AI is rapidly changing the rule book, not just in search marketing, but also business in general.

A key question business will understandably be asking is how can get their business to appear in Google Gemini’s AI generated summaries?

Google Gemini and SEO are going to be a hot topic of conversation in 2026.
Therefore, the businesses that want that competitive advantage, they know its not just about where you rank in Google’s organic results anymore. To be visible, to maximise clicks, today you have to think how can raise your businesses viability in the LLM’s, this includes Google Gemini.

Author: Ryan Walsh | Cardiff SEO Expert

Date: 08/01/2026

Keeping things in context

I (Ryan Walsh) am entering the twelfth year of advising businesses how they can generate more sales online. Now during that time I have seen agencies, plus consultants that get jump on the latest load of hype and over egg it.

Now, AI it’s not hype, neither is optimising your website for AI search, however, its important to keep things in context.

A lot of the latest data states that although AI use is growing, well, it still just accounts for less than one percent of overall traffic.
So, if you’re a multi-national with unlimited resources, that one percent could mean millions in revenue. However, if you’re a small business, well, you have to focus on what brings you the best bang for your marketing buck.

And, we would say, if you’re on a limited budget, well obsessing on Google Gemini viability could mean your business goes bankrupt before you get to increase sales. So, as the old saying goes “box clever” meaning think about how customers likely to find you, optimise those first.

So, get the basics right, the local SEO, the Google Business, the content marketing etc. What the experts say is this, the AI search is evolving to get cited, to be mentioned in an overview, these elements need to be optimised anyhow.
Gemini powered answers

So, a few things are happening in search, when Google AI decides to post an AI summary answer at the top of the page, CTR for that page is said roughly half from 15% to roughly 8%- so this means that we are competing for less clicks generally.

 

What is this Google Gemini anyhow and why does it matter?

Google Gemini is Google’s version of its own AI or LLM whichever way you want to describe it.
Gemini is also multi-modal so it designed to understand text, audio and code for example.
Powering Google’s AI Overview is thought to be Gemini, which then allows shoppers to use the “query fan out” technique to keep refining the question.

Don’t ignore the future

Okay so, now its time to contradict ourselves, we said, that AI searches only result in 1% or less of search traffic. But, that’s like saying don’t invest in F1 car innovation because mass car production started with the Ford Model T.

Everything has to start somewhere, 1% now, but who knows where it could be as soon as the end of 2026. So, no business can afford to lose visibility, which is why content marketing needs to be good, well, no superior to the competition. Don’t choose therefore agencies which are just rewording and rehashing AI content to save time!

Semantically structured

Honestly don’t get put off with the marketing jargon within this article and others like it, here’s what matters:

• Well structured content
• Google EEAT
• Pushing the boat out

Let us explain what we mean by well-structured content, don’t write 1,000 of waffle, today for the work to be cited, indexed, clicked on it needs to be superior. So, therefore make sure the content is well written, correctly structured, think about Google EEAT and push the boat out.

So, by pushing the boat out, and this agency what we mean by that is going the extra mile to show why we are the best, why our clients are the best, why we have the best knowledge on that particular subject. Google Rank Brain, BERT, Google’s Helpful Content Update there all baked into the algorithm, they are not going anywhere, so if you know your stuff, show you know your stuff, then Google will rank your stuff (content marketing) higher.

In terms of optimising for AI / Google Gemini are traditional SEO fundamentals still important?

Crawlable

All the “SEO basics” there all still important, whether its organic or AI visibility you need to improve these areas.
Making your website crawlable, managing your crawl budget as well as adding robots.txt and a up to date sitemap are important. The other SEO basics are important as well such as having a secure HTTPS and getting rid of say duplicate text or spam.

On-page SEO

On-page elements are needed to improve organic and AI viability. For example, if you make it easier for Googlebot and the other bots used to crawl and index that page, if they can better understand its meaning and context, this allows it to be better understood by the LLMS and Google.

For example, if you a conversational writing style, the page is packed to the rafters with helpful nuggets of information this content marketing will be deemed more helpful.

Therefore, if the work answers more queries, it simply be shown and displayed for more queries.

In the work is deemed as helpful, the dwell times may well be high, if there high this is strong indicator to Google that the work is useful. If its useful, its going rank higher organically. If the work ranks high organically its going be trusted as one of the best answers to that query, therefore cited in more Google Gemini and Google AI Overview answers, therefore generating more clicks.

In short, quality matters, so push the boat out when writing content marketing.

 

Replace fragmented keywords with conversational queries

A lot of businesses use various SEO tools, then start optimising a page using fragmented keywords. What is far better is to think about to use a conversational writing style plus good web design techniques to see how can optimise the page around better helping the customer.

Perhaps could be adding an accordion to answer at the bottom of each page some frequently asked questions regarding that product.
Alternatively, it could just be rewriting the advice so its more personable, plus has more up to date information. Just adding a few fragmented keywords in a few strategic places like the H1 tag doesn’t really cut the mustard these days.

 

Sock it to me, how can we better optimise the page for AI Search?

• Structured copy
• Think about the page structure before you start writing the text.
• Which points are you going to cover?
• Then try to add much detail as possible, yet don’t send the reader the sleep.
• Add bullet points where possible, it’s also important to add relevant statistics.

 

In a world of AI Google EEAT is more important than ever

Now what do we mean by that?

Well, we live in a world where a 1,000 article can be spat out by AI in a matter of seconds.

Yet what is that work?

Well, it’s the work of a LLM, a large language model, which is basically a programme has learnt from existing text. Then regurgitates the text in a different format and style of writing. The AI bot has never experienced the real world first hand, so it’s always reliant on text that it has already read.

Therefore, the work which ranks best organically, which gets cited by Google Gemini is the work that’s written by an expert. Someone who truly knows what they are talking about, who the algorithm knows is an expert on that subject. So, Google EEAT so important, its so crucial, because it demonstrates that you know your stuff, you’re an expert on the subject matter, when that is cross checked with say LinkedIn, mentions of your name across the web, powerful backlinks leading to your website, then your seen as the expert. Google wants to mention expert opinion and advice above say a page that’s content thin. So part of the SEO agencies job simple, they have to convey and make clear to Google’s algorithms and LLMS why you are voice worth listing to. What makes you an expert?

Is it because you are a professor at Cardiff University about that subject? If so, have you asked for a backlink? Have you linked your LinkedIn to your website?

Perhaps you’ve won innovation for the best product on the market? Where this innovation award has been mentioned, have you asked for a backlink? Have your personal name and business name been cited in the news article? If not, why ask for that adjustment?

As Google algorithm when its crawling and indexing the web, it will spot this, the semantic web, Google’s Knowledge Vault will begin to get much clearer and well-defined impression that you are an expert in this field. That you’re a voice listening to.

So, then when you write guidance on your own website, regarding a product or service, or just offering advice, because you have managed to “define your entity” you have strong “semantic seo” then your name will often be cited in the LLMS, Google Gemini or perhaps Chat GPT simply because you are seen as the expert in that area.

 

A bit of structured data would not go a miss

Don’t think that this is going to be the golden ticket to AI success, however, adding a bit of schema mark-up here and there, its not a bad idea.

It can tell the bots, such as the bots Gemini, Perplexity or Chat GPT use, to better understand for example what the products or services are that you are selling.

Gemini and AI like up-to-date information

So, it used to be the case that you could get a page to rank highly on Google and it stayed there for an incredibly long period of time.

This is still possible, however, now the information must be up to date, the content marketing can’t get too stale otherwise you will start to drop down the ranks.

The information needs to be revisited, updated, statistics kept more up to date. For example, if your search for an energy efficient AI washing machine in 2026 you don’t want to read an article about best washing machines in 2018!

Therefore, businesses need to make sure that content marketing is supported by a lot of relevant statistics and facts. Yet all of that information needs to be kept up to date. The SEO agency or the copywriter therefore perhaps needs a Google Doc set up to say, when that work should be returned to and kept updated.

What this allows is for the visitor to the page to be provided with an up-to-date answer. Therefore they now that then they are making a buying decision based on the latest data available. Therefore, the page will continue or should have a high dwell time, this is massively important because undoubtably Google still uses AI, in the part of Google RankBrain to look which answers/ pages have the highest dwell time.

Therefore, if a page has a high time on site, then what this means is quite simple, that you have engaged the customer, they interested in what

you have to say. If they are interested in what you have to say, then this shows that you are the answering the question.

 

Don’t use AI to try and better your AI viability

So, you want to be more visible on Google Gemini?

You want to appear at the top of the page for Google AI Overview answers?

You want ChatGPT to keep mentioning your brand like a broken record?

Well, don’t think that fighting fire with fire is a good idea- now what do we mean by that?

If you use Ai text on page, this often lacks depth and meeting the Google EEAT criteria.
So, to increase your AI viability often you can’t use Ai.

Instead, you have to rely on your expertise and human creativity to create the best possible answer.

 

How we can help

We are a search engine optimisation agency with in excess of 10 years’ experience. We therefore know which content marketing will help a business to generate more sales, whether that’s via the LLM’s, organic search or via AI Overview answer on Google.
We are one of the best SEO agencies in the U.K and we can help your business to generate more sales.