Is SEO still relevant for AI search? What Google’s guidance means for Monash businesses
Yes. SEO still matters for AI Overviews, AI Mode and generative search.
Google has said it plainly: its generative AI features are built on the same core Search ranking and quality systems used across Google Search.
The names may be multiplying. AI SEO. AEO. GEO. Generative Engine Optimisation. A small alphabet soup has arrived.
But the useful work remains familiar.
Your website still needs to be technically accessible, genuinely helpful and clear about who you are, what you offer and why someone should choose you.
For businesses in Clayton, Glen Waverley, Mount Waverley, Mulgrave, Oakleigh and across the City of Monash, this creates an opportunity.
You do not need to rebuild your website around a mysterious new algorithm. You do need to make your existing information more useful, specific and easier for search systems and customers to interpret.
That is the practical purpose of AI Search Optimisation: making the website easier for search platforms to understand without making it strange for humans.
Article summary
Google’s generative AI features do not replace SEO. They rely on Google’s existing Search index, ranking systems and quality signals to find and evaluate useful web pages.
For Monash businesses, the practical priorities are:
- Explain clearly what your business does, who it helps and where it operates.
- Publish original information based on real experience.
- Answer the main customer question early.
- Cover the related questions people are likely to ask next.
- Connect important pages with descriptive internal links.
- Keep service, product and local business information accurate.
- Make important content crawlable and available as readable text.
- Measure enquiries, sales and customer actions – not visibility alone.
There is no separate AI shortcut hiding behind the settings menu. A relief for everyone.
What has changed in Google Search?
People are asking longer and more detailed questions.
Instead of searching for something broad such as “commercial cleaner Melbourne”, a person may ask:
Which commercial cleaning company near Mulgrave works after hours, uses low-toxicity products and can clean a medical office without interrupting staff?
That is not one simple keyword.
It contains several needs:
- Location
- Availability
- Industry experience
- Cleaning methods
- Safety considerations
- Service process
Google’s generative AI features can explore those different parts before creating a response.
This is where two slightly technical terms become useful: retrieval-augmented generation and query fan-out.
Retrieval-augmented generation, without the dramatic soundtrack
Retrieval-augmented generation, often shortened to RAG, helps an AI response draw on relevant and current pages from Google’s Search index.
In simpler terms, Google searches for useful supporting information before generating its answer.
Google explains this process in its official guide to optimising for generative AI features.
This means your website still needs to be:
- Crawlable
- Indexed
- Eligible to appear in Search
- Clear enough for Google to interpret
- Useful enough to support the person’s question
A page cannot support an answer if Google cannot access it, interpret it or work out why it exists.
Query fan-out: one question becomes several searches
Query fan-out is the process of breaking a complex question into related searches.
Imagine someone asks:
Who can improve an e-commerce website in Monash that gets traffic but not enough sales?
The related searches might explore:
- E-commerce SEO services near Monash
- Why product pages are not converting
- How to improve category-page rankings
- Website conversion audit pricing
- AI search optimisation for online stores
- Local SEO consultants in Clayton
- Examples of e-commerce website improvements
A single generic service page may not answer all of that.
A well-structured website can.
Your main service page might explain the offer. A supporting article might diagnose common conversion problems. A case study could show your process. Your about page could establish relevant experience.
Clear internal links then help people and search systems move between them.
Pages exist. Keywords exist. The connections are what make them useful.
For online stores, SAEIGHT’s e-commerce SEO service focuses on category pages, product information, internal links and the shopping journey not simply collecting more keywords.
Do AEO and GEO replace SEO?
No.
AEO usually means Answer Engine Optimisation.
GEO usually means Generative Engine Optimisation.
These terms describe work intended to improve visibility in answer-style and generative search experiences.
From Google’s perspective, however, optimising for its generative AI features is still part of SEO.
Its AI experiences rely on the Search index, ranking systems and established quality signals.
Google’s guidance says foundational SEO practices remain relevant. There is no separate collection of GEO tricks required for Google Search.
That does not mean search behaviour has stayed the same.
It means the foundations have not disappeared.
Useful AI search optimisation may include:
- Strengthening service and product pages
- Improving website structure
- Answering customer questions clearly
- Adding original examples and expert commentary
- Improving internal linking
- Clarifying business and location information
- Adding accurate structured data
- Improving images, video and product information
- Keeping important pages technically accessible
You can call it AI SEO, AEO or GEO.
The label matters less than whether the work makes the website better.
What should a Monash business improve first?
1. Make the business unmistakably clear
A visitor should quickly understand:
- What you do
- Who you help
- Where you operate
- What makes the service relevant
- What they should do next
Search systems need the same basic clarity.
A homepage that says:
Innovative solutions for your evolving needs.
may sound polished, but it explains almost nothing.
A clearer version might say:
We provide commercial electrical maintenance for offices, warehouses and retail sites across Clayton, Mulgrave and Melbourne’s south-east.
The second version gives people and search systems something real to work with.
Review your homepage, service pages and contact page. Make sure your business name, main services, location or service area and contact information are consistent.
People should not need a detective board to understand your offer.
2. Create information that could only come from your business
Google’s guidance places strong emphasis on valuable, original and non-commodity content.
Commodity content is information almost anyone could produce.
For example:
Five reasons SEO is important for your business.
It is broad, familiar and unlikely to reveal much expertise.
A more useful article might be:
What we found after reviewing 30 service pages from Melbourne businesses getting traffic but few enquiries.
That article could include:
- Recurring problems you have observed
- Screenshots or anonymised examples
- Your decision-making process
- Common misunderstandings
- Practical before-and-after improvements
- Situations where the usual advice does not apply
Search systems need the sGoogle recommends creating helpful, reliable and people-first content that adds real value rather than simply repeating information already available elsewhere.
SAEIGHT’s content systems for AI search follow the same principle: fewer interchangeable articles and more useful content connected to genuine customer questions.
The goal is not to sound more complicated.
It is to contribute something more useful than a summary of everyone else’s summaries.
3. Answer the next question as well
A customer rarely has only one question.
Someone researching a service may also want to know:
- How much does it cost?
- What is included?
- How long will it take?
- Do you work with businesses like mine?
- Can the work be completed remotely?
- What information do you need from me?
- What happens after I enquire?
- Are there limitations or exclusions?
You do not need to squeeze every answer onto one heroic page.
Create a clear main page, then connect it to relevant supporting content.
Use internal links that explain where the reader is going, such as:
- See how SAEIGHT approaches AI Search Optimisation
- Explore local visibility support for Monash businesses
- See SAEIGHT’s e-commerce SEO approach
- Read practical articles about search, content and websites
“Read more” is not technically wrong.
It is simply making everyone guess.
4. Build local relevance without creating suburb photocopies
The City of Monash includes Clayton, Glen Waverley, Mount Waverley, Mulgrave, Oakleigh, Hughesdale, Huntingdale, Notting Hill, Wheelers Hill and several surrounding areas.
You can check official municipality information through the City of Monash website.
This does not mean your website needs a collection of near-identical pages with only the suburb name changed.
A useful local page should contain genuine local relevance, such as:
- The services available in that area
- How customers are supported
- Practical travel, delivery or appointment information
- Work completed for similar local businesses
- Relevant customer questionsLocal service limitations
- Original photos or examples
- A clear next step
A page titled “SEO Glen Waverley” should offer somethingg more than your main SEO page wearing a Glen Waverley hat.
SAEIGHT’s local SEO and local visibility support focuses on accurate local information, useful location content, Google Business Profile signals and genuine customer relevance.
Sometimes one strong Monash service page is more helpful than 14 weak suburb pages.
Create an individual location page only when you have enough specific information to justify it.
5. Keep the technical foundations healthy
Google says there are no additional technical requirements for appearing as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
Your pages still need to meet the normal requirements for Google Search.
Google’s SEO Starter Guide remains a useful reference for crawling, indexing, page structure and search visibility.
Check that:
- Important pages are not blocked in
robots.txt - Pages are indexable
- Canonical tags point to the correct URLs
- Important information is available as text
- Internal links can be crawled
- Mobile pages work properly
- Page titles describe the content
- Images are compressed
- Meaningful images have useful alt text
- Structured data matches what visitors can see
- Google Search Console is set up and monitored
There is no special AI schema required.
Google also says you do not need a special AI text file, new machine-readable markup or a secret collection of tiny answer blocks to appear in its generative Search features.
Sadly, the magic button remains out of stock.
6. Make products and services easier to compare
Generative search can help people explore options and make detailed comparisons.
That makes vague product and service information less useful.
For a service business, consider including:
- Who the service is for
- What is included
- What is not included
- Starting prices or pricing factors
- Expected timeframes
- Your process
- Relevant experience
- Frequently asked questions
- The next step
For an e-commerce business, useful information may include:
- Accurate product specifications
- Dimensions and materials
- Compatibility
- Availability
- Delivery and collection information
- Returns information
- Original images and video
- Helpful comparisons
- Customer reviews
- Clear category and product relationships
A product page should do more than display a photo, a price and a lonely Add to Cart button.
SAEIGHT’s e-commerce SEO support looks at the information and connections that help customers find a product, understand it and feel confident choosing it.
7. Strengthen your local business information
Local visibility is not controlled by website content alone.
Google says local results are mainly influenced by relevance, distance and prominence.
Its official local-ranking guidance explains how accurate business information, reviews, photos and a complete Google Business Profile can support local visibility.
You cannot rewrite the physical distance between your business and the customer.
You can improve the accuracy and usefulness of the information Google has about you.
Keep your Google Business Profile updated with:
- Your correct business name
- Accurate categories
- Current contact information
- Your real address or service area
- Regular and special opening hours
- Relevant services
- Original photos and videos
- Helpful responses to reviews
Your website, Google Business Profile and other business listings should tell a consistent story.
If one platform says Clayton, another says Mulgrave and the website has quietly removed the location altogether, search systems are left doing administrative detective work.
SAEIGHT’s e-commerce SEO support looks at the information and connections that help customers find a product, understand it and feel confident choosing it.
What should you avoid?
Publishing large amounts of generic AI content
AI can help with research, outlines and early drafts.
It should not be used to publish hundreds of interchangeable articles that add no original experience, evidence or judgement.
Google’s guidance on using generative AI content says using AI is not automatically a problem.
Publishing large volumes of low-value content mainly to manipulate rankings may be.
More pages do not automatically create more visibility.
Sometimes they simply create a larger website to clean up later.
Repeating the same suburb page
Changing “Clayton” to “Glen Waverley” does not create a locally useful page.
Before publishing, ask:
Could a customer in this suburb learn something specific here that is not available on our general service page?
If the answer is no, the page needs more work.
A new suburb name is not a new idea.
Adding unsupported structured data
Structured data should describe information that is accurate and visible on the page.
Do not add awards, ratings, frequently asked questions, locations or services to the markup when the same information is absent or inaccurate on the page itself.
Schema is a label.
It is not a substitute for the thing being labelled.
Chasing unsupported AI-search shortcuts
Google says website owners do not need special AI markup or an llms.txt file to appear in Google Search.
You also do not need to rewrite every paragraph into a tiny answer fragment or manufacture mentions across unrelated websites.
The useful work is less dramatic:
- Publish clear information
- Add original value
- Keep pages technically accessible
- Build genuine authority
- Make the website easy to navigate
No magic tricks. Just fewer confusing bits.
Promising AI visibility
No agency can guarantee that Google will include a particular business in an AI Overview, AI Mode response or traditional search position.
The work can improve clarity, eligibility and readiness.
The final result remains outside an agency’s control.
Confidence is useful.
Fiction is less so.
A practical 30-day AI search plan
Week 1: Find the confusing parts
Review your:
- Homepage
- Main service or category pages
- Contact page
- About page
- Google Business Profile
- Search Console indexing reports
Look for:
- Missing information
- Vague headings
- Repeated content
- Inconsistent business details
- Weak internal links
- Pages with no clear next action
The website may be technically alive and still make people work far too hard.
Week 2: Improve one commercially important page
Choose the service or category page most closely connected to enquiries or revenue.
Improve:
- The page title
- Main heading
- Opening answer
- Service explanation
- Pricing information
- Process
- Proof
- Local relevance
- Internal links
- Call to action
One properly improved page is more useful than ten rushed ones.
Week 3: Publish one expert-led supporting article
Choose a real customer question connected to the service.
Include:
- Your experience
- Original observations
- Practical examples
- Relevant screenshots
- A useful framework
- Situations where the usual advice does not apply
Link the article to the relevant service page.
Then link the service page back to the article where it genuinely helps the reader.
Useful content. Put somewhere people can find it.
Week 4: Connect the local signals
Check your business information across your website and Google Business Profile.
Update your:
- Services
- Contact information
- Opening hours
- Service areas
- Photos
- Business description
Ask recent customers for honest reviews without offering rewards or writing the review for them.
Then track what happens.
How do you measure AI search performance?
AI-search visibility is useful to understand, but it is not the final business outcome.
Monitor:
- Organic enquiries
- Phone calls
- Form submissions
- Online sales
- Product views
- Engagement with important service pages
- Assisted conversions
- Search queries in Google Search Console
- Landing pages attracting relevant visitors
- Changes in branded searches
- Customer questions mentioned during enquiries
Also watch for new reporting options as Google develops Search Console measurement for generative Search experiences.
The real question is not simply:
Did we appear in an AI answer?
It is:
Did the right person find us, understand us and take a useful next step?
Visibility starts the journey.
It does not complete it.
Need help making your website clearer for Google and customers?
SAEIGHT is based in Clayton and helps businesses across Monash and Melbourne improve their websites for traditional search, generative AI search and the humans doing the searching.
We can review your:
- Core website pages
- AI search readiness
- Local visibility
- Website structure
- Internal links
- Customer-question content
- E-commerce categories and products
- Google Business Profile signals
- Measurement setup
We will show you what is clear, what is confusing and what is worth fixing first.
No promise to dominate Google by Thursday.
Just practical work that makes the website easier to find, easier to understand and easier to choose.
Is traditional SEO still relevant for AI Overviews?
Yes.
Google says its generative AI features are connected to its existing Search index, ranking systems and quality systems.
Technical SEO, useful content, internal links and clear business information still matter.
Do I need a separate GEO or AEO strategy?
You may use GEO or AEO to describe the focus of the work, but it should not be treated as a replacement for SEO.
The strongest approach connects technical foundations, useful content, business clarity, local information and customer experience.
Is there special schema for Google AI Overviews?
No.
Google says there is no special structured data required for AI Overviews or AI Mode.
Existing structured data should be accurate and match the information visible on the page.
Do I need an llms.txt file for Google Search?
No.
Google says an llms.txt file or other special AI-readable file is not required for appearing in Google Search or its generative AI features.
Your public website content still needs to be crawlable, indexable and useful.
Can SAEIGHT guarantee that my business will appear in AI search?
No.
Nobody can guarantee where Google or another AI platform will display a business.
SAEIGHT can strengthen the content, structure and signals that improve your website’s readiness and eligibility.
Does SAEIGHT help businesses outside Clayton?
Yes.
SAEIGHT helps Australian businesses, with local SEO and AI Search Optimisation support available to businesses across the City of Monash, greater Melbourne and other Australian locations.
