Navigating AI’s Impact on Google Search and Ads
Written by Denham Thompson
AI’s Impact On SEO
For years, a strong SEO strategy has been the foundation for driving organic traffic to your website, and that remains unchanged and will continue to be paramount for years to come. But like all aspects of marketing, updates and innovations have occurred with Google, now introducing AI Overview, so it may be time to re-examine your digital strategy.
Enter AI, the ultimate buzzword you’ve likely heard countless times this week. Its evolution is central to innovation, and Google is no exception. In the past year alone, AI Overviews within Google Search have experienced significant growth, reaching over 1.5 billion monthly users across 200 countries. This isn’t just a trend; it’s a fundamental shift in how people find information online.
What Is AI Overview?
That’s where AI Overviews step in, providing a direct answer that links to the source page. This means it’s no longer just about including keywords on your website; it’s vital to answer the questions real people are asking directly.
So, what does your brand need to do to make the most of these AI updates and get your website featured in AI Overviews? Google is actively promoting several strategies to help brands adapt to these changes. We’ve simplified these strategies for businesses to understand and incorporate them into their upcoming plans. So let’s dive into what you can do.
1: Content is still Key…
As we’ve discussed, AI Overviews use a conversational tone, which is changing how people search. Users now expect direct answers to their questions. Which means your website content can no longer rely solely on keywords. Instead, your strategy should focus on anticipating your audience’s questions and providing direct answers to them.
Focus on creating content that addresses your audience’s specific needs and issues. This content needs to be structured in a way that AI can easily understand, making it simple for Google to cite your website when answering a question. And, as always, ensuring your pages offer a top-level user experience remains vital.
TIP: FAQ sections are an excellent, natural way to integrate common questions and their answers directly into your website, making it easier for AI to find and cite your valuable information. When developing or updating our clients’ websites, we always suggest this approach.
2: Rethink Your Ads: Beyond The Placement
Paid advertising is also evolving dramatically. With Search and Shopping ads now appearing directly within AI Overviews, this isn’t just a minor update; it’s a massive shift in how your ads can connect with potential customers.
So, how do we leverage this? These ads aren’t just appearing randomly. They’re showing up at higher-intent moments, meaning when people are genuinely looking to buy or learn more. This isn’t just about getting your brand seen; it’s about getting your brand seen at the perfect moment.
Think of it this way: AI is now helping your ads reach people in ways no human could ever predict. It’s all about more intelligent targeting, ensuring your message reaches the right person at the right time and in the right place.
Tip: Ensure you have an up-to-date ad strategy. Your ad strategy is crucial for two key reasons: it helps your ads be viewed in the AI overview, and it ensures your time and money aren’t wasted. We can help you navigate this new landscape, ensuring you spend the proper budget on the right platform with the right messaging. At We Do Marketing, we create effective ad strategies by analysing your target audience, competitors, and goals, helping your information work in harmony with AI to get you the results you need.
3: The Power of AI Max and Smarter Targeting
As we’ve seen, AI Overviews are already shifting the advertising landscape. Now, Google offers another powerful AI-driven tool to ensure your ads reach the right audience: AI Max.
AI Max is designed to step up your search campaigns by using advanced AI to:
Expand Your Reach: It uses broad match and keywordless targeting to capture a wider range of high-intent searches, including those appearing in AI Overviews, that traditional keywords might miss.
Enhance Creative: It utilises Automatically Created Assets (ACA) to generate dynamic, relevant ad copy that adapts to user intent in real-time.
Boost Performance: It interprets real-time signals (including from AI Overviews) to match your ads with the most promising searches.
Understanding the why behind a user’s intent to buy has never been more important. Which is why AI Max uses different AI models, such as the generative engine Gemini, to truly comprehend user behaviour. It analyses context, meaning, and the genuine intent behind a search. For example, if someone specifically searches for “marathon trainers,” AI Max can direct them straight to the exact marathon trainer product page, even if your initial ad was for trainers in general.
Tip: Allocate budget for testing! Trial different approaches, analyse the outcomes, learn from your results, and continue to test for optimal performance. This is something we recommend to all our clients, as it’s crucial to see what really works!
Create At Scale: The Benefit Of AI-Powered Content Creation
In today’s digital world, keeping up with the demand for fresh and engaging ads is a significant challenge. So Google has a solution for this.
They’re now embedding their powerful generative AI tools directly into Google Ads and Merchant Centre. These aren’t just any AI tools. Advanced models power them:
- Imagen: For cranking out stunning, high-quality images.
- Veo: For transforming simple text prompts into compelling video and audio.
What does this mean for you? Your team can now quickly produce brand-safe, highly relevant, and campaign-ready assets on a large scale. Say goodbye to content stoppages and scrambling for fresh material. Google’s AI is designed to help you create more, faster, and better, ensuring your ads always stand out and resonate with your audience.
Tip: Give it a try! When it comes to new updates (especially involving AI, we know many people can be cautious with how much they trust it), however, what’s the harm in trying? See what images you can generate using it. You do not have to use all of them, but this tool can help save your team a lot of time, so why not test it out?
The Evolving word of marketing
The marketing world is constantly evolving, with both big and small changes. Although these changes are just coming into effect, we can already start to see a significant shift in how you manage your SEO and Google Ads moving forward. Which is why it is always essential to revisit your strategy; we recommend doing so at least once every quarter. As your end goal may always remain the same, it’s about how to tweak the journey to getting there to ensure we do it as effectively and efficiently as possible for our clients.
Are you stuck in the past with your SEO and Google Ads strategy?
For help evolving your strategy, book a consultation today:
