Can my business be mentioned in Google’s AI Overviews?

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Author: John Lang

Table of Contents

  • What exactly are AI Overviews?
  • What type of queries/questions asked to Google usually trigger an AI overview answer?
  • How can your business stand a better chance of appearing in the AI Overviews?
  • How to better optimise your on-page SEO
  • Why is it essential to keep your content marketing, i.e blog posts, up to date
  • Why Google E-EAT is now more critical than ever
  • It’s essential to write your business’s content marketing using a conversational tone and a lot of question-and-answer writing style.

 

Introduction

Artificial intelligence is something of a buzzword in 2025. As a matter of fact, at the recent Google I/O conference, the subject was the main topic of conversation. It’s changing how people gain answers, how the Google SERP looks, and how Google Gemini is now part of most modern Google Android phones.

There’s too much happening in AI right now to cover this in just one blog post. However, with that said, we can concentrate on one area, which is Google AI Overviews, which is a hot topic among many Bristol SEO companies right now.

 

What are Google AI Overviews?

The best description we have heard is that Google AI Overviews comes from a synthesised answer. Which sounds complicated, yet the simple way of explaining it is that Google is simply understanding your question in a much more exact way. Google then supplies an answer gained from multiple businesses, mashing them together into the information, and presenting the answer in a pleasant paragraph or two.

There’s now a race on, that’s among businesses to make sure that they get mentioned as a source of the information shown in the Google AI Overviews. So, for example, if someone were to ask, “I am a first-time driver, how can I bring my insurance premiums down?” The business linked as a source of a Google AI Overview answer could be getting thousands upon thousands of extra monthly visitors.
Will an AI Overview answer be presented for every query?

Entity building

For a long period in search engine optimisation, various marketing companies were banging on about the “semantic web”, “entity building”, “things not strings”, do you remember that?

Well, that is good because we think it is linked to AI.

The well-known things, “Will Smith”, Margaret Thatcher”, “Adam Sandler” celebrities, landmarks, events, products, you name it if it’s a thing, a well-known entity, and you want to know about it, well, this is likely to trigger a Google AI Overview.

Like when you’re sitting across the sofa watching a film, you want to know how old an actor is:

So you ask Google Gemini, “How old is Sir Anthony Hopkins?”. At the same time, you’re pushing popcorn in your mouth, well, this question asked on Google will likely trigger a Google AI Overview, as one of the best actors in the world, Anthony Hopkins, is a well-known entity.

 

Right, I got it. So, which searches are unlikely to trigger an AI overview from Google?

YMYL- so crucial advice, that could mean you base an essential decision on, which impacts your life, well, that’s unlikely to be triggered as an AI Overview answer to appear, or just yet.

That’s because AI can generate some unpredictable answers (inclusions). You may ask,

How do I start divorce proceedings, which may come out with something you didn’t expect, such as “Do you not want to leave him? Perhaps marriage counselling is best for you?”- so that’s why YMYL questions are unlikely to trigger an AI Overview response.

You get our drift.

So, for now, most marketing companies believe that the YMYL searches are less likely to show a Google AI Overview answer. That’s at least while Google is fine-tuning its responses.

I run a business; I need to get in on this. How can I increase my business’s chances of appearing as a Google AI overview answer?

So, AI Overviews is fed and works by reading businesses’ content marketing. When they are used, they are cited as a source.

So there’s our first clue on how to increase your business’s chances of appearing in an AI Google Overview answer.

For your content marketing to be cited, well, it needs to be really and one more good.

Think Google E-EAT, think long form content marketing, think good on-page SEO, think so many powerful backlinks it crashes your Excel spreadsheet when you read them.

Yes, you got it, traditional SEO is not dead, at least not for now. That’s because the content marketing must be written well if you want it to appear in Google’s organic results and be used as a Google AI Overview answer.

 

Conversational answers

Ever asked someone a question, then you wished you hadn’t, because they are waffling on, boring you, to the point you nearly fell off your seat? Been there?

Well, this is the same with content marketing.

Bore the reader, stick a ton of unnecessary detail, drone on, waffling until the cows come home, well, you’re going to lose the reader’s interest. Plus, Google may not know what you’re waffling about, either.

So please keep it to the point.

Write in short, sharp, to-the-point sentences. Demonstrate to Google and the reader you know what you’re talking about (Google E-EAT), but don’t go overboard so that they feel they are reading a university dissertation, when they may want a recipe to make a chicken korma for their tea.

Please keep it on point, show you know your stuff, and don’t overdo it.

 

Keep the information up to date.

In the world of AI, things move fast.

Calculations are made of how good your content marketing is and how up-to-date and relevant it is.

So, if someone wants advice on anything, it’s safe to say Google wants to offer up-to-date information.

They don’t want to cite an article from 2018 when an article has been written in 2018 but clearly shows its been updated, well every year since its been updated, and the revised date gets updated and re-indexed, this work is more likely to be cited, as its clear the author wants to keep the work up to date as possible.

 

Keep your Google Business up to date.

So, if someone asks where the best burger takeaway place in Clifton open late tonight is, Google will turn to Google Business profiles near that person.

So, keep your Google Business profile updated with opening hours, business information, phone number, and address. Then, when Google has multiple listings to pick from, it’s likely to come down to reviews, so get as many positive reviews as you can, but don’t fake them.

 

Google E-EAT

Your business’s content marketing must be well-written. Whether a main page or a blog post, it must have a high Google E-EAT score.

Need help to improve your company’s search engine optimisation?

We have SEO experts who can help you.

We are working with more and more companies in the South West of England.

This includes Bristol and Bath. Therefore, if your business wants to improve its organic or local SEO, why not give us a ring?

 

 

 

How to market your business locally

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19/05/2025

John Lang

Table of contents:

  • Why is local marketing so important
  • Why your marketing needs to know your audience
  • How to use social media to grow your business
  • How to improve your mobile SEO
  • How to improve your search engine optimisation
  • Local directories
  • Google E-EAT
  • Local PR

How our marketing agency can help

For so many businesses, global or national marketing is not for them. They don’t want to be drawing in customers from the other end of the country.

For some businesses, local SEO is where it’s at, and this is where we can help you.

Why is local marketing important / what is local search engine optimisation?

Whether you’re looking for a local handyman, lawyer or you want your mop styled in a new way, often people turn to Google for advice.

Here’s an interesting statistic, 88% of customers, according to HubSpot, who search for a local business will call or visit within a day.

Buying locally often doesn’t mean that your business will be the cheapest. Often giant online retailers will be cheaper.

However, a lot of people are willing to pay a premium, pay that bit more, in order to get local face-to-face customer service.

However, to get that personalised service, well, often they go through one of the biggest companies in the whole planet- Google.

This is where we come in, we can help any business to improve its visibility locally. We are the experts when it comes to improving a business’s local SEO.

Use social media

A whopping 97% of people will use website / businesses social media to find out more about your business. This therefore is good to communicate with your customers what your company is all about, what makes you different and standout. It could be something as simple as you run a coffee shop and all of your coffee is organic. People, such as the author, appreciate these details, and will pay a premium, and visit you, if this is communicated through, say, your business’s Instagram account.

Its 2025-there’s now no excuse not to have a “mobile ready” website

A huge number of local sales take place on smartphones, in matter of fact this statistic places it at £1 trillion in sales.
Every business should have a mobile ready and optimised website, that’s for sure. The importance of a mobile ready website differs from business sector to business sector.

For example, if you’re an online e-commerce business, then its essential. If you run a local coffee shop, its still important, yet less so, it just needs to be “mobile ready”. A local small independent coffee shop is unlikely to be monitoring daily bounce rates for example, in the same way an e-commerce business would, but you never know!

Site speed, user experience and the mobile design are all very important factors for your SEO company to consider. At Digital Tailors, we will make sure that your website is mobile optimised.

 

Search engine optimisation- practically every business now needs it

People now talk to their phones as if they are speaking to a real human. With “near me” and “find me businesses close by” searches on smartphones growing by more that 900% over the last years alone.

Also, it’s also commented that a massive 46% of Google searches are for people looking for local information to buy products or services right now. So, the question businesses need to ask in Bristol is whether they can really afford not to invest in quality search engine optimisation in order to draw in more business.

 

Google My Business

So, we get it, it really does.

You’re starting your business, you have a million and one things to do, so things get rushed.

Rooms get painted in a rush.

Furniture is purchased, unwrapped thrown into place

And suppliers are called to say, please can you update on the deliveries of supplies.

Yet, there’s one thing you shouldn’t rush and that’s setting up your Google My Business account. Instead, you should dedicate a lot of time and effort into making sure that you add as much detail as you possibly can, and make sure you try and make your Google My Business standout, perhaps by adding good photos of the shop, the business premises or let’s say your stock.

Here’s why you shouldn’t rush setting up your Google My Business account.

The reason is, a lot of shoppers use Google My Business to find local companies. Therefore, it’s a really effective way for a business to market its services or products. However, there’s often three businesses which are displayed in the Google My Business results, therefore its very competitive and hard for a business to be shown there. This is why we return our previous point, and that is; to stand a good chance of your business being displayed, you must put a lot of effort in setting up your Google My Business account.

 

Google EEAT and local SEO

Whichever type of business you run, often there’s more competition that some people realise.
Take plumbers, there’s often hundreds in any one city.

Therefore, the website, for it rank in the Google Business results, or the Google organic results, the business must be seen as an authority.

For that to happen the business must have a high Google EEAT score. For that to happen, part of the formula, is that you must show your business is an authority.

Whether that’s on mountain bikes, or the latest smartphones, as you write blog posts, such as helpful articles Google overtime starts to view your business as an expert on what you’re writing about. That’s if what your saying is good quality advice, your gaining links, the dwell time is high.

And proving you’re an authority, an expert on what you’re talking about, this takes time. So therefore, don’t expect any short-term results, often, in some competitive business niches, proving your business is an authority on the products or services you sell, well that takes many years to build that recognition from Google. Plus, the work needs to be super high quality because your business is in huge amounts of competition with other companies these days.

 

Business reviews truly matter

So, our first nugget of advice is this, don’t buy reviews.

So many companies in Bristol and every other city do this, but just do it.

Google is too clever, it knows it’s a fake review. It knows the accounts that are leaving fake business reviews for money, so just don’t do it.

Instead, you want a steady trickle of positive reviews. This improves your businesses “trustworthiness” again another part of the Google E-EAT framework of advice that Google advices you use when writing content marketing and optimising your company website.

In a nutshell, good reviews, positive reviews, what these can do is improve your businesses trustworthiness, because of this, you’re more likely to be displayed in the Google Business results. Also, on top of that, it is thought by many leading SEO consultants that this can only help to improve your companies organic search engine optimisation as well, because, lets face it, genuine reviews from customers, that they say love your restaurant, well this bound to help improve your company’s organic SEO.

 

FAQ 

How can local SEO help my business?

Local SEO can help get your business on page one of Google’s organic results.

It can also help your business to be displayed more often in the Google Business results.

Do many businesses invest in this type of marketing?

A huge amount of companies in Bristol invest in this type of marketing. For some companies we work with, near enough 100% of their sales come via organic SEO.

 

How long does it take to see results?

This depends on how competitive your business sector is, yet SEO is a slow process. You therefore need to be willing to wait many months before you start to see results.

 

What are keywords?

Keywords are simply words or short sentences which describe the products or services your business sells.

Its therefore important for that business, in order to make more sales, that the marketing company optimises the website for these keywords. This is to generate more clicks, which can lead to more sales.

How much does local SEO cost?

Our monthly fee starts from £500 per month and we are one of the best in the business.

 

 

May 2025 Google update- what do we know so far?

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Date: 08/05/2025

Author: John Lang, Bristol

Introduction

It does seem as of late, Google is rolling out a new update, well what seems like every 5 minutes. This has meant that sometimes, as soon as one Google update roll-out has happened, it’s only a very short period before another occurs.

However, there are some updates which we don’t believe have had a significant effect on the majority of businesses (as long as they have followed white hat SEO best practices).

However, this update is different and sustained regarding the ranking flux that is being witnessed. From what we can see, it is substantial update affecting many businesses, and it seems to have frozen businesses in place in the Serp’s for some time now.
Google Search Console.

We are a well-known SEO agency serving the South West of England. Therefore, we work with companies in Bristol and the neighbouring city of Bath, so we can only comment on what we see for our marketing company and clients.

 

But here we go:

The impression data has substantially increased in Google Search Console over the last 3 weeks.

Not just that, it seems volatile, meaning it goes up and down, and every 2.5 hours or so.

Now, as an agency that likes to keep a close eye on our clients’ SEO analytics, we have to say that we get a good sense of what the impression data should be, yet at the moment, it looks pretty high.

That means we think it is higher than what we would typically be if we were to compare it with a baseline daily figure.

So, what can we take away from that?

We can presume that we think Google is testing an algorithm change, and we believe what is coming will be big.

 

Google Update May 2025

So, for the past year, there have been multiple Google updates, and we saw a lot of volatility, for example, during March there was a large Google update.

What makes the May 2025 Google update different is that this seems sustained; the ranking flux appears to be held for what we think is a prolonged period.

 

Why is Google rolling out this update?

We still cannot say the exact reason for the ranking flux that we seem to be occurring at this moment in time. After the Google update has rolled out, we can see which businesses have emerged higher and which have moved down the SERP’s.

Using various SEO tools, we can decipher which companies were negatively impacted by the Google update.

We are a marketing agency with our fingers on the pulse, which means, like other leading agencies, you get a good sense of what work your direct competitors are working on when improving their SEO.

What changes did your agency notice?

We have noticed keyword position changes; the most apparent change is in Google Search Console regarding impression data.

If you have been monitoring the exact keywords for consecutive years, you get a sense of the daily impressions and the fluctuations that can occur.

However, this seems to be more than that; for some SEO keywords, the fluctuations in terms of daily impressions seem to have increased by over 50%.

On top of that, keyword positions will be detailed in the Google Search Console. However, these do not reflect what is shown in the SERP for some of the clients we are working for.

What this means is that at this moment in time, we cannot tell how this Google May 2025 update is impacting the SERP.

 

What websites were affected?

Some business sectors we work with have seen a positive uplift, while others seem to have been put into a deep freeze.

What we mean by that is after substantial link building efforts and adding content marketing, the SERP seem to remain frozen.

This, we would say, has carried on from the Google updates back in March 2025. We would therefore state that this seems to be some continuation of that rollout.

Why wouldn’t we recommend making any changes right now to your SEO

After significant Google updates, whether a Google update or a Google core update, we would not recommend that any business make changes to their SEO straightaway. The reason is that it often takes multiple days, if not sometimes weeks, for the rollout to roll out fully.

Therefore, some businesses jump into making changes, which can magnify the drop in rankings.

Let’s give you an example: some businesses may believe it’s a link penalty, then disavow good quality links, which will, of course, cause a drop in the business’s organic rankings over the long run.

Therefore, you must take your time and let the Google update fully roll out, and then you can evaluate where your business has moved.

During Google’s updates, the ranking flux often causes the website to move down or up, but only temporarily. Then, after the update has fully rolled out, you may move into a new position, which may stabilise for a while.

How have your Bristol clients been affected?

Our Bristol clients have moved up, yet before we pat ourselves on the back for our hard work, we must wait until the Google May 2025 rollout has fully rolled out.

 

Why is Google rolling out so many updates?

It used to be the case that the Google updates, or at least the large ones, had names assigned to them, such as Google Panda, Penguin or Hummingbird.

SEO companies would have an excellent idea of what the Google update purpose; for example, it may have been targeting link spam.

But now, well, things are very different.

The rollout of new Google updates is much more frequent, plus many SEO businesses do not know what the updates are targeting. We are therefore very much in the dark, and all we can do is the same as many other businesses: track the changes in our SEO tools.

 

How can you better equip your business for Google updates?

So some businesses, well, 100% of their sales may come online, which means that when a Google update is rolled out, and changes are made to Google’s core algorithm, the business can be massively affected in terms of sales it can generate.

Therefore, the U.K. businesses we represent and work with naturally they will want a way to better protect themselves from such updates.

However, all you can do is follow Google E-EAT’s advice and white hat best practices.

Then our second piece of essential advice is this: don’t make massive changes to your SEO or website during a rollout.

So many businesses panic when Google is rolling out a significant update.

They start changing page titles, the content marketing, and the links for example.
But don’t, you have to wait.

Wait and see how the Google update has impacted your business’s rankings after the rollout, and then make changes.
Don’t make changes to your business’s search engine optimisation (SEO) during a roll-out because that can amplify the swing of where your business will rank post-roll-out.

How can we help?

We are Digital Tailors, an SEO agency serving Bristol and the neighbouring city of Bath.

We are a white-hat SEO company that can offer fixed-priced SEO packages that start from just £1k per month.

We work with various businesses, from solicitors to construction companies. If your business needs a tailor-made SEO and marketing solution, we are the company to call in the South West of England.