19 SEO Tips to Gain Visibility on Google AI Overview

In today’s digital world, artificial intelligence and Google AI systems play a crucial role in determining how visible content is in search results.

To ensure your website appears on Google AI and other AI platforms, your SEO strategies must be correctly optimized. Whether AI systems can accurately understand, crawl, and index your content can directly impact your rankings. Therefore, it's essential to tailor your content not only for human users but also for AI systems.

To appear in the Google AI Overview, it’s not just about applying basic SEO techniques; it also requires understanding how AI evaluates your content. In this article, we’ll share 19 effective SEO tips to help boost your visibility across Google AI platforms.

With these tips, your content will be easier for AI to understand, faster to index, and more likely to rank higher. Below are key steps to lay the foundation for creating AI-friendly content:

- Making your content AI-compatible: What needs to be done for AI systems to crawl and interpret your content efficiently.

- Optimizing page structure: The importance of SEO and AI-friendly site design.

- Practical tips for content optimization: How to optimize titles, meta descriptions, and body content for Google AI.

AI shapes search results by directly crawling and analyzing your web content. Therefore, your content must be fully accessible and optimized to appear in Google AI Overview.

We’ve organized SEO tips for Google AI Overview visibility under the following main headings:

1. Robots.txt and Bot Protection Settings

2. HTML Structure and Accessibility Tips

3. Creating Content in HTML

4. Using "Agent-Responsive Design"

5. Enabling Programmatic & Automatic Access via Indexing API and RSS Feeds

6. Creating and Submitting an /llms.txt File

7. NLP Optimization

8. Regularly Publishing & Updating Content to Gain Authority in Your Niche

9. Visibility Checks on AI Platforms

10. Using Structured Data

11. Updating Existing Content

12. Using OpenGraph Tags

1. Using the "Allow" Command for AI Platforms in Robots.txt

To allow AI platforms to properly crawl your site content, you must include the "Allow" command for relevant AI platform user-agents in your robots.txt file. This ensures that bots and AI tools can access your site, making your content visible on those platforms.

For example, sites like https://darkvisitors.com/agents list user-agents for various AI platforms. Use these resources to identify and allow specific agents in your robots.txt file. Here’s a sample list:

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot

User-agent: ChatGPT-User

User-agent: PerplexityBot

User-agent: FirecrawlAgent

User-agent: AndiBot

User-agent: ExaBot

User-agent: PhindBot

User-agent: YouBot

Allow: /

Note: Even if you don't add an explicit "Allow" command, most of these bots will still be permitted unless otherwise specified.

2. Avoiding Bot Protection and Access Restrictions

It’s important to ensure that aggressive bot protection features in services like Cloudflare or AWS WAF are not enabled, so that AI tools and bots can access your website without issues. While such security measures are designed to block malicious bots, they can also prevent AI platforms from accessing the correct data.

You need to make sure that the bot protection systems integrated into your site do not impose unnecessary restrictions on AI tools. Making these adjustments will make it easier for AI to interact with your content, ultimately helping improve your rankings.

- In Cloudflare or AWS WAF configurations, it’s essential to specify AI user-agents to ensure that these bots can access your site without being blocked by security measures. For example:

- In Cloudflare, under bot management, you can define special permissions for AI platforms.

- In AWS WAF, you can create custom rules to allow access only for specific user-agents.

3. Ensuring a Simple and Modern HTML Flow (Using HTML5)

For AI platforms to properly crawl your content, your web page must be built using a modern HTML5 structure. Using HTML5 allows your web page to be understood more accurately by AI systems and search engines in terms of structure. The semantic elements provided by HTML5 clearly define the meaning and structure of your content. This makes it easier for AI to derive accurate interpretations when analyzing your content.

article,

section,

mark,

nav,

details,

summary

HTML5 enables you to group page elements in a meaningful way. Semantic tags like those listed above help present the page structure more clearly to AI. These tags indicate the function of each section on your page, helping AI better understand the organization of your content.

4. Using "Agent-Responsive Design"

"Agent-responsive design" means that the website is optimized for both AI bots and users. This design helps AI bots crawl your page correctly. It ensures that web pages are seamlessly accessible on all devices and browsers. To offer both an AI-friendly and user-friendly experience, it's important to maintain consistent design and navigation across all page types. This way, AI bots can quickly access your page content and ensure accurate rendering.

- Mobile Compatibility & Responsive Design: Your website's mobile version must be compatible and optimized to ensure that AI bots can crawl it correctly on mobile devices.

- Consistent Navigation: Navigating your webpage should be easy, and switching between content should be quick. This allows AI bots to quickly locate your content.

5. Accessibility Features for Page Elements: Using ARIA Labels

AI takes accessibility features into account to better understand the elements on your web page. ARIA labels (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) are HTML tags that explain the functions of the elements on your page to AI, enhancing page accessibility. ARIA labels ensure that page elements, especially dynamic content and interactions, are correctly recognized by AI.

6. Displaying JavaScript Generated Content in HTML

For AI platforms to properly crawl the content, the content on your page should be placed directly in HTML rather than being generated by JavaScript (JS). Content loaded via JavaScript may sometimes be ignored or not crawled properly by AI and bots. Therefore, important content and page elements should be placed directly within the HTML code.

- Integrate JavaScript content into HTML as much as possible.

- Use techniques like Server-Side Rendering (SSR) or Static Site Generation (SSG) to ensure JavaScript is rendered correctly.

- Serve HTML content directly.

7. Avoiding "Read More" Buttons on Content Pages

"Read More" buttons, often used to improve user experience on content pages, can cause issues in terms of SEO and AI rendering. These buttons can prevent the full content of the page from being crawled, making it harder for AI bots to understand your content. Search engines and AI platforms should be able to quickly crawl and comprehend all the content on your page, so once the page content is complete, it should be fully accessible.

Keeping all of your content visible to users will be more effective for SEO and AI-friendly content strategies. Each section of your content should be continuously accessible and should not require any additional clicks for users to view it.

8. Not Displaying Content Behind Buttons & Interactions

AI should be able to quickly and accurately access all of the content on your page, but content hidden behind unnecessary interactions can make it difficult for bots to access.

To optimize AI accessibility and ensure your content is rendered quickly, it is important to minimize interactions that prevent content from being visible on the page (especially login prompts, pop-ups, and ads).

Pop-ups and login prompts can prevent AI from crawling and analyzing the content of your page. These types of interactions may hinder AI bots from fully reviewing the page.

AI should be able to access your content in a direct and visible manner. Login screens and pop-ups make it harder for bots to index your content.

- Show login prompts not at the top of the page but when needed by the user.

- Set pop-ups to only open with user interaction, ensuring AI crawlers can scan the content without being blocked by these windows.

9. Providing Programmatic & Automated Access to Content via Indexing API and RSS Feeds

It is important to utilize tools like the Indexing API and RSS feeds for faster and more efficient indexing of your content. These tools allow your web content to be accessed more quickly by search engines and AI platforms, and they enable programmatic, automatic indexing. Using RSS feeds and the Indexing API is particularly helpful for dynamically updated content, as they assist in ensuring your content is crawled instantly and accurately.

- RSS Feed: If you regularly publish new articles on your blog, use an RSS feed to automatically notify AI and search engines about each new post.

- Indexing API: By using the Indexing API, notify search engines directly about updated content after making changes to your site.

10. Keep Page Load Time Ideally Below 1 Second

AI and search engines determine your rankings based on page load speed. A fast-loading page is a critical factor for SEO and facilitates easier access to your content by AI platforms. Page load time has a direct impact on user experience and allows AI to crawl your page quickly.

- Your page load time should ideally be less than 1 second.

- To increase page speed, use techniques like image optimization, caching, and asynchronous loading.

- Image Optimization: Reduce image sizes and use appropriate formats.

- Caching: Cache static content to prevent it from reloading repeatedly.

- Asynchronous JS Loading: Load JavaScript files asynchronously to improve page speed.

11. Purpose and Creation of the /llms.txt File

The /llms.txt file is a configuration file used to specify which sections and content of your website AI platforms can access. This file works similarly to the robots.txt file but contains more specific permissions and instructions for the AI platform's crawling algorithms. With this file, you can define which pages and content AI bots should focus on.

The /llms.txt file allows AI platforms to crawl your content correctly.

This file indicates which parts of your website are accessible and which are not.

You can refer to the provided link for resources on how to create the /llms.txt file, and you can include it in the root directory.

It’s worth noting that John Mueller from Google mentioned that the LLMs.txt file is intended to present the main content without ads and navigation elements, but emphasized that this approach is already achieved with existing content and structured data. He stated that the proposed LLMs.txt file for providing content to AI bots is unnecessary. (Source)

12. Increasing the NLP Suitability of Your Content

Increasing the NLP suitability of your content is an important step for SEO. NLP (Natural Language Processing) affects how search engines understand and evaluate your content. NLP suitability ensures that your content is understood correctly and helps search engines rank your page more accurately.

- Keywords and Natural Language: The keywords in your content should flow naturally within the language and be placed meaningfully. This helps NLP algorithms interpret your content correctly.

- Avoid Complex Sentence Structures: Long and complex sentences can make it harder for NLP algorithms to understand. It is important to keep sentences clear and understandable.

- Make Your Writing Clear, Simple, and Understandable: Meaningful connections and the use of natural language enable your content to perform better in NLP algorithms.

- Use Meaningful and Connecting Phrases: Phrases like "because," "therefore," "so," help connect ideas clearly.

- Use Question Format: Voice search users typically ask questions. Targeting these questions in your headings can boost voice search traffic. Instead of asking "What are the best SEO strategies?", users are more likely to use natural language, like "How are SEO strategies implemented?"


- Present Information Clearly and Concisely: Providing clear information in the first sentence allows users and AI algorithms to quickly understand what they will encounter in the content. If you have a "How-to" heading, you can clarify the content by offering step-by-step information in the first sentence.

13. Creating Support, Help, and FAQ Pages to Gain Authority and Increase Trust

Content created for support, help, and FAQ pages can be quickly analyzed by Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms and indexed correctly. Additionally, these pages have great potential to achieve your conversion goals by providing users with quick and direct answers.

- Use clear and direct language: Provide quick and direct answers to users' questions.

- Avoid keyword-focused content: NLP algorithms prefer content written in natural language with meaningful sentences.

- Include call-to-action (CTA) messages in your content.

- Create user-focused and solution-oriented content.

For example, on a "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) page for a software company, detailed yet clear and understandable answers can be provided to the most common issues users face. This page will be properly processed by NLP algorithms and allow AI to analyze your content accurately. A sentence like "If you have not solved your issue, contact us" on a software support page makes a direct call to action for users, which can help increase conversion rates.

14. Sharing Regular Content and Updating Content to Gain Authority in Your Target Industry

Sharing regular content is one of the most effective ways to gain authority in your industry. Search engines and NLP algorithms pay more attention to constantly updated, original, and valuable content. Regular content production keeps your website looking fresh and active, increases your authority, and builds trust with users.

NLP algorithms evaluate regularly updated content more and often prioritize it in ranking algorithms. This ensures that your content becomes more visible and is correctly analyzed in natural language. Additionally, producing high-quality and original content encourages other websites in your industry to reference you, which naturally boosts your authority.

Regular content production allows you to keep up with industry developments and provide innovative and informative content to users. Thus, while gaining authority, you also optimize your content to be most suitable for AI algorithms.

- Create a content calendar: Plan and publish your content regularly according to a content schedule.

- Focus on user-centric content: Search engines value content that attracts users' attention and answers their questions.

- Offer innovative and valuable content: Not only produce "SEO-friendly" content but also content that provides real value to users, as this will strengthen your authority in the long term.

15. Visibility Control on AI Platforms

To determine whether your content is getting visibility on AI platforms, you need to perform web searches to check if your content is accessible. Seeing whether AI platforms are correctly crawling your site allows you to understand if your SEO strategy is working properly. This process is an important step in understanding which AI platforms are displaying your content and which are not.

When searching, you can perform searches using keywords aimed at AI platforms to see if your content is being displayed. If the content appears on the platform and is correctly indexed, you can conclude that the AI is providing an efficient display of your content.

- Andisearch.com is a quick tool to see how AI platforms perceive your content.

- Firecrawl shows how your page is crawled by AI tools and which sections are accessible.

- Theneo and Mintlify tools can be used to make content AI-friendly. 

16. Reporting Content Publish & Update Dates

Using schema markup ensures that your content is correctly understood by search engines and AI platforms. Especially for markup types like BlogPosting and Article, it is important to correctly mark dates such as datePublished (publish date) and dateModified (update date). This is necessary to inform search engines whether your content has been updated and when it was originally published. Specifying these dates correctly helps AI and search engines understand your content accurately.

Some AI agents track whether content is updated in real time. This is especially important for the dateModified tag. If you want AI to notice changes made to your content, you should update at least 15% of the content. This helps AI evaluate your content as up-to-date.

- Rewrite or update a part of your content: This is particularly necessary for old content. For example, adding a new trend or development to an old blog post keeps your content fresh and relevant.

- Change 15% of your updated content: This update helps AI notice the changes in your content.

Abby Gleason, in her LinkedIn content examining the significant impact of datePublished data on CTR, mentions that Google only takes into account one of either datePublished or dateModified lines. According to her analysis, having both datePublished and dateModified on the page can cause display confusion. I recommend you check her analysis. :)

17. Informing Content Detail with Headline Types

When marking your content using schema markup, using the correct @type and headline definitions helps ensure that your content is accurately defined. @type: "headline" specifies the headline of your content and is important for SEO optimization because headlines are often crawled by search engines.

- @type: "CreativeWork" is commonly used for article, video, blog post, or other creative content types.

- headline specifies the content headline and helps search engines quickly understand what your page is about.

These types also ensure that your content is compatible with the Passage Indexing algorithm.

18. Using OpenGraph Tags

The correct use of OpenGraph tags allows AI bots to crawl and analyze your web page more efficiently. These tags define the page’s meta data, helping AI and social media platforms better understand your content. AI user-agents (AI browser agents) can use these tags to retrieve your content more quickly and accurately, which can improve SEO rankings.

- Faster Data Retrieval: Thanks to OpenGraph tags, AI bots can quickly understand the content of your page, which increases the speed of content display. The title and description tags ensure that your content is presented concisely and clearly.

- Correct Indexing of Content: OpenGraph tags clearly define the title, description, and visuals on your page, ensuring that your content is indexed correctly.

- Collaboration with AI User-Agents: These tags help AI platforms analyze your content more efficiently and support collaboration.

- Adding visual content using image tags (og:image) attracts user attention and increases shareability.

19. Using Consistent Navigation Patterns

Having a consistent navigation structure allows users to navigate the site more easily. It also enables AI bots to analyze the content and flow of your page more accurately. A clean and intuitive site structure allows AI to index the content properly. AI can correctly predict the order of your content and the flow of the site. To make content more quickly accessible, similar navigation patterns should be used across all pages. This helps AI bots to crawl the site quickly and ensures your content is displayed correctly.

- Menus and headings should be clear and consistent. This makes it easier for AI bots to retrieve your content in sequence.

- A consistent page structure, particularly with content and categories organized in an orderly manner, helps AI understand the flow of the page.

- Sitemap and link structures should also be consistent. AI bots can reach all corners of your site and crawl every page.

Thanks to these 19 effective SEO tips, your content can be more easily understood, crawled, and indexed by both users and AI systems. By implementing AI-friendly content strategies, you can increase your visibility on platforms like Google AI Overview and achieve higher rankings in search engine results. Remember, in today’s digital ecosystem, success doesn’t come from simply producing quality content—it also requires presenting that content in a way that AI systems can accurately interpret.