By Bill Braun, Guest Contributor, Owner, Tune Digital Marketing
Google announced what they characterize as “the largest change to search in 25 years.” Naturally, that gave many people heart palpitations. Taking the single largest source of potential customers on Earth and drastically altering how they get to you, that’s going to get your attention.
What Did They Change?
It boils down to a single term: “AI Overview.” The goal of the Overview is to offer the user a faster, easier way to get answers. More on that in a minute.
The Overview takes up the top of the search results page, or close to it, depending on the device. By taking up a significant amount of real estate on the Page 1, the Overview has some very real consequences. Below it, you’ll typically find ads, images, products for sale, and a few “normal” organic links to the top ranked pages.
Everything else gets dropped down to Page 2 and beyond.
Right now, about 20% of all 8.5 billion daily Google searches currently include the Overview at or near the top of the page. That percentage will likely increase over time. If your site doesn’t have the answers Google is looking for, in the format Google wants it, expect your links to get pushed further down the list.
What’s “AI” in the Overview
Instead of making you click open four or five different websites to piece together an answer yourself, Google’s AI reads the pages it selects for you. It breaks down multi part questions, step by step instructions, and comparisons, then writes an answer and provides links, so users don’t need to click through separate pages to get what they want.
It’s important to understand that Google hasn’t changed how they rank a website, only how they’re showing some of the answers. What they’ve really changed is where the reward goes. A normal listing isn’t nearly as influential as an answer that shows up the moment someone asks the question. If you have the answer, you likely have the trust.
So how do you raise your chances of landing in an increasingly small patch of organic real estate, or better yet, get cited in an AI Overview? The answer to both: raise the quality of your SEO. The sooner the better.
The Basics of Better SEO
Good SEO is your lifeblood when it comes to ranking in any search. Page 1 real estate for organic links just shrank from about three quarters of the screen to the size of a postage stamp, so that statement has never been more true.
The best advice comes straight from the people making the rules, so click here for the official guide. In a nutshell, Google suggests:
- Make sure the core technical boxes are checked. Google uses bots to crawl the pages you tell it to, so your sitemap has to be accurate.
- Organize content logically. Use clear, descriptive URLs and directory structures, and avoid duplicate content.
- Create high quality, user focused content that anticipates the terms and questions readers actually search for.
- Add relevant, high-quality images and videos with descriptive alt text.
It all comes down to answering questions with authority, relevancy, and in plain English. Ask yourself two questions as you read your web pages: am I answering the most important questions my customer will ask? And am I answering them in a way my customer will understand, assuming they have no prior knowledge of car audio?
One note: SEO results take time to show up in search engines, sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a few months. Be patient and avoid quick fixes.
If you’re doing little more than listing features, power ratings, and T/S parameters, it’s time to rethink how you present yourself to the public. Your expertise is assumed the moment a customer reads your website, and verified, or disproven, by what that customer does next. Google knows that, and weights your content accordingly.
The biggest takeaway: when you inform, you win. When you build trust, you win. If you just offer services without telling your customer why and how it benefits them, your competitor wins.
Bill Braun owns Tune Digital Marketing, which provides online marketing services to 12-volt clients, including analytics, copywriting, social media, and advertising strategy. For more info: www.tunedm.com or [email protected].
