How do you show up in AI Overviews for your buyers' searches?

Be the best answer to the exact question your buyers search. AI Overviews cite the YouTube videos that answer the question best, so if a competitor answered it better, they show up and you do not.

Quick Answer

• Search your buyer's real question and scroll past the sponsored links.
• Look at who the AI Overview cites. That is who answered it best.
• Make the better answer on video, in your area of specialty.

This fits inside a bigger picture. If you want the full view first, here's the bigger picture.

Why does YouTube show up in AI Overviews?

YouTube is the second largest search engine, and it earns money when people watch. So it surfaces helpful content it wants people to watch.

What happens when you are the better answer?

When Dane searched "how to get cited by AI search with video," his own videos showed up, because on that exact question his content was the better answer.

"If you're not showing up here, then that's a problem." Dane Frederiksen

Want the whole plan? Download the free AEO Video Checklist.

Doing the thing is the easy part. The hard part is knowing where you're already winning and where you're invisible. That's exactly what our free AI Visibility Snapshot shows you, before you spend a dollar.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do other companies' videos show up in AI Overviews instead of mine?

They have more authority or did a better job answering that exact question.

Does YouTube help you get cited in AI Overviews?

Yes. AI Overviews often cite YouTube videos that answer the question well.

How do you check if you show up in AI Overviews?

Search your buyers' real question and see which sources the AI Overview cites.

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Want the full breakdown? Watch the full video, or read the full article.

Most teams don't get this right on the first try. Here's how we approached it for a real team. Curious what it'd look like for you? Let's talk it through.

Full Clip Transcript

So when people search for, you know, my, this is a search that one of my buyers would be asking, how do I get cited by AI search? Well, when they search for that, let's see what happens. Well, we get some sponsored results here, right? These are links that they can click. But then I'm going to go into the scrolling down on that same page. This is below those sponsored links. Look what's happening here. You're getting an AI overview and it's basically answering the question right there. And so, you know, if you're not showing up here, then that's a problem. These are YouTube links from somebody else who has more authority or has done a better job answering that question than me. But when we changed this search term to add the video component, which is how to get cited by AI search with video, which is my specialty, then my video content is a better answer. So that shows up there in the search results. These are all, you know, this is me. This is, and these are YouTube because YouTube is the second largest search engine. And, you know, YouTube makes a lot of money when you watch ads. So they help surface this because it's helpful content and they want you to watch it. So it's a pretty powerful incentive to make video content.

Full Transcript

To get cited by AI search, the strategy is to make video content that answers your exact buyer questions taken from your sales transcripts. And if you don't have that, you can just use whatever SEO tools you have to look for what people are searching for when they're looking for your solution. So I'll show you exactly how that works in great detail. Here we go. We're going to start with our goal.

So in this example, let's talk about how to sell faster and more in B2B SaaS. You've got a pipeline problem. Maybe your inbound is nonexistent. Your outbound feels like crawling through glass. You're basically not selling as much or as fast as you'd like to.

So the goal is to sell more and faster. So we're going to do some Intel. We're going to look at what buyer questions they have. What are your buyers asking you? You can look in your sales transcripts.

You probably know a lot of these off the top of your head. And then we're going to map those buyer questions to a content plan. And so let's say we have the top 10 buyer questions that are out there. We're going to look at what's possible here out of those 10. And we're going to decide what's realistic for us.

Can we do one video a week? Which one do we want to start with? Just a sort of realistic plan. And then once we come up with the right plan, then we're going to approve our plan up here. And then we're going to move over to production.

So that's the build phase. We're going to make our video content. First, we're going to take that buyer question that we talked about. We've identified which buyer questions we're going to start with. We're going to record a video, much like this one, where you in-depth answer your buyer questions with visual examples and answer the question as much as you can.

So it moves them on to the next phase of their journey. We're going to post this video on YouTube. And on your website, embedded with the transcript and with the answers to the buyer question so they can has more surface area, not just the video, but also the text transcript and your website is more material for AI to find and for readers to have value. And then we're going to analyze the results of posting this content. We're going to look at YouTube, see our people clicking.

Are they watching and staying in the video rather than clicking out early? If they are, that means they're getting their answers, their questions answered. And then if they're not, we're going to revise the plan and do a better job of answering those in our next videos. Or if they are, we're going to move on to the next answer to the next buyer question we've identified in our goal setting. So what that's going to do is it's going to accelerate your sales process.

It's going to make sales easier. And here's how. These buyers over here, they've got questions. So they've got top of funnel questions, middle funnel questions, and some questions at the end. So each of those main questions that they have, we're going to answer those with video content.

And so we're going to prioritize which ones are clogging up your sales funnel now. What's breaking? What's leaking? And we're going to basically make inroads here to get them down the funnel. We'll probably be able to answer 80% of the questions, because buyers go about 80% of the journey now, especially in AI industries, or B2B SaaS, cybersecurity, things like that.

They're really going to educate. There's a lot of low trust now. So they are going to go 80% of the way there. They'll have a couple of little questions at the end when they're ready to talk to sales or do a demo. So these leads that are coming in that have been, they show up in AI search and they're educating your buyers.

These leads, when you do get on a sales call, they're going to convert something on the order of like three times better sales conversions. And the reason that this number is what we're focused on is HubSpot did a test where they were seeing three times conversions. And even if that's not the exact number, it just stands to reason, right? If people are interested in the topic and they're searching for it, and you're answering the question well, you're the best answer out there because you've gone deeply and given them all the information that they need to satisfy that question and move on to the next one, it just makes sense that they're going to show up better educated. And if they're watching these videos all the way through, they're getting it.

If they're clicking and they're watching, they're getting educated and they're moving there. So we're going to measure these stats right here. AI visibility, are you showing up in AI search? Is your content being consumed? Are they clicking and watching?

And are they staying? When the qualified inquiries come, are they better educated? Is this number going up? Are they qualified? Or are you still having to educate people with top of funnel basic questions?

And then we're going to see pipeline because if we've got better leads, more qualified leads, those should be easier to convert and increase your pipeline. So why is this happening? Basically the old model over here is, you used to drive people to your website where they would read your articles and they get educated that way. But now things are kind of flip-flopped. Now your website is still important, but you kind of need to be where they are searching.

They're out here on Reddit, they're asking other people, they're on social media, they're on LinkedIn. So you need to be where they are searching. And AI search kind of makes that an even sharper point and I'll show you why. So when people search for, this is a search that one of my buyers would be asking, how do I get cited by AI search? Well, when they search for that, let's see what happens.

Well, we get some sponsored results here, right? These are links that they can click, but then I'm going to go into the scrolling down on that same page, this is below those sponsored links. Look what's happening here, you're getting an AI overview and it's basically answering the question right there. And so, if you're not showing up here, then that's a problem. These are YouTube links from somebody else who has more authority or has done a better job answering that question than me.

But when we change this search term to add the video component, which is how to get cited by AI search with video, which is my specialty, then my video content is a better answer. So that shows up there in the search results. These are all, this is me, and these are YouTube because YouTube is the second largest search engine. And YouTube makes a lot of money when you watch ads. So they help surface this because it's helpful content and they want you to watch it.

So it's a pretty powerful incentive to make video content because it's going to help educate your buyers. So what's going to happen is over time, as we, I call it content bingo, we're going to keep answering all these questions. And once we sort of run out of things to answer, then we're approaching an end state where these deals should be flowing a lot better. And we'll be able to measure this along the way. I think the first measurements you'll see, are you showing up AI visibility?

We'll measure that. So what that's going to look like is remember this search here. If you're answering buyer questions with content, they got the question up here. If you're right here, then that means you're showing up. You're in their consideration set right at the beginning of their journey or wherever they are in their journey.

So AI visibility is one thing we'll measure. Then we can also measure the content consumption. Are they clicking and watching? Are you qualified inquiries coming in at a higher volume? And then is that turning into pipeline?

So that's pretty much how this works. Video exists to make sales easier. And if you do it the right way, it works. And I've got the proof. And you saw it right here.

I've answered the buyer question. I've done a good job and it shows up right there. So if you want help with this, just reach out.