As of 5/14, Google has announced that their Search Generative Experience or now known as Google AI Overviews (AIO) has begun rolling out. You may have already experienced this with your own Googling as SGE/AIO has been in beta for quite a while now. Below is a screenshot of what you can expect on desktop.
As you can see, there are no references to the websites in which these answers are being pulled. Users are able to see the website/video/content that the answer is coming from by clicking on the arrow at the end of the query. Rest assured that we are following all the other experts who are constantly testing the algorithm on the best ways to ensure your content doesn't fall out of favor.
Issues surrounding SEO
Here are some key elements that we find most relevant with this release:
- Direct answers are now right there without having users click away
- Organic results are now getting pusher even further down the search engine result page
- You are not only competing with your competitors, you're now also competing with Google's AI summaries of content
Challenges
- Greatly reduced clickthrough rates aka reduced organic search traffic
- Changes in searcher behavior. How many users, scroll past the AIO results? That's something we will be keeping a close eye on.
Opportunities & Strategies
- Content adaption – Not every query on Google will have these summaries. Our research will be more in-depth aboutwhat andhow AIO is appearing for any given topic.
- We've found that more informational searches are including the AIOs
- We've always had Google's E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) framework in the back of our minds but this will be more important than ever. In Google's latest algorithm shift, First Party Experience rules in content.
- Google's AIO and Schema work hand and hand. We'll be coming up with Schema strategies that can help with the website and blog.
We're not sounding any major alarms…yet, but the next two or so months will be super telling on how we approach your long-term SEO strategy. If you're interested in talking to flyte about this or your SEO in general, please contact us!
This article was written by the flyte crew: experts in branding, web design, and digital marketing. Reach out and we'll help your business take flyte!