There’s no hiding from it; artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay. Not only is it changing how search engine optimisation (SEO) is done, but it’s also transforming the search results themselves. Traditional rankings that used to be the be-all-and-end-all of SEO are being pushed aside to make way for AI Overviews that appear at the top of Google search results. LLM (large language model) powered search engines are becoming more popular, answering user queries directly. If all of this has left you fearing for your search engine visibility, then our guide is here to help and will tell you everything you need to know about optimising for this new wave of search and being successful.
The Future of Search Has Arrived
It sounds dramatic, but it’s true: AI is the future of search, and it has well and truly arrived. Just a few years ago, your SEO efforts would have solely focused on rankings and outperforming your competitors in the SERPs (search engine results pages). After all, securing Google’s hallowed top spots meant increased organic traffic, visibility, clicks, and, importantly, conversions, but things have changed quite a bit since then.
AI technology has been advancing at an alarming pace, changing how users interact with search results and how results are displayed.
Google’s AI Overviews now appear at the top of the SERP, meaning that users can find answers to their queries quickly without scrolling through results or clicking on web pages. To secure maximum visibility in this type of search result, you’ll need to implement a specialist AI Overviews SEO approach. Similarly, LLM-driven search engines like ChatGPT, Bing Copilot, and Perplexity are also becoming a first stop for users who want fast responses to queries while also being able to ask qualifying questions to dig deeper.
Google’s new AI Mode taps into this further, using advanced reasoning, thinking, and multimodal capabilities to answer the most tricky search queries, allowing users to ask follow-up questions to gain extra clarification. To succeed in this new generation of search, businesses and digital marketers must adopt LLM search engine optimisation techniques to gain inclusion in this new wave of results. Businesses that successfully adapt to the changing face of AI will gain inclusions in AI search results and maximise their online visibility. Those who stick to what they already know about SEO risk being left in the dust – don’t let that be you.
What Are Google AI Overviews and LLM Search Engines?
So, what is Google AI Overviews? As mentioned, AI Overviews appear at the top of the SERPs. They use the search engine’s AI model Gemini and traditional search. AI Overviews have been integrated into search results since 2024 and use generative AI to give users a ‘summary’ of various resources at the top of results so they can find their answers without clicking away from the page.
As for LLM search explained, tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity are built to generate human-like text based on the input they receive from users. They can answer questions, give suggestions, and help with complicated tasks.
AI Overviews and LLM search engine models are all about delivering exceptional user experience. In generating responses, they pull information from authoritative content, trusted citations, and structured data. To increase the likelihood of your content featuring in these responses, you must ensure it is optimised in a particular way. You’ve obviously heard of SEO, but to prepare for the future of search, you need to concentrate on generative engine optimisation (GEO).
GEO aims to make your content visible in AI searches and features. It combines in-depth AI understanding with SEO best practices to ensure your website’s content is found and used by generative search models.
Key Differences Between Classic SEO and AI-Driven Search SEO
Before getting stuck into traditional SEO vs AI SEO and their differences, it’s important to note that you will struggle to see success in AI-driven search results unless you have a strong traditional SEO foundation. That’s right, traditional tactics aren’t obsolete.
Your website still needs to have solid technical SEO that implements schema markup correctly and has page speed and user experience front and centre. Modern search engines value all of the same things as traditional ones.
When it comes to your content, fulfilling Google’s E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) should be a top priority. If you can’t show that you’re an authority in your industry, you will struggle to get your content featured in AI-driven search results. Implementing keywords effectively throughout your content is also important, with an added emphasis on search intent. If you can’t demonstrate that your content for target keywords matches what users want to gain from searches, your content will likely be disregarded.
While the basics of classic SEO give you a strong basis for success in AI-driven search models, there is a slight shift in what these search engines want to see from your website and its content. Keywords are still important, we’ve already said that, but how you integrate them into your content matters more than ever. Enter entity-based optimisation. This type of optimisation concentrates more on the context and relevance of keywords to any given search query to ensure users are given helpful results the first time. Related to this is semantic SEO, which looks for unique but relevant keywords to optimise your content with – the kinds of terms users favour in their interactions with AI models.
There have been some other big changes for the best ways to optimise your content for AI-driven search, including:
- A focus on well-structured content over length – think relevant headings, summaries that are easy for AI to cite, bullet points, and question-and-answer formatting (FAQs).
- Search intent is more important than ever – AI-driven search prefers content that clearly answers user queries. Select your target keywords carefully and ensure your content meets the context around them.
- Topic authority and factual precision – You need to position yourself as an authority figure in your industry and ensure all of your facts are accurate for the best chance of being noticed by AI search.
Link building is not exempt from changes either. It’s no longer all about the quantity of links you have; it’s about quality. To succeed in this new search landscape, you need to acquire links from authoritative sources within your industry that will send your backlink profile soaring and grab the attention of AI search models. Digital PR should also be a focus for those serious about AI SEO success.
On-Page SEO for AI and LLM Search Engines
Below are the key on-page areas you should concentrate on to gain real estate in AI search results.
Structure Content for Summarisation
The internet is saturated with content. To get noticed by AI and LLM search engines, you need to tick certain criteria. Firstly, you need clear, relevant, and answer-focused content that satisfies user search intent.
As well as this, you need to create structured content for LLMs to ‘read’ with ease. Your content needs to consist of short, scannable sections that are signposted with semantic headings that make sense and bring value.
Adopting an AI summarisation format that makes your content more appealing to AI search engines. Think of everything you’d do to increase the likelihood of being included in featured snippets and apply this to your content. FAQs, how-tos, bullet points, definitions, and summaries will make your content difficult for AI to resist.
Use Schema Markup for Clarity
Schema markup or structured data for SEO is a type of code you should add to your website to help search engines understand what your content is about. It’s a bit like an organised note that explains what each part of your site is about. It makes it easier for search engines, including AI-driven search engines, to show your content in different ways, like in AI Overviews, rich snippets, featured boxes, people also ask, and in LLM responses.
The most important types of schema for AI Overviews and LLM search engines are:
- Article schema – Adding this to your blog posts and article content helps search engines understand what your content is about. Including ‘headline,’ ‘datePublished,’ and ‘author’ markup gives additional context.
- FAQ schema – Highlight your page’s FAQs with FAQPage schema, which will help questions appear directly in AI search results and boost your visibility.
- Q&A structured data – If your pages have information displayed in a question-and-answer format, implementing QAPage markup with ‘Question’ and ‘Answer’ flagged will highlight this for search engines and increase your visibility.
- About schema – This helps define what your pages are about so machines can more easily parse and cite content. It’s very helpful to use on ‘About Us’ pages, which can help give AI a deeper understanding of what you’re about.
- Author markup – Helps build credibility and tells search engines who the author is.
- Organisation markup – Essential for building trust and brand identity, it adds context about your company.
xBuild Semantic Content Clusters
AI-powered search engines are more adept at understanding the context and intent behind user queries. To increase your visibility in AI search results, you must adapt your content writing strategy accordingly and establish your topical authority. To do this, you’ll need to build semantic content clusters where you produce different pieces of content that relate to a central pillar topic.
Adopting this pillar and cluster model covering the pillar piece and sub-topics comprehensively and applying E-E-A-T signals helps to position you as a leader in your niche. It also tells AI search engines that your content brings depth and value to readers. Don’t forget to implement an internal linking strategy between related pages, making it easier for AI search engines to crawl your content and gain a wider understanding that can enhance visibility.
Off-Page SEO Tactics to Rank in AI Overviews & LLM Search
What off-page SEO techniques should you employ to appear in AI Overviews and LLM searches?
Focus on Earning Credible Mentions
Credibility is everything if you want to increase your visibility in AI-driven searches. One way to build this is by establishing high-authority backlinks from reputable and verifiable sources. These authority mentions signal to LLM search models that your content can be trusted and should be included in their responses.
Credible citations for LLMs can be gained through implementing a high-level approach to link building using digital PR SEO to acquire links, blogger outreach targeting specific sites in your niche, digital PR media placements, and expert quotes through giving expert interviews.
Get Featured in Listicles and Knowledge Sources
Listicles are super sharable and offer valuable information to captive audiences. They are also highly valued by AI search engine models, so getting included in third-party directories, listicles, and trusted knowledge hubs is vital.
Implementing a listicle SEO strategy effectively will lead to LLM source inclusion and raised visibility in results. When it comes to knowledge hubs, it’s best to aim to get listed in top tools, such as industry portals, Wikipedia, Crunchbase, and GitHub (if you’re in B2B tech).
National (Non-Local) Targeting for AI Visibility
While local SEO has its place, to increase AI visibility, businesses need to focus on optimising for national relevance instead. A strong national SEO strategy creates broader, more universally relevant content that appeals to a wider audience. Using broad terms that capture national interests rather than local ones is the way to go, and avoiding geo-specific terms in URLs that restrict your content to a specific location. For example, ‘/cheltenham-SEO-agency’ should be avoided in favour of more generic slugs that don’t mention the location. Non-local SEO tips should revolve around building your authority at a national level, not a local one, so be sure your content reflects that. Geo-targeting for AI is much broader than for local SEO.
Make Your Content Citation-Ready
Citation-worthy content is content that AI models will include in their responses. To stand a chance of being included in responses, you need to ensure that your content offers unique insights, isn’t promotional, and contains sourceable data to back up your points. Trustworthy content SEO is something that AI models value. Another way of building this trust, as well as crafting stellar content, is by assigning an author to each piece. Successful AI reference optimisation is all about demonstrating value and positioning yourself as an authority.
How to Track AI and LLM Visibility
It’s all well and good to optimise your website for AI search, but you need to know how to track your visibility to see if you’re making improvements. The below sections shed light on this.
Monitor AI Overview Impressions and Clicks
AI SEO is still relatively new, and there are some challenges in accurately tracking your business’ visibility in AI search. To monitor AI traffic effectively, you’ll be up against the fact that AI responses are personalised based on input, and their algorithms are constantly evolving. LLM models each show different results, which makes tracking harder.
Google AI Overview tracking can be done in Google Search Console (GSC). Although it doesn’t have a specific AI Overviews report just yet, you can use the Performance Report for Search Results to find out how many of your links appear in overviews.
Conducting manual AI searches can help you infer your AI visibility as well. Simply search for keywords relevant to your business within answer-based queries. If your site is listed as a source, you can better understand how visible you are.
Click Insights AI & LLM tracking feature makes tracking AI visibility metrics easier. It tracks keywords, AI Overviews, and LLM search engine referral traffic, which can help give you a better idea of your brand’s visibility in AI searches.
Use Custom Dashboards for LLM Referrers
Setting up a custom dashboard in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) can help you discover how much traffic is coming from AI and LLM search engines. View AI traffic in GA4 by configuring the reporting tool to capture and segment traffic from particular sources. Set up UTM tracking to specify which kind of traffic you want to focus on, e.g., ChatGPT, and back this up with manual URL monitoring to better understand traffic spikes and other paths that may suggest AI referrals.
Again, tools like Click Insights are set up to make SEO reporting for AI straightforward. Customise your dashboard for accurate LLM referral traffic to give you a clear indication of visibility in these search results.
SEO Best Practices to Future-Proof Your Strategy
For a future-proof SEO strategy that gets your brand included in AI search results, here’s a recap of the best practices for AI search you should be implementing right now:
- Build authority through writing expert content and acquiring quality backlinks from reputable sources.
- Ensure content and keyword usage clearly answer search intent.
- Use schema markup so that search engines can easily understand your content.
- Cite your sources and make sure they’re reputable.
- Publish expert-written content that brings value to the reader and search engines.
- Structure content in a way that makes it easier to digest.
SEO for generative search engines is built on traditional principles.
Prepare for What’s Next
This next-gen SEO for AI-driven search engines is expected to continue evolving. Agencies and in-house digital marketing teams can prepare for AI SEO by keeping on top of search trends and staying ahead of algorithm changes that may affect how AI search views your website and content. By doing this and keeping your content up-to-date and relevant, you’ll be able to position yourself for success in the AI search evolution. Our extensive SEO services can all be adapted to ensure AI search engine success, so reach out today to find out how we can help you prepare for this new generation of search.
