AI SEO is no longer optional, it’s the new frontline of search.
In 2025, the way people discover information online has fundamentally shifted. With the rise of AI-generated search results, like Google’s AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, and ChatGPT, businesses need to rethink how they show up online.
This case study reveals how my agency, The Search Initiative, leveraged AI optimization tactics to generate consistent AI traffic growth from AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini and keyword visibility within AI overviews, and why every business should be thinking about AI SEO today.
Our client’s monthly AI referral traffic grew by 2,300%.
… And is appearing for 90 keywords within AI overviews, compared to 0, before we started working together.
In this case study, you’ll learn how to:
Analyze and identify the AI Overviews within your industry.
- Monitor your website’s current AI Overviews rankings and traffic.
- Optimize your website for AI Overviews and AI platforms.
If you’d prefer to watch rather than read, I cover some of the key insights in this video.
To start, here’s some context about the site and why their site needed an SEO boost.
Table Of Contents
The Challenge
The client is a manufacturer of industrial products and provider of software solutions.
Although the client was ranking well in traditional organic search, they weren’t showing up much in AI Overviews.
Their competitors, some with inferior product offerings, were being summarized, cited, and surfaced for key informational queries.
This was frustrating as the client knew they had the expertise and authority, but AI-driven platforms weren’t reflecting it.
They came to us to help turn that around, and capture the missed opportunities for traffic, credibility, and brand awareness in emerging AI-driven spaces.
The objective was to get them appearing in AI Overviews and grow traffic from other AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini. We needed to first analyze the AI search landscape within the client’s industry and identify what keywords competitors were appearing within AI search for.
Then, we executed an SEO strategy that involved improving informational content for natural language queries, strengthened trust signals across their site, structured content for better AI readability and managed their AI brand reputation.
Here’s how we did it.
Understanding AI Overviews
If you want to stay competitive, read on to learn how AI Overviews work, where your brand currently stands, and how to position your content to appear within these results.
What are Google AI Overviews?
AI Overviews (previously “Search Generative Experience”) are AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of Google search results, often before traditional organic listings and sometimes even above ads.
The new search feature, which officially rolled out in May 2024, is Google’s way of providing quick answers to certain queries by consolidating information from a range of sources.
Here’s what an AI Overviews looks like:
And this is what it looks like when expanded:
The search feature is made up of two main components:
- The Answer – written by Generative AI (Gemini)
- The Links – to sites that corroborate the information from the Answer
AI Overviews (AIO) are designed to give users quick answers to their questions—just like featured snippets and instant answers—so they don’t need to sift through multiple websites
How Does Google AI Overviews Work?
I like to think of AI Overviews as letting Google do the Googling for you. But how does it work?
The AI-generated answers displayed in the search results are created using advanced generative AI technology powered by Gemini, Google’s Large Language Model (LLM).
A LLM is a type of AI model trained on vast amounts of text data to understand and generate human-like language.
The main concept is illustrated by the graphic below:
- Process the Query– When you enter a search query, Google’s AI interprets the search intent behind the words. This is similar to how tools like ChatGPT work, where the AI understands natural language and generates a relevant, human-like response based on what you’re asking.
- Select Relevant Documents – Once the intent is understood, Google’s algorithm searches the web and its index for a small, high-quality set of relevant documents.These are web pages, articles, or resources that provide trustworthy information related to your query.This set of documents is carefully chosen based on factors like relevance, credibility, and freshness.
- Generate a Draft Response – The AI generates a draft response using its training on vast amounts of general knowledge and web data. However, this response isn’t final—it’s more like an initial summary that still needs verification.
- Fact-Check Against Sources – The draft response is compared with the content of the selected documents from step 2.If any part of the initial summary conflicts with the information in these sources, the AI will revise its output so that the final overview reflects accurate and up-to-date information. These verified sources are typically linked in the overview, allowing users to see where the information came from.
- Display the Overview – Once the summary is complete and verified, it’s displayed at the top of the search results page as an AI Overview. It aims to give you a quick, reliable answer to your question, along with links to explore more if needed.
How to Analyze AI Overviews in Your Industry
AI Overviews is now prominent across global search results pages.
In keeping with the developments of AI SEO, Ahrefs recently launched a new tool called Brand Radar.
It lets you find out what people and AI are saying about your brand, a topic or niche.
- From the drop down, select your target location
After you’ve selected the location, the tool will display the number of AI Overviews that it’s found within the location.
For the U.S.A. that’s currently over 19.7M.
Fun Tip: If you leave the rest of the fields blank, and hit Explore, you’ll see a graph detailing the rollout of AI Overviews within your target location.
- Enter your brand name, product or service and hit enter.
You can add multiple searches which the tool will compare.
For example, you can add your brand name along with your competitors to see who’s showing up on AI Overviews the most.
- On the next drop down, select “AI Overview” so that you’ll see results where your chosen terms appear within AI Overviews for your target location.
- After hitting “Explore”, you’ll see a graph showing the number of mentions of your brand and your competitors within AI Overviews.
In this case, you can see that Nike is ahead of the pack with over 10,000 mentions within AI Overviews compared to 2.9k and 1.5k mentions for Adidas and Puma respectively.
- Scrolling further down reveals all of the keywords where these brands are mentioned within AI Overviews along with the links that Google uses as a source.
These results are quite broad, so let’s narrow them down.
Navigate back to the Market scope section at the top of the page and this time, select “Filter dataset”.
Make sure “AI Overviews” is selected once more and add supplementary keywords or phrases that you’re interested in seeing AI Overviews for.
For example, I’ve gone with “sneakers” and “best”, because I want to see whether my brand (Nike) gets mentioned at all.
This has narrowed down the results significantly to 45.
And you can now see which keywords have AI Overviews mentioning the brands.
- You can also check which ones don’t include your brand by changing the filters to only show AI Overviews that do not contain your brand name, but do contain your competitors’ names.
In this case, there are 5 keywords where Nike isn’t mentioned, but Puma and/or Adidas are.
This tool is great for investigating and identifying keywords and areas within your niche where you’re likely missing out on being mentioned within AI Overviews for relevant search terms.
How to Monitor Your Current AI Overviews Visibility
In addition to analyzing the AI Overviews for your industry, Ahrefs’ Site Overview now also allows you to monitor which keywords that you’re ranking for, and has an AI Overviews SERP feature.
- Enter your domain into Site Explorer and navigate to the Organic Keywords report.
- At the top, open the remaining filters and select “SERP Features”.
- From the drop down, select “AI Overviews” and click Apply.
This will show you every keyword that you’re ranking for that triggers an AI Overview SERP feature.
To find the keywords your site appears within the AI Overview, go back to the filter and select “Where target ranks”.
You can see that Nike.com ranks within AI Overviews for 13,695 keywords.
And for the ones you’re missing out on, go back to the filter and select “Where target doesn’t rank”.
How to Track AI Traffic in GA4
AI tools have emerged as new traffic sources that are important to track and monitor.
Read on to find out how you can do this in Google Analytics.
- Navigate to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition. This is where you’ll find your general traffic stats.
- Click “Add comparison” at the top of the page.
- Set the filter to show only Referral & affiliate traffic and click “Apply”.
- Add a filter at the top of the page.
- Under Dimension search “Session Source/Medium”.
- Under Match Type, select “matches regex”.
- Copy and paste this regular expression into the Value field and click Apply.
It’s telling GA to capture traffic from the most common AI referral domains.
(.*gpt.*|.*chatgpt.*|.*openai.*|.*neeva.*|.*writesonic.*|.*nimble.*|.*outrider.*|.*perplexity.*|.*google.*bard.*|.*bard.*|.*edgeservices.*|.*gemini.*google.*)
- From the drop down, search Session source / medium.
- If these appear, good news! It means that users are clicking through to your content from these AI platforms.
- To find out which pages are being visited, click on Engagement > Pages and screens.
- Add the same filters as in Steps 5 to 8.
You’ll now see exactly which content is attracting users from AI clicks.
AI Overview Optimization Tactics
Now that you know how to analyze and track your site’s current AI visibility, let’s go through some actionable tactics that you can use to grow it even further.
Optimizing for AI Search Visibility
Structure Your Content for AI Readability
- Be Direct & Write Concisely – Make it easier for AI systems and Google to understand your content by writing clearly and concisely.
Overly long explanations or vague language dilutes your message and makes it more difficult for AI to extract key information.
Here’s an example of a case, where the top two ranking websites in the organic search results (Heatable and The Guardian), aren’t actually used as a cited source.
Instead, lower ranking websites (e.g. Aira) have been used to generate the AI answer.
Let’s take a closer look to understand why the lower ranking page was used as a source.
Lower Ranking Page (Aira)
This answer immediately addresses the concern with how and why they work in cold weather. Language like “works exactly the same way in winter” is more confident and direct.
Higher Ranking Page (Heatable)
Whereas this answer uses vague, informal language like “When the Earth goes cold, we’re likely to start seeing pigs fly” and “you could say they’re more down-to-earth” might entertain human readers, but AI systems are trained to prioritize authoritative, unambiguous tone for summaries.
They muddy the clarity of the response
- Use Clear Headings – Using H1, H2, and H3 tags plays a critical role in how both users and AI systems understand and navigate your content.
Think of them as signposts, breaking your pages into logical sections that highlight the main themes of your content.
For AI-driven tools (like Google’s AI Overviews), clear headings make it easier to identify what your content is about, extract key points to be used within the AI-generated answers, and determine how relevant it is to a user’s query.
H1: Use a single H1 for the main title of your page—this should clearly describe the topic.- H2: Use H2 tags for major sections or questions.
- H3: Use H3s for sub-points or nested ideas within an H2 section.
H1: How to Choose the Best Cloud Hosting Provider for Your Business
- H2: 1. Define What Your Business Actually Needs
- H3: Are You Hosting a Website, App, or Internal Tools?
- H3: What Are Your Traffic and Storage Expectations?
- H2: 2. Compare Hosting Types: Shared, VPS, Dedicated, or Cloud
- H3: Key Differences That Impact Cost and Performance
- H3: When Cloud Hosting Makes the Most Sense
Here’s a heading from Mailchimp’s blog post about posting on Instagram.
And here’s how it’s used as the source material for an AI-generated answer to the query “should i post on instagram on sunday”.
- Use Google’s ‘People Also Ask’ to Discover Relevant Queries – The ‘People Also Ask’ section in Google is a great way to find what people are actually searching.
It shows queries users frequently type in that are relevant to the original query.
These are a gold for understanding the search intent and generating relevant subtopics or FAQs to include within your content.
For example, if you’re writing about the best time to visit Mexico, the PPA section reveals additional subtopics and questions users have like “What months are hot in Mexico?” and “What are the rainy months in Mexico?”.
When you include answers to “People Also Ask” questions in your content, you align with the subtopics and follow-up queries that Google considers relevant to the main topic.
This increases the chances that your content will be cited in the AI Overview for the original search term, the related queries from the PAA section AND other AI Overview answers that directly answer the subquestion.
- Target Conversational Queries – Modern AI-powered search doesn’t just rely on keywords like in traditional SEO, it also relies on how people actually speak.
Your content should reflect natural, conversational language that mirrors real-world questions.
In addition to being direct and concise, your sentences should answer complete thoughts, just like someone might ask in a chatbot, voice assistant, or Google search bar.
If your site speaks the user’s language, AI is more likely to highlight it. Here’s what I mean:
A traditional keyword that you target would be “15-minute home workout”. These would be included in your page title and metadata as they have search volume.
Look, no AI Overviews.
The conversational, long-tail alternative would be, “What’s a quick 15-minute workout I can do at home without equipment?”. This would be included naturally within your content or headings.
… And low and behold, this triggers an AI overview.
Enhance Readability with Summaries & Key Insights
- Add a TL;DR Summary at the Beginning of Your Articles – Providing a brief TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) summary at the start of each article helps readers and AI quickly grasp the key points on your page.
- Implement a “Key Takeaways” Section – As an alternative to a TL;DR summary, you can also add a bullet-pointed Key Takeaways section at the top of your articles.
This improves the readability for both AI and human users by summarizing your main message.
Manage AI-Generated Reputation and Brand Awareness
Monitor AI Search Results for Your Brand
- Regularly Check AI-Driven Platforms for Your Brand – Search for your brand within AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot etc to evaluate how it’s described.
Ask yourself:
- Does the description match your brand’s core values and tone?
- Are there things missing, such as key achievements or unique features about your brand?
- Does the description include inaccurate, outdated or wrong information about your brand?
Some prompts you can use are:
What can you tell me about [enter your brand or website]?- What does [enter your brand or website] do?
Here’s an example of the same query across several AI websites:
- ChatGPT
- Gemini
- Microsoft Copilot
- Google AI Overviews
Read on to find out what to do if you do find discrepancies within the AI descriptions of your brand.
- Take Control of Your Brand Narrative – Claim listings of your website such as your Google Business Profile, Yelp page, LinkedIn and TrustPilot so you can update them directly and update the About Us or FAQs pages on your website with accurate information.
This also includes updating your brand’s description across platforms so that it is concise and aligned with your values and tone.
Develop Authoritative Backlinks
- Secure High Quality Links From Relevant Domains – Backlinks from reputable, authoritative sites act as trust signals for both users and AI systems.
Earning links from respected publications from your industry strengthens your credibility in AI-generated summaries and search overviews.
Backlinks show that your content is cited, trusted, and relevant beyond your own site. This is the kind of validation AI models look for when deciding which sources to reference within their generative answers.
Find out more about link building here.
Following the tactics outlined above will help increase your site’s chances of being picked up and used by AI platforms within their search results, as well as on Google AI Overviews.
Establish Content Trustworthiness
Optimizing your site for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust (E-E-A-T) helps improve your visibility and credibility in AI-generated responses.
Why? Because AI-driven search results favor authoritative, accurate, and well-structured content.
Think about it this way: if you’re writing a research paper, you’re going to want to back up your points with information from credible and reliable sources.
This would likely be a well-respected institution, a peer-reviewed journal, or an expert in the field, not a random blog with no citations.
Similarly, AI-generated responses use sources with content that reflects strong experience, proven expertise, and trustworthiness.
If your site consistently demonstrates those qualities, it’s more likely to be selected as a trusted source in AI overviews.
Here are some examples of how you can establish content trustworthiness:
Demonstrate Authority
- Publish Expert-Driven Content: Include insights from industry experts with credentials on your blog posts.
Use bylines and author bios to showcase qualifications.
- Obtain and Showcase Industry Certifications & Awards – Attain and highlight any relevant industry recognized certifications or awards on your website.
For example, if you’re a restaurant owner with a Michelin Star, you’re going to want to make sure your prospective guests know about it.
This helps establish the legitimacy of your brand to Google, LLMs and your users.
- Use Case Studies and Data to Demonstrate Expertise – Don’t just say you’re an expert – show it.
Back up your content with real-world examples, client success stories, and original research.
This not only adds credibility but signals to AI systems and Google that your content demonstrates first-hand experience and proven results.
By including these kinds of insights into your content, you’re not just providing useful information, you’re building trust through evidence. That’s exactly the kind of content AI-driven systems are designed to highlight.
Maintain Content Accuracy and Transparency
- Use Credible Sources – When providing informational content, cite statistics and facts from authoritative sources (e.g., government agencies, academic institutions, industry leaders) to back up your points.
This improves your content’s credibility and signals to both users and AI systems that your site is reliable.
Avoid Clickbait & Misleading Content – AI-driven platforms are designed to prioritize content that is accurate, honest, and transparent.
Overpromising or using sensationalist language without backing it up can hurt your credibility and your visibility in search.
Claims like “Top Expert Tips” might attract clicks, but if the content doesn’t deliver or cite real experts, AI platforms will likely flag it as low-quality or untrustworthy.
The more your content aligns with factual, accurate information, the more AI systems will see it as valuable and dependable.
Encourage User Engagement & Reviews
- Collect and Showcase Reviews – Social proof is a powerful trust signal not just for potential customers, but also for AI systems evaluating the credibility of your site.
Actively seek Google Reviews, Trustpilot ratings, Yelp testimonials, and display them on your website.
Gathering reviews from these platforms and industry-specific directories helps demonstrate your reputation and reliability. Don’t just collect them, highlight them visibly on your website.
In fact, I did a single-variable test on a law firm website that was stuck in rankings for months and the absence of reviews was silently holding them back.
We did a massive focus on Google Reviews, which had a ridiculous effect. This was the only thing we fixed and it did the trick.
- Engage With User-Generated Content – User-generated content (UGC) like comments, reviews, questions, and social media tags present an opportunity to build community, demonstrate responsiveness, and signal your credibility to users and search engines.
Actively engaging with UGC shows that your brand listens, values feedback (regardless of whether it’s positive or negative), and is transparent.
Respond to comments on your blog, answer questions on forums like Reddit or Quora, and thank users who tag you on socials or mention you in their stories.
AI platforms recognize this kind of authentic interaction as a sign of an active, trusted presence.
The Results
When compared year-on-year, monthly AI referral traffic grew by 2300%.
The site is also appearing for 90 keywords within AI overviews, compared to 0 the same time last year.
Likewise, the client ranks for 1,295 keywords within the top 10 positions of Google compared to 808 keywords 12 months ago.
Conclusion
In this case study, I’ve shown you how to:
- Analyze and identify the AI Overviews within your industry.
- Monitor your website’s current AI Overviews rankings and traffic.
- Optimize your website for AI Overviews and AI platforms.
If you’re looking for help with your site’s AI SEO (and SEO), get in touch with my team at The Search Initiative.
Get a Free Website Consultation from The Search Initiative:
