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Oct 31, 2024
The introduction of Google's AI Overviews has got marketers wondering how this might affect their websites and businesses. In this blog, we look at some recent studies showing the early impact, share ways to check the effect on your business, and ask if it's still worth investing in SEO.
2. How often do AI Overviews appear in SERPs?
3. How do you get featured in AI Overviews?
4. Study: The impact of AI Overviews on organic traffic
AI Overviews (AIOs) are a new feature in Google Search that provides users with concise, summarised answers to their queries, directly in the search results. These overviews represent a big shift in how information is presented to users and in how marketers might need to adapt their SEO strategies.
The AI-generated summaries include:
Including clickable links within the AI-generated text is particularly interesting.
Unlike regular AI answers from popular chatbots (like ChatGPT), the AIOs integrate links naturally into sentences, allowing users to click through to specific websites for more detailed information on particular points. This approach provides a balance between offering answers and directing users to websites for deeper exploration.
Whilst it's clear that Google continues to refine and scale AI Overviews within search, for now, they aren't as common as it may seem. As of August 23rd 2024, SE Ranking's research revealed that they only appeared in 12.47% of SERPs.
Keyword intent is a crucial factor in AI Overviews. Advanced Web Ranking's AI Overview research showed that, unsurprisingly, informational intent keywords generate the most AI answers. This was followed by commercial, transactional, and lastly navigational, which had almost zero AI answers.
Commercial and transactional searches are seeing significantly less impact from AI overviews compared to informational queries. For searches with buying intent, Google continues to prioritise traditional search results. This approach reflects user behaviour, as people using this type of query typically want to:
For example, a search for "project management tool" still primarily shows traditional results.
In contrast, informational searches are where AI Overviews have the most significant impact. These queries, which seek to answer questions or provide explanations, are prime candidates for AI-generated summaries.
For example, a search for "how to manage a project effectively" features an AI Overview. But, even here, the impact varies based on the complexity and depth of information needed.
Advanced Web Ranking's study of AIOs also supports this. The study shows queries that are more likely to trigger an AI Overview are typically 5 words long and include common informational terms such as "how", "tips", "practices", “manage”, "understanding", "importance", "prepare" and "best."
Navigational searches, where users are looking for a specific website or brand, are seeing little to no impact from AI Overviews compared to other search intents. Google continues to prioritise direct links to the intended websites for these queries, recognising that the user's primary goal is to reach a specific destination. This approach aligns with user expectations and behaviour patterns for navigational searches.
For instance, a search for "LinkedIn" or "Salesforce" still shows direct links to these websites.
The presence of AI Overviews varies significantly across different industries, as revealed by SE Ranking's research.
SE Ranking's study also provides insights into how keyword volume correlates with AI Overview presence. The findings show that keywords with a search volume of 50 or less trigger the AI Overview most often in SERPs, implying that these are likely longer-tail, more unique searches.
With this new section within SERPs, you're likely wondering how you can be featured to stay on top of the results.
Google themselves have said that 'there is nothing special for creators to do to be considered other than to follow our regular guidance for appearing in search, as covered in Google Search Essentials.' So, the same best practices for B2B SEO apply here too.
Whilst this advice from Google seems logical, Advanced Web Ranking's research identified that only 33.42% of the sources contained domains that rank in the top 10 organic results, while 46.54% of them are domains that are not found in the top 50.
This suggests that Google generates its AI answers first and then looks for sources that support it afterwards.
However, there's still no doubt that if you create high-quality content, Google will feature you in the AI Overview when it's relevant.
The most immediate impact of AI Overviews will be a likely decrease in click-through rates for websites. Users finding comprehensive answers directly in search results may feel less compelled to visit individual sites, particularly for straightforward, informational queries.
The Growth Memo analysed how AI Overviews affect organic traffic. The study examined over 1,600 non-branded keywords, comparing Search Console data before and after AIO implementation.
The study found that, compared to the previous period when AI Overview boxes were not present in SERPS, URLs cited in these overviews generally saw decreased traffic. On average, there was an 8.9% reduction in clicks for URLs included in AIOs versus when they appeared as normal SERP links.
As marketers, you'll want to understand how AI Overviews will affect your website's traffic and business. Here are a few things you can look at to measure the impact.
The main purpose of any website is to attract buyers, and convert them into customers or high-intent leads.
With AI Overviews primarily impacting informational searches at the beginning of the buyer journey, the impact on your business further down the funnel should be minimal. Measuring your website conversion rate (number of website visitors/number of high-intent leads) will show you how AI is impacting your ability to capture high-intent buyers through your website.
Self-reported attribution is a marketing measurement that involves asking buyers how they heard about you on a high-intent form on your website. Similar to your website conversion rate, this is going to identify if high-intent buyers are still finding your website and converting on it. The advantage of self-reported attribution is that you can hone in on the leads from Google/Search and see trends within that.
If you're still generating high-intent leads through Google, then there's less of an immediate worry about any overall organic traffic drops.
To analyse the impact on organic search traffic, start by diving into your Google Search Console data. Look for changes in impressions, clicks, and click-through rates (CTR) for keywords where AI Overviews appear. Compare your performance metrics before and after the implementation of AI Overviews to identify trends.
Tools like Ziptie can help you identify which keywords are surfacing AI Overviews.
It can also give you an overview of AI Overviews presence within your target keywords.
Understandably, businesses are questioning their SEO investments more than ever. While the landscape is undoubtedly changing, and a broader inbound demand generation strategy is crucial for attracting and converting a wider audience, SEO remains a vital component of digital marketing. Here's why businesses should continue to invest in SEO.
AI may capture some search traffic, but this shift isn't entirely negative. The traffic that does reach your website is likely to be of higher quality. Users who click through to your site after seeing an AI Overview are often more educated about their query and have a genuine interest in deeper information. This shift emphasises quality traffic over sheer quantity, potentially leading to:
Rather than just eliminating opportunities for traffic, AI is creating new ones too.
The embedded links within AI-generated responses represent a significant opportunity for targeted traffic.
Additionally, complex queries requiring nuanced information may drive more traffic to websites. When users need detailed explanations or specialised knowledge that goes beyond what an AI Overview can provide, they're more likely to click through to authoritative sources.
Creating informational content remains crucial, even in the AI era to:
The compounding impact of consistent, quality content creation over time is still a powerful force in SEO.
While SEO remains important, it's crucial to recognise evolving buyer behaviour. Even before the introduction of AI Overviews, buyers were increasingly seeking information and educational content from diverse creators and channels. Therefore, developing a flexible approach that can adapt to market changes is essential.
Regardless of the state of specific channels, inbound demand generation focuses on understanding your buyers' needs. This knowledge allows you to educate potential customers and attract them to your website, regardless of which channel is most effective.
