Google AI Overview: How to Use It in Your Content Marketing Strategy

If you’ve Googled anything in the past few months, you’ve noticed that Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) have significantly altered the Organic Search landscape. This has prompted digital marketers to begin optimizing their websites and landing pages for AIOs to maximize their brands’ Organic Search visibility.

Done well, this practice can enhance your content marketing strategy, which is increasingly valuable for building brand awareness, generating leads, driving revenue, and cementing long-term brand loyalty.

Although appearing in AIOs can help maximize ROI for some brands, it’s not the right approach for every business, even those that rely heavily on digital revenue.

Here’s how to decide if targeting AIOs is right for you, and if so, how to target them effectively.

Not every brand needs to position itself as an industry expert to be successful. Some brands let the quality of their products or services speak for themselves.

However, if you publish thought leadership content in order to build trust and attract high-quality leads, then you’d likely benefit from appearing in AIOs, as well.

Google AI Overviews are still very new, so there’s plenty of ongoing testing and development.

That said, current research shows that AIOs are by far most likely to appear for informational queries and only rarely for queries centered around transactional keywords.

Keep in mind that Google’s aim with AIOs is to help users quickly learn high-level information about unfamiliar, complex, or otherwise time-consuming and labor-intensive topics.

So if your brand’s goal is to establish a reputation as a thought leader in your vertical by publishing content focused on industry-specific challenges or innovation, targeting AIOs in your content marketing strategy is worthwhile.

Because most referral traffic from an AIO will consist of information-seeking users, brands with longer sales funnels and prolonged consideration stages will benefit the most from AIOs.

B2B businesses are great examples of this, especially those selling SaaS or industry-specific solutions. However, you don’t have to be in B2B to benefit from AIO referral traffic.

In most cases, if you provide a niche offering at a high price point, your prospective customers will want to do their research before making a purchase. That’s where content marketing, including appearing in AIOs, can help convert traffic from informational queries into conversions and revenue.

Well-executed thought leadership content can also help with remarketing before the customer has even decided to buy.

Every piece of content you publish is an opportunity to demonstrate brand expertise and position yourself as an authority in your vertical. Both of these are key to fostering customer loyalty. Users’ perceptions of your expertise and authoritativeness will only be heightened by your appearance in AIOs.

In short, the referral traffic from AIOs does more than help capture conversions. It also helps keep those customers coming back to your brand, fueling long-term revenue growth.

If it makes sense for your brand to target AIOs, here are a few of the steps and practices you should implement.

Because the queries that trigger most AIOs are informational and niche, the keywords you target in your on-page content should match this intent.

That means targeting long-tail keywords: the phrase-length keywords typically used to find particular answers and explore lesser-known topics.

Users often search these keywords to know who, what, when, where, why, or how.

Using relevant long-tail keywords in your content is key to having your brand’s landing pages cited and linked in Google AI Overviews.

Unless your brand is making its first foray into content marketing, you should already publish helpful content regularly.

Helpful content has been a point of emphasis for Google since the first Helpful Content Update was released in late 2022. By now, if you aren’t consistently publishing helpful content, you’ve likely seen your brand’s Organic Search rankings tank.

What makes content “helpful” in Google’s eyes? Primarily, helpful content is designed to satisfy users, not search engines.

Helpful content is thoughtful and delivers genuine value to real humans rather than thin, cheap, mass-produced content published solely to manipulate search engine ranking systems.

To be considered truly helpful, your content should also demonstrate the E-E-A-T outlined in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Of course, high-quality content isn’t one-size-fits-all. Your content should speak to particular customer personas, address specific pain points, and cover topics from all angles.

Remember, a Google AI Overview appears when Google believes it will give users specific answers or practical insight on a niche or complex topic. Your content should be structured to achieve those same goals if you want it to appear in AIOs.

Form titles and subheadings in the form of questions. Then, in the first sentence immediately following each question, provide a concise, useful answer.

A core tenet of Organic Search optimization is aligning your website, pages, and content with user search intent, and it applies here as well.

Users appreciate AIOs because they provide accurate, convenient answers and digestible information, so your content should do the same.

When you explore the SERPs for informational keywords, you’ll notice the results aren’t homogenous.

Rather, Google serves a variety of results: classic blue links, shopping carousels, images, featured snippets, knowledge panels, and other SERP features.

The sources also vary greatly, from independent blogs to forum discussions, news articles, scientific research, and information from government agencies.

In Google’s eyes, high-quality SERPs include a variety of perspectives and angles, giving users a set of comprehensive options for further exploration. Google AI Overviews operate similarly.

So, to maximize your visibility in AIOs and SERPs, create content that offers unique value, an original perspective, or proprietary information that isn’t available anywhere else on the web.

Not only will this help your brand show up for the keywords you’re targeting, but it will also set you apart from your competitors and give you more opportunities to extoll your value propositions and USPs.

Freshness is a key factor Google considers when evaluating content, and it’s especially important for AI Overviews. So, if your evergreen content hasn’t been updated in a few years, you shouldn’t expect it to appear in AIOs or rank highly in Organic Search results.

A thorough audit of your published content will help you establish a baseline and identify which pieces need to be updated.

In some cases, having outdated content can be worse than having no content at all.

If your prospective customers see you using obsolete terminology or providing guidance that no longer aligns with industry standards, their perception of your brand will suffer, and you’ll miss out on leads, conversions, and revenue.

Once you’ve audited your existing content, set calendar reminders to review each piece of content periodically and do the same for the content you publish going forward.

This will increase your odds of appearing in AIOs and other valuable SERP features.

Optimizing for AI Overviews is a fantastic way to enhance your brand’s Organic Search visibility and reap the unique benefits of this channel.

As an ROI-focused agency, VELOX fully customizes digital marketing campaigns to help clients build more productive and profitable businesses. We conservatively target 400 to 800% ROI and consistently exceed client expectations, which is why we're recognized among the top 3% of agencies globally as a Google Partner.

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