The AI Overview in Google! What is it? What to do about it? Welcome to The Marketing Accelerator Podcast, featuring three insights in about three minutes. I'm Drew Dinkelacker, and today, I'm speaking with Rachel Hernandez. She's the Director of Brand Strategy at Next Net, where they grow brand exposure through organic reach. Rachel, what exactly is the AI Overview and how do we get here?
Rachel Hernandez: Yeah, so, the AI Overview is basically, if you do a Google search for something, maybe like how to clean stainless steel, something that's informational, and Google will actually pull up a bunch of different results that tell you exactly what to do, so that you don't have to actually click on a website to get your answer. How I got here, though, is an evolution, this has not really changed that much. Google introduced things like featured snippets, which are one-line answers, they've had sponsored posts. So, it's always been changing. We haven't had a list of blue links on a Google results page in a really long time.
Drew: So, how accurate are maybe trustworthy is the word, is the AI Overview?
Rachel: So, anyone who's been paying attention to AI results knows there's been some hallucinations and some weird answers, but the thing with AI Overview is, one, it's only going to get better and, two, it actually cites from about three to seven sources. And it's super transparent about it, it actually links back to the actual source in the Overview itself.
Drew: Wow! Transparency from Google, [chuckle] that's new. So, how should a marketing leader address the AI Overview?
Rachel: I mean, I think we're doing what we've always been doing, which is trying to create really valuable, useful content. If that's your north star, you're always going to be okay. If you want to address them directly, but you haven't really worried about things like feature snippets, it's probably not something to worry about. And, if I had an SEO budget, I would probably allocate more spend to those bottom funnel pages that are going to have more conversions that you want more people to go to directly.
Drew: And there you have it, the AI Overview and what to do about it. The Marketing Accelerator Podcast is a production of MarketingAccelerator.com where business leaders gain confidence in their marketing efforts and marketers turn into high performing leaders. I'm Drew Dinkelacker.