What is Google AI Overview & Why Should B2B Marketers Care?

It’s still very early days after Google’s AI Overview launch. We only know as much as Google will share, what our own experimentation reveals, and our peers divulge from early tests. Let’s break down what AI Overview is, how it may change search as we know it, and why B2B marketers should care about this feature when they develop a content strategy.

What is Google’s AI Overview?

When Google search users ask a question, they may receive an AI-generated answer combining many information sources to make the response more complete. Users can give feedback on the results and update settings to indicate whether they want a full or short, text-based answer.

Feature Snippets differ from the AI Overview because they showcase a single answer from a single content source with a link to that source. AI Overviews are generated using many sources and only the three most heavily referenced sources are linked and visible in the preview of the writeup. These links are only clickable if the user expands the results.

This AI Overview feature is auto-enabled for Chrome users in certain regions, while others may have to opt in (you can find more info on enabling or limiting AI overviews here). 

How is the AI Overview impacting B2B marketing?

Google has been moving toward a “zero-click” search experience over the years, and this is a giant leap forward. Google’s goal is to provide the answer to a question in the search engine so users don’t have to click through to an additional web page.

We were initially skeptical that users would trust an AI-generated response over a trusted company’s writeup, but early data shows we were likely wrong. According to research from SparkToro, 58.5% of Americans and 59.9% of Europeans stop at the search results. They also found that mobile searches declined significantly in May when Google released its AI Overview feature. However, it should be noted that the type of query Google presents an AI Overview for is being refined. According to Brightedge research, this feature went from being displayed on 84% of all queries at the beginning of April 2024 to 15% of all queries at the end of May 2024.

AI Overviews are bound to negatively impact click-through rates and jumble a company’s answers with those of its competitors. While marketers still need to create the upper funnel content that users commonly search for, their page visits and engagement may not accurately reflect the number of eyeballs reading answers to core questions.

However, we see this impacting lower funnel traffic and conversion rates less than blogs. Users will still need to visit your website to learn about a product’s features or answer deeper technical questions. The website will still be a central component of any go-to-market strategy, and creating high-value content should remain a priority.

How should B2B marketers change their content post-AI Overview?

If you’re following the E-E-A-T methodology updated by Google (“​​Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness”) in 2022, you are more likely to show up in AI Overviews and Feature Snippets. You can find the details in Google’s Search Rater Guidelines here. 

The TL;DR:

• Your authors’ expertise matters, and you should make their credentials easy to find by creating author profiles with links to certifications, accreditations, or notable research.
• Your domain authority matters and that can only be built over time by using technical (development, design, responsiveness, and speed, to name a few) and content best practices.
• Reliable backlinks matter.
• Hacks like purchased links and poorly slapped-together content are easy to find and penalized.
• The creation of original high-quality content.
  

Brand awareness is a really big deal in the post-AI world. Companies should consider contributing to industry magazine articles, answering questions on LinkedIn specific to your industry, and answering more questions embedded in your original content. Being on industry-specific lists, analyst reports, and other similar features also boost your reputation and chances of being featured in AI-generated material.

Google user search behavior has evolved over the years. With the introduction of Siri, Alexa, and other audio-enabled applications, searches are no longer one- to four-word queries. People are searching for complete sentences and questions, making long-tail queries much more prevalent than in the past.

People are also being trained to ask more specific questions, and AI Overview is a prime example of this. If people ask multifaceted questions, AI Overview aims to answer the different aspects of the question in one, complete readout. Even if AI Overview isn’t enabled, the explosion of content has made it more imperative for Google to weigh a website’s authority and for users to tailor their searches to find the content they’re looking for.

Content marketers must createIt’s content that provides in-depth answers and how-to instructions. We also encourage teams to think about how they can optimize content for zero-click visibility. And as frustrating as declining page visits and engagement on blogs and knowledge-base articles are to marketers, they’ll still need to create top- and mid-funnel content to remain competitive.

Can B2B content be optimized for an AI Overview?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is that we don’t know which tactics work best because Google has yet to release much information.

Working with clients, we’ve noticed that updating existing content to highlight questions through bold text or headers and then answering the question concisely in the following paragraph is the most effective way to show up in either a Feature Snippet or AI Overview. Lists, how-to steps, and references are beneficial. We’ve seen Google AI Overview pick up these modifications within 48 hours of publishing the change, but the AI Overview is constantly changing from search to search.

Check out this article on feature snippet optimization for more detailed advice on how to rank for zero-click content. Make sure you’re following SEO best practices (detailed above) and research the questions your target audience is asking. Talk to customers, analyze prospect calls, and identify the questions most often asked by your ideal customer profile. Follow up your research by verifying your findings with a keyword research tool.
Unfortunately, a well-researched and truthful answer to a question doesn’t guarantee you’ll be featured. You must have the expertise and longevity online to be considered trustworthy by Google. If you have any doubt about how you rank regarding SEO best practices, contact us for an evaluation.