Google’s AI Overview in Search Results: Should Small Businesses be Worried?

If there is one thing small business owners know about Google, it’s that as soon as they think they have something figured out, Google will change it. It’s no surprise that the latest change to Google, and many other internet services, is all about AI. 

An AI overview is now what populates the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) on Google when users ask a question or go looking for information. Users can also specifically choose the AI Mode setting in order to get a more detailed answer instead of a list of web page results.

For small business owners, this change can be very intimidating, or even demoralizing. After all, if people are using the AI overview rather than scrolling through search results, what is the point of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Does your website stand a chance of being found by your ideal client?

The answer is that SEO is still highly valuable, and AI might even make your website easier for your ideal client to find. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore Google’s shift to AI overview. What it does mean is that you should adapt to this change by integrating the reality of Google’s AI into your overall marketing strategy.

Diversified Marketing Tactics Prevent Big Traffic Setbacks

Everyone is experiencing fluctuation in their SEO efforts due to the disruption of AI’s prominence on search pages. It’s not just your business page that has dropped in rank. Your local competitors, and even all the biggest brands, are also seeing drops in organic search traffic. While this is frustrating, it’s helpful to understand that you aren’t facing this alone. 

If SEO were the only marketing tactic you use, your business could be in trouble due to this setback. Fortunately, very few businesses rely on SEO alone. Hopefully, this setback can be offset by the other marketing activities you pair with it. 

For example, blogs are a common way to enhance your website’s rank in search results. When you publish a new blog, your website gains keywords and search phrases that are intended to make you more visible to your target audience. But is that the only marketing activity you use for that blog? I certainly hope not! 

Blogs are a multi-purpose marketing tool. Once it’s published, you should:

• Tell your social media followers about it

• Make reels or social posts that cover the highlights

• Include it in your email marketing campaign

• Talk about it at your in-person networking events 

That blog is valuable marketing content on channels that have nothing to do with Google.

This diversity does not just apply to blogs. If you have recently updated your services, improved a webpage, given a presentation in your area of expertise, or been featured in some public way, you can leverage all the same marketing tactics (and others) to elevate your visibility. Your overall marketing plan can remain strong while we wait for this AI search rankings dip to bounce back. And it definitely will bounce back.

Continue Optimizing for Google AI

Google’s implementation of AI in search results is not a detour from its overall goal to continue as the top search engine. Google cares about the user experience because that’s how the company earns money. The majority of Google’s revenue comes from ads. In order to remain the top search engine where companies are willing to spend money on advertising, Google search has to genuinely help users find what they are looking for.

If the AI overview tool keeps users from ever leaving the service in order to visit a website, website owners would stop trying to attract traffic. As a result, they would stop running ads. Google doesn’t want that, so sending users to websites still matters! AI is still searching the exact same Internet; it’s just compiling and presenting search results in a new format.

What’s interesting is that the AI overview might offer users more in-depth answers and information than they previously found just by looking at the list of websites in a standard SERP. When answering user questions, AI can deliver content from webpages and blogs that normally wouldn’t reach the first page rankings. If those pages are most in tune with the user’s intent, they will appear in the output. The AI tool provides links to its sources, allowing users to spend fewer clicks finding the website that actually serves their need.

This is a giant opportunity for small business owners to gain visibility. With regularly produced, high-quality content that is formatted and created with your ideal client in mind, AI is more likely to help them discover your site. AI prompts users to keep getting more detailed and specific with their questions or needs. If you have done the foundational work of building your persona and messaging, as well as some SEO homework, then your site should contain the language your best potential client is using. The more they converse with AI, the more they will see your website referenced and suggested.

Optimizing for AI isn’t all that different from optimizing for search. Create content that informs, matches user expectations, and builds trust, and the AI crawlers will help you reach your audience.

AI is Simply One More Aspect of the Buyer Journey

Marketing strategies alway need to adapt to the buyer journey. Innovation is constant, and every small business owner has made countless tweaks to remain relevant in a changing world. AI is not the first new element to the buyer journey, and it won’t be the last. 

While the changes might feel overwhelming at first, they are always manageable. Right now, the chief complaint from small businesses is that users will just get the answer they want from the AI overview and never move beyond that layer. 

Think about that for a moment, though. Isn’t that actually a good thing?

If someone wants a quick answer, they probably aren’t looking for your service!

They aren’t a qualified prospect at this point in their journey. Once they begin looking in earnest, they will dig deeper through AI and other means. That’s when you can be positioned to attract better leads who are more likely to become clients. 

If you’re a small, service-based business owner, and you’re wondering whether or not you should be frantically worried about the impact of AI on your searchability, the answer is no. If you have a diversified marketing strategy that allows you to keep reaching your audience, you’re already doing the right things. If you have been relying on SEO alone, then you should have been worried long before AI.

Like many small businesses, you might be somewhere in the middle. If that’s the case, we should chat!

Marketing to Mission is a strategy-first agency that helps service-based businesses focus on the marketing activities that help them attract and serve their ideal clients.