AI Overviews are now a core part of how Google Search works since launching in Australia late last year, and they’re transforming both how users find information and how businesses get discovered. What began as an experimental feature has become a permanent fixture in the search experience. For many queries, Google’s AI now summarises answers before a user even sees traditional organic links.

This has major implications for how your website is seen and clicked on.

At Arcadian Digital, we help our clients stay visible in a constantly evolving search environment, ensuring their businesses continue to be discovered, trusted, and chosen in 2025.

What Are AI Overviews and How Do They Affect Search Marketing?

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that Google places at the top of some search results. These summaries are designed to answer a user’s question quickly, often reducing the need to click through to a website. They pull content from multiple sources across the web and are heavily influenced by clarity, structure, and trustworthiness.

This changes both:

• How organic SEO works, and
  
• Where and how users engage with your content
  

While SEO remains critical, the way we optimise has shifted. It’s no longer just about rankings. It’s about relevance and authority, two things that Google’s AI leans on heavily when choosing what content to feature.

Why Is My Website Getting Less Traffic From Google?

If your organic traffic has dropped, AI Overviews could be part of the reason. As Google continues to answer more queries directly on the results page, users may find what they need without ever clicking through to a website. This is especially common for simple or factual searches, where the AI-generated summary provides a fast, convenient answer.

But this shift isn’t all downside. In fact, it’s helping to filter out less engaged users, the ones who might click but never convert. The people who do click through are usually further along in their decision-making process. They’re not just gathering information; they’re evaluating options, comparing providers, and looking for a partner they can trust. That’s a very different kind of audience.

This is where the real opportunity lies. By focusing on visibility for high-intent queries and creating content that speaks directly to decision-stage users, businesses can attract more qualified leads, not just more traffic. These are the users who are ready to engage, enquire or buy, and your content needs to meet them there.

AI Overviews Are Changing the Whole Search Landscape, Not Just SEO

While most of the conversation around AI Overviews has focused on organic content, it’s important to know that Google is also testing paid placements within these summaries. In some cases, ads now appear directly in or beneath AI-generated results, particularly for product and service-related searches.

This development makes one thing clear: Google is blurring the lines between paid and organic visibility, and both need to be part of your broader strategy. Even if you’re not running ads today, it’s worth being aware that your competitors might be showing up in AI Overviews through Google Ads, not just SEO.

It’s important to keep a close eye on both organic and paid trends in order to stay visible wherever search behaviour goes next.

How Do You Optimise for Google’s AI Overview Results?

To optimise for AI Overviews, focus on creating original, people-first content that directly answers user questions, delivers a smooth on-page experience, and is technically accessible to Google. Unlike traditional SEO tactics that prioritised keyword placement and page ranking alone, visibility in AI Overviews depends on how helpful, trustworthy and usable your content is, especially as users ask longer, more complex queries.

At Arcadian Digital, we help clients align with this shift by focusing on five key areas that Google has confirmed play a role in how AI-powered search displays results:

Create Unique, Valuable Content That Serves Real User Intent

Google has been clear: generic, repetitive content won’t be featured in AI Overviews. What gets surfaced is content that directly answers specific questions, offers original insights, and delivers genuine value to readers.

As users ask more complex, multi-part questions and follow up with deeper queries, your content needs to go beyond surface-level advice. It should be written by people who know the subject, structured around real customer problems, and backed by examples, data or case studies wherever possible.

Deliver a Fast, Clear, Mobile-Friendly Experience

Strong content can be let down by a poor experience. If your site is slow, cluttered, or confusing, both Google and your users will move on. AI-powered search doesn’t just look at what is on the page, it also evaluates how well it’s delivered.

Make sure your site:

• Loads quickly on all devices
  
• Has a clean, focused layout with minimal distractions
  
• Makes the main content easy to find and read
  
• Clearly distinguishes content from navigation, ads or sidebars
  

We audit and optimise page user experience to remove friction, improve speed, and keep visitors engaged longer.

Meet Technical Requirements for Crawlability and Indexing

Behind the scenes, your content needs to be easy for Google to access, crawl, and index. This applies to all search formats, including AI Overviews.

Key technical factors include:

• Ensuring your pages return the correct HTTP status codes (e.g. 200 OK)
  
• Avoiding accidental noindex tags or robots.txt blocks
  
• Structuring content semantically (headings, paragraphs, alt text)
  
• Using canonical tags and internal links correctly
  

Structured data also plays a key role here. It helps Google interpret your content and associate it with specific features, but it must match what users actually see on the page.

We ensure every page we build meets technical standards, so your content is eligible to appear in every relevant format – AI or traditional.

Support Your Content With High-Quality Visuals and Accurate Business Info

Google is increasingly surfacing visual content alongside text, especially in multimodal search experiences. This includes results where users upload images, ask follow-up questions, or explore a topic visually through links and cards.

To stand out in this space, your content should be enriched with:

• Relevant images and video
  
• Descriptive file names and alt text
  
• Updated business listings (Google Business Profile, Merchant Centre)
  
• Visual content that supports what the text is saying, not just filler

Track Engagement, Not Just Traffic

One of the most important insights from Google is that visits from AI Overviews tend to be higher quality. Users often spend more time on the site, engage more deeply, and convert at a higher rate. But if you’re only measuring traffic volume or ranking reports, you might miss this entirely.

Instead, track indicators that show how valuable the visit really was:

• Lead submissions or enquiry forms
  
• Purchases or bookings
  
• Scroll depth and on-page time
  
• Repeat visits or branded searches
  
• Goal completions across key conversion pages

How to Future-Proof Your SEO and Content Strategy for 2025

AI Overviews aren’t a temporary change; they’re part of a larger shift in how people search, how Google responds, and how businesses show up online.

To stay visible in this new environment, we recommend:

• Reviewing and refining your most valuable content for clarity and usefulness
  
• Grouping content into topics, not just isolated pages
  
• Considering how ads and content work together to build trust and visibility
  
• Making technical improvements that support performance and readability
  

At Arcadian Digital, we combine strategy, design and development to ensure your site performs, even when the rules keep changing.

Ready to Capture Smarter Traffic?

Whether you’re seeing drops in traffic, planning ahead for 2025, or simply want to stay competitive as AI reshapes search, we’re here to help.

At Arcadian Digital, we create future-focused digital strategies that help businesses like yours get found and chosen.

Let’s make your website work harder and smarter.