AI Optimization For Blog Content

AI Optimization: From Content To Technical, It’s Time To Get Visible In AIO

It’s time to include AI optimization into your SEO strategy for web pages and blog posts.  Gartner recently did a study and concluded that by 2026, search engine volume will drop by 25% and this market share will go to AI bots and other AI agents.  But before you think your current SEO efforts have been a waste of time,  they haven’t been, and they won’t be. As you’ll see, keep on doing SEO to show up high in the SERPs, and in Google’s AI Overviews and other AI applications. This article will concentrate on website content that uses informational keyword phrases, such as blog posts and resources content that educates prospects about products and services. We explain why below. Let’s start with on-page SEO.

How to optimize for AI overviews

First, the classic on-page SEO you’re doing for your blog post elements hasn’t changed at all. (And this is just one of many reasons why SEO isn’t dead). However, your keyword research strategy should focus on informational phrases rather than transactional words. Why? Because AI Overviews are really well suited to you asking questions. So, digging deep into your keyword phrase list for questions will help your pages stand a better chance of being featured in AI Overviews.  Here’s a good example:

[Example Of AI Overview And Related Links In Google SERPs]

Informational keyword phrases are part of  searcher’s  intent for the top of the funnel buyer’s journey. Blog posts and other resource content types (white papers, case studies, videos and podcasts) are classic B2B top of funnel content pieces.

Next, create unique, useful, in-depth content around that phrase – dig deep and answer everything you can. Review what your online competitors are doing, especially if they already own that coveted AI Overview. By doing this competitive analysis, you should be able to create content that takes advantage of what they’re missing. Use original research, data and expert quotes if applicable. Don’t leave anything out. Ask your sales staff what questions they’re getting asked. Do a quick content audit to see if you already have blog posts or other resource content types that cover these questions. If not, there are additional keyword phrases that support the original question, those are opportunities to write other web pages that support the main one. This is the hub and spoke strategy we use. 

Optimize all of your applicable on page elements with the keyword phrase (classic on-page SEO) and don’t forget to optimize images, charts, illustrations, tables, etc. 

To increase your chances of landing that coveted AI Overview, keep your paragraphs short. Make every word count. If you know a good content editor, this is the time to use their skill at making this as punchy as possible. You can write long-form content to fill the gaps your competitor’s posts have. Use proper heading hierarchy in order, and don’t skip any (<H1 – <H6). Don’t be like this:

[Missing Headings In Hierarchy]

Another way to rank in AI overviews using an important step that many publishers still skip is to create numbered or bulleted lists. If you do, make sure to use ItemList schema markup code. For example, if you list five reasons in a blog post about why your cybersecurity platform is perfect for a new website, use this schema template to mark up that list:

[ItemList Schema Code Example]

If you are using a Q&A format, put the questions and answers at the top of your article or page so it’s discovered immediately by the AI systems and use Question, QAPage or FAQ schema as well.

[Question Schema Example]

[FAQ Page Schema Example]

The FAQ schema should be used if you have an FAQ section of your website. If you don’t already have one, but now see opportunities to make that section, use this schema to help those questions make their way into Google’s AI Overviews.

Use relevant pictures, videos, charts, etc. and don’t forget to populate the alt text tag with your focus keyword phrase. 

If you’re going to optimize for AI overviews, when writing a long article, put in key takeaways or summary points at intervals. We recommend using a subheading (H2 or H3) or <bold> text for these to stand out.

If you need some help, Benson SEO can support your content marketing efforts with keyword research, on-page SEO and schema code implementation.

Now that on-page SEO has been covered, it’s time to review how your site’s technical SEO looks.

Technical SEO and AI Considerations

If you haven’t had an SEO audit done in awhile, it’s time to do it now to get your pages ready for inclusion in AI Overviews.

Schema code insertion is part of your technical SEO efforts – this has been covered above; before inserting the code into each page, use the Schema Tester to make sure there are no coding errors. You can either test the page URL or the code itself.

Do a technical SEO audit and review the results for these areas. Not only should they be fixed if needed for getting into AI Overviews, these can hinder search engines from crawling, indexing and ranking your website’s pages for all search results visibility.

• Page speed load times, image compression, consistent HTTPS, mobile-friendly – use Google’s Page Speed Insights tool to find which files are slowing your site down. AI crawlers need to find your information quickly.
  • Don’t block important Javascript files that need to be rendered
• 301 redirects – there should be no more than one 301 redirect per page
  • Eliminate long redirect chains; go from the old page to the newest page in one redirect
• 404 error pages – resolve any outstanding 404 pages
  • Redirect them to the nearest relevant URL with a 301 redirect
  • If none exist, assign error code 410 to the URL and remove the pages
• Crawling/indexing errors – be sure that all of your important pages aren’t blocked from being crawled and indexed. The Google Search Console page indexing report has multiple reasons why your pages may not be crawled and indexed; resolve these issues.
  • Go through each section of the page indexing report
  • Download the sample pages
  • Create a mini-SEO project with tasks to resolve these
• Make sure your content is plain HTML as many AI crawlers aren’t handling JavaScript; see above.
• Consider implementing a llmst.txt file, which is similar to an XML sitemap, but provides a summary of your website posts and pages that AI bots can use to learn about your company.
• Review/update your robots.txt file to fine tune which AI bots you want crawling and scraping your content
  • Below is an example that you can hand off to your web dev team to edit/update your robots.txt file
  • Keep in mind that the more you block, the less likely it is your content can be featured in AI Overviews
    • Review which AI systems may be beneficial for visibility, such as Perplexity which is known for its  increased accuracy in AI responses to prompts

If your site’s technical SEO needs improvement, BSEO does comprehensive website technical audits to find and fix issues that are lowering your pages ability to show up in search results.

While there are no guarantees, cleaning up your website to be considered for AI Overviews can be worth it. Getting your pages, blog posts and other resources content ready means if your competitors get dropped, yours may take their place.

With all this being said, there is a tradeoff to getting featured in AIO – with more information from your post or page showing up in AIO, this could potentially decrease the URL’s clicks and click through rate. But that’s a post for another day.