Google’s eagerness to deliver the content people seek led to the creation of its Google Search Generative Experience. It pushes down sponsored and organic links in favor of delivering detailed content so searchers don’t have to click.

If you’ve opted into the SGE experiment as a user, you already know what I’m talking about. It’s the article-type response generated by Google that appears at the top of the search engine results page.

So how do you get your content to be part of that experience – and still rank well below? Do these five things:

1. Follow Google’s EEAT principles: Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness matter a lot. Fortunately, EEAT mimics quality content practices. Provide detailed, accurate information that demonstrates your credentials and links to credible sources.

2. Write for searchers and AI: Craft content that will flow naturally for your target audience to consume. Write conversationally. Don’t use jargon or technical terms that could complicate the text for the reader and the AI algorithm. Be clear and concise. Make the content scannable.

3. Structure your content logically: Like your audience, AI tools prefer content that’s easy to follow. Pay attention to how you structure the content. Write helpful headings and subheadings. To see how well you did, read just the headings and subheadings. Do they tell what the story’s about? Do they logically follow each other? Adjust as necessary. 

4. Think about your audience’s prompts: Similar to creating content for traditional search-optimized content, integrate keywords and phrases that your audience is likely to use in their prompts. The easiest way to do this is to input a question into search, then look at the People Also Ask questions to see their related questions. Organic results and knowledge panels in the results also can be helpful. 

5. Experiment: Introduced this year, SGE is designed to evolve as it better learns what searchers want from it. You can do the same – craft different text, formats, etc. Analyze what works best for Google’s AI algorithm to improve the chances of your content showing up in the results. Of course, look at your website’s analytics, too, to see how SGE results impact website traffic, conversions, etc.

Helpful Resources:

Join your fellow serious content creators at the Content Entrepreneur Expo May 5-7, 2024. Registration now open!

About the author

Ann regularly combines words and strategy for B2B, B2C, and nonprofits, continuing to live up to her high school nickname, Editor Ann. An IABC Communicator of the Year and founder of G Force Communication, Ann coaches and trains professionals in all things content. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.