5 Ways to Win Google’s AI Overview Race

Kristina Johnson
May 12
3 min read

Google’s AI Overviews (SGE) are changing how users find answers. You're getting left behind if you’re not optimizing your content for AI-first search and Voice Search with Siri or Alexa.

What Is Google SGE, and Why Should You Care?

SGE stands for Search Generative Experience — Google’s AI-generated summaries shown at the top of search results.

These summaries pull from:

• Authoritative websites

• Clear, concise answers

• Multimedia content like video

If your content isn’t being selected for these AI overviews, you may lose up to 50–70% of potential visibility.

What Is Answer SEO?

Answer SEO is a content strategy focused on:

• Structuring content around real user questions

• Providing clear, direct answers immediately under each heading

• Avoiding fluff, filler, or overly long introductions

Answer SEO is specifically designed to rank in:

• AI Overviews

• People Also Ask

• Featured Snippets

What’s the Difference Between Fluff SEO and Answer SEO?

Comparison table of Fluff SEO vs. Answer SEO, showing differences in content structure and language style.

Takeaway: If your content doesn’t “feel” like an answer, Google won’t surface it in AI.

How Does EEAT Influence AI Overview Rankings?

Google uses EEAT to decide which content to trust:

• Experience: Have you done this before? Real-world authority matters.

• Expertise: Are you an expert? Credentials count.

• Authoritativeness: Are you cited, linked to, or referenced?

• Trustworthiness: Do users, backlinks, and reviews support your credibility?

You can improve EEAT by:

• Adding author bios with credentials

• Including outbound citations to trusted sources

• Getting backlinks from industry websites

Why Video SEO Now Ranks in AI Overviews

Google now includes video answers in AI Overviews.

To optimize your videos for SGE:

• Answer a specific question in the first 15 seconds

• Use keyword-based video titles (e.g., “How to Replace Drafty Windows”)

• Add timestamps in your video descriptions

• Embed videos in blog posts with matching H2 questions

“Talking-head” answer videos with structured, question-first formatting are, in some cases, showing up directly inside AI summaries and People Also Ask.

Why Being First to Publish your SEO Blog Matters

Google indexes early content as the canonical reference for AI summaries.

If you publish content on a trending query before your competitors:

• Your post is more likely to be used in AI answers

• Updating later won’t help them outrank you without major improvements

• Google remembers which source answered it first and best

Action Tip: Set Google Alerts or use tools like Exploding Topics to monitor rising trends, and be the first to publish structured answers.

5 ways to Format Your Content for Answer SEO and AI Overviews

✅ Use H2s as direct questions

(e.g., “What Is EEAT in SEO?”)

✅ Answer the question directly beneath

(1-3 sentence paragraph; bulleted list if needed)

✅ Include multimedia (especially video)

Embed helpful YouTube clips answering the same question

✅ Add outbound links and author bios

To satisfy EEAT quality checks

✅ Use schema markup

Use the FAQ schema, the How-To schema, and the VideoObject for better parsing

Quick Checklist to Rank in AI Overviews

Checklist for ranking in AI overviews with items like direct questions, concise answers, author bios, and embedded videos.

3 Ways to Win the AI Overview Era with EEAT + Answer SEO

To rank in AI Overviews, your content must do three things:

1. Answer questions clearly and quickly

2. Prove you’re an authority

3. Include video for maximum reach

This is the most important SEO shift since mobile-first indexing. If your team isn’t preparing for AI-first search, you’re preparing to disappear from it.