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How to Show Up in Google AI Overviews
The AI summary now sits above everything else. Being cited in it matters more than ranking below it.
If you have searched for anything informational lately, you will have seen it: a generated summary sitting above the results, answering the question directly, with a few source links tucked to the side.
For businesses that spent years fighting for position one, this is a meaningful shift. Position one is now frequently below the answer. The new prize is being one of the sources the answer was built from.
What actually changed
Google is no longer only matching a query to pages. For a growing share of searches it reads several sources, synthesises them, and presents a composed answer with citations. Citation has become a distinct thing to optimise for.
Who gets cited
- Answers a specific question directly, near the top of the page
- Is written plainly, without long preamble before the substance
- Comes from a page clearly about that one topic, not a catch-all
- Shows evident first-hand knowledge: specifics, numbers, real detail
- Sits on a technically healthy, crawlable page
Generic content assembled from other summaries tends not to get cited. Content containing something only you would know, such as actual prices, actual timelines, and actual outcomes from real jobs, is far more liftable.
The content that gets cited is usually the content that contains something the model could not have written without you.
Formatting that gets lifted
- 1. Question as heading, answer immediately below.
- 2. Short, self-contained paragraphs.
- 3. Lists for anything sequential or enumerable.
- 4. Specific numbers over vague ranges.
- 5. Tables for genuine comparisons.
The schema that helps
- FAQPage for genuine question-and-answer content
- LocalBusiness for name, address, hours, service area
- Article for posts and guides, with author and dates
- HowTo for genuine step-by-step instructions
- Review and AggregateRating where you have real reviews
One caution
Only mark up content that genuinely exists on the page. Schema describing content a visitor cannot see is a manual-action risk, and the short-term gain is never worth it.
What this does to your traffic
Some queries will send you fewer clicks. But those were rarely the visits that turned into work. The queries that matter to a small business, such as someone weighing up whether to hire you, are exactly the ones where a summary is not sufficient.
Where to start
Take the ten questions customers ask you most often. Give each one a heading phrased as the question, answer it directly in the first two sentences, and include at least one specific number you actually know.
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