Google Search Generative Experience, or SGE, is now widely available in Google Labs. Now is the perfect time to figure out how to optimize for SGE so that you’re there when people start searching.

Note: Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) is now known as AI Overview.

For a detailed explanation of how Google’s SGE works and its implications for SEO, you can refer to my article How Google’s AI Overview Works for SEO.

For this article, I will walk you through how to optimize for SGE to see what you can learn. I hope to provide you with a framework to analyze the SGE summary and develop optimization strategies to test for your content. Keep in mind that there are several SGE formats depending on your query. Be sure to take that into account in your reverse engineering.

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Anatomy of Google’s Search Generative Experience

The SGE can take a variety of forms. Depending on your query, you might see text, images, specific products, maps, locations, and more in various configurations. Let’s look at an example below.

The first thing you will want to do is take a screenshot of the SGE summary for reference. The summaries will vary with successive searches and across users. Here’s an SGE summary for the query “artificial intelligence”:

This SGE summary provides a structured textual response with a primary image, headings, text, and bullets on the left.

Linked sources for the summary are shown on the right.

For each section, you will see an arrow, that when selected, shows the specific source cited for that section.

At the bottom of the SGE summary, you will see additional follow up questions you can click on for more information. There is also a text box where you can ask your own follow up question.

Analyzing Text in Search Generative Experience (SGE)

Clear and Concise Definition

Let’s start with the text. The first thing you’ll notice is that the snapshot starts with a clear and concise definition of “artificial intelligence” that is highlighted in blue:

This ensures that the searchers query is answered immediately and provides a quick introduction for users.

We can take away from this that when optimizing your content, you should provide a concise, easy to understand definition of the query. This should be placed at the beginning of your content for easy access. Also, place the definition under a header. In this example, an H2 could be “What is artificial intelligence?”

Usage of Examples

The SGE summary includes practical examples of AI in everyday life, such as virtual assistants, personalized content recommendations, fraud detection systems, and navigation apps.

Consider including practical applications and specific examples related to your targeted keyword to increase chances of being included in an SGE summasry.

Related Concepts

This helps users understand the real-world applications of the topic. When creating content, consider including relevant and relatable examples to engage your audience.

The SGE summary lists related concepts like machine learning, deep learning, generative AI, and neural networks. This can be useful for users who want to explore the topic further.

When optimizing your content, consider including a section or subsection that covers related concepts, providing a more comprehensive resource for your audience.

Structured Content

The SGE summary is well-structured with headings clearly defining each section.

Structuring your content with related headings and subheadings not only improves readability but also helps search engines understand the hierarchy of information on your page.

Keywords and Phrases

Pay attention to the keywords and phrases used in the SGE summary, such as “artificial intelligence,” “machine learning,” and “AI.”

Incorporate relevant keywords naturally into your content to improve its visibility in search results.

Quality Content

The SGE summary provides valuable and informative content about artificial intelligence. When optimizing your content, focus on providing high-quality, accurate, and up-to-date information to establish authority in your field.

Insight into Google’s SGE Cited Sources

For this query, the SGE summary cited 6 total sources. Some of the sources link to specific text referenced on the page. I recommend creating a spreadsheet with the URLs, the highlighted text (if any), publication dates, and any other information that you might find helpful.

For brevity, let’s look at 2 of the sources.

Source one: Google Cloud – “Machine Learning vs. Artificial Intelligence”:

Source two: Builtin.com – “AI vs. Machine Learning”

In both of the highlighted texts, we can see a clear and concise explanation of key concepts related to machine learning and deep learning. Additionally, they both are directly positioned under H2 headings that ask “what is machine learning?” and “what is deep learning?”

Here are some insights we can draw from to optimize our own content for visibility in an SGE summary:

SERP Position and Search Generative Experience Sources

Is there a lot of alignment between SERP position and visibility in the SGE summary? A recent study published by Authoritas found that “93.8% of generative links (in this dataset at least) came from sources outside the top-ranking organic domains.” In this case, we see the same. Not a whole lot of the top 10 SERP positions were present in the SGE summary. There is only one exact match, sas.com. While there is some crossover with selected sources, they are citing different URLs (Google Cloud and builtin.com.).

SERP Position	URL	SGE Sources
1	https://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/analytics/what-is-artificial-intelligence.html	https://cloud.google.com/learn/artificial-intelligence-vs-machine-learning#:~:text=Machine%20learning%20is%20a%20subset%20of%20artificial,the%20insights%2C%20and%20then%20make%20informed%20decisions.
2	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence	https://www.simplilearn.com/tutorials/artificial-intelligence-tutorial/artificial-intelligence-applications
3	https://www.ibm.com/topics/artificial-intelligence	https://www.sas.com/en_id/insights/analytics/what-is-artificial-intelligence.html#:~:text=A%20neural%20network%20is%20a%20type%20of,connections%20and%20derive%20meaning%20from%20undefined%20data.
4	https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/AI-Artificial-Intelligence	https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/generative-AI#:~:text=Generative%20AI%20focuses%20on%20creating%20new%20and,autonomously%20generate%20many%20types%20of%20new%20outputs.
5	https://cloud.google.com/learn/what-is-artificial-intelligence	https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/deep-learning/#:~:text=Deep%20learning%20is%20a%20method%20in%20artificial,that%20is%20inspired%20by%20the%20human%20brain.
6	https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence	https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-vs-machine-learning#:~:text=Deep%20learning%20is%20a%20subfield%20of%20artificial,deep%20learning%20are%20often%20treated%20as%20synonymous.
7	https://www.britannica.com/technology/artificial-intelligence
8	https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/artificial-intelligence-ai.asp
9	https://www.oracle.com/artificial-intelligence/what-is-ai/
10	https://www.state.gov/artificial-intelligence/

Understanding Follow-Up Queries in the SGE

At the bottom of the SGE summary, you may see a few follow up questions and a box to ask your own.

These provide another great opportunity to optimize your content for visibility, Ensure that your content answers the provided follow-up questions completely and concisely. Even better, create separate sections and headings for each question and provide clear answers. Use bullet points or numbered lists where applicable to make information even more easily scannable.

Examining Images in Search Generative Experience

The example SGE includes a large image taken from the Investopedia article, “Artificial Intelligence (AI): What It Is and How It Is Used”:

Interestingly, the image is not listed in the citations in the SGE. And clicking on it does not take you to the Investopedia article. Instead it opens a side window with Google Images:

This image demonstrates several considerations for effective image optimization. The image dimensions should be optimized to balance visual appeal and page loading speed, particularly for mobile users. The width and height attributes specify the dimensions of the image.

The image in the SGE is quite large, with a width of 4000 pixels and a height of 2700 pixels. Large images can impact page loading times, so it’s important to optimize image size for faster loading, especially on mobile devices. So, consider images a bit smaller than this.

Alt text is vital for accessibility and SEO, providing textual descriptions for screen readers and aiding search engine indexing. In this case, the alt text is “Artificial Intelligence” which is the primary keyword targeted.

Implement responsive design techniques like the srcset attribute to adapt to various devices. The srcset attribute provides multiple versions of the image with different resolutions. This is useful for responsive design, as it allows the browser to select the most appropriate version based on the user’s device and screen size.

Note that there is currently no information from Google regarding optimizing images for SGE as of yet.

Definitely make sure that you adjust the steps based on your own query’s SGE. By following these steps, you can test optimizing your content for visibility in SGE.

Aligning SGE Optimization with SEO Best Practices

Incorporating the SGE optimizations we identified into your content strategy aligns with established SEO best practices. So you don’t have to worry about undermining your traditional SEO optimizations. By integrating these practices into your content strategy, you can attain visibility in the SGE while also strengthen your overall SEO. For more information on this topic, check out how to optimize for AI Overviews, which provides insights into optimizing for AI Overviews based on Google’s patent.

Conclusion

This is just one SGE example showing how to optimize for SGE. Understand that there are a variety of variations in the layouts. You will likely have to reverse engineer optimizations on a case by case basis for your targeted keywords.

By applying these general steps, you can test out optimize your own content for visibility in Google SGE. Aim to provide valuable, well-structured, and up-to-date information that resonates with both users and search engines, ultimately enhancing your content’s discoverability and relevance.

One caveat here. Any insight into how successful your optimizations are is severely limited. There are no available metrics or analysis tools offered by Google or other sources as of yet. So, getting any type of performance metrics regarding position, impressions, or clicks aren’t on the table at this time and may not be available until several months after it’s wide release.

Learn more about Google’s Search Generative Experience in the article, “Preparing for Google’s AI-Driven Search Generative Experience.”