Why Does AI Visibility Not Depend Only On SEO?

In May this year, Google released a document titled “Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search” in which it discussed the key factors required for appearing on AI overviews. 

While providing a holistic understanding, it has attracted attention to the non-SEO factors for ensuring AI visibility. 

Factors of AI visibility

The point here is what factors impact the AI visibility. Many factors simultaneously work to make the website cited in the AI response. 

Below is an image clearly mentioning these factors and how much they impact. 

Here you will see many SEO factors like technical SEO strength and schema, and Non SEO factors like content thoroughness and freshness. 

SEO factors are easily understood and incorporated by the masses, but learning and imbibing the non-SEO factors is a bit tough and usually ignored. 

Non-SEO Factors for AI Visibility

Solely’s reliance on SEO won’t translate to the expected result. Non-SEO factors are equally important to ensure AI visibility. These factors are: 

1. Focus on Unique and Productive Content: The content you provide must not just reflect what others have written. It must have something new and unique that will help people in upgrading their knowledge. Also, Google has explicitly favoured the EEAT strategy for generative AI results. 
2. Give a Direct Answer: Don’t beat around the bush and answer the people’s queries in crisp and direct words. Use Quora, Reddit, and AnswerThePublic to learn the doubts people have in their minds and address them in simple words and an informative tone. 
3. Cover The Topic Intent, Not The Keywords: Keywords are the seeds for the content, but relying solely on the keywords to structure and content with an aim to stuff them is not a wise decision. Rather, cover the topic and ensure that the reader gets more than what they have come for.
4. Accurate Business Details: If you are selling a service or product, make sure you adhere to NAP consistency, have a Google My Business profile, special location pages, etc to make it appear on the Google citations. 
5. Offsite Citations: The AI results are derived from discussion and rating forums like Reddit, G2, and Trustpilot. People’s responses to your website, product, or service on these platforms will be captured and considered by Google to show it on the AI overview. 
6. Content Freshness: Make sure the content is well updated when the status or information changes. Also, ensure the content duplication is checked and rectified at the earliest.  

Way Forward

Although these factors carry weight in AI visibility, SEO practices should not be ignored at any cost. Even Google itself said that SEO is still relevant for generative AI searches. You can understand it in a manner that SEO is the vehicle and content is the driver; both are important for driving the traffic.