AI is rapidly transforming the search landscape. Just as the browser wars reshaped the web, the current battle between Google and Microsoft is poised to profoundly impact organic search result visibility, traffic and conversions for brands and businesses.
AI search result comparison
| Google AI Overviews | Bing Copilot | Perplexity |
|---|---|---|
| Gemini | Open AI | Sonar |
| Visible ATF mobile | Click to display mobile | Visible ATF mobile |
| Visible ATF desktop | Visible on the side desktop results | Visible ATF desktop |
| High search behavior impact | Moderate search behavior impact | High search behavior impact |
| High website visitor impact | Moderate website visitor impact | High website visitor impact |
| Does not display for all results | Does not display for all results | Displays for all results |
Why is optimizing for AI search results important?
AI has the potential to significantly alter how search results are displayed.
- AI represents a new channel for discovery. Both Google AI Overviews and Bing Copilot feature AI-generated responses directly within search results that contain links to external websites, presenting new ways for people to find your content.
- Optimization for AI is essential. To ensure that AI surfaces your content, you’ll need to adapt your SEO strategies accordingly.
Who are the key AI search result players?
- Google AI Overviews (powered by Gemini) formerly known as SGE (search generative experience), offers a more radical approach, placing AI-generated responses directly above traditional results. Its potential impact is high to extreme.
- Microsoft Bing Copilot (powered by Open AI) formerly known as Bing Chat, displays AI responses on demand on mobile and alongside traditional results on desktop, resulting in a moderate impact on search behavior.
- Perplexity AI (powered by Open AI, Bing and Sonar) on the other hand only displays AI-generated results and does not display a list of standard search result listings.
- Standalone AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Gemini (formerly Bard) also display links to external websites, but their overall impact on standard (Google/Bing) search traffic is currently low.
Different types of Google AI Overviews
According to Moz, there are currently three different types of AI Overviews that are displayed in search results.
- Informational: Feature content with statistics, quotes and an authoritative tone.
- Shopping: Feature content from the Google shopping graph.
- Local: Feature companies listed in directories and referenced on subreddits.
How do I optimize my content for AI search results?
While the specific mechanisms behind AI search result optimization are under wraps, here are four areas to consider:
- Content clarity and authority: AI tends to favor content from well-defined, reputable sources. Think EEAT for both people and companies.
- Structured data: Leverage schema markup throughout your website to enhance content understanding. Mark up products, reviews, people, places and so much more.
- Backlinks, citations and web references: Non-linked mentions, UGC, comments and reviews remain important.
- Search intent: Align content with top-performing search types (informational, navigational, commercial, transactional). Focus on transactional searches, which are packed with high levels of intent and often elicit further research.
Four ways to start optimizing your content for AI
Should I use AI to create content?
Won’t Google penalize me? To be clear, Google does not penalize AI content. It penalizes low-quality content. It just so happens that a lot of low-quality content is AI-generated.
Here’s how to use AI to create purposeful content with intent.
- Use AI to brainstorm by creating outlines and conducting research.
- Develop your prompts with original ideas and content.
- Have AI align your content with search intent and suggest relevant structured data to include.
- Generate ideas for page titles and meta descriptions.
ALWAYS refine your AI content, conduct fact-checking and make sure it is useful, helpful, original and satisfies aspects of EEAT.
AI SEO with Jtree SEO
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