The search and AI landscape is brimming with potential, offering a wealth of opportunities for every type of marketer to evolve and expand.
While the complexity is undeniable, there are common threads: marketers need to focus on creating relevant, topical content, establish their brand authority for AI citations, and adopt a more predictive approach to understanding consumer interactions online.
New developments like Google AI Overviews and emerging AI-first platforms such as Perplexity AI are adding layers of complexity to how consumers seek answers to their queries.
Advancements in large language models (LLMs) like Claude and Google Gemini are transforming content delivery, including visual and video formats. Recent innovations from Bing, like GSE, and OpenAI’s SearchGPT, are also shaping the future of information retrieval.
What unites these advancements is their shared goal of securing the most authoritative sources for information and citations.
For today’s discussion, I’ll focus on Google AI Overviews in Search, as they currently provide the most comprehensive insights and best practices relevant to future search engines.
AI And Search Citations, Authority, And Your Brand
Becoming a cited source is rapidly becoming the new standard for ranking in search engines.
As AI increasingly seeks out trustworthy and relevant content to cite, brands must position themselves as authoritative sources. Each search engine may have a different approach, but the underlying principle is consistent: success hinges on the quality and credibility of the source.
AI aims to answer queries in various ways, with citations playing a crucial role across platforms. These engines assess authoritative sources to determine if they adequately address the question, and whether the content is worthy of being quoted.
Google prioritizes quotable content that is prominently displayed, rather than buried within the text. It favors content that directly answers the question posed. Perplexity, which has seen a steady increase in traffic referrals (31% in June), emphasizes academic and research citations but has struggled with attribution and source accuracy. Meanwhile, Bing GSE is optimizing its search results to encourage user exploration of the originating websites.
ChatGPT and similar search-based AI models do not require direct answers; they interpret the content and express it in their own language. They tend to cite and link to sources that major publishers, such as The Atlantic and NewsCorp, have developed.
For marketers, the best approach is to focus on commonalities and best practices that will prepare you for the evolving landscape. As more is learned about how citations are displayed and treated by different AI engines, you can pivot and adapt accordingly.
For instance, Google AI Overviews is increasingly citing authoritative review publications to assist users in shopping. User-generated content (UGC) and reviews from platforms like Reddit and Quora have seen a significant decrease in citations within AI Overviews.
- Reddit citations: 85.71% decrease.
- Quora citations: 99.69% decrease.
User-generated reviews often lack the broader appeal and objectivity that formal publications provide. Recent findings from BrightEdge Generative Parser™ indicate:
- A 49% increase in citations from PC Mag.
- A 39% increase in citations from Forbes.
Publications like Forbes are becoming essential in AI overviews, particularly for their thought leadership, instructive content, and comparative product reviews, which highlight a product’s strengths and weaknesses against its competitors.
Here are three strategies marketers can master now to stay ahead in the evolving AI and search landscape.
Become the Go-To Source for AI Engines: Secure Your Spot as the Cited Authority
Start by identifying key topics that resonate with your audience and align with your business goals. These core themes, along with broader related subjects (discussed later), should form the backbone of your content strategy.
Schema+: Expand and Enhance Your Content with Structured Markup
The value of diverse content formats cannot be emphasized enough. To align with the evolving demands of AI-powered search engines, your content should be thorough and presented in multiple formats—text, video, infographics, and interactive elements.
This strategy not only caters to varied user preferences but also ensures that information is available in the most engaging and accessible forms.
Incorporating technical SEO practices, such as Schema Markup, is crucial for content marketers looking to boost their content’s visibility and relevance in search results. Schema helps search engines better interpret your content, increasing the chances of it being featured as a direct answer and improving overall discoverability.
Optimize for AI: Guide Engines to Recognize Your Content
Make sure your teams focus on implementing Schema and other SEO techniques to help AI models accurately understand and utilize your content. These small optimizations can significantly increase the likelihood of your content being cited as a source, especially in areas where your expertise shines.
Build content clusters around these core topics, exploring various aspects, subtopics, and related themes. Each piece of content should complement the others, creating a cohesive narrative that serves multiple user needs and strengthens your position as an authoritative source.
Anticipate Customers’ Next Questions: Focus On The Follow-Up
Build Thematic Content and Emphasize Content Clustering
AI-powered search engines, such as AI Overviews (as detailed in The Ultimate Guide to AI Overviews, a free, ungated, and monthly updated resource from BrightEdge), are shifting the focus towards thematically connected content to enhance visibility. This trend holds even for content that might not rank highly in traditional search results, making thematic coherence and intelligent content clustering more crucial than ever.
To adapt, marketers should move away from creating isolated content pieces and instead develop interconnected content clusters. These clusters should thoroughly explore different facets of a topic, creating a comprehensive resource that addresses various user needs.
AI search engines aim to do more than just present a list of products based on keywords; they strive to anticipate the user’s next questions—how, what, where, and more. AI models rely on trusted sources to generate these answers before the user even thinks to ask. Marketers must create content that addresses all potential follow-up queries, presented in diverse formats to meet different user preferences.
Interlink content within the same cluster using relevant anchor text to help search engines recognize the thematic relationships between pieces. This not only strengthens the coherence of your content but also boosts your website’s authority on the topic.
Understanding the triggers for AI Overviews is becoming increasingly important. For instance, in June, there was a 20% rise in “What is” queries displaying an AI Overview, while brand-specific queries saw a 20% decline. This suggests that Google may be using AI to handle more complex, knowledge-driven queries while taking a more cautious approach with brand-related searches.
3. Prove Your Expertise: Become The Authority In Your Field Domain
Integrating User and Topical Intent Into Every Piece of Content
Traditional SEO has long focused on keyword rankings and visibility, but the rise of AI-driven search engines has shifted the emphasis to delivering precise, relevant answers based on user queries. In this new landscape, ranking highly isn’t enough—you need to ensure your content closely aligns with users’ needs and the topics they care about.
AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Google’s SGE, Perplexity, and SearchGPT are designed to understand the context and nuances behind user queries. They aim to provide direct answers while anticipating follow-up questions, offering a more dynamic and personalized search experience.
Serving Multiple Intents in AI-Driven Search
As AI-powered search evolves, it is increasingly coexisting with traditional search methods. For instance, Google is experimenting with blending conventional search results with AI-enhanced outputs. Take, for example, a search for [outdoor lighting solutions].
In traditional search, the results would primarily focus on eCommerce sites, assuming the user’s intent is to purchase outdoor lighting products. This approach serves users who know exactly what they need and are ready to buy.
However, the AI-generated overview would cater to users seeking a broader understanding of outdoor lighting. It might include a conversational explanation covering various aspects, such as:
- Key considerations when choosing outdoor lights.
- The different types of outdoor lighting and their characteristics.
- Power options available for outdoor illumination.
- The significance of brightness levels.
- Best practices for installation and placement.
- Maintenance tips for outdoor lighting systems.
By anticipating and addressing these related queries, you enhance your site’s credibility and increase the likelihood of being featured in AI-generated answers.
Prioritizing High-Quality, Unique Content
AI-first engines, large language models (LLMs), and traditional search engines all prioritize unique, high-quality content over generic or duplicated material. This means your content is more likely to appear in response to user queries if it stands out in these ways.
To build trust with AI models, it’s essential to demonstrate your expertise. AI engines need to see that your content is validated by other experts, supported by user-generated content, and backed by positive reviews. Ensure your content reaches expert influencers, connects with related sources and websites, and gains as much third-party validation as possible to reinforce its trustworthiness.
Lastly, your content workflows should consider both traditional ranking factors and AI citations, as these rely on overlapping but distinct signals. Balancing these elements will help ensure your content meets the needs of both traditional search engines and AI-driven platforms.
Video And YouTube
We are increasingly seeing YouTube videos, with their pros and cons, being referenced in AI-generated overviews, providing significant benefits for marketers aiming at the top of the sales funnel.
If YouTube were not owned by Google, it would still rank as the sixth-largest digital platform in the U.S., boasting an impressive reach.
As highlighted earlier, this presents new opportunities for marketers to engage with early-stage prospects. Visual content is particularly effective at showcasing specific products and offering tangible reviews, which can influence purchasing decisions, such as selecting a washing machine.
These videos are also being used to simplify complex topics for users. For instance, abstract technological concepts like “blockchain fundamentals” often become more understandable through visual demonstrations, enhancing audience comprehension.
To maximize AI Overview visibility, it’s essential to align high-potential topical themes with AI’s preference for video citations. With video content experiencing explosive growth, integrating it into your broader marketing strategy can significantly boost your impact.
Key Takeaways
In an era where AI-driven search and AI-first answer engines or assistants are transforming how marketers operate, professionals in marketing, SEO, content creation, and brand management must adapt their strategies to optimize for AI-generated answers and various search engines.
Here are some key considerations and observations:
- The fundamental principles of SEO and traditional search remain important.
- AI Overviews tend to be more concise, offering shorter, more direct answers.
- While AI can address complex queries, simpler and more common questions are often better served by traditional search formats, so maintaining a balance is crucial.
- Keep a close eye on emerging search engines; many are so new that forming a solid, data-driven opinion will take time.
- Different consumer segments will use various engines for specific purposes, with each engine citing a mix of common and unique sources, such as news outlets, academics, and publishers. This is an evolving landscape worth monitoring.
- Always remember that strategies should be tailored to your industry and business type. Experimentation is widespread, even within Google, so stay flexible.
- With the continuous emergence of new players and live experiments, change is inevitable. The landscape can shift month to month as search engines seek equilibrium.
- Core best practices, such as focusing on user intent, using structured data markup, and incorporating multimedia content, remain essential. Traditional search is here to stay, and many of its skills are transferable to AI optimization.
The future of marketing lies in balancing classic online strategies, adapting to AI advancements, and understanding the nuances of new AI-driven search engines as they grow and gain prominence. It’s an exciting time, and exercising patience will help us all succeed.
As for SearchGPT, its evolution doesn’t reduce the importance of SEO; rather, it makes it even more critical.
For now, monitor trends closely, rely on data-driven insights, and avoid reacting to opinions that lack a solid foundation.
Original news from SearchEngineJournal