Google’s continuous evolution has significantly changed the digital marketing landscape, especially in India. As SEO practices must adapt to new search trends, understanding AI Overviews (AIOs) is crucial for staying competitive. AI Overviews are one of Google’s most significant recent developments, and they are transforming how websites rank by providing AI-generated answers and topic summaries directly at the top of the search results. If you’re looking to stay ahead in SEO, knowing how AIOs affect your website traffic and optimizing for them is a must. In this blog, we’ll guide you through 4 easy steps to track how Google’s AIO is influencing your SEO efforts and provide practical steps for optimization.
Part 1: What Are AIOs and Why Should You Care About Them?
AI Overviews (AIOs) are a new feature introduced by Google to enhance the user search experience. AIOs provide AI-generated summaries and answers, giving users quick, direct responses to their queries without needing to scroll through a list of search results. This feature was initially rolled out as an experiment in May 2023 and has rapidly gained traction in India, especially for informational search queries across various sectors, such as business, technology, health, and more.
AIOs are now appearing at the very top of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), drastically changing how search results are presented. This shift is especially impactful for digital marketers in India, who rely on organic traffic for business growth. AIOs are even pushing traditional search results further down the page, making it harder to reach your target audience unless your site is featured in these AI-generated snippets.
What Makes AIOs Different from Traditional SEO?
AIOs offer instant answers for user queries, removing the need for users to scroll through multiple results. This new format changes the dynamics of SEO, as the focus now lies on providing precise, contextually relevant answers directly in the search engine interface.
For example:
- Higher Visibility: AIOs typically appear at the top of search results, increasing visibility for sites included in these summaries.
- Instant Information: AIOs provide direct answers, which means users no longer need to click through to a website.
- Impact on Click-Through Rates (CTR): Research shows that AI Overviews might reduce organic traffic to sites that don’t feature in these overviews, even if they rank high for certain keywords.
With AIOs on the rise, SEO strategies in India must shift to focus on optimizing content for AI Overviews to stay relevant and continue attracting organic traffic.
Part 2: How to Identify AIO-Triggering Keywords for Indian Audiences
To optimize for AI Overviews and stay ahead in India’s competitive digital landscape, the first step is to identify which keywords trigger these AI-generated snippets.
Step 1: Find Keywords That Trigger AIOs
Tracking which keywords trigger AIOs manually can be time-consuming, especially for large-scale websites in India. To make this process more efficient, you can use tools like SE Ranking. SE Ranking’s Competitive Research Tool helps you find which keywords trigger AIOs for Indian audiences by providing valuable insights about search volume, keyword difficulty, and AIO trigger data.
Here’s how to use SE Ranking’s tool:
- Access the Organic Traffic Research section in SE Ranking.
- Filter by the AI Overviews feature to get a list of AIO-triggering keywords.
- Export the list to further analyze the data.
SE Ranking provides keyword data specifically focused on India, helping you to assess local search trends and identify which long-tail keywords are likely to bring significant traffic. By focusing on India-specific keywords that trigger AIOs, you can improve your chances of getting featured in Google’s AI-generated summaries.
Why Is This Important for India?
By understanding which Indian search queries trigger AIOs, you can start optimizing your content to align with these keywords. Prioritizing these keywords will help you gain more exposure through the new AI-powered search format in India, driving more traffic to your website.
Part 3: Streamlining Monitoring and Optimizing Your Site for AIOs in India
After identifying the right keywords for AI Overviews, the next step is to monitor your progress and optimize your content for AIOs.
Step 2: Use an AI Tracker to Monitor Keywords
To keep track of how your keywords are performing in relation to AIOs, it’s essential to use a monitoring tool. With SE Ranking’s AI Tracker, you can monitor up to 1,500 keywords, allowing you to efficiently track how your website is performing for AIOs in India.
Here’s how you can use SE Ranking’s AI Tracker:
- Create a project in SE Ranking for your Indian website.
- Add the keywords that you exported from Step 1.
- Track their positions in the AI Tracker tool.
By monitoring your keywords, you can understand how your content is performing in relation to AI Overviews and adjust your strategy to improve your visibility in these snippets.
Step 3: Evaluate Your Website’s Visibility in AIOs
To check how visible your site is in AIOs for Indian audiences, use the AI Overview Presence Graph in SE Ranking’s AI Tracker tool. This graph allows you to see how many of your keywords trigger AIOs and how many of them feature your site in Google’s list of resources. The presence of your website in the AI Overview can dramatically impact your traffic.
SE Ranking shows the status of your keywords with color-coded icons:
- Gray with a strike-through: No AIO for this keyword.
- Gray: The keyword triggers an AIO, but your site isn’t featured.
- Purple: Your site is included in the AIO for this keyword.
This tool helps you monitor your website’s visibility over time. If your site is not appearing in the AIO despite ranking highly for certain keywords, this indicates that content optimization is required.
Step 4: Optimize Your Content for AIOs
Once you know which keywords trigger AIOs, you can start optimizing your content to increase your chances of being featured in these AI-generated snippets. Here’s how you can improve your chances:
- Provide Clear, Direct Answers: AIOs often pull concise, straightforward answers. Ensure that your content provides clear, actionable answers to common queries.
- Use Structured Data: Add schema markup to your content to help Google understand the context and structure of your data, improving your chances of being featured in AIOs.
- Focus on Content Quality: Ensure your content is comprehensive and provides value to the user. Google’s AI often pulls answers from authoritative content, so your content needs to stand out in terms of depth and relevance.
Step 5: Monitor Competitors in India
Another essential step is to monitor which websites in India are being featured in AIOs for your targeted keywords. By understanding why competitors are included in AIOs, you can adjust your content strategy accordingly.
SE Ranking’s Organic-AI Overlap Graph helps you analyze the competition, showing how many of the top-ranking sites for your keywords are included in AIOs. Use this data to refine your content and enhance its chances of being featured in the AIOs.
Conclusion: Stay Ahead with AIO Optimization in India
The rise of AI Overviews marks a significant shift in how Google ranks websites in India. As traditional SEO practices continue to evolve, optimizing for AIOs is becoming increasingly important. By following these 4 easy steps—identifying AIO-triggering keywords, tracking your progress with SE Ranking’s AI Tracker, evaluating your site’s visibility in AIOs, and learning from your competitors—you can adapt your content strategy to increase your chances of getting featured in Google’s AI-generated overviews.
As AI continues to dominate search, it’s important to stay ahead by adjusting your SEO efforts. Optimize for AIOs in India, and ensure your website maintains visibility and traffic in this new AI-driven era of search.
Try SE Ranking today to monitor your AI Overview efforts and optimize your site for better traffic and rankings. SE Ranking offers a 14-day free trial of their AI Tracker tool to help you enhance your SEO strategy and stay ahead in the competitive Indian market.