Key Takeaways
- AI overviews are increasing “zero-click” searches and threatening organic traffic for informational searches
- Consider developing “pull-through” content that resists AI summarization and attracts clicks
- Start with customer research to understand your customer’s pains and questions
- Build pull-through content that is visually appealing, information-dense, easy to consume, or interactive
- Position your brand as a primary source with original research, data analysis, or unique perspectives
Introduction
In May 2024, Google launched AI overviews on the search results pages in the United States. AI overviews directly answer searchers’ informational queries with a summarized response and a clickable list of web sources.
Google’s expansion of generative AI search results is sending shockwaves through the marketing world. Suddenly, brands and marketers are questioning the value of informational content. Top-of-funnel, informational content is most at risk from “zero-click” searches.
Updating Your Content Strategy
If searchers can view a summary of a website’s content directly in the search results, they won’t need to click through to your brand’s website. This means your informational content is likely to experience a decline in organic traffic, especially blog articles and FAQs.
How much traffic will brands lose? We don’t know yet.
Marketers are asking:
Why publish content when AI overviews are stealing organic clicks?
Your customers will always be searching for products and services. But you need to adapt your content strategy to protect against zero-click search. You need to publish content that will attract clicks.
Pull-through content prevents zero-click searches by:
1) Ranking for informational keywords unlikely to trigger an AI overview.
2) Attracting clicks even when an AI overview appears at the top of the search results.
Building Zero-Click Immunity
AI overviews typically appear for queries that can be addressed with concise, direct answers. However, many informational searches are ambiguous or require more comprehensive responses. For these informational queries, Google is unlikely to generate an AI overview.
For queries that do generate AI overviews, you need a different strategy. Your content must offer substantial depth beyond the brief summary, appealing to searchers who want more than a quick answer.
Enter “pull-through content” – content that offers a more complete answer than an AI overview. Pull-through content attracts clicks and ranks for informational queries that don’t generate an AI overview. It’s particularly effective for queries best satisfied by thorough explanations, visuals, or interactive content. It attracts clicks when a brief, direct answer is insufficient to fully satisfy the searcher’s query.
Thus, pull-through content is more likely to rank for search intents that are best satisfied with a comprehensive answer. These searches are unlikely to trigger an AI overview in the first place.
Some examples:
- Data-driven content – Analysis of public or proprietary data that requires interpretation and explanation.
- Visual content – Images, diagrams, videos, and animations that convey information visually.
- Side-by-side comparisons – Offering a helpful comparison of solutions to searcher’s problems.
- Personal narratives – Personal experiences, stories, and testimonials that offer a unique context and perspective on the subject matter.
- Unique expertise – Original research, case studies, and expert opinions where you are the primary source of information.
- Interactive content – Content that requires engagement like quizzes, calculators, and interactive infographics.
By creating content that AI cannot easily summarize, you can protect it from zero-click searches and ensure that it attracts organic traffic.
Developing Pull-Through Content
Developing pull-through content does not require major changes to your content strategy. You can add more to your content calendar by rethinking your content formats and topics.
Create more pull-through content by:
- Researching your customers’ needs: Understand the specific pain points that triggered their search for a solution and the questions they ask when making a buying decision.
- Choosing alternative content formats: Write less blog articles. Choose content formats Google can’t summarize. E.g., comparisons, diagrams, data visualizations, video, and interactive elements.
- Becoming a primary source of information: Provide original data, research, or firsthand perspective that makes your content unique.
Next, we describe specific examples of pull-through content.
Five Pull-Through Content Examples
1. Data-Driven Charts and Graphs
Data-driven charts and graphs are visual representations of information and statistics that AI cannot summarize.
Examples include:
- Healthcare data analytics charts
- Real estate market trend charts
- Pricing comparison charts
- Renewable energy production charts
- E-commerce sales trends graphs
As a bonus, Google often includes previews of charts and graphs within the search results that make results more clickable, improving traffic and rankings.
2. Templates and Checklists
Templates and checklists are typically downloadable resources that can be included in a blog article or featured on a standalone downloads page. These resources are extremely useful, and users can often apply them directly to their work or personal projects
Examples include:
- Home inspection checklist
- Product launch checklist
- Solar panel installation checklist
- Business proposal template
3. Guides and Infographics
Guides and infographics transform complex information into engaging, easy-to-understand formats using both text and images. Marketers can create infographics and guides to convey step-by-step processes, industry trends, or FAQs
Examples include:
- Digital marketing strategy guide
- Academic research citation guide
- Medical billing process infographic
- Content creation step-by-step guides
4. Worksheets and Calculators
Worksheets and calculators are usually custom, interactive tools that allow users to input data and receive personalized results and information. Marketers can develop worksheets and calculators that are tailored to their audience’s specific needs.
Examples include:
- Personal budget planner
- Car loan repayment calculator
- Green energy savings calculator
- Risk assessment worksheet
5. Video and Interactive
Utilizing video and interactive content helps your users engage with the information while also formatting it in a way that AI cannot summarize.
Examples include:
- WordPress tutorial videos
- Clickable real estate locator maps
- Interactive plastic pollution infographic
- Marketing conference speaking videos
Utilizing these pull-through content formats will decrease the risk of “zero-click” searches and make your content more engaging for users.
In Conclusion
To prevent “zero-click” searches, create pull-through content—unique, irreplaceable content that ranks for queries that don’t trigger an AI overview and cannot be easily summarized.
Update your content strategy for AI overviews with this in mind:
- AI overviews are increasing “zero-click” searches. Audit your existing rankings and content to identify pages at risk of zero-click searches and update them with pull-through content strategies.
- Pull-through content resists AI summarization and attracts clicks. For new content, focus on creating in-depth, comprehensive pieces that go beyond simple answers and provide unique value.
- Customer research is crucial for understanding pain points and questions. Conduct customer interviews to inform both existing content updates and new content creation.
- Visual, information-dense, and interactive content attracts clicks. Enhance existing articles with infographics, data visualizations, or interactive elements, and plan new content around these formats.
- Alternative content formats can help combat zero-click searches. Experiment with creating templates, checklists, calculators, and video content to complement your text-based articles.
- Become a primary source of information. Invest in original research, data analysis, or expert interviews to add unique perspectives to both existing and new content.
By integrating pull-through content into your content strategy, you can mitigate the effects of zero-click searches, improve visitor engagement, and generate more high-quality organic traffic.’
Let Fire&Spark help you adapt your content for AI overviews…
- Schedule an SEO strategy session: Talk to a strategist at Fire&Spark about your organic customer acquisition campaigns and how to reposition your existing content for generative AI search. Schedule a strategy session.
- Dive deeper into SEO for Revenue: Fire&Spark’s SEO for Revenue Guide explains how to update your SEO strategies to optimize for sales and conversions, not just rankings and traffic. This mindset shift is crucial for adapting to generative AI search. Get the guide.
- Request a generative AI search audit: Our team would be happy to take a look at your site and help you forecast the effect of generative AI search and Google’s AI overviews on your organic traffic. Request an audit.
