With Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) AI-generated snippets will play a much bigger role in SERPS.
SGE is set to revolutionise search by drastically changing how search results are displayed and accessed. More dynamic and interactive content will become the norm, replacing the static content typically displayed in Google Search results.
In this article, we’ll summarise what Google’s SGE will mean for ecommerce brands and how they can adapt their SEO strategy to these significant changes to the search landscape.
What is AI overviews?
SGE, also known as AI overview, uses AI to present more complete answers and visual content to user’s queries, without users needing to click on related web pages.
It’s a continuation of their attempt to limit the need to click on web pages when performing a Google search that began with rich snippets.
It’s estimated that SGE will replace 97% of featured snippets with more visually appealing easy-to-understand content.
It is expected to be fully rolled out by Q4.
Google’s SGE uses generative AI in search to enable people to:
- Ask questions that are complex and more descriptive than before
- Understand a topic more quickly
- Access more information through relevant results
- Start writing drafts or generate imagery from searches
- Discover additional information quickly by allowing users to ask conversational follow-up questions, offering suggested next steps
Having more complex search queries
When searching Google now, you will get relevant search results for the keywords you enter. These search results will be generated from existing web pages.
But it can be frustrating when the articles or webpages that exist don’t fully answer your question, or there’s no web page that answers your question.
For example, we searched for “how to clean your carpet without chemicals”.
The Google search result is shown above, which is mostly a lot of product listings without further context or helpful instructions.
However, if this search was performed with SGE, drawing from user context, intent and emotions it would provide a more well-rounded answer with step-by-step guidance of how to clean a carpet without chemicals and suggest products or home remedies you’d require.
This would prevent a user needing to click into the SERPs to find the answer they’re looking for.
Answering follow-up questions and
You may have follow-up questions to clarify a point. AI overviews provides follow-on points that it deems as relevant to your search query. AI overviews includes prompts for potential follow-up questions so you don’t need to repeat yourself or change your query.
How will AI overviews impact SEO?
SGE will give users the opportunity to use longer, more specific and more conversational search queries. Users might should be able to make more accurate searches for what they’re looking for.
Here’s an example of SGE in action, which Google has shared in response to the question: “what’s better for a family with kids under 3 and a dog, bryce canyon or arches.”
In the result, you can see an AI-generated result featuring a snapshot of key information to consider, with links to publisher websites below for more information.
As you can see under the AI result there is the option to ‘Ask a follow up’ which will prompt conversations like web users can have with Chat GPT.
As mentioned, SGE will draw content from websites, so optimising website content will become important to ensure your website is considered by SGE.
In terms of a website’s SEO, SGE could reduce the amount of web traffic a website gets, one of the key purposes of SEO. This is because SGE distils a lot of useful information directly in the SERPs – so users who find what they’re looking for via SGE might not feel the need to search further, which includes not clicking your website link. This could lead to decreased web traffic.
However, research by Search Engine Land shows that websites from the top 10 results of SERPs only feature 4.5% of the time in SGE. This means SERP position is not the key factor of being selected for SGE. This opens things up for smaller websites and somewhat democratises search.
However, according to research by Search Engine Land, the result SGE summarises only matches results from the top 10 search results 4.5% of the time.
This means search position is not the primary factor determining whether a website features in SGE, rather the quality of its content is paramount.
This means websites of all sizes can feature, somewhat democratising search.
What impacts will SGE have on ecommerce SEO?
SGE will have positive and negative impacts on SEO. As with all changes to the SERPS, there can be teething problems both from Google as they refine their algorithm and for SEOs as they try to adapt to new requirements.
When it comes to ecommerce SEO there are some positive and negative potential impacts that we can see.
Potential negative impacts
- SGE results will appear above search listings – this may start to take user’s attention away from traditional listings and reduce the number of users that actually travel to and browse websites. Expect a reduction in visibility compared to current search formats
- Competitive shopping results – SGE will show shopping results that will directly pit your products against competitors; a similar format to current shopping ads, increasing ecommerce product competition. Big brands might be favourites for these spots, meaning smaller websites with fewer backlinks may miss out
- Not enough data – SGE data isn’t being tracked at scale yet, so data on how users engage with sites/products may be affected and sitemasters could expect a drop in traffic
- Niche sectors may struggle – ecommerce sites in sectors where keywords aren’t traditionally high-volume may not get well-optimised SGE results
Potential positive impacts
On the other hand, there are some potential positive impacts that SEOs can leverage to boost the visibility of their ecommerce brands:
- More direct access to products – SGE shopping results could provide users even quicker and more accessible path to your products – provided they are shown on the carousel
- Local functionality – SGE will bring local functionality that might promote local sites and businesses to users, which could be beneficial to smaller and locally-focused ecommerce sites.
How ecommerce brands can get ahead on AI overview
Using the existing Shopping Graph, SGE will highlight products that fit user intent. Search results will also include product descriptions with up-to-date reviews, ratings, prices, images and links to products.
The regular product carousel of sponsored ads will feature above the page fold, with AI responses including the details listed above.
To feature in AI-generated responses, ecommerce websites, via SEOs and content teams can get ahead of the curve by optimising their content. It will be important to improve site content to specifically meet EEAT guidelines. EEAT standing for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
Google prioritises EEAT to show the most reliable and trustworthy content for search terms.
SEO experts can ensure their content fits these guidelines by:
- Experience – creating content by people with direct, first-hand experience of a topic. This can be demonstrated by author bios, content that shows behind the scenes detail and referencing direct experiences in content
- Expertise – subject matter expertise can be demonstrated via detailed and accurate content, using subject matter experts and referencing reputable sources
- Authoritativeness – regularly publishing high-quality content builds a brand’s authority in their area, having your content shared by other respected sites helps to show your expertise
- Trustworthiness – transparency of who produces content is key, and how it is produced. Give readers clear contact information so they can get in touch and maintain good ethics when producing all content
It’s also important to ensure the website is watertight when it comes to technical aspects. This will ensure it is easily crawlable by search engine spiders, so that data can be extracted easily and effectively.
Add structured data and schema wherever possible for easier identification and extraction by Google.
SEO ecommerce agency
SGE looks set to make monumental changes to SERPs, especially for ecommerce businesses.
To thrive in this brave new world, it is important to get ahead early on SGE.
To adjust quickly, get ahead of your competitors and make some quick strides in terms of visibility in your sector, turn to an SEO Ecommerce Agency like Polaris to help you achieve your goals. Polaris’ SGE SEO experts will devise the right strategies for your specific business and help you get ahead in SGE.
