First introduced back in May 2024, Google’s AI Overviews began appearing sparsely for mostly informational keywords. 

Fast-forward to March 5th, 2025, and they’ve received a major overhaul and will begin to appear more frequently for all types of queries. 

This raises an important question for marketers – how can you improve brand visibility with this new search feature?

Thus, optimizing for AI Overviews is now a major aspect of SEO, so it’s important to know what matters for boosting visibility and what doesn’t. 

Here’s what an AI Overview looks like for reference:

Notice that an AI Overview was generated for a commercial keyword with local intent, which was pretty rare before the Gemini 2.0 overhaul in March. 

That means SEOs everywhere will have to take AI Overviews into account, even for local SEO strategies. 

Also, each Overview consists of an AI-generated summary, various citations, and a source panel containing 3 relevant search results. 

Getting your brand to appear in any one of these areas is now crucial for target audience exposure, traffic generation, and online visibility. 

But how can you increase the chances that your brand will appear in one of these sections?

That’s what we’re here to teach you today, so keep reading!  

Why Content Needs to be AI-Friendly 

While generative AI (GAI) search is undoubtedly rising in popularity, it’s still a long way off from dethroning Google – as they still account for 89.74% of the search engine market. 

However, GAI search is gaining traction at an incredible rate. 

According to a new survey by Higher Visibility, 71.5% of respondents use AI tools for search, with 14% of them reporting daily use. While 79.8% of users still prefer Bing and Google for general searches, the fact remains that the majority of people are using AI tools to search the internet.

Moreover, users who still prefer Google will start seeing AI Overviews for most of their searches, and Bing has incorporated Copilot into its SERPs (search engine results pages), too:

As you can see, the Copilot Answer mimics Google’s AI Overview in many ways, so optimizing your content for GAI is unavoidable at this point. 

This is exacerbated by the fact that these generative AI responses appear at the very top of the search results, meaning you’ll need to engage in GSO if you want to snag prime SERP real estate. 

So, what matters to GAI tools when choosing online sources to include in responses?

The main factors are:

  • High-authority content that ranks well. When searching the web for sources, AI tools prefer authoritative content that ranks well on search engines and is frequently cited online (i.e., has a lot of trustworthy backlinks). 
  • Credible author bios. AI tools pay close attention to who authors online content and will check author bios to ensure their experience and credibility. 
  • Frequent updates and transparency. To ensure they provide the most up-to-date information, generative AI programs prefer content that’s frequently updated. They also prefer transparency with things like timestamps and editorial notes. 
  • Linking out to sources from trusted TLDs. AI tools know that the most reliable content backs up claims by linking out to high-quality, trusted sources. Most of the time, these sources come from TLDs (top-level domains) like .gov, .edu, and .org. 
  • Content appearing in APIs. Search engines actively crawl the web to keep discovering content that they can index and reference for user queries. AI tools don’t do that. Instead, they instantaneously pull real-time data from APIs (application programming interfaces). For example, ChatGPT uses Google’s Search API to access its search results, and so on. 

The more you can include these factors in your content (like building a public API, including author bios, and improving your traditional SEO), the more you’ll appear in GAI responses and summaries. 

7 Practical Ways to Optimize for AI Summaries 

Okay, now that you know why improving your online visibility in AI tools is paramount, let’s learn how to do just that. 

In particular, we’ll explore the 7 most effective ways that we’ve discovered to optimize for GAI search. 

#1: Using short, scannable answers (especially in the first 1 – 2 lines) 

First, you need to make it as easy as possible for AI tools to find quick answers to common questions in your content. 

How do you do that?

The best way is to include a short, scannable answer to the titular question raised by the post. This makes it extremely easy for AI tools and search engine crawlers to find. 

For instance, let’s say you did some keyword research and discovered that the question ‘what is link building’ is popular online. 

From there, you develop an outline for a blog entitled ‘What is Link-Building? How to Build Backlinks in 2025.’ 

Next, you define link-building within the first two lines of the post, like this:

Link-building is the process of getting other websites to link back to your content. 

Boom, now AI tools and crawlers have a clear answer to the titular question (what is link building). As a bonus, it appears at the very top of the post, making it stand out even more. 

This blog post from Miracle-Gro is a perfect example:

#2: Proper use of subheadings and lists

If there’s one thing that AI tools, web crawlers, and users can all agree on, it’s that easy-to-read formats are the best. 

This means using short paragraphs (only 1 – 2 sentences), subheadings, and frequently using bullet points and lists to break up the text. 

For subheadings, you need to follow the H1, H2, H3 format. Your H1 is the title of your post and should contain your target keyword. H2s are for each major subtopic, H3 subheadings elaborate further on H2 subtopics, and so on. 

Here’s an example:

  1. H1: What is Link-Building? How to Build Backlinks in 2025 
  2. H2: What is Link-Building, Anyway?
  3. H2: Top Link-Building Techniques 
  4. H3: Digital PR 
  5. H3: Link Insertions 
  6. H3: Fixing Broken Links 
  7. H2: Wrapping Up: Understanding Link-Building 

#3: Citing authoritative sources 

Remember, generative AI tools want to see you reinforce your claims with reputable online sources. 

Whenever possible, try to find sources from .gov and .edu sites, as these carry the most trust. That’s not to say that you can’t use a .com as a source; you should just confirm that it’s trustworthy. 

We recommend checking a domain’s backlink profile to ensure they’re an authoritative resource. You can use our free backlink checker tool to do so! 

#4: Using structured data (schema markup) 

Structured data is a standardized format for A) classifying page content (like product descriptions and reviews) and B) providing information about a page. 

Schema is important for AI tools and web crawlers because it helps them better understand content. For instance, structured data for reviews lets an AI tool instantly know that the content is reviewing a product or service. 

Schema also increases the chances that your brand will be featured in AI Overviews, GAI responses, and SERP features like snippets. 

#5: Simple language over jargon 

Industry jargon isn’t just a turnoff to potential customers, it can also confuse GAI tools. 

For this reason, you should always favor simple language over jargon. 

Doing so will make your content easier for users to read and allow GAI tools to pull information from your site. 

Whenever you’re writing (or reviewing) content for your website, ask yourself, “Would the average person know what this means, or are we being too industry-specific?”

#6: Using visual reinforcement (infographics, charts, etc.) 

Next, GAI tools also appreciate visual content (just like users do). 

So, whenever you can, include things like infographics, high-resolution images (as long as they’re relevant), and charts. 

These visuals will:

  • Make your content easier to digest. 
  • Heighten the chances you’ll get featured in GAI responses. 
  • Generate shares from your target audience. 
  • Improve your overall online visibility (SEO and GAI). 

#7: Answering multiple related questions in one post  

Last but not least, you should aim to answer as many related questions as you can in a single post. 

Why is that?

It’s because answering questions is a big part of GAI search. 

Most of the time, users will ask tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT questions almost exclusively. So, the more questions you can answer in your content, the more likely you are to appear in AI summaries. 

Here’s a simple trick for making this easier: include a FAQ section for all your articles! Make sure to base each question on related keywords, though (you can use our free keyword planner for this). 

Common GSO Mistakes to Avoid 

Lastly, there are some things you should avoid when optimizing for AI, which include:

    1. Keyword stuffing and dense paragraphs. Just like Google, AI tools don’t want to see repeated use of the same keyword if it doesn’t make sense in the context of the article. Also, long paragraphs are a no-no. 
  • Not including credible citations. If your content has no external links, it could be interpreted as a red flag. To reassure AI tools that you’re a credible source, always link out to trusted sources to reinforce your claims. 
  • Hiding answers deep in the post. Remember, answer all pressing questions immediately at the beginning of the article. 
  • Over-optimizing structured data. You shouldn’t go nuts with schema markup, as this can cause problems. Instead, use only what’s needed. 

Wrapping Up: Your GSO Checklist 

Here’s a helpful checklist for everything we’ve mentioned so far:

  • Create high-quality content that truly provides value to users. 
  • Include detailed author bios that list credentials. 
  • Back up all claims with trusted external sources. 
  • Use structured data to make your content easier for AI to understand. 
  • Answer common questions at the beginning of the post. 
  • Frequently update your content and include timestamps. 
  • Use visual enhancements wherever possible. 
  • Favor simple language over industry jargon. 

Complete this checklist, and your content will be fully optimized for AI search! 

Do you need help optimizing your website for search engines and GAI tools?

We’d love to develop an action plan based on your specific needs, so feel free to schedule a consulting call as soon as possible!