I Rebuilt My SEO Strategy for Google AI Overviews — and Here’s What Actually Moved the Needle

Photo by Marten Newhall on Unsplash

Google’s new AI Overviews — powered by Gemini 2.5 — are transforming how search works, how content performs, and how marketers present themselves to their audiences.

When the traditional SERP started making room for generative responses, I saw my hard-earned top-ranking content begin to fluctuate. Click-throughs dipped. Featured snippets vanished. And users? They stopped behaving like they used to.

So I did what marketers do best: adapted.

This isn’t a story about traffic loss — it’s about how I rebuilt my SEO strategy around the new search landscape. I embraced GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), AIO (AI-assisted workflows), and SUX (Search UX) to find what actually works in a post-Gemini world.

Think Like a Source, Not a Summary

Google’s AI doesn’t want derivative content. It wants source material — thought leadership, firsthand frameworks, and genuinely useful POVs.
When I pivoted my content to include:

— Original models or methodologies
— Internal data and experiments
— Clearly defined opinions and voice