How to rank in AI overviews in 6 steps | Ahrefs Tutorials

Google's AI overviews have changed the SEO game forever. And while these AI generated summaries have mostly received bad press, they also present an opportunity for brands to get more traffic, more visibility, and more business. So, in this video, I'll talk about what are AI overviews, how do they affect SEO, and how to rank for them based on our 300,000 keyword study on what exactly triggers AI overviews. Skip to this part for the step-by-step process which also covers our new tool brand radar. Okay, so let's dive in now. AI overviews short for AIO are AI generated summaries based on the existing content that ranks for a given quiry. They show up at the top of search results featuring the links used to generate the summary and a separate panel for additional sources. Their purpose to surface information in a faster and easier way so readers don't have to scroll or click through a dozen search results to arrive at the information they're looking for. So, how do AI overviews affect SEO? In a way, they're similar to featured snippets. By directly answering a question or quiry, they promote zeroclick content, stealing actual clicks from your website. But don't worry, their prevalence in search results is not that high. For example, if we look at HR's database of 2.2 billion keywords for the US alone, only 17 million keywords are ranking in SERs for AI overviews. And out of this 2.2 billion keywords, only 156 million have SER features. That's approximately 11.7% at the time of recording this video. You can convince yourself of the overall share of AI or reviews in your country, too. Just go to keywords explorer, choose your country, click on explore entire database and under the SER features filter, select AI overviews, then divide that by the SER database present on H atre big data page. Simple, right? Coming back, AI overviews are not just bad news. In fact, they present opportunities for low ranking pages to get to the top results. Unlike feature snippets, which pull an excerpt from the top 10 search results based on your own findings, a new study has shown that 40% of AIO sources rank beyond the top 10 in positions 11 to 20. And to drive the point home, AI overviews can also drive more qualified traffic to your own website. Since these summaries provide users with a highle understanding of the topic, those who click through are more likely to be engaged and further down the buying funnel, making them more valuable visitors. All right, now that we know what AI overviews are and how they affect SEO, here's how to rank in AI overviews in just six steps based on our 300,000 keyword study. In short, we analyze 150,000 of the most searched keywords that generate an AI overview versus 150,000 of the most searched keywords without an AI overview. Here's what we found. Step one, target longtail keywords. AI overviews mostly appear for longtail keywords which contain four words on median average versus two for standard searches. And it makes sense for AIO keywords to be more discursive since AI overviews are designed to answer user questions. To find such keywords, start from a seed keyword like Ompic and expand it using the matching terms report. Since we're looking for questions, it makes sense to search after question related keyword modifiers like how, when, who, how, and so on. Don't worry, we've automated this for you. Just click on presets and select questions to add them by default. Then click on AI overviews under the SER features filter. Finally, click on word count and set it to four words. Hit show results and we've zeroed in on 100 plus longtail ompic related keywords with decent growth over the past 12 months that trigger AI overviews. Step two, target keywords with a low keyword difficulty. Based on our data, 71% of AIO keywords have a keyword difficulty score below 30 with the median average being 12 compared to 33 for nonAI results. Let's look at a keyword, can dogs have cinnamon. For those interested, the answer is yes. It has a median keyword difficulty of 12. This means that on average, you'd need 13 unique referring domains to rank for AI overviews versus 41 for nonAI keywords. Translation, you need fewer backlinks to rank for AIO keywords. To put this knowledge to good use, let's uncover your competitor's lowhanging fruit keywords. Search after their domain in HS site explorer and head to the organic keywords report. Switch on the AI overview serve feature where target ranks and apply a maximum keyword difficulty filter of say 30. How to clean suede shoes looks like a promising keyword. And if you do a manual search, Nike seems to indeed hit the nail on the head. Step three, matchformational search intent. At the time of compiling this study, 99.2% of the AIO keywords were informational. This is a direct hint that AI overviews are generated when users are looking for details, explanations, or guidance as opposed to making direct purchases. Commercial and transactional keywords are harder to come by, making up less than 10% of all AIO SERs analyzed, but this might change when ads are present. To find additional AIO keywords, enter a broad keyword in keywords explorer. Go to the matching terms report and switch to the AI overviews SER filter. Only this time, set the intent filter toformational. And to narrow down the list even more, I'm going to exclude branded and local intents too. And voila, natural ompic alternatives is quiteformational in nature to tackle, yet also entails a commercial intent. So you can kill two birds with one stone. Step four, optimize for featured snippets and people also ask features. 18 SER features analyzed later and we found out that AI or views trigger three SER features on average. The winners people also ask featured snippets and thumbnails. People also ask question boxes make sense due to the AI overviews nature to answer questions. But feature snippets, aren't they overviews supposed to replace them? Well, think again. This feature appears in over half of all the queries in the data set and is closely tied to the AIO SER. The key difference, feature snippets tend to prioritize exact match phrasing, whereas AI overviews are more search intendriven. Here's some proof. Now to optimize for those two winning SER features, let's turn back to our matching terms report in keywords explorer for the keyword ompic only this time switch to questions. And from the SER features dropdown, select feature snippet, AI overviews, and people also ask. And we've got 9,000 plus keywords that trigger feature snippets and people also ask features in addition to AI overviews. For further advice on how to optimize feature snippets, check out our article link in the description below. Step five, improve your brand's presence. AI overviews don't just pull data from your website. They pull it from all over the web, which means your brand could be mentioned by websites you're not even aware of. This is a valuable search opportunity that you could claim. For example, if you search for best project management software, AI overviews will pull information from a variety of sources, not just asana.com. In fact, none of the info is even pulled from asana.com. The takeaway, the more visibility you have, the greater your chances of increasing your AI overview ownership. To actively monitor your brand presence in AI overviews, use HREF's new tool, Brand Radar. Here's how. After choosing the country, click on filter data set. In the first filter, define the scope. Let's say running shoes. And in the second filter, search for brand mentions to search within that scope. I'll go with Nike. Then click on suggest more to autopop populate with brands in the same category. Now, I could change both drop-own filters to only references found in AI overviews, but we're trying to monitor our brand presence beyond AIO SERs. So, I'll keep keyword or AIO. Hit explore and you'll get an interactive chart that shows your brand's AI search visibility against competitors. Here, market scope defines all the results fitting your criteria, while competitive scope refers to a subset of it where we show you results that mention at least one of your brands. Based on those two, you can understand the real market share in parallel with the competitive share. Nike is clearly dominating in both categories, but if we take a closer look at the competitive share, it looks like Brooks is trending when it comes to running shoe topics and gaining more terrain. Scrolling down, you'll also get key AI topics you're being mentioned in and also what other websites say about your brand. Step six, find AI visibility gaps and fill them. An AI visibility gap is when one of your competitors ranks for an AI overview, but you don't. To find one and hopefully several more, I'll open brand radar and I'll go for a broad category and some competitors, just like we did in the previous running shoes example. Only this time, I'll scroll down to the results table and look for AI overviews that do not contain the brand Nike, but do contain the brands Adidas, AS6, Brooks, and Hawa. And we found up over 300 keywords that trigger AI overviews where Nike is not mentioned. What's left is to one, study the context of these AI mentions and create content that's targeting those gaps, or two, reach out to these AI citations that haven't mention your brand yet in the hopes of covering it. To find more use cases like this, check out our dedicated brand radar landing page. And that's how to rank in AI or views in just six steps and reach millions of users worldwide based on the research we've conducted. Now, bear in mind this was fairly a broad test, so results will vary from industry to industry, not to mention the everchanging nature of AI overviews. So, I encourage you to use HF's keywords explorer and brand radar to conduct your own research. I hope this was useful. See you in the next video.