The Evolution of SEO: Is It Transforming into AIO?

Are Google's AI Overviews taking over SEO?

Have you seen those Google AI Overviews when you search for something? (they show on all devices) The overviews appear on top, before any other search results. Here is an example. The thin red arrows point to the link icon that is the source of the data being cited.

 

Just how do those overviews get there?   

I’ll get to that.

I accidentally typed the date wrong yesterday, as 2924, and for a quick second, I thought, wow, what will life be like 900 years from now? I wondered, hmmmm, we’ll have flying cars, way advanced prosthetics, no cancer or disease, and probably be living an incredibly immersive world that blends the line between the physical and digital. Matrix – here we come! But then I thought, heck, it won’t take anywhere near 900 years for all this to happen. The next 100 years alone are gonna be crazy!

We’ve all heard about ChatGPT, and Google’s Gemini. ChatGPT being one of the first, and is consequently one of the most well known. These are but a few of the AI tools available to us; there is also Claude, Chatsonic, Character, Writesonic, and about 20 more! Not to mention almost every SaaS (Software as a Service) we use to run our businesses seems to also have their own internal AI tool! Two years ago, most of us hadn’t even heard of ChatGPT, and by now, most humans have tried one of these at least once or more, and many people use them daily. I find myself using an AI tool several times a week, for something or another. A research scientist at ChatGPT broke off and founded another AI tool, “Perplexity” – have you heard of this one? Not only is it emerging as a breakthrough content creator, but enterprise search marketing company, BrightEdge says Perplexity is gaining ground on Google as a Search Engine! Try Perplexity here.

Just last month, statistics show Google still has just under 90% market share of all internet searches - It was 92% last March! To give you an idea, ONE percentage point can represent 1.2 Billion searches, so even small gains in search market share are valuable (as in a few tenths!).

The bottom line is that Google is losing marketing share to AI tools that people are using like “search engines” like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and all those others. People are using these platforms to do their everyday searches, from products to buy, to which 4-star restaurant they want to go to tonight. The digital marketing landscape is evolving rapidly.

Remember, though, that these AI platforms are still just tools.

When it comes to SEO, they can be a powerful complement to existing SEO strategies. User experience, relevance and context need to be prioritized on websites, social media, anywhere you are trying to get your message seen.

Most of my clients have heard me talk about E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). It means to incorporate the tone of your content to include these elements. So when you write a blog post, or rewrite a web page, or add a new page, you should include the expertise and personal experience of the writer/author, why you have authority over the subject, and be transparent and honest about what you’re talking about – this builds the trust.

So, back to that first question, how does a website win a coveted Google Overview position?

First of all, WHERE do you think AI is getting their answers from – the vast amount of data on the web, namely websites. That website could be yours. And unlike when these AI tools like ChatGPT first began, most AI tools of today name (cite) their sources now. I attended a webinar with a renowned SEO expert, and she said, "don’t be afraid of AI, embrace it. To get your website as the cited source within an Overview, your website has to first be perfect in technical SEO, have quality off-and-on-page SEO, and extremely well-written concise content". Your web page needs to provide the answer the searcher is looking for.

Today's search algorithms better understand user intent, user behavior and the relevance your content has to the user’s query, so your website pages should answer definitive questions, provide full, honest and transparent answers to what is being asked, and keeping in mind something called ‘voice optimization’. Voice optimization is to use long phrases like the average person would 'talk into their phones', and working that phrase into your page’s content in a natural-sounding way.

In Conclusion

Per Search Engine Journal, “new players are laying new foundations as we enter an AI-led multi-search universe. AI is in a constant state of progress, so the most important thing marketers can do now is leverage the precision of insights to monitor, prepare for changes, and adapt accordingly.”

I like that term – a multi-search universe. It feels like the possibilities are endless. AI is a remarkable productivity booster but it doesn’t think for itself – YOU must tell it what you want, and THEN it spits out an answer. My take on all this, at least for today, is that No, SEO is not turning INTO AIO, but to get ahead in SEO/Marketing, we must use SEO strategies WITH AI – they complement each other.

Kerri Marvel
Website Designer, SEO Doer, Blog Writer, Website Care Plan Administrator