8 Strategies to Rank in AI Overviews

The recent explosion of artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI, has changed how the Internet works.

One area that has seen huge impacts is Google search results, particularly AI Overviews. Search engines are incorporating AI innovations at a rapid pace, changing how users search for information and how they are presented with this information.

What does this mean? Businesses that rely on search engine visibility to bring in users and qualified leads need to update their SEO strategies. 

At MADX, we've already started shifting the SEO strategies we use for our clients to capitalize on this exciting opportunity. This guide explores AI overviews and how you can start appearing in them.

What We'll Cover

What are AI Overviews?

Google’s AI Overviews is a search feature showing AI-generated answers for specific user queries at the top of the results page.

For instance, if you search “how to get more customers for my business,” Google will generate an answer that includes a bulleted summary addressing the query and a list of sources its AI pulled from (Google currently uses its large language model, Gemini, to power AI Overviews).

The information is compiled from various websites, and the overviews show links so users can explore those sources further.

The purpose of AI Overviews is to streamline the search experience, giving users quick, direct answers without needing to visit multiple sites.

How Do AI Overviews Work?

Google's AI Overviews display in the most sought-after space on the page: the top of the search results.

AI overviews work similarly to Featured Snippets. At the top of the results page, a small AI-generated summary gives a broad answer to the search query.

In this example, we've asked Google 'What is SEO?' Its generated response is displayed at the top, highlighting a particular sentence for emphasis. When we click on the link icon at the end of the summary, it shows us the sources it used as a reference.

If the user wants more information, they can click the 'show more' button, which reveals a detailed bullet point breakdown of the search query and a list of sources on the right-hand side.

Notice that each of these additional points also has a link icon; this will be important! It's an opportunity to drive traffic to your website. 

How AI Overviews Overlap with Traditional Search

AI Overviews are significantly impacting traditional organic search results because they take up so much of the page. Being on the first page of Google results was once the Holy Grail, giving you maximum visibility in a search query.

But now, the user has to scroll past the AI Overviews section to see the search results. And that's not even considering the 'people also ask' feature and the fact that the first couple of posts will be sponsored posts (i.e., paid advertising).

So, even if you are the number one result for a target keyword or search query, you may not get a click-through from Google, as the user had their question answered on the search engine results page (SERP). When the user doesn’t need to click on a link, this is known as a Zero-Click Search.

It means that the game has changed. Getting into the AI Overviews, whether as the primary source, a secondary source or even as a cited image, is now a priority for any business that wants to reach their target audience.

Why Are AI Overviews Important for SEO?

Overviews are now an important part of any business's SEO strategies because they are becoming one of the primary ways users interact with search engines.

Some excellent research by SemRush shows just how prominent overviews are becoming in certain industries. Some standouts include: 

As we've discussed, it's key to SEO for two reasons:

1. The AI overviews occupy the prime space in search results
2. The AI overviews include links that users can click on to get to a website

That means that if your content is featured in AI overviews as a source, it will be placed above all other elements of the results page, including organic results, paid results, and featured snippets. Gaining a foothold in this position could be a serious driver of organic traffic to your site.

How to Rank In AI Overviews?

As of now, there are no exact guidelines available to help your business appear in AI overviews. It's all new, and everyone is still figuring it out.

But as long as you follow SEO best practices, you're on the right track to improving visibility in AI overviews.

Here are eight strategies to improve AI Overview performance.

1. Follow the Google Search Essentials Guide

According to Google itself, “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.”

In other words, Google's systems automatically determine which pages to use to generate the overviews.

If you're not familiar with Google Search Essentials, it's a set of best practices designed to help your site show up and perform well on Google Search. It covers the core parts of what makes your web-based content eligible to appear and perform well on Google Search:

1. Technical requirements: Make sure your site is accessible and understandable—for example, don’t block Googlebot and ensure your content is indexable.
2. Spam policies: Google rewards sites that provide a safe and valuable experience. That means avoiding shady tactics like cloaking, hidden text, keyword stuffing, or link spam.
3. Key best practices: Focus on creating genuinely helpful content, make sure your links can be crawled, and use relevant keywords naturally in your pages.

If you’re already working on SEO, chances are you’re doing most of this already.

2. Make Sure Your Webpages Are Crawlable and Indexable

Crawling and indexing are essential parts of search engine performance. Crawling is how Google discovers your website pages, while indexing is how these pages are stored in a large database of webpages.

If Google can't crawl your site and can't store your pages via indexing, you will not appear in AI search results.

Here are some key pointers:

• Allow AI-friendly bots (ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, etc.) in robots.txt
• Create and submit an llms.txt file to describe AI-friendly access rules
• Avoid blocking AI bots via Cloudflare or WAF unless necessary
• Keep key content high in the HTML source code for quick AI parsing

Fixing these technical SEO issues ensures Google can crawl and index your site and its content.

3. Prioritize User Experience (UX)

User experience is a vital signal to Google that your site is a valuable source. 

If your pages are too slow, your site navigation is too complicated, or images take too long to load, users will quickly click off and head somewhere else – and that's a giant red flag to search engines.

Improving user experience means:

• Increasing page speed
• Using structured data to help Google understand the content on your site
• Making sure your site is mobile-optimized and responsive
• Image optimization so that any visual elements load instantly
• Avoiding too many pop-ups and layout shifts

4. Target Longer Tail Informational Queries

Google is expanding AI Overviews to handle more complex questions, which, put another way, means they are focusing on answering long-tail keyword phrases. Users are starting to use AI to ask longer, more complicated questions, and that means targeting your content strategy toward providing answers to them will become essential.

If you need a reminder of how we define keywords:

Short–tail keywords are broad, high–volume keywords (usually 1–2 words) with wide intent. They have high competition and a higher search volume, but they also have a lower conversion rate and are harder to rank for.

Some SaaS-focused examples are:

• CRM software
• Project management
• Cloud storage
• Email marketing

Long-Tail Keywords: These keywords are more specific, lower-volume phrases (3+ words) that target clear intent. They often have lower competition and a higher conversion rate, bringing in more qualified traffic.

Some SaaS-focused examples are:

• Best CRM software for small law firms
• Project management tool for remote teams
• Secure cloud storage for healthcare data
• Email marketing automation for SaaS startups

While we will always advocate for a mix of short and long-tail words, emphasizing longer phrases will be an effective strategy for improving AIO performance.

5. Create Quality Content

A content strategy focused on quality over quantity has always been a best practice of SEO, and AI Overviews will be no different.

The best content is content that answers the search intent.

That means writing clearly, structuring your content for easy scanning, and providing useful, accurate information backed by experience or evidence.

Google’s E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is a good starting point. Show real-world knowledge of the topic, reference credible sources, and make it clear who the content is coming from. Including bylines, credentials, and personal insights can all help.

Now more than ever, it's necessary to avoid fluff. AI Overviews prioritize concise answers and relevant content that helps users solve problems quickly. A well-written guide, clear how-to, or practical comparison can go further than a long piece that doesn’t deliver value.

High-quality content should be valuable and usable. If your content genuinely helps users, it’s more likely to be surfaced in AI-powered search features.

6. Structure Content for Overviews

Google is all about speed, convenience and getting the best possible answer to the user. So, if you have that answer, don't bury it in mountains of text!

Yes, you can go into detail and create guides that are thousands of words long, but it's important that you place direct answers in the first 2–3 paragraphs of your content. In a similar fashion to how the overviews work, give a summary answer quickly that directly matches the search intent, and then you can go into more detail.

That's why this process is the same as optimizing for a featured snippet. It's all about answering a user's query in the first few sentences.

We've also used some other strategies to help make our client's content more suitable for overviews:

• Structure paragraphs with 2–3 short sentences and clear breaks for readability.
• Use question-based H2s like 'What is...' or 'How does...' to align with AI query parsing.
• Add a summary or key takeaways section to each article.

The idea is to make the information as easy to find as possible. The more human-friendly it is, the more search engine-friendly it will be, too. 

7. Build Great Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites that direct users to your content. To Google, they act like endorsements, evidence that others view your content as trustworthy and worth referencing. They are one of the strongest signals that you are a site worth promoting in search results, and we can assume this will be the case for AI overviews, too.

So, how do you earn those backlinks?

It's all done through outreach. That means reaching out to relevant websites in your space and giving them a reason to link to your content. You can approach this in multiple ways: offer to swap links, suggest links that can be added to their existing content, offer to write new content for their site that contains a link to your site, or even negotiate a financial cost to add a link. 

Not all links are created equally, so beware of using shady tactics like link farms, automated bot links or PBNs. Using any of these black hat tactics can negatively impact your site's SEO performance.

What's important is that the link a) adds value to the site you are pitching it to and b) the anchor text is used effectively so that it increases the chances of the reader clicking through to your site. 

Need help building backlinks? We put together the ultimate guide with 15 powerful link-building strategies that our team at MADX has proven and tested.

8. On-Page Optimization Strategies

On-page SEO helps Google understand any content on your site and increases the likelihood that it will be used for AI overviews.

There are many elements involved, but here are a few optimizations we'd consider making a priority:

• Include the main keyword in the title tags so Google can tell what topics a page covers.
• Write a meta description that is enticing enough to catch readers’ attention.
• Ensure each page's URL slug is short and descriptive, and the main keyword of that page should be incorporated for better discoverability.
• Use your target keywords in heading tags (H1s, H2s, H3s, etc.) to help Google understand your content’s focus areas.
• Include relevant keywords throughout the content, but avoid stuffing them unnaturally.
• Link to reputable external sources to build credibility
• Include supporting data like stats and research, and attribute sources
• Add clear author bios and expertise details on posts
• Use schema markup (Article, FAQ, HowTo, Review, etc.) in JSON-LD format. If you're unsure, you can see what types of structured data Google has found on your website by opening Google Search Console and going to Overview > Enhancements.

How to Track Your Visibility in AI Overviews

There's no point in committing resources to your SEO efforts if you can't measure the results. Here are some insights into how we've started tracking this new metric for ourselves and our clients.

1. Identify Keywords That Trigger AI Overviews

Start by reviewing which of your target keywords now show AI Overviews in the search results. This will help you understand where AIOs are appearing across your keyword set and where they may be impacting visibility.

2. Assess Traffic and CTR Changes

Check the performance of pages that rank for keywords with AI Overviews. Look for shifts in click-through rate (CTR) and organic traffic to understand how AIOs might be affecting engagement.

3. Track Your Inclusion in AIOs

Find out if your content is being cited in AI Overviews. Look for links or references to your domain within these summaries; you can do this by doing manual searches on your target keywords.

4. Compare Before and After

Run before-and-after comparisons to measure the impact of AIOs. Look at ranking and traffic data over time to identify trends and adjust your strategy.

5. Benchmark Against Your Competitors

Monitor which competitors are appearing in AI Overviews. This can reveal content gaps or opportunities to strengthen your presence for the same keywords.

Build Your AI Overview Presence Today

AI Overviews are reshaping how users interact with search and how businesses need to show up online.

To stay ahead, your SEO strategy needs to adapt. This guide covered eight proven tactics to help you rank in AI Overviews:

• Stick to SEO fundamentals
• Ensure technical readiness
• Deliver a seamless user experience
• Target long-tail, high-intent queries
• Create high-quality, useful content
• Structure pages for fast, scannable answers
• Earn authoritative backlinks
• Optimize on-page SEO elements and structured data
• Track your AI Overview visibility, traffic impact, and competitive landscape

AI in search isn’t a passing trend. It’s the new baseline. The brands that win will be the ones that evolve early.

Need help forming an SEO strategy that encompasses AI search? Contact us for a free call.