How to write content for AI Overviews

Love it or hate it, everyone’s seen it. 

Google’s AI Overviews are changing the way your search results appear. Now, AI-generated summaries will often answer user questions before the usual list of site links we’ve come to expect. In fact, 47% of Google Search results now include an AI Overview – at least, according to AI Overview.

This raises some important questions: What does this mean for SEO, and how can you write, edit and format your content so that your website appears in Google’s AI summaries?

I’ve previously talked about Google’s use of AI in Google Ads, so in this article, I’ll explore what Google AI Overviews are, how they work, and what they mean for your SEO strategy – including where you can adapt your content to make it more appealing to Google’s AI and, importantly, where you shouldn’t.

What are Google’s AI Overviews – and how do they work? 

Everything that appears in Google Search results (apart from ads) has been “crawled” by Google. Google’s bots (also called spiders) systematically visit sites, scan their content, and follow links to discover new pages. This process helps Google understand what each page is about and determine what should appear in Search results.

What makes Google’s AI Overviews different, however, is the next step. This involves using an AI language model to analyse these pages, consider the most relevant information, and judge whether the page is authoritative. Then, AI summarises the page’s key points and uses this as part of a short, digestible summary for Google Search users who’ve searched a relevant query or keyword.

If you’re familiar with the “featured snippets” that used to appear at the top of many Google Search results, then you’ll have an idea of how AI Overviews look.

Optimising your content for AI Overviews

If you’re already creating valuable, well-structured content for your site, you’re on the right track. But there are a few technical tweaks that can improve your chances of appearing in AI Overviews:

• Use schema markup: This behind-the-scenes code helps Google understand what your content is about. There are hundreds of schema types (FAQ, recipe, organisation, etc.) and applying the right one makes it easier for Google to format your content correctly.
• Write clear, structured content: Google prefers content that’s easy to extract and summarise. To help:
  • Use bullet points for key takeaways
  • Break up text with clear headings
  • Include FAQs and concise summaries – TL;DRs work well here
• Optimise your meta descriptions: Meta descriptions don’t directly impact rankings, but they help Google and users quickly understand what your page is about.

But there’s no guaranteed way to appear in AI Overviews. While you can make technical tweaks to improve your chances, 90% of your efforts should go into producing genuinely valuable content.

The best thing you can do is focus on creating high-quality content that aligns with Google’s E-E-A-T criteria (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) – or YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) principles if your content covers health, finance, or other critical topics.

Google constantly updates its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines to help its human evaluators judge the efficacy of its Google Search results. This means that, ultimately, you should be writing for people – not for AI.

Here’s what actually helps:

• Prioritise E-E-A-T: Demonstrate first-hand experience, real expertise, and industry authority. AI Overviews pull from trusted sources, so your content needs to be credible and well-researched.
• Create high-quality, original content: Focus on unique insights, case studies, and analysis driven from your own unique experience and viewpoint that add value beyond what’s already available. Rewording existing content won’t cut it.
• Answer your audience’s questions clearly: Content that directly satisfies search intent (e.g. “How do AI Overviews work?”) is more likely to be included.

Reality check: You might not even know your site is featured in AI Overviews

Welcome to the world of “zero-click searches”. If your content appears as part of an AI Overview, users might get the answer they need without clicking through to your site – that’s how Google intends for it to be used. So even if your content is referenced in an overview, it wouldn’t necessarily lead to more traffic. This might sound count-intuitive to your SEO efforts, but appearing here is still a valuable brand awareness exercise.

Google’s AI Overviews are still evolving, and search algorithms will continue to change. Rather than chasing short-term tactics, focus on creating high-quality, user-friendly content that aligns with Google’s goal of delivering reliable, useful information.

More help

Got any questions? Email me at [email protected].