This article this interview is taken from was originally published on robertoserra.com. With their permission, I am sharing the translated interview here.
“Traffic without conversions is an empty number, useful only for vanity metrics.” – Alice Rowan
Google’s helpful content guidelines vs AI overviews
In 2022, Google pushed us to invest in content “written by people, for people.” Then it quietly removed the “by people” part, just as it was preparing AI Overviews. Isn’t this proof that “useful content” just means “content to be used for free,” cutting out those who create it?
I don’t think this is proof of this particular point, but rather a reflection of generative AI as a whole. I like to think that Google’s initial push towards human-written content was sincere. We must remember that Google is first and foremost a company, then a service. Its rush to integrate artificial intelligence everywhere is more a response to pressure from shareholders concerned about competition than a genuine desire to simplify users’ lives.
I agree, however, that this excludes the people who create the content. All to reduce time spent on the platform and competition from other LLMs.
You wrote that Google is asking creators for increasingly “useful” and high-quality content, but meanwhile it is filling SERPs with AI Overviews with hallucination rates as high as 39%, as in the case of Gemini. Isn’t this a contradiction that penalizes those who work with rigor, expertise, and verified data? How can we talk about quality when we rely on a system that gets it wrong almost 4 times out of 10?
This is an inherent contradiction that is incredibly demoralizing for those working in SEO, for those simply trying to run a business, and even for end users.
Quality still matters. SEO is not our only marketing channel; it is only part of a much larger ecosystem. So, while it may be hypocritical of them to promote quality as a priority, we still have a duty to treat our audience with respect. We have email marketing, social media, websites, events, and all sorts of other marketing tactics where our content plays an important role.
SEO can be part of this strategy, and quality is typically rewarded in SERPs, but I believe we can no longer rely on SEO as an isolated channel.
Content creators are increasingly becoming invisible laborers feeding artificial intelligence. If Google profits from what we produce but takes away our visibility, is SEO still a marketing tool… or has it become just a struggle to not disappear within a system that exploits us? And if Google no longer drives traffic, does it still make sense to stay there?
It’s not just content writers. Photographers, illustrators, artists, and creatives of all kinds are seeing their work fed into generative AI and LLMs to be distorted at will. The lack of intellectual property protection before or even in response to the global launch of LLMs is truly worrying.
SEO is still part of marketing and continues to drive traffic, but as I mentioned above, I think it needs to be reintegrated into a broader marketing ecosystem rather than treated as a standalone entity. Many companies fall into the trap of relying too much on SEO. We live in an era of algorithmic content distribution, so you can’t rely on a single platform or channel consistently.
What we can do is build slowly. Focus our content marketing efforts on attracting people into the marketing funnel where we’re not competing with algorithms for the number of views or readers. And I think website copy is going to become increasingly important.
SEO strategy in the age of AI overviews and AI mode
Alice, Google asks us for transparency, but with AI Overviews, it’s playing its cards close to its chest. We don’t know which queries trigger an AI response, nor how much traffic we’re losing. How can you strategize in a system that obscures fundamental metrics?
We know a few things. We know that AI Overviews are much more likely, at least for now, in informational searches. So if an SEO strategy is based, for example, on an 80-90% weighting on informational searches, we need to make some adjustments.
The HCUs really emphasized the importance of detailed, thoughtful informational content. However, data from my website and those of my clients indicate that while traffic for informational searches is declining, traffic for commercial searches is increasing (not at the same rate, so don’t get too excited). I think a great way to prepare for this change is to give some of our informational content (some, not all) a more commercial slant. Especially in service-based industries.
In the service industry, it can be effective to dedicate a blog post to answering a frequently asked question about your work. It’s helpful to start with a general overview: include research, definitions if needed, and broader context. Then you can dive into the details, explaining how that question relates directly to your business or describing your approach.
This isn’t something you need to do for every single blog post, but it can be useful to include because it’s more likely to appear for semantic terms related to your service, allowing your audience to learn more about the topic and showcasing your expertise.
E-E-A-T
We’ve been told for years: show direct experience, live what you tell. But AI Overviews do the opposite: they summarize content written by others, without experience. Isn’t that a glaring contradiction of E-E-A-T principles?
Yes, it is. John Mueller and the Google team have long argued that E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, even though it appears in Google’s Helpful Content Guidelines.
That said, I’ve always believed that E-E-A-T is more important for the quality of your content than for your SEO. Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are all important factors for conversion and trust building. Especially in industries with longer delivery times (SaaS, B2B services, large investments, etc.), people need to be able to trust you. And that’s key to connecting with them.
So yes, it’s a contradiction when it comes to SERPs, but it’s not a principle we should give up on anytime soon.
Late stage capitalism (yes, really)
There’s a lot of talk these days about “building a strong brand.” But for small publishers, vertical blogs, or niche e-commerce sites, that’s becoming increasingly difficult. Aren’t we in danger of reducing the web to a showcase for a few well-known brands?
What you’re describing is essentially the classic manifestation of monopolistic capitalism. And unfortunately, it’s in Google’s commercial interest to promote this phenomenon. The harder it is to be visible, the more growing companies will spend on advertising. Large companies will do this anyway, because advertising is simply a natural part of their budget.
I may sound like a broken record, but brand building is not just an SEO discipline. Honestly, I think this teaches us not to prioritize SEO. It’s still important and requires investment, but we can’t rely on it alone to drive consistent traffic or build a brand.
Working with different clients, I’ve noticed a recurring problem in many industries: the big players, along with the weight of their historical presence, continue to dominate search results, penalizing smaller businesses. But this is nothing new. Google is filling up the results pages with more and more elements: AI Overviews, “People Also Ask” boxes, forums, discussions, repeated Local Packs. All of this is reducing organic visibility across the board.
So now, small publishers are not only competing with the big players in their industry, but also with the SERP layouts themselves. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks is not a viable strategy.
Quality content and the slow demise of Big Tech
Google once promised us: you create value, I’ll bring you users. But with zero-click answers, traffic stops before it even starts. If search is no longer a channel that generates returns, who will support the production of quality content in the future?
If your content is bland, people won’t be interested and won’t come back, regardless of the channel they find you on. In fact, they’ll forget you. The quality of your content is increasingly becoming a conversion tool for your services and for keeping your business in the game while someone is looking for solutions.
As I said, SEO should not be the only driver for creating high-quality content. Companies that rely too heavily on SEO and are willing to do anything to achieve it will suffer because they will fail to retain customers in the long term.
There is a very real possibility that Google is laying the groundwork for its own obsolescence, but it won’t happen overnight. We therefore need to plan carefully and start working on strategies that can survive when the time comes. That means focusing on quality.
We have implemented structured data, markup for FAQs, reviews, and how-to guides. And now it is precisely this information that is being used to create AI responses. Aren’t we giving Google the weapons to make us redundant?
I understand that not everyone sees it this way, but I truly believe that it is Google that risks becoming redundant. Sure, we are here fighting for market share, but what we are witnessing is the classic slow decline of large technology companies.
They start by providing a service until they become a benchmark in their industry, then they try to balance profits with customer needs, then they prioritize profits over customer needs, until the service becomes unusable and people start abandoning it. We’ve been stuck in the Stockholm syndrome phase for a while, but I really believe things are starting to change.
Just look at how Generation Z uses Google compared to previous generations to see that this change is bound to accelerate over time. Today, there are so many channels to search for information, and more and more people are abandoning the habit of using Google as their only source.
We must also remember that there are other search engines. There are much smaller ones like DuckDuckGo and Ecosia (my favourite). But there’s also Bing, which is the default search engine in many corporate offices. None of these fill the SERPs as invasively as Google does, at least for now.
Balancing informational and commercial search intent
Some informational content today drives commercial conversions. But is that the exception or the rule? Many companies see only a collapse. Can we really base a strategy on dynamics we don’t control?
SEO has always been linked to dynamics that we don’t control. It’s an ever-changing industry, and our job as SEOs is to keep up.
Every piece of content published has the potential to lead to something if it’s well written and provides useful information. My helpful content vs AI overviews article, for example, is not optimized for conversion or particularly optimized for search, but it takes a specific position, has substance, and provides useful information. It was mentioned in two prominent SEO newsletters less than a week after publication, and now here I am giving this interview.
All of this leads to increased traffic to my site and, as a result, greater visibility in SERPs because, at least for now, Google considers my website a more reliable source. And, of course, it helps build the brand. It’s all part of one big system.
Was it intentional? No. Because SEO has always been about dynamics that we don’t control. That doesn’t mean we’re completely powerless, but it’s important to be realistic about what we want to achieve with our content. Traffic, if it doesn’t contribute to our business goals, remains an empty number: useful only for vanity metrics.
So, does all content necessarily have to lead to a conversion to be meaningful? Those involved in reputation, authority, and brand building know that these are goals that are built over time.
Today, we also need to be able to convey reliability not only to people, but also to language models and artificial intelligence, which need to recognize us as a credible brand. But how do you really measure this journey? And isn’t it limiting to reduce everything to conversion alone?
I don’t think all content necessarily has to convert. That’s not realistic. But we have the opportunity to capitalize on the attention we receive. When we receive less attention and fewer visits to our websites, how can we make the most of the traffic we do have?
There are many ways to strengthen brand loyalty, increase recognition, and drive conversion through your website. It often starts with content found through Google or other channels. From there, brand identity and tone of voice come into play, which are not just about how we write, but also how we build a relationship with our readers.
We need to really engage, finding the right balance between clarity and depth. If we can do that, those who arrive on the site may decide to stay, explore, and discover more about us.
This is where website copy is becoming increasingly essential for marketing. It’s an opportunity to connect with a stranger, earn their trust, and make them feel seen. All well-written copy leaves the audience with a positive feeling. Happiness, gratification, attention, enthusiasm, hope, relaxation. Your product or service is there to solve a problem, and the content you write should be directly related to the problems you are solving.
It’s not that all content needs to convert. But in service-based industries in particular, all content should have the potential to lead to something more.
Realistic strategies for content marketing when organic SEO is no longer reliable
For many companies, the problem is not theoretical, it is immediate. Traffic is down today, costs are there today. Are there short-term (some would say “dirty”) tactics to defend visibility and conversions in the immediate term?
I don’t believe in “dirty” tactics. Yes, the problem is immediate, and yes, it’s scary.
SERPs have always been chaotic, and creating useful content probably increases your chances of appearing in AI Overviews, which often pull organic results from the first page.
The problem is that Google doesn’t really value links to the sites it takes information from: it’s like writing a book using your searches, but citing them in tiny footnotes at the end where no one will read them. They’re cited, but only on a technicality. For this reason, I’m not convinced that focusing too much on AIOs is really an effective strategy.
The honest answer about what the immediate future holds for SEO is that we don’t know. We don’t have enough information about AI Overviews and AI Mode to make informed decisions in the short term. It’s important to remember that AI SEO specialists don’t exist, at least not yet. All we can do is try, test, and make sense of the data that emerges.
Know that as an industry, we are working and researching. But an SEO freelancer or your team will not be able to solve the situation of increasing impressions and decreasing clicks. This is a platform issue that is beyond our control. All we can do is recommend best practices for the future, continue to focus on quality, and increase the conversion of the traffic we are getting.
We are going through a period of great transition, and this will inevitably lead to some initial problems. So please be patient and empathetic towards the people who are fighting an uphill battle to get you the visibility you want in search engines.
Some important notes about this interview
This is the full translated interview, which is itself an excerpt from an article originally published in Italian on robertoserra.com.
Note: Some content has been edited for grammatical purposes and a few headings added in for easier reading.
Huge thanks again to Roberto Serra for having me and allowing me to speak my mind so freely.
