If you care at all about SEO (and every business and marketing leader should), then you’re already aware that Google has been making some big changes incorporating AI into the search experience. Organic traffic is suffering, and everyone’s flustered about the new AI overviews and their alarming (to marketers at least) tendency to feature user-generated content instead of company webpages.
Here’s the thing. Google wants to highlight authoritative, trustworthy information based on real experience and expertise that helps users answer their questions. There’s already a playbook for that — thought leadership content!
Read on to learn how a little tweaking can turn your existing thought-leadership playbook into a recipe for SEO content that rises to the challenge of Google’s latest updates.
The evolution of Google's search algorithm
Over the years, Google has continuously refined its search algorithm to improve user experience and deliver more relevant results. From the introduction of Panda and Penguin updates, targeting low-quality content and spammy links, to the more recent BERT and Core Web Vitals updates, Google's stated goal has been to enhance the quality of search results — often at the cost of organic traffic to company URLs. The latest changes, focusing on AI overviews and the emphasis on helpfulness and authoritativeness, represent a significant step in this ongoing evolution. (Even if Google's AI occasionally recommends that you add glue to your pizza and eat a few rocks here and there.)
What are AI overviews?
AI overviews are snippets of information generated by Google's AI algorithms that provide users with immediate answers to their queries. These overviews appear at the top of the search results page and take up a large amount of real estate.
AI overviews provide a short explanation within the search results page, but they also link out to the sources that explanation was sourced from. The motivation to follow these links isn’t a strong as in a traditional search result, but users will still need to click through to get more complete information or to verify the accuracy of the AI overview (as in, maybe instead of just eating a rock, I should read further to see if that might actually be an incredibly bad idea).
The short version is that Google claims their AI overviews have higher click through rates than regular results (I’ll wait for the data on that one), but this new feature is challenging to gain access to as a content marketer. Hint: there are some tips for making it happen below.
The new rules of the SEO game
The very AI that makes Google's AI overviews possible is also responsible for the flood of AI-generated nonsense that’s eroding the content landscape. There’s a good dollop of irony in an AI algorithm penalizing content that is AI generated, but there’s also a good reason Google set it up that way.
LLMs, or large language models, which are at the heart of many current generative AI tools, have a tendency to hallucinate, aka lie. Because of that, AI generated content just isn’t trustworthy (again, remember the rock eating). It’s even less trustworthy if you don’t feed the AI good source material. So, in an effort to prevent its AI from giving bad answers, Google is privileging overview sources that it finds to be authoritative and helpful.
How to win in the new SEO system
Traditional SEO efforts often focus on keyword optimization, link building, and other technical aspects. These will continue to be important, but content strategist are going to have start thinking harder about additional content factors as well:
1. Author authority
2. Originality
3. Depth
Wait, those look pretty familiar … oh yes, they’re the same factors content creators have always focused on when it comes to thought leadership!
Understanding this emerging overlap is a boon for content marketers because it not only lets you win at the new Google game, it gives you an opportunity to cross-leverage the same content to both build authority within your industry and increase your organic traffic.
Let’s take a closer look at the three factors above.
Author authority
Google has always cared about what your content says, but now it cares even more about who wrote it. That means it’s not enough to have great content, you have to prove that the person who wrote it (and I do mean person, not AI) is an expert with relevant experience who can be trusted. Here’s how you can make sure your content authors make the cut.
Build leadership social profiles that wow: You need to show the algorithm that your content authors aren’t just experts in their own minds, but are professionals known and respected in their industry. A great first step toward that is polishing up their social media profiles. Make sure that every leader in your company that will have content bylines has at minimum a robust LinkedIn profile that highlights their expertise, experience, and achievements. Then, encourage your authors to interact from that page — commenting, following relevant accounts, and sharing industry news to build their reputations.
Speak at industry events: Social media is great. The real world is better. Make sure everyone bylining content at your company attends industry conferences, facilitates webinars, and sits on panels as often as possible. Then, boost their signal by sharing recordings or summaries of these events on both the company website and their individual social media profiles to further bolster their credibility. The more often your authors are featured at real-world events as a voice of authority, the more likely Google is to see them as experts as well.
Write for respected industry publications: Showing up in well-respected industry publications is a great way to establish authority — and get some earned traffic to your website to boot. Compile a list of top-tier websites, magazines, and journals within your industry and then communicate with editorial staff to see if you can place an op-ed from any of your content authors. These contributions not only enhance your authors' authority but also provide valuable backlinks to your site — a SEO win-win.
Create detailed bio pages: Now that we’ve talked about the external ways to develop your authors’ authority. Let’s talk about what you can do on your company’s webpage. You’ll want to develop comprehensive bio pages for each company author on your website. These pages should detail each author’s professional background, their top achievements, awards, and other contributions to the industry. Include links to their individual social media profiles, past speaking engagements, articles, and any other history that backs up their identity as an industry expert.
If you’re thinking that all these strategies are straight out of the typical thought-leadership playbook, you’re 100 percent right. And, if you’re thinking, “Hey, I already do a lot of this!” then even better! It means you’ve got a leg up in the new SEO system.
Originality
Originality is all about providing fresh insights that stand out from the sea of repetitive (and too-often, now, AI generated) content online.
Use AI as a content tool, not a copywriter: I used AI as part of my process to write this blog. But I didn’t give ChatGPT a title, set it loose, and then hit publish! Your readers will know if you do that, and the Google algorithm most certainly will know too (and drop you down down down in the rankings). While AI tools can be incredibly useful for brainstorming, outlining, and even drafting some sections of a blog, they just can’t replace human nuance and expertise. And, they’re (yes, this is oversimplified) basically language probability machines. They’re inherently unoriginal. Use AI, absolutely! But make sure a human has — at absolute least — heavily edited any AI generated copy and that the heart of your content is written by expert human authors.
Assess existing content: There’s a whole wide world of content out there. You need to know what’s in it before you start creating new content. Find out what’s already been written about your chosen topic. Identify gaps and choose aspects of the topic (and perspectives on those aspects) that haven’t been written about widely yet. Leverage the specific expertise of your authors to drive original ideas and the content built on them.
Get a little personal: Your authors shouldn’t be afraid to share their personal anecdotes. Their accounts of the successes and challenges they’ve experienced immediately flag them as human, not AI, for Google. And, they’ll engage your human readers more effectively as well. Plus, the kind of expertise that’s illustrated through personal storytelling isn’t easy to fake. It’s just one more way you can highlight your content authors as true experts in their field, worthy of being sourced for an AI overview.
Depth
Surface level overviews just won’t cut it in the new SEO world. Depth is where it’s at!
Cater to AI overview’s strengths: Ask Google which fast food joint has the best hamburger and you’re not going to get an AI overview. Ask it what the main systems of governance in the world are, and you will get a very long AI overview. You’ll want to think about creating content that’s focused on complex, long-tail, informational-intent keywords deep enough to warrant being sourced for an AI overview. Those questions will likely be answered up top, so if you’re not in that overview, your search result is going to be bumped down. You want to be in that overview!
Get the originality bonus: Odds are if you dig deep enough into a topic, you’re going to also hit some original material. Because of this, long-form content that gets into the weeds can often win on both the expertise and the originality fronts. As you’re outlining long content, make sure you’re keeping an eye on other existing content so you can mine in novel directions.
Demonstrate expertise: The deeper and more specific your content, the more it proves your author’s expertise. Explain things thoroughly and in language that the average person can understand. The trick is to get into the details without getting into the jargon. Keep it accessible, but also knowledgeable.
And, I’ll say it one more time, developing in-depth content doesn’t just satisfy Google’s new asks, it’s what you should be doing already to boost your company as a thought leader in its industry!
Game time! Start leveraging thought leadership for SEO success
Google's latest changes are a big shift, and they'll require you to rework your SEO content to stay on top. But it’s not all bad: by focusing on author authority, originality, and depth, you're not only aligning with Google's new standards but also reinforcing your content strategy with tried-and-true thought leadership principles.
Ready to get ahead of the game? Sign up for a free content assessment to see where you stand with the new Google ranking algorithms and get practical tips and strategic guidance to optimize your content and make sure you’re hitting all the right notes.