Tuesday S.E.O's? - AI Search In The USA, Schema, GM.BG.

Let's be honest who's reading an SEO newsletter on a bank holiday Monday?

Google has now implemented AI-generated overviews for USA users.

Google has once again pushed the boundaries of technology with its latest release: AI-generated overviews. This innovative feature, now available in the USA, marks a significant leap closer towards a fully AI-integrated Google Search Engine.

Formerly SGE (search generative experience), these AI-generated overviews promise to enhance the efficiency, relevance, and intuitiveness of online searches.

AI overviews efficiently pull information from different resources within the search engine and compile them into a coherent response at the top of the search results. Recently disclosed at a Google conference, these AI overviews will be an opt-in/out option.

(Realistically, how many people would say no to a better search experience?)

Liz Reid, Head of Google Search, stated,

“Now, with generative AI, Search can do more than you ever imagined. So you can ask whatever’s on your mind or whatever you need to get done — from researching to planning to brainstorming — and Google will take care of the legwork.”

Exciting stuff, right? Here’s where it gets discomforting.

People search on Google to find resources and information on a particular topic, service, or product. With AI overviews, Google’s AI will be compiling information into the top of the search results into different depths of information: Original, Simplified, and Breakdown. These three options allow people to access information at different levels of detail to find the answers to their query. However, if searchers are finding the answers to their questions without having to click through to your website, then why should they?

This also raises questions as to how do I optimise my website’s content to be featured in AI overviews and which AI overview will prove more beneficial for me to try and rank for? Only time will tell as more data is collected to determine this.

Google’s introduction of AI-assisted search in the USA is just the beginning. The company aims to continually refine and expand this technology, integrating more advanced AI capabilities and broadening its availability worldwide. The ultimate goal is to create a search engine that not only meets users’ needs with pinpoint accuracy but also anticipates and understands those needs in a profoundly intuitive way.

Schema and Its Ever-Pressing Importance

With search engines evolving to incorporate more and more AI functionality, schema is becoming ever more crucial in your SEO strategy. Schema allows search engines to better understand your website's content, allowing for rich search engine results. Google's latest update integrating AI overviews makes schema markup essential for greater visibility.

‘Why?’ you ask.

At its core, schema markup provides a standardised way to annotate content on a web-page. By incorporating schema markup, webmasters can supply search engines with specific details about the content, such as the type of product, event details, or business information. This structured data helps search engines like Google, Bing, and others to better comprehend and categorise the information on a page.

AI algorithms, especially those driven by natural language processing (NLP), benefit significantly from this additional layer of context. When a search engine's AI can accurately interpret the meaning and relationships within content, it can deliver more relevant search results. For example, a well-marked product page can show up in rich results with product ratings, prices, and availability directly in the search results, making it more attractive to potential customers.

With the new introduction of AI overviews, you can see evidently that schema markup listings are being featured in their results for recipes, local businesses, and articles. By defining your content using schema, your content is much more understandable to Google crawlers and has a far better chance of being featured in AI overviews.

Here are the types of schema that you should be focusing on:

• Product Schema: Shows details about your product such as reviews, offers, pricing, and availability.
• Article Schema: Gives Google the title, author, publisher, and release date to show current relevance.
• Organisation Schema: Identifies your core details to Google, such as logo, address, contact details, and social profiles.
• Local Business Schema: Ever-pressing for small businesses. Implementing local business schema allows you to identify core details to Google's crawlers about your business and the services you provide. With AI overviews being able to better understand NLP, utilising schema will be a sure-shot route to start ranking in AI-suggested plans, whether it be somebody looking for a highly rated local bakery or gyms within walking distance of their workplace.

In conclusion, schema is all about controlling the outcomes on Google. By identifying your content to Google, it can better understand the purpose of your content and place it accordingly, not just for the correct searches and advancements in AI search but also providing rich visibility to your site in the SERPs. An essential no-brainer, in my opinion.

Have you checked out Good Marketing, Bad Golf yet? Well, I’m going to show you anyway!

Watch as I answer common questions I get asked by clients whilst I try to improve my amateurish golf swing. Stick around until the end of each video for a chuckle.

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everybody that has subscribed to the newsletter so far. 400+ subscribers is a great achievement for a newsletter that has been running for such a short space of time. Remember, if you like the content, tell your friends, re-post the newsletter, or share your thoughts.

Until next week,

Oliver Eardley