Earlier this year, Google released its AI Mode tool to the public, providing users with a more immersive AI-powered search and chat experience.
Monique De Leon, Ignite Visibility’s Associate Director of SEO, knows the importance of optimizing your SEO efforts and content for this AI tool to boost visibility on Google. In this blog, she’ll look deeper into the new Google AI Mode and some ways to optimize your content to show up on the platform.
What You’ll Learn:
- Understanding Google’s AI Mode
- The Shift in Search Dynamics
- Earned Media KPIs in the Age of AI Search in SEO
- Strategies to Bridge the Gap
My Expert Opinion on Google AI Mode
Ever since the introduction of Google Gemini, Google has worked to integrate this AI tool into just about every aspect of its products. Most notably, it’s changing the way people search, especially as it gets better and better at interpreting queries and relaying information.
While Google’s AI does still make mistakes here and there, I’ve found that it’s quickly drifted from the almost laughably inaccurate AI Overviews—like the one telling people to put glue in a pizza recipe—to an increasingly reliable tool that’s streamlining the search experience and consolidating sources.
While AI Overviews are convenient enough, AI Mode is essentially putting ChatGPT right into the search function, encouraging users to abandon traditional search results pages (SERPs) almost entirely. It’s also changing the way people engage with Google and conduct searches.
Based on this transition, I can’t stress enough the importance of generative engine optimization (GEO) to supplement regular SEO efforts. By optimizing your content to connect more organically with audiences using Google AI search, you can make sure people still see you regardless of the platform they’re using.
More specifically, you must take into account how AI searches are more conversational and context-based, as users will have the chance to share more details to optimize high-intent searches. As such, it’s crucial to focus on setting your website apart from competitors and ensure your content reflects this distinction on every platform.
Understanding Google’s AI Mode
Google’s AI Mode is a tool with the intention of expanding on Google’s AI Overviews with more advanced capabilities and interactions. It uses generative AI and multimodal search to give users the ability to make more extensive searches, getting them to dig deeper for more information on a given topic.
Multimodal search means that the platform can use different types of search formats. For example, it can provide more information or similar results when someone uploads a photo into a Google AI search.
When performing an ordinary Google search, AI Mode appears at the top of the page.
In this mode, AI provides users with more in-depth information on a topic they’re interested in, complete with a list of cited sources for each part of the overall response.
The more comprehensive also means that people are searching differently. They’re requesting more information and want to dig deeper into topics with a more interactive platform that works a lot like ChatGPT and Copilot.
Some of the specific features of this tool include:
- Enhanced search: Natural language understanding, detailed summaries and responses, and multimodal search with visual search capabilities.
- Improved personalization: Enhanced user interaction, including voice search, predictive capabilities that learn from user search patterns, and intuitive, adaptable interfaces.
- Camera and photography features: Scene and object recognition to optimize camera settings, image quality enhancement, and various editing tools.
- Optimized productivity: Automated task management, real-time language translation, and predictive maintenance.
- Accessibility features: Screen readers and voice command and control.
The Shift in Search Dynamics
In recent years, with the development of various AI tools, AI and machine learning have begun to change the way people interact with search engines.
Historically, people would enter a basic query and see a list of results based on relevance, including rich results, but that largely changed with AI Overviews.
These summaries provide users with a concise summary of information based on queries right on top of organic results, making them the focus in many cases.
While these overviews may provide users with the information they need to the point of voiding any results below, they do include links to cited sources meaning optimizing for these overviews is crucial.
One significant way Google AI search is changing this behavior is the length of queries. For example, according to Google, the average AI Mode query is about twice the length of traditional Search queries.
A recent Ahrefs case study also found some interesting statistics about AI and user behavior, including:
- AI chatbots account for 0.17% of the average website’s traffic.
- 63% of websites receive AI traffic.
- 50% of all AI traffic comes from ChatGPT, while only 17.6% comes from Gemini (although this is likely to change with the introduction of AI Mode)
Now, with Google AI Mode in place, users get a lot more than a simple summary—they can enter queries that yield more expansive information about topics, encouraging them to engage in more of a conversation than a search. Think of it as Google transitioning into an AI chat tool.
When people conduct a search, they’ll be far more inclined to do a deep dive on a topic. They’ll also be less inclined to click on links in many cases if all the information they need is in one place.
Of course, this presents certain challenges for marketers vying for attention from organic searches.
Some of the principal challenges that come with Google AI for SEO include:
- Decreased Organic Traffic and Clicks: AI Overviews and the new mode will lead to more zero-click searches, as people get the information they need more frequently from summaries and listed information. Even if you appear on the first page of traditional results, competitors on page two could get people’s attention in AI-generated responses.
- Difficulties Adapting a Strategy: Marketers will also need to appeal to Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines for consistent quality and appeal to more conversational searches, especially as voice search grows in popularity.
- Technical SEO and Crawlability: Additionally, marketers may struggle if their content isn’t both crawlable and understandable from the point of view of search engine bots and AI tools.
- Measurement and Analytics: AI search results provide marketers with limited data for use in traditional SEO and analytics tools, which can make measurement tricky.
Navigating these challenges the right way can help you succeed with your efforts as more users adopt Google AI Mode and other tools.
Earned Media KPIs in the Age of AI Search in SEO
Based on the implications of Google AI on SEO, you need to rethink the way you measure campaign performance.
When measuring SEO efforts, you may often rely on critical key performance indicators (KPIs) like reach, engagement, and conversions.
However, AI search in SEO is changing the landscape and what could define success with these campaigns.
Reach
For one, reach as you previously knew it, may not matter as much in gauging success, as people aren’t as guaranteed to click through AI-generated results, especially when they get into a “conversation” with AI Mode. Traditional rankings also won’t matter as much, as people might see responses using sources that fall far below you in rankings simply because their content is more relevant or authoritative.
Instead, you could measure reach based on appearances in cited sources for AI Overviews or Mode responses.
Engagement
You will also need to take into account how users engage with AI-generated search results. People will engage more frequently with AI search results than cited websites.
On the other hand, the people who do engage with your website through these results could be more likely to convert, especially if they find your content the most helpful and trustworthy.
The level of engagement will depend largely on how you capture people’s intent with more conversational queries and content.
Conversions
Of course, reduced traffic can lead to reduced conversions from SEO strategies. It can also be difficult to attribute conversions to AI results, as AI Overviews and other such results are often challenging to isolate.
Overcoming these potential issues is a matter of honing your conversion optimization strategy and developing a clear map to conversion through your site.
Strategies to Bridge the Gap
If you want to successfully optimize for Google Search’s AI Mode, here are some strategies to implement and change your approach to SEO:
Enhance Content Quality
As mentioned, Google’s E-E-A-T is the guideline to which all of your content should adhere to appeal to Google Gemini and traditional search. It stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness, all of which qualities are essential for all content.
As such, your content must be of the highest quality as consistently as possible. Don’t focus on optimizing for various terms; instead, it’s all about providing people with valuable, accurate, and in-depth information, from your main web pages to your blog posts.
The more engaging your readers find your content, the more likely it will show up in all search results.
When it comes to AI, “conversational” is another word synonymous with quality. By using conversational keyword phrases and overall content, you’ll more readily connect with platforms using natural language processing (NLP).
Leverage Structured Data
Another important aspect to consider is how search engine bots and AI platforms interpret your website’s content.
This is where structured data and Schema markup come into play. Structured data is the language that search engines like Google can understand, giving context to the content they crawl and index.
Schema is a specific vocabulary of structured data that can help you define all of your web page’s content. For example, using Schema, you could indicate to bots that a page details a recipe for a particular meal.
Structured data has historically helped pages appear in rich results that people are more likely to click than traditional results, but it can now also help you show up for AI-generated results.
You can also use Google’s structured data testing tools to see how search engines interpret your content, or get some assistance adding structured data markup to a page with Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper.
Build Authoritative Backlinks
Backlinks are also integral to a successful website. If an authoritative website links back to yours, this signals to search engines that your website is also authoritative and subsequently rank-worthy.
The key here is a balance of quality and quantity. The more high-quality links you get on other reputable sites, the better your linked pages and site overall will perform.
For example, you could get links to your site in a guest post on an industry-related blog or online publication. You could also include backlinks in social media posts that drive a lot of engagement from your followers.
Utilize Helpful AI Tools
It’s also best to use AI-powered analytics and predictive tools to help you supercharge your SEO campaigns.
There are plenty of tools you can use for SEO to get the best results, including:
- Semrush: This all-in-one SEO analytics platform can help with everything from keyword research and ranking tracking to competitor analysis and content optimization.
- Surfer SEO: This tool assesses top-ranking content based on the keywords you want to target and can guide you regarding content structure, keyword placement, and other aspects of your site for better optimization.
- Clearscope: When drafting content, Clearscope can ensure it aligns with search intent with the help of advanced NLP models.
- Alli AI: Using Alli AI, you can automate on-page and technical SEO optimization, with the ability to analyze and identify issues applying to metadata, canonical tags, and other elements.
Integrate AI Insights
Be sure to incorporate the insights you glean from AI into your overarching marketing strategy, which will help keep everything aligned with ever-evolving search algorithms.
In turn, you’ll be able to more readily stay ahead of the competition as you stay on top of the latest trends.
Optimize for Google AI Mode With Ignite Visibility
Want to succeed in the world of AI Search in SEO? Ignite Visibility has the expertise and resources needed to help you climb to and stay on top of the competition. From traditional search and AI Overviews to AI Mode, we understand what it takes to keep up with the perpetually changing SEO landscape.
When you work with our experts, you can:
- Develop a comprehensive SEO campaign with an intent-based keyword strategy
- Stay updated with the latest changes in Google and other algorithms
- Create and curate high-quality content that connects with AI and traditional search results
- Analyze and measure the results for continual optimization
- And much more!
Like that idea? Get in touch with us today to speak with our team for help with your next strategy.
