Should You Change Your SEO Strategy for AI Search Results?

You should be evolving your strategy to ensure visibility in both traditional search results and AI responses.

What’s changing?

AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews provide users with direct responses to their queries without the need for clicking through to a website and scrolling for the answers. 

This is known as zero-click and as a result has caused lots of businesses a decline in referral traffic, even though they’re appearing in search results.

Some new optimisation approaches for AI:

Focus on optimising content so that AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity can easily refer to it. 
Structuring content now more than ever is super important, including FAQs with question-and-answer formats—to ensure it can appear in AI-generated answers.
AIO is an approach that applies artificial intelligence models to systematically improve the performance of digital marketing campaigns.

Publishers are turning away from relying only on search-driven traffic. With AI producing content in response to users' queries before they click, you now need to explore new ways to engage your audience directly. This can be done through newsletters, subscriptions, or exclusive content.

SEO strategies that should stay:

• Don’t step away from basic SEO principles. You don’t need separate AI SEO, good high-quality content still works.
• E-E-A-T, as always, stays super important. This is Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, and helps content stand out in traditional search and AI search.
• Basic Technical SEO - like page speed, SSL, mobile responsiveness, and crawlability - these are still critical. 

SEO strategies that you should change:

Structure content for AI extraction
Use clear headings (H2, H3), short paragraphs, and bullet points to make information easier for AI to analyse.

Concise, Clear, and Direct
Answer questions in a brief and clearly expressed manner.

Use schema markup
Implement schema types like FAQPage, HowTo, Article, Product - to signal structure and relevance to AI systems.

Focus on conversational, question-oriented content
Design content in Q&A style, copying natural language and voice queries, as this will help with searches on Alexa, Google Home, and other voice assistants, which are becoming increasingly popular.

Build topical authority via content hubs
Pillar pages provide a high-level overview of a broad topic and act as the central hub for lots of related content that goes into more detail on the subtopics. Linking together all the content on a particular subject, these pillar pages organise the website's information and help improve user navigation.

Allow AI crawlers access
Ensure that bots like GPTBot and Google’s AI crawlers are permitted to index your content.

Update content regularly
AI systems prefer fresh, up-to-date information - regularly refreshing content shows them relevance.

Expand beyond traditional search channels
Optimise your presence across Bing, voice assistants, social platforms, and AI-specific discovery tools.

Author Bio

Phoebe Hooper - Digital Marketing Executive & Account Manager at Total Guide To

Phoebe Hooper is the Digital Marketing Executive & Account Manager at Total Guide to Ltd, bringing over six years of experience in digital marketing. She began her journey with the company as a digital marketing apprentice, achieving a distinction in her qualification before progressing to Digital Marketing Administrator and ultimately stepping into her current role.

Now, Phoebe manages the Total Guide to content, oversees both external and Total Guide to SEO strategies, and serves as the account manager across all seven sites. With a passion for content marketing, search engine optimisation, and client success, she plays a key role in helping businesses maximise their online presence and achieve their digital goals.