Vickie Sullivan

Market Strategy for Thought Leaders

Resources  >> To Adapt or Abandon: Navigating Google’s AI Overview in Search

Written by: Vickie Sullivan  |  August 06, 2024

To Adapt or Abandon: Navigating Google’s AI Overview in Search

To Adapt or Abandon: Navigating Google’s AI Overview in Search
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Google’s new AI Overview feature in Search poses a significant threat to marketers, content creators, and publishers.

“AI Overview is designed to enhance search results by providing summarized answers to queries, pulling information from various sources and presenting it in a concise, easy-to-read format,” according to a recent MarketingProfs article.

That’s great for people using Google’s search engine, but it’s bad news for people like you and me who rely on search engine optimization (SEO) to drive traffic to our websites, where we provide expertise and resources. AI Overview’s impact on revenue streams could be significant, causing your ROI in SEO to plummet.

Given that Google controls more than 90% of the global search traffic, this is an epic bummer. The path forward is not clear at this moment.

Should You Adapt to the Disruption or Abandon the Tactic?

This SEO development is a good example of the big crossroads many of us face in other areas. And they cause us to ask: Do we adapt or abandon the tactic and find something else?

Many of us usually answer that question by analyzing the impact of the change—what it will cost, how the ROI can be saved in another way, etc. This approach is fair enough. However, it misses an important comparison: How does the new scenario compare with other unrelated options?

Let’s use the above SEO issue as an example. This is a game-changer development, guaranteeing that current efforts won’t work. Instead of figuring out how to still get that top search position, ask the bigger question: Why do you want to be in the top search result? If it’s to generate leads, is there another way to do that? Your answers will force you to focus on the outcome and not the path. And it opens up more alternatives that might justify letting go of what used to work.

Having to make big decisions like this is our new normal. Outside forces regularly wipe out gains we achieved from our marketing before we have a chance to figure out what to do next. But if we focus on the outcomes we want to achieve and don’t tie ourselves to the method, the best path will appear.


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