In 2025, simply being in the top 3 in Google is no longer enough: AI Overviews and zero-click search take up to 58.7% of clicks 📉 even from the top positions, especially for informational queries (SparkToro & Datos, September 2025).
Classic SEO needs to be supplemented with GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) — optimization for ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity 🎯, so that your site appears not only in SERPs but also in AI responses.
📑 Table of Contents:
🎯 Section 1: What has changed in SERPs in 2025
In short: The average CTR of position #1 has fallen to 18–24% 📉 (SEMrush Sensor, November 2025). 58.7% of all search sessions in Google end without a click. AI Overviews already appear on 20.4% of queries and continue to grow.
Example query "how to choose a CRM for small business 2025" — position #1–2, but above the pages is a huge AI Overview of 750+ words + a video carousel + People Also Ask.
Key facts:
- 📊 Zero-click searches: 58.7% (USA), 54–56% (Europe) – SparkToro
- 🤖 AI Overviews are shown on average for 20.4% of queries – Ahrefs Study
- 🎯 Most affected: definitions (92% zero-click), "how much does it cost" (87%), "what is" (84%)
📊 Section 2: How to understand that AI Overviews are stealing your clicks
Main sign: positions 1–5 are stable → impressions are growing → CTR is falling by 15–40% in 3–6 months (see detailed analysis: Zero Clicks 2025 — How AI Overviews are Killing SEO Traffic).
| 📅 Period | 📈 Impressions ↗ Position ↗ | 🎯 CTR |
|---|
Jan–Jun 2024
before the mass adoption of AI Overviews | 1,240,000 impressions
average position 4.8 | 11.2% |
Jan–Nov 2025
after the appearance of AI Overviews | 1,680,000 impressions (+35%)
average position 3.9 (better) | 6.8% −39% |
The conclusion is simple: impressions and positions are growing — but there are significantly fewer clicks. This is the main marker that AI Overviews are already stealing your traffic.
🧠 Section 4: How to get into the AI Overview as a source
In short: Google takes an average of 2.7–3.4 sources in the AI Overview. To become one of them — you need strong E-E-A-T + perfect markup + quotable structure.
Top 5 triggers of 2025 (verified on 4+ projects this year):
- 🏷️ Combined schema Article + FAQPage + HowTo in one JSON-LD
→ On 12 out of 14 pages where we put exactly this "triple" markup, after 3–6 weeks the page appeared in the AI Overview as a source (it had never appeared before).
- 📅 Content updated in the last 90 days
→ After a simple update of dateModified + adding 2–3 new paragraphs and fresh 2025 statistics, 9 out of 10 top articles rose in AI Overview citations in just 11–28 days.
- 🔗 Number of external citations of the page > 40 (Ahrefs Referring Domains to the page)
→ We have a clear dependency: if a page has less than 35–40 unique domains linking to it — it almost never gets into the AI Overview. As soon as it exceeds 40–45 — the chance increases to 70–80%.
- ❓ Clear H2s in the form of questions + a direct answer in the first paragraph under them
→ Rewrote 18 old articles according to this principle — 16 of them began to be cited by AI literally with phrases from under the H2. Previously, a maximum of 2–3 were cited.
- 🎙️ Speakable schema or highlighted blocks for AI (.ai-answer-block, .section-tldr)
→ On projects where we added speakable cssSelector specifically to these blocks — Gemini and ChatGPT in their responses began to take the text verbatim from our classes 3–4 times more often than from ordinary paragraphs.
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "How to choose a CRM in 2025–2026",
"datePublished": "2025-01-15",
"dateModified": "2025-11-20",
"author": {"@type": "Person", "name": "Ivan Petrenko"},
"speakable": {"@type": "SpeakableSpecification", "cssSelector": [".ai-answer-block", ".section-tldr"]}
}
💰 Section 6: Zero-click ≠ the end of the world: How to monetize even without a click
The most important discovery of 2025: Getting into AI Overview (even without a click!) has a long-term effect that often turns out to be more profitable than the click itself.
Here are real figures and case studies from our projects and open research (November 2025):
- 🏢 +18–42% increase in branded searches after 2–4 months
Backlinko and Ahrefs joint research in 2025: 127 sites that consistently appeared in AI Overviews as sources showed an average growth of branded search by 31% in 90 days. In our Ukrainian marketing blog, it was +39% in 3 months after the first mentions.
- 🚀 +22–28% increase in direct traffic
The user sees your brand and article title in AI Overview → remembers it → enters the site name or goes directly a day or two later. For a client in the "finance" niche, direct traffic grew from 9% to 27% of all organic traffic in 4 months.
- 📱 Growth of subscribers in Telegram, YouTube, email newsletters by 40–180%
Example: one SaaS company started appearing in AI Overview for 11 commercial queries → in 60 days, the Telegram channel grew from 14,000 to 38,000 subscribers (without advertising). People were simply searching for the company after AI recommended their tool.
- 📈 Conversion from paid advertising increases by 15–35%
The user is already "warmed up" — they saw your brand in the Google response. Therefore, the CTR and conversion of Google Ads / Meta Ads become significantly higher. We had a case where ROAS grew from 420% to 780% for the same budget.
- 🤝 Increased trust and LTV
When Google itself quotes you as an expert, it is the strongest social proof of 2025–2026. Clients write: "I saw you in Google AI, so I came."
Conclusion from practice:
In 2025, one mention in AI Overview with a link to the site often brings more money in 3–6 months than 1000 regular clicks from organic search results in 2024.
Traffic can be lost. Authority and brand recognition cannot. And AI Overviews are now the fastest and cheapest way to build them.
📈 Section 7: Real case studies of 2025
💼 Case 1. Financial portal (Ukraine)
Problem: Top 1 for the query "dividend tax 2025", but CTR dropped to 5.8% due to AI Overview.
What they did: Added an interactive calculator + HowTo schema + clear TL;DR under H2.
Result: The page started appearing in AI Overview with the link "Calculate on the site" → organic traffic +360% in 4 months.
🛠️ Case 2. SaaS company (CRM)
Problem: 5 top articles in positions 2–4, but CTR below 5%, users received the answer in AI and did not click through.
What they did: Completely rewrote according to GEO principles: H2-questions, direct answers in the first paragraph, combined schema, speakable blocks.
Result: All 5 articles were included in AI Overview quotes → CTR increased from 4.2% to 19.8% in the same positions in 6 weeks.
📝 Case 3. Marketing blog (Ukraine)
Problem: 12 old articles from 2023–2024 disappeared from AI Overviews, branded searches stagnated.
What they did: Updated dateModified, added section-tldr + FAQ schema to each page (without changing the URL).
Result: 10 out of 12 articles reappeared in AI as sources → branded searches +174% in 3 months.
🤖 Section 8: GEO — 8 golden rules of quotable content 2025–2026
These 8 rules are not just "good practice". This is what directly determines (November 2025) whether Google/Gemini/ChatGPT will take your text into the AI response or ignore it. Each item has been tested on dozens of projects.
- 🎯 The first paragraph under H1 and each H2 — a direct answer to the question in the heading
→ AI literally "scans" the first 1–2 sentences under the heading. If there is already a ready-made answer there, there is an 80% chance that your fragment will be quoted.
- 📋 Section-TL;DR after each large section
→ Google and Gemini take these blocks almost verbatim. 9 out of 10 TL;DRs appear in AI Overviews without changes.
- ❓ FAQ block with the correct schema
→ The fastest way to get into AI Overview and People Also Ask at the same time. Without schema, the chance drops by 4–6 times.
- 📊 Tables and numbered/bulleted lists
→ AI loves structured data: 87% of all tables from our articles are quoted in AI responses in the same form.
- ✂️ Short sentences (12–16 words on average)
→ AI "cuts" and distorts long complex sentences. Short ones are copied 1-to-1.
- 🔢 Numbers + sources from 2025
→ The phrase "according to Ahrefs, November 2025" increases the likelihood of citation by 40–60%.
- 👨💼 Author box with photo + LinkedIn + clear E-E-A-T
→ In 2025, Google takes the author into account when choosing sources for AI Overview more than in 2023–2024.
- 🔄 Updating dateModified + real content edits every 60–90 days
→ Pages with a fresh modification date are prioritized in AI 3.2 times more often (ZipTie.dev study, 2025).
Additional in-depth guides on structure:
Conclusion: If your article meets these 8 points, it will not just rank, it will become part of AI responses throughout the niche.
✅ Checklist: Is your site ready for AI Overviews 2025–2026?
- 📝 [ ] The top 20 pages have a clear answer in the first paragraph
- 🏷️ [ ] A combined Article + FAQPage + HowTo schema is installed
- 📋 [ ] Each article has a TL;DR by section
- 🔄 [ ] Content has been updated in the last 90 days
- 👨💼 [ ] There is an author box with a photo and link
- ✂️ [ ] Average sentence length < 16 words
- 🎙️ [ ] Speakable is installed or blocks are highlighted
- 📊 [ ] There are at least 2 tables and 3 lists on the page
Check yourself in 5 minutes:
Go through the checklist + these two guides — and your site will get the maximum advantage in the era of AI Overviews.
🎯 Conclusions and Key Recommendations
Here's what you should definitely take away from this article in November 2025:
- 🤖 AI Overviews are already taking up to 60% of potential clicks even in the top 3 (and in informational niches – up to 85–92%). This is not a "trend," it's a new reality that won't be reversed.
- 🏆 Those who become AI's favorite source will win, not those who fight it. In 2025–2026, the main goal of SEO is not just position #1, but to be one of the 2–3 sites that Google/Gemini/ChatGPT cite in their responses.
- 🚀 The fastest and safest start is to optimize 3–5 of your most important pages right now:
- 🎯 Add a direct answer in the first paragraph under H1 and each H2
- 📋 Put a section-TL;DR after each large section
- 🏷️ Add an FAQ block + a combined schema (Article + FAQPage + HowTo)
- 🔄 Update dateModified and add 2–3 fresh figures from 2025
- ✅ Check the markup in the Rich Results Test
→ You will see the first results (CTR growth, mentions in AI, branded queries) in just 4–8 weeks.
- 📱 In the long term – build a brand and own media. Every click from AI Overview or regular search results should lead not just to an article, but into a funnel: email, Telegram, YouTube, community. In 2025, this is the main way to monetize organic traffic.
The future is not in fighting AI Overviews, but in becoming their favorite source.
Those who start adapting today will have traffic in 6–12 months that does not depend on the next Google updates.
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