Time to read: 3 minutes
For months now, there’s been constant noise in the marketing world about how AI is completely changing the game. And with new buzzwords like AEO and GEO floating around, as well as many takes on emerging best practices, it can be hard to determine what advice will actually help your site and not hurt it in the long run.
Aware of all the chatter, Google has finally published its own guide to optimizing sites for generative AI to help marketers and business owners. And luckily for our clients, Google has also doubled down on what our agency already abides by:
“The best practices for SEO continue to be relevant because our generative AI features on Google Search are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems.”
With that said, let’s get into the actual SEO practices site owners should implement to help them get cited in AI-generated answers.
SEO Best Practices Google Recommends for AI Search Optimization
If you’ve visited our newsletter before or have read content we’ve published on our site, you may be familiar with these strategies we’ve regularly touted:
- Write content that is helpful, reliable, and people-first
- Use clear, readable page structures (paragraphs, headers, bullets, etc.)
- Complement text with video and images
- Avoid scaling content for every keyword variation out there
- If you use AI to help you write, be sure you don’t break Google’s policies
- Ensure your site is crawlable by search engines and AI tools
- Provide a good page experience for users on all devices
- Check for duplicate content and consider consolidating
- Provide a unique point of view, avoiding “commodity content” in the eyes of Google:
(Source: Victoria Kurichenko on LinkedIn from Google Search Central Live)
What Doesn’t Actually Matter for AI Search
Google’s statement also included a helpful section intended to myth-bust some common tactics shared around the web in the past year:
- LLMs.txt and other special coding – Some more black-hat marketers suggest adding specific files and code to your website to better communicate with large language models. Google states these do not work.
- Text “chunking” – While some people have been treating “chunking” as a new AI strategy, it’s just a trendy reframe for good, readable copywriting.
- Writing for AI – There’s no hack to writing for AI platforms to get them to automatically choose your website. Writing for AI optimization simply means having clear and concise copy, matching user intent, and avoiding fluff and overused jargon.
- Schema markup – Many great SEO strategies use schema markup, but Google is clarifying that schema is not a direct ranking factor for AI search. Our agency believes schema is often still worth implementing because it can drive clicks, which can indirectly improve rankings.
- Inauthentic mentions – Forcing brand mentions across the web to trick AI models doesn’t work and looks spammy. This is especially true when it comes to buying placements on listicles such as “Top Banking Software for 2026.” Here’s what SEO expert Glenn Gabe had to add about this section of Google’s guide:
Step into the Future with Our AI-Aware SEO Agency
We’ve been steady on prioritizing SEO for AI search all year long, and we’re ready to help your business be ready for whatever else Google and AI platforms throw your way. So, if you’ve been thinking about making AI search a priority in the second half of the year, we’d love to chat. Reach out today.
