:
- Adding more images with relevant descriptive alt text and captions
- Summarising information in infographics, short videos, charts and diagrams
- Including interactive elements like calculators, carousels and quizzes
- Adding video sitemaps to help the search engine index your video content
Google’s Core Web Vitals provide the baseline for checking your page quality. Slow-loading pages are less likely to be trusted by AI crawlers, so optimize all images with descriptive alt text, compress files for fast loading and ensure your content renders correctly across all screen sizes.
Case study:
In one example from Search Engine Land, a large enterprise cloud platform faced a projected 79-85% drop in organic traffic due to AIO changes.
By optimising 11 pages with multimedia-rich content and AI-focused design, eight of those pages entered the AI Overview panel, reversing the expected traffic loss and saving 17 strategic keywords from losing visibility.
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Establish authority
Building topical authority is one of the most reliable ways to earn AI citations. The most effective method? A topic cluster strategy built around pillar pages and supporting content.
Create a pillar page around a topic that’s core to your brand. Then create multiple content pages that support the cornerstone content through internal linking. These cluster pages can explore the topic from multiple angles. This also reinforces your entity relationships (associations between your brand, experts and content topics), as the more you’re linked with relevant topic clusters, the more authoritative you appear. Note that the pillar page should link to the supporting content pages; the cluster pages should link back to the cornerstone page.
Example:
You create a pillar page about “Personal Finance” for your finance brand, with links to cluster such as:
- How to create a monthly budget
- Tips for building an emergency fund
- Understanding credit scores and how to improve them
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Refine your technical SEO
SEO tactics still matter. So keep your technical SEO on point to make it easy for AI systems to crawl, index and understand your content.
Top tips:
- Eliminate performance issues that slow down your site’s page load speed.
- Fix crawl errors and broken links to ensure AI systems and users don’t encounter dead ends.
- Ensure your website structure is clean with clear hierarchies for greater AI crawlability.
- Implement HTTPS and secure your site to build trust and meet Google’s security preferences.
- Leverage XML sitemaps and robots.txt to guide AI crawlers efficiently through your site.
- Include conversion rate optimization (CRO) in your SEO strategy. This is because, as the 2024 Google API leak showed, Google’s internal Navboost feature tracks and uses clicks as a ranking signal that search engines use to assess pages for ranking.
- Audit your robots.txt for AI crawler directives. Blocking crawlers protects your content from AI training, but it may cost you citation visibility. Content and developer teams should weigh up this trade-off.
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Publish fresh content
AI systems like comprehensive content that’s current. They assess things like byline dates, URL dates and timestamps showing when the page was last updated. Regularly refreshing existing posts is often more effective than publishing new ones.
It’s important to:
- Refresh old posts with updated links, statistics, case studies or insights.
- Add the date of publication and/or update.
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Monitor your AIO visibility
Do regular performance testing of your AIO optimization efforts:
- Do a manual SERP analysis to check when your content appears in Google’s AI Overviews or AI Mode, not just traditional organic rankings.
- Track your AIO “share of voice” with tools like Semrush’s AI Toolkit or Ahrefs’ AI Visibility feature to monitor branded and unbranded AI Overview appearances against competitors.
- Monitor user engagement signals (such as time on page, scroll depth), as these may inform how AI systems assess content quality and relevance.
- Track changes in click-through rates (CTR): Since AIO can reduce traditional organic clicks, track CTR shifts carefully to adjust your content and calls-to-action accordingly.
- Use data from Google Search Console’s performance reports combined with third-party tools to correlate AIO visibility with traffic and rankings.
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Stay agile to adapt to future changes
Stay updated on Google’s AIO and AI Mode feature rollouts and algorithm updates. With Google describing AI Mode as the future of search, it’s one to watch. The fully conversational interface breaks queries into sub-questions, synthesising answers from across sources, which is sure to raise the bar in terms of becoming a citable authority.
By now it’s clear that in the age of AI search, content creators and strategists should be blending SEO, SXO, GEO and AEO techniques. Content optimization must go beyond just Google’s AI search and keep all AI platforms in mind, including Perplexity, Microsoft CoPilot and ChatGPT.
Final thoughts
While Google’s AIO creates new challenges for driving organic traffic, it also opens opportunities for content creators and brands willing to adapt their strategies. Success in the AI-first search depends on offering helpful content, leveraging structured data and building genuine authority. So start implementing these Google AIO SEO best practices today to be ahead of the competition tomorrow.
Did you appreciate this blog? Browse through our others, including “How to Rank in Google AI Overviews in 2026: What Gemini Really Looks For.”
FAQs
What are Google’s AI Overviews and how do they work?
Google uses AI to provide comprehensive answers from multiple sources at the top of search results, reducing the need for users to click through to individual websites.
How can I optimize my content for Google AI Overviews
Focus on creating well-structured, authoritative content that follows E-E-A-T principles, uses schema markup, answers questions clearly and includes multimedia elements with proper alt text.
What types of content perform best in AI Overviews
How-to guides, FAQ content, comparison articles, and well-structured informational content with clear headings and concise answers tend to perform well.
How do I measure my content performance in AI Overviews?
Use tools like Semrush and Google Search Console to track when your content appears in AI overviews, monitor changes in CTR and analyse user engagement metrics.
What’s the difference between AI Overviews and AI Mode?
AI Overviews offer a summarised answer with cited sources at or near the top of Google search results. AI Mode is a fully conversational search interface that breaks complex queries into sub-questions and synthesises answers from multiple sources simultaneously.
Article by
Deidre Donnelly
