How to build an SEO strategy for AI Overviews

As search evolves, so do the ways users interact with our content, and with Google’s AI Overviews now reshaping how information is discovered and displayed, it’s never been more critical to adapt your SEO strategy.

In this live podcast, we’ll explore how AI Overviews impact visibility, what this means for traditional content formats, and how you can future-proof your SEO efforts by focusing on topical authority, content quality, and user intent.

Joining host David Bain for this episode on “How to build an SEO strategy for AI overviews” was Dave Cousin, Sean Barber, Vivek Shankar and Victoria Olsina.

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Transcript

David Bain

How to Build an SEO strategy for AI Overviews. Hello and welcome to the May 2025 edition of the Majestic SEO Panel, where we’re discussing how to build an SEO strategy for AI overviews. I’m your host, David Bain. Joining me are four great guests, so let’s meet them. Let us start off with Dave.

Dave Cousin

Hi there. Yes, I’m Dave Cousin from Dave the SEO & Co. I mainly do fractional SEO work, and work as a SEO consultant, particularly around strategy.

David Bain

Thanks for joining Dave and also with us today, Sean.

Sean Barber

Hi, yes, I’m Sean Barber and I’m the SEO manager at Macmillan Cancer Support, and also I run a channel all around SEO and AI called Search with Sean.

David Bain

Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining as well Sean, and also with us today is Victoria.

Victoria Olsina

Hi. My name is Victoria Olsina, and I’m a consultant, and I mostly specialize in FinTech and web three crypto industries.

David Bain

Thank you, Victoria. And the last one joining us today is Vivek.

Vivek Shankar

Hi, I’m Vivek Shankar, and like Victoria, I mostly specialize in FinTech. I am a content marketing consultant for B2B FinTech companies. Glad to be here.

David Bain

Thank you, Vivek. So let’s start with Victoria. For the first topic, the first question, Victoria, what are AI overviews?

Victoria Olsina

For me, the easiest way to explain AI overviews is like the evolution of featured snippets, which is a rich result on the top of the Google page that contains an answer to a question to an info, so it generally shows up on informational queries.

And the main difference between featured snippets is that featured snippets used to have only one answer, like one source, and the AI overviews can have several sources to create this AI answer that is served.

David Bain

Okay, so great overview there. Thanks for providing that there as well. So where are AI overviews most likely to show? Dave, would you like to tackle that one?

Dave Cousin

Yeah, absolutely. So AI overviews are showing pretty much above everything, and they are showing but they’re most often showing on searches where people have intent that’s around problem solving, or where they’re asking very specific questions, at least for the time being.

There’s a white paper that I published back at the beginning of the year where we looked at, kind of sub intent types, and it very much was those where were most often seeing AI overviews and some areas such as kind of more general topic research, they’re showing up less so far, though, of course, that might change. And recently, we started seeing Google testing product cards and place cards. So the type of search is where they’re going to show that kind of are expanding.

David Bain

Okay, great. So Dave, if you did want to refer to that white paper, feel free to get it up on screen, and we can share that if people were obviously watching the video form, a lot of people listen to this in audio form. So if we’re doing that, then we’ll describe it as well. Sean, what type of business is this most suitable for?

Sean Barber

Yeah, and I’ll just touch on as well. I think it’s also a good point about the evolution. I think it’s also the evolution of user behavior. As we’ve seen with user behaviors, people have got less patience. They want answers quickly. They want to get straight to the point. And this is kind of like an evolution of that.

So in terms of, like what businesses this is affecting, obviously, talking, from my standpoint, with Macmillan, health is probably the biggest industry being hit by AI overviews, in terms of being featured at AI overviews so and like Dave, touched upon lot of informational and like you said it’s touched upon all sectors, really.

But yeah, obviously SEMrush just released some information in the last few days around the industries being most featured in AI overviews. And it is like health, law, government, that these sort of industries look like it’s the ones being seen the most on AI overviews.

David Bain

How would you summarize the state of AI overviews at the moment?

Vivek Shankar

I would say it’s evolving. I mean, it seems like it’s been around for over a year and almost many years now. But really, I think at this point we don’t know as much as we think we do. We do know that, as Victoria said, they are an evolution of the snippets and a lot of informational queries are being highlighted over there.

But the broader repercussions, I think we’re still grasping with it. For example, there still is a trade off between losing that search real estate on top of the search engine results page versus having your brand show up in one of these AI overviews on top.

So while I’m seeing a lot of publishers complain about the fact that, okay, we’re losing clicks so AI overviews are bad, but at the same time, if your brand shows up right on top of Google, the search result page, is that really a bad thing for your brand? So there’s a lot of debates going on, and I think there’s no doubt that the AI overviews are not going to go away.

The real evolution is just around how we react to it and how we sort of think about it in terms of broader SEO as well. Should we be measuring clicks? Should we be looking at impressions? I think that’s where the really interesting discussions are happening, and that will dictate how the attitude to AIO evolves.

David Bain

How do you actually realize that it is definitely worthwhile forming some sort of strategy to try and optimize your content, your site, your brand, to appear in AI overviews, because I guess it’s not suitable for every type of business. Dave, shall we start off with you on that one? How do you know if a business is suitable for optimizing for AI overviews?

Dave Cousin

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of the people who are panicking most about AI overviews are people who are just publishers, who have businesses set up as affiliate businesses, where they’re not actually selling a physical product or a service at the end of the day, and really they rely on getting traffic onto the website, and so brand awareness just isn’t valuable for them, and being within those AI overviews isn’t valuable for them.

So if you are actually selling a product or service, there is an opportunity to market your brand and to market the products and build brand awareness and also awareness of your offering within the AI overviews, I think, but it’s understanding then which industries are showing up most where AI overviews are showing up within the process.

I think if you’ve got a more complex product, then you’re going to be more likely to see AI overview showing up at different points in the research journey. So there’s kind of higher funnel searches where people are trying to solve a kind of more complex problem. AI overview suits itself to that.

David Bain

Victoria. Would you say there’s a certain type of business that’s more suitable for optimizing for AI overviews?

Victoria Olsina

Well, first of all, if you have had a website for a couple of years, you already have content that is ranking somewhere, so you might optimize it, right? At the moment, I’m seeing a client, for example, that had like 70 featured snippets in the past, now ranking for nine AI overviews, because this is in the crypto compliance sector, which is quite, I mean, quite complex. You’re not going to get everything that there is to know from one AI answer. I think that that sector is not as exposed as something more mainstream or B2C.

David Bain

Okay, Sean, what are your thoughts in different sectors?

Sean Barber

I agree with what’s been said. I think it’s also like if you’re scoping out opportunities, obviously you usually know what your top products or services are, but obviously you can go on tools like SEMrush that have you know, they now display what ones have, AI overviews, what ones don’t. And also to put a business case together, there’s like an advanced web ranking report on pixel width.

So if you’re building a case, what your top pages and products usually are, but you see that things are dipping in terms of that traffic or click through rates and so on. Then go and explore, do the discovery on those so, yeah, I mean, obviously, like Dave said, and Victoria, that a lot of them are informational based, at the moment, AI overviews.

But I think, as we all said, it’s going to keep growing and touch upon everything soon. So, I think about the discovery side, and not panicking when traffic drops and seeing why that might be the case, where the opportunity is, that’s where, that’s what I suggest.

David Bain

And Vivek, what are your thoughts on the type of business that should be trying to optimize for AI overviews?

Vivek Shankar

I don’t think of this in terms of the type of business because I don’t think there is a way to optimize for AI overview. So basically you just have to follow good SEO principles. That’s always been the case. You need to have good content. And you can’t control whether you’re going to show up in AI overviews.

So I think the real question is if you want to show up in these AI overviews, what should you be doing, which is to follow good SEO principles. And any business that benefits from showing up at Google, no matter what kind of product or service you’re selling, if you benefit from showing up on Google, which is almost every business on the planet, you will benefit by showing up in an AI overview.

I think it applies to pretty much every business with a product and service out there. As Dave said, a publisher that’s depending on affiliate income, I think they’ll be the hardest hit. But if you have a physical product or a service you’re selling, it’s definitely a good thing to keep an eye on.

David Bain

Dave so Vivek was saying there that it’s not really necessarily possible just to focus on optimizing for AI overviews, and that’s just great SEO that will end up resulting in your brand being featured there. Is that something that you’d agree with?

Dave Cousin

I think that you have to have great SEO, and a lot of the principles are the same, but there are a few things you can specifically do to optimize for AI overviews, some of the things that work very well for featured snippets.

And from the kind of data I’ve looked at, actually, if you had a featured snippet before, that greatly increases the chance that you are going to have some visibility in AI overviews now. But it’s also thinking about what type of visibility do you want to have in AI overviews? Do you just want to be a source, or can you actually find ways to force your brand in as an answer? And I think that’s something that some brands are doing very well, and some brands are missing.

For example, I’ve seen a search for best holidays for water sports, where the AI overview is listing out some locations, but actually mention specific brands like Club Med and Le Boat as options, and that’s hugely valuable. So there’s really an opportunity there. To do that, you have to set up things like passages in the right way so that they lend themselves to be taken.

David Bain

Another thing is, what would setting up in the right way look like, Dave?

Dave Cousin

Sure, so it’s sign posting as much as possible for Google. So this is similar tactics for featured snippets. So having clear headings, having jump to links that take people to the right part of the page, and having nice, succinct answers that stand on their own. And surprisingly, Google, a lot of the time doesn’t actually reword what you’ve written that much. It might change, change a few words here and there, but I’ve seen lots of examples where they take a quote, put it in AI overviews almost verbatim, and in some cases now actually they will take an exact quote and then they’ll just put it afterwards.

I think this is an experiment at the moment, but they put afterwards says such and such a brand with a link within the section. As I can see, Sheryl’s just asking, what are passages? So that’s basically the idea of optimizing a specific passage of text within a piece of content, for a specific keyword or for question terms, particularly and optimizing in such a way that they can stand on their own by using jump to links. Also, it means Google can link directly to that part of the page. But it also works great as a sign posting for featured snippets and AI overviews.

David Bain

And I was interested in the phrase you used earlier on there, Dave, by saying, force your brand in as an answer. How do you determine that there’s an opportunity to do that and there’s an opportunity to perhaps appear with existing brands if you’re not already?

Dave Cousin

So obviously, if you come across something where there are already brands kind of being listed as an answer, then that’s clearly an opportunity. And if they are kind of terms that are at the point in the funnel where people are doing research, and actually it’s going to be a useful answer to them to get a list of brands or of specific products or services which might answer what their query is.

As I said, a lot of times when AI overview show up are for problem solving kind of intent terms. And it might be that you have exactly the product or service that solves that problem. And if you can find those terms where it’s a good answer, it’s a good user experience, then I think that’s where you have the opportunity.

At the end of the day, Google’s always looking to give people a good user experience, and they will look at stats on how people are interacting with the pages, and if they put you in as a result, and that seems to actually improve the quality of results for people, they’ll keep on showing you.

David Bain

And Sean, what are your thoughts on the type of content that you need to have on your website to give you that increased likelihood of ranking within an AI overview?

Sean Barber

Yeah. I mean, Dave hit the nail on the head quite a bit, might say it’s really good, but I do believe, like, I said in my recent Majestic video that went live today about why tracking LLM traffic matters, very similar in that it is typical, traditional SEO tactics. But it’s just underlining them further and really hitting home that they are very important. Like, like they’ve touched upon, the structure of the content is even more important than ever. Those headers, the content gets to the point, you know things I love talking about, like information gain and information density, those two factors are so important. If you’re talking about a certain content topic, sorry, then what you are adding to the story that no one else is adding. What unique piece of information are you giving on that topic and no one else can spit out and how you’re doing it in a condensed sentence or piece of content and without adding jargon and all that stuff.

So, for example, I’ve created a custom GPT focused around information gain, information density and natural language processing against our branding guidelines, how we like to write things. And it kind of rewrites stuff to get an idea of that. So, that’s the kind of stuff and also touch upon, like structured data, schema. I know there’s controversy, how much effect does it have? Blah, blah, blah, but it’s the philosophy. It’s a mindset, structuring your content, understanding the entities it touches upon, and that kind of thing. And then finally, like UX making sure it actually, when you put together a good piece of content, it works well for the user as Dave’s touched upon internal linking, jump into sections, etc.

David Bain

Sean, you talked about adding your own perspective for an answer, or perhaps something that’s a little bit unique that doesn’t exist already. Does that mean that if answers exist in AI overviews already, you may be more likely to add your brand to the conversation by perhaps disagreeing with what’s there already?

Sean Barber

I don’t know about disagreeing, but obviously if you add, if you do build a brand reputation, if you do become a brand that people listen to, and you’ve got experts that can contribute to the content. Or you can put in statistics of facts, well, data around the topic. Or you can build assets around it. Then obviously that’s going to give you a much bigger chance of, as Dave said, getting in, get yourself in the picture. Brand reputation also, I’m sure we’ll touch upon, but that’s a huge part of this whole thing as well.

David Bain

Victoria, so a lot of traditional SEO is about identifying the right keyword phrase and creating content based upon that. Is it the same type of keyword research that we need to do in order to actually determine where the opportunities lie within AI overviews? Or what other ways can we actually identify where the key opportunities are to optimize for?

Victoria Olsina

Well, what Dave was saying right now was that paying for problem solving keywords had a lot of potential to be on AI overview. So knowing that, knowing that informational and problem solving keywords are the ones that are more likely to jump on a discovery section probably is the top of the funnel. The top of the funnel keywords, the simpler keywords, the keywords that are for people that are starting their journey, the ones that are going to be more likely to show up on AI overviews.

David Bain

So you mentioned problem solving keyword phrases. How do you identify what is a problem solving keyword phrases? About doing keyword research the traditional way and then just manually going through them just to see if you think that there are problems, or do you use AI to actually help categorize the keywords into problem solving keywords?

Victoria Olsina

Yeah, you could do that also. All of them, well, SEMrush and Ahrefs, both of them have a way to filter questions, right? And I think that’s the most informational layer you can go, right? When people are phrasing something like, what is an AI overview? I don’t think there’s anything more informational than that. Or, how do I open a bank account? The basic questions for let’s say newbies are probably the most likely to be that we can optimize for AI overviews.

David Bain

Yeah, go for it, Sean.

Sean Barber

Now, that’s a good point on Google Search Console, obviously you can filter it by questions as well. And what’s really good is that Ahrefs has a new sort of user intent. So when you look at a certain query and look at it tells you the kind of user intent behind those queries, it gives you a really good understanding of what people actually expect to see when they’re typing in that query on the search engine. So all these tools sort of help you along the way.

Dave Cousin

Another thing you can try and understand is, to what extent are people willing to go down a little bit of a rabbit hole? And if people are willing to go down a rabbit hole, that increases the chance that you know, not only you’re going to get an impression within AI overviews, that people are going to click on your result, and if you could optimize your content.

So firstly, get in the AI overview, but then have a title when the link shows something that’s a little bit click-bait-y. There’s another opportunity there to actually get that traffic and actually turn that into traffic onto your site.

David Bain

So as Sheryl was saying, wondering how the keyword research tools are going to help and change in the future. She mentioned SEMrush, Moz, Screaming Frog and the like. Obviously, SEMrush and Ahrefs and Google Search Console have been mentioned as tools in the past. Maybe, maybe we can get everyone’s opinion on what is the most progressive tool in terms of offering the functionality that will give you the information required in order to optimize an AI overview at the moment, and why you prefer that particular tool? Vivek, What tool do you like to use for identifying and perhaps optimizing for AI overviews at the moment?

Vivek Shankar

I prefer SEMrush. I have used Ahrefs, but I find that it’s pretty good for backlinks. But to be honest, there’s not much to choose between Ahrefs and SEMrush. I think if you’re a business, you’re kind of starting out, you want to choose the best tool. I think it’s a choice between Ahrefs and SEMrush.

David Bain

Okay and Sean, what are your thoughts?

Sean Barber

I’d say Google Search Console is always a classic, and you can’t go wrong with that. But obviously SEMrush is doing some great stuff. They were one of the first to focus on AI overviews and that’s developed. And one I’ve mentioned before is Advanced Web Ranking. They’re moving very quickly, developing very quickly, and some really great stuff on there that other people aren’t really addressing that much.

David Bain

Okay, and Google Search Console, so what specifically are you looking for in there? I mean, are you tracking AI overviews, or are you identifying new opportunities?

Sean Barber

Yeah, and I say, with the search features, Google aren’t giving us much, and they stated as much, they’re not going to give us anything more. But obviously, like I say, you can filter out based on questions. You can break it down to page level, things like that, seeing what questions and queries people are putting in, and how that’s changing over time.

Obviously there are some limitations, but obviously you can look at page performance and query performance. So yeah, it’s just a good tool, isn’t it, and it’s free.

David Bain

There we go, that helps. And Victoria, what tool are you actively using at the moment for this?

Victoria Olsina

So I’m using the new, well, SEMrush has a SERP feature option. Well, it has has the SERP feature for a very long time now. Now they recently have added AI overviews, and Ahrefs has added as well. So I prefer to use Ahrefs for backlinks and keyword research and SEMrush for everything else. And I think that the report for AI overviews is much more visual, and I prefer that interface. So I’m using both.

David Bain

Dave, what tools do you prefer to use?

Dave Cousin

I mean, I mainly use Ahrefs, but I think the most important thing is to use tools where you can do that, SERPs analysis, the white paper I mentioned I did in partnership with Authoritas, who I think were a bit ahead of the curve in terms of being able to analyze AI overviews and the depth that they were able to analyze AI overviews.

So with that, you’re able to see AI overviews, where your competitors were showing, for example, and that’s been there for a while. And other tools, I think, are just catching up. And so that’s a great tool. If you can see that your competitors, who have similar sites covering a similar topic, have a similar offering, are showing up for certain keywords and there are AI overviews, then that’s a great opportunity to look into further and see if you should be there as well.

David Bain

There’s one thing, taking data, taking information from these tools or our own analysis and strategy that we build or optimizing for AI overviews. But what about reporting back to clients if we’re maybe agency side, what are clients looking for? What kind of questions are they asking about AI overviews, and what kind of metrics are key for them when they’re determining whether or not the strategy is a success? Just looking for nods there to see who to ask first, and just looking at blank stares. Sean, okay, let’s go for you.

Sean Barber

I think it’s actually the most important thing really, because I think I know I’m getting tons of emails and different stakeholders about this. I’m sure everyone else is, but there is a kind of old school way of still looking at traffic, and can be really concerned when numbers are falling year on year or whatever.

And I’m sure most of our figures are in some areas are falling year but it’s like an educational piece around changing the focus on metrics from traffic and things like that, to more visibility on the SERP, those SERP features, AI overviews, share of search, share of voice.

These are the things that we need to be looking at now, like traffic, everyone’s traffic is going to fall because people are trying to answer things right on the SERP now, or on the large language model result, and websites are going to get hit across the board. So that’s what I would say, focus on those kinds of metrics.

David Bain

Everyone’s traffic is going to fall. There’s the dooms here.

Sean Barber

It’s not a bad thing, it’s just the way the world’s going, yeah.

Victoria Olsina

There is a behavioral change, as you mentioned, Sean and well, I don’t think that Google is the most useful platform anymore.

David Bain

What is the most useful platform?

Victoria Olsina

For me it is ChatGPT. By far.

David Bain

Do you have any clients that are saying the same thing?

Victoria Olsina

About that ChatGPT is the most useful platform.

David Bain

Most useful platform in terms of potentially even traffic to their business.

Victoria Olsina

So I’m tracking traffic from LLMs with Looker Studio, and although there are specialized solutions that track dimensions, because it’s funny that people are very concerned about not having enough clicks, but if they show on ChatGPT, they’re happy when they’re looking best, I don’t know, best category, best player in category, and they show up on ChatGPT, they’re happy.

Now, if they show up on AI overviews, and that doesn’t lead to a click, they’re not but it’s the same thing. You are showing up on a search result. You’re showing up as a more relevant result wherever these searches are being done, right?

Dave Cousin

Reframing. Yeah, I think from what Victoria is saying, it’s very much that AI overviews are still seen as SEO, and optimizing for ChatGPT and others is seen as a whole different activity. We need to reframe AIOs as we know it’s still SEO, but actually as a different thing, and then the ways of measuring that are different.

I think if we can go back to understanding for the businesses we’re working with, what their business strategy is, what their marketing strategy is, and spot where actually optimizing for a AIOs can help them meet those objectives, then we can kind of work from there to actually get that buy in and actually maybe change also the metrics we’re measuring, because it’s not necessarily going to be clicks to the site. But is there a way of measuring things like footfall? Is that people searching for the brand later on, and all these other things that we need to maybe start talking about as new metrics?

David Bain

Sheryl is saying in the LinkedIn live, how do you show up on ChatGPT? Dave, is the process quite similar in terms of optimizing for ChatGPT versus optimizing for AI overviews.

Dave Cousin

Yeah, again, the sign posting part is very important. Sean mentioned structured data earlier, and I think for things like ChatGPT, that’s even more important to help them understand the different entities and the relevance and context of the content as well.

David Bain

Back in the day when I was a search manager in a big agency, visibility was becoming a big thing in the SERP, and you could say to clients, yes, you’re X percent visible in terms of this keyword phrase versus your competitors, and it feels like we’re going back to brand visibility as a key metric within overviews and perhaps ChatGPT as well. Is that a key metric that you tend to be using, or are there better metrics to be sharing with clients?

Dave Cousin

I think not so much brand visibility, but if you have an increase in brand searches and an increase in direct traffic to your website, then I think, I think this has been the case for a long time, but it’s maybe even more important now, then SEO should be getting at least some of the credit for that.

If we’ve been increasing brand visibility within AIOs, and leading to that increased brand awareness and leading to then people potentially coming straight to us, and even things like click through rate on paid ads, when people get to that moment where they’ve done their research and they’re ready to buy something, potentially get a higher click through rate on your paid ads, because people have seen your brand mentioned in AIOs referenced by Google, which is maybe seen as a sign of approval as well. And so that’s got a value. We’ve got to find a better way of linking that visibility to those end results.

David Bain

Yeah. I mean, the challenge with organic, historically versus paid, has been justifying the value of something that’s perhaps not easily definable, such as increased brand awareness, because if it results in perhaps another marketing channel, such as pay per click as the last click the user uses, then it’s easy for the stakeholder to just focus on the last click, certainly. So the mention of that word, stakeholders obviously makes me think of them. So how do we sell the value of AI overviews to stakeholders within a business?

Dave Cousin

I think you know one way is to be honest.

Vivek Shankar

Personally, I haven’t had to sell anything. I’ve been getting questions from clients almost every day in terms of, how do we show up on LLMs? What are we doing to optimize for LLMs, etc. I think everybody’s pretty aware of, as Victoria said before, of how people are moving away from Google. So there isn’t much to sell there. I think it’s more about the reporting. And I think tracking conversions is pretty important.

A big problem with SEO has always been we’re too wedded to clicks. Instead, we need to sort of move that conversation towards conversions. So you essentially build a funnel. You draw a line between this traffic coming in from whatever LLM, it could be the Gemini or the Google overview. It could be whatever GPT, Perplexity, whatever, and this is what’s converting so I think once you move the conversation that way, that’s when stakeholders start seeing the ROI, and it becomes a much easier still, in terms of saying that, okay, the basic SEO stuff that we’ve been doing is working, and here’s proof. So I think that’s how you go about it.

Sean Barber

I was going to say, 100% agree with that. I think that’s something I left off. It’s like, the conversion point is, you can have 100 people walk into your shop and two people buy something, and that’s like, okay, or you can have 50 people walk in your shop with better quality traffic, and more people buy stuff. It’s about the quality of traffic. It’s about how they interact with your website and engage.

But obviously that throws up another curveball. Are you tracking the right things using Google Analytics? Is your Google Analytics set up correctly? Are you tracking conversions correctly? And that kind of thing is definitely a good point.

David Bain

I like that analogy as well. 50 people walk into your shop, but you’ve got one person that wants to buy. You don’t want these 50 people in your shop. They’re just going to make a mess. They’re not actually interested in buying.

Sean Barber

Yeah, it’s just about making the most of every user. And it doesn’t matter where they come from. And I think when I said it to stakeholders, they all know how important Google is if you’ve reported before, they know Google, I know they’re losing some market share, but they are still very dominant, and people want to be at the top.

And if you want to build a board like Piccadilly Circus, it’s the same thing. You want to be seen at the biggest place. And Google is the biggest place, so you want to be the top result. And that is, at the moment, AI overview, and everything’s being pushed down, as we’ve seen with the pixel widths and all that kind of data.

David Bain

Victoria, jump in there.

Victoria Olsina

I was going to say that it’s more of a PR approach. If you hire a PR agency, they will not give, they will now measure how many conversions you had. PR agencies measure how many people saw a piece of content. They try to make you thought leaders in a space, but they are kind of removed from the result from the actual selling, from the actual conversion, from the actual revenue. You think that comes after that, if you are more trustworthy, people will buy from you eventually, like a long play.

So I think that both approaches could work. I mean, if you don’t hold your PR agency accountable, why are you going to call your SEO team accountable, if we are talking about basically having being more visible and more trustworthy.

David Bain

Dave, just before we finish off, can we actually get your thoughts on the answer to Alba’s questions? Alba is saying, How do you think it’ll affect the businesses, the fact that AI depth information giving depending on the previous conversation with the users?

So essentially, I would imagine that’s just talking about the rights of AI to retain and reuse and the information that perhaps a user gives, or the business gives about that particular brand, and perhaps that brand being used in a slightly more negative light or unmanageable light. What are your thoughts on that in general?

Dave Cousin

I think with tools like Gemini and ChatGPT, we are losing a lot of visibility, of when we actually have visibility what people are actually searching for, because everyone is going to get slightly different results, even if they do ask the same questions, but a lot of time, because people are asking more complex questions, they’re going to be more unique.

You know, we don’t have that ability to optimize for specific keywords anymore with AI overviews. I think we still do, but over time, that might change, and we might find that people search behavior changes due to AIOs, where people will ask very specific questions, knowing they’re going to get a good answer, and then there’s going to be more and more traffic, which we just can’t link to a specific keyword and optimize for keywords in the same way. So we have to start optimizing for topics. I think, with ChatGPT as well. We have to start optimizing for topics that we maybe understand that people are more likely to use those kinds of tools for.

And at the moment, we’re just missing a bit of data, really, in how people are using those tools. Are they using them to find products and services? Are they using them to find local businesses? And how exactly we optimize for that. So I think that’s going to be something that’s going to continue to evolve. Really a challenge for us, and again, changes how we talk about our results. If we can’t talk about ranking for keywords anymore it’s much more. We can see the traffic that’s coming out of ChatGPT and the like, but not exactly what the process of people getting there is going to be.

David Bain

So it’s nice finishing off with an actionable takeaway. So I was thinking this one should be, what’s one action that SEOs need to do to better prepare for AI overviews. If they’re not doing something actionable at the moment, they’re just carrying out day to day general SEO, as opposed to really thinking about AIO. What’s one thing that SEOs need to do? And then I’ll also ask everyone, just to share, remind the listener where to find out more about you.

So Dave, should we just go back to you and ask you, what’s one action SEOs need to do to better prepare for AI overviews and just remind the listener where to find out more about you?

Dave Cousin

So I’d say it’s partly about focusing on being a subject matter expert, while in general results, we’re seeing more and more user generated content, things like Reddit, Quora and so on. They’re not getting pulled in as results very often into AI overviews. It’s much more expertise that seems important. So being that subject matter expert on particular areas, building out a depth of content rather than a width of content, would be my advice there.

People can find out more about me at davetheseo.com and find me on LinkedIn as well.

David Bain

Thank you, Dave. Sean, what’s one actionable takeaway that SEOs need to do to prepare for AI overviews? And where can people find out more about you?

Sean Barber

Well, building on that, I think on top of that, as I mentioned before, how you can add your unique twist to it, your unique stamp on that piece of content, that topic area as well, like I say, with data and insights and nice assets that complement it. So yeah, I think that’s on top of it.

And people can find me at Search with Sean and the YouTube channel.

David Bain

Cheers, Sean. And Victoria, what were your thoughts?

Victoria Olsina

Yeah, I think that having a structure in your content is really important, and that is heading phrased like a question and then an answer, which is a sort of encyclopedic answer, like the way that would quickly summarize an answer. FAQs are a great way to do this.

David Bain

Okay, and where can people find out more about you, Victoria?

Victoria Olsina

Yeah, if you Google me, Victoria Olsina, you will have access to all of my social profiles and a website.

David Bain

Way to go. Thank you so much for joining us Victoria. Vivek, what are your thoughts on that last particular question?

Vivek Shankar

I think you should keep track of how you’re showing up in all the LLMs, and just tracking everything, looking at your data, that’s the most important thing, I would say.

And people can find me at, vivekshankar.net, and also on LinkedIn.

David Bain

Thank you so much for everyone joining us today. It was a great discussion. We can go on longer. We could have gone on for longer. We’re not going to go on for longer today, but perhaps we can have some kind of part two about this particular topic.

Keep the comments coming in. Really appreciate it, you, the viewer, watching live and interacting as well. It makes a world of difference if you can incorporate your questions into what we’re actually discussing as well. So if you’re listening to this in terms of podcasts afterwards, join us live next time, and hopefully you can be part of next time’s discussion.

I’ve been your host. David Bain, you’ve been listening to the Majestic SEO Panel. If you want to join us live next time, then just sign up at majestic.com/webinars. Of course, check out SEOin2025.com as well.