If you’re stressing about AEO, GEO, AIO, or any other Three-Letter-Acronyms (TLAs) someone pitched to you last month, you can relax now. Google’s official stance, as of May 2026, is that optimising for generative AI search counts as SEO. Same index. Same ranking systems, same rules, explains Toronto Copywriting Agency founder.
Hi, I’m Ray Litvak, founder of Writing Web Words Inc. I’ve been writing SEO copy since 2008, and AIO Copy since 2024. I’ve watched Google update its rules a lot. Mobile-first indexing. E-A-T becoming E-E-A-T. The Helpful Content Update. Core updates every few months. And now AI Overviews and AI Mode. Here’s what Toronto business owners need to know before the next “AI SEO expert” pitches you a $5,000 strategy you don’t actually need.
Google’s Guide to Optimizing for Generative AI Features on Google Search makes one thing clear. AI Overviews and AI Mode pull from the same Search index, using the same core ranking systems. If your content earns its place in the top results, AI can cite it.
Google Search Advocate John Mueller has been saying a version of this for years. Write for users, not search engines. That advice hasn’t changed. What’s changed is the surface. AI Overviews are now one more way your content can show up, get clicked, and earn you a customer.
As Google states in its AI Optimization Guide: “From Google Search’s perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.”
Here’s the official checklist, lifted straight from Google’s guidance:
✓ Allow Googlebot to crawl your site (check your robots.txt)
✓ Build strong internal linking and a clear technical structure
✓ Deliver a good page experience and solid Core Web Vitals
✓ Keep important content in text, not buried inside images or PDFs
✓ Match your structured data to the visible content on the page
✓ Keep your Google Business Profile complete and current
✓ Create unique, helpful, reliable, people-first content that demonstrates E-E-A-T
Sound familiar? It should. That’s SEO Copywriting 101, the same approach we’ve used at Writing Web Words for over 18 years.
This is where the new guide really earns its keep. The “Mythbusting” section reads like a Public Service Announcement for every business owner who’s been told they need to overhaul their entire content strategy for AI.
You do not need:
✗ An llms.txt file or any “special” AI markup
✗ To “chunk” your content into tiny pieces for AI to read
✗ To rewrite your pages in some new AI-friendly voice
✗ To chase fake or inauthentic “mentions” across the web
✗ A separate schema type just for generative AI
✗ A Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) playbook divorced from your SEO
“You don’t need to create new machine-readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in generative AI search.” via Google Search Central.
A Healthy Dose of Skepticism (Because It’s Still Google)
Let’s keep our heads here. After all, this is still Google. A trillion-dollar company with a commercial interest in keeping online content creators on the open web instead of feeding rival AI platforms.
A few things worth questioning before you treat this guide as gospel:
Google claims clicks from AI Overviews are higher quality and that users spend more time on the cited sites. That actually tracks with what I’ve seen across client accounts since AI Overviews rolled out. But third-party SEO data has been less rosy in several industries, with some publishers reporting CTR drops of 30 to 60 percent on informational queries. Trust, but verify with your own Search Console numbers.
“Just write helpful content” is great advice and also conveniently vague. Helpful by whose definition? Google’s Quality Raters work from guidelines most of us never read in full.
The new guide also stays mostly silent on how AI Overviews choose between several equally good sources. There’s still a black box behind the retrieval-augmented generation system, and Google is not opening it.
So follow the guide. It’s the most direct guidance Google has ever published on AI Search. Just don’t treat it like scripture.
Here’s the part that’s almost annoying to write because it sounds like a sales pitch. But it’s true. The copywriting process we’ve used since 2008 maps directly onto Google’s new AI optimization advice. Not because we adjusted for AI. Because we never strayed from the fundamentals.
Every one of our projects starts the same way:
1. Know your audience. We build a customer persona before writing a single word. Google now calls this “people-first content.”
2. Know your audience’s goals and location. For Local SEO clients across the GTA, locational relevance gets baked into the body copy. Google flags this as critical for AI Overviews to surface local businesses.
3. Structure for humans first. Headings, scannable sections, answer-first paragraphs, and the inverted pyramid method that journalists use. Google recommends this not for AI, but because real readers prefer it. AI systems happen to parse the same structure.
4. Keep important content in text. No burying answers inside images or PDFs. AI Overviews cannot cite what they cannot read.
5. Maintain technical hygiene. Crawlability, indexability, Core Web Vitals, and accurate structured data that matches visible content. Plus WCAG accessibility, which matters here in Canada more than ever.
“When the algorithms move, our clients are already ahead of them.” That’s been my line for years, and the new guide is more evidence behind it.
When Core updates happen, the businesses that suffer most are the ones chasing the latest hack. The businesses that grow the most are publishing useful content with real expertise behind it. That isn’t a marketing line. That’s literally what Google’s own AI Optimization Guide reaffirms in 2026.
If you run a local business (Toronto plumber, Mississauga med-spa, Vaughan law firm), the practical takeaway is simple. Double down on the fundamentals.
Google’s guide says that accurate business details, updated Google Business Profiles, and clear service descriptions help generative AI find your business in relevant answers.
A few moves you can make right now, no consultant required:
✓ Audit your Google Business Profile. Hours, services, photos, categories. Update anything stale.
✓ Make sure your most important answers live in text, not stuck inside an image or video with no transcript.
✓ Check that your structured data matches what users actually see on the page. Mismatched schema is a red flag for Google.
✓ Kill any duplicate or thin pages you published to chase long-tail variations. Combine them into one strong page. Google’s guide explicitly warns against this scaled content tactic.
✓ Review your robots.txt. If you blocked Google-Extended or other AI crawlers by mistake, you’re invisible to generative AI features.
That’s the whole playbook. SEO didn’t die. It had kids. And the kids want their upbringing to be the same way.
When you choose Writing Web Words Inc., you get 100% verifiable human-written SEO copy. We have 18 years of experience doing this the right way. No GenAI filler. No GEO snake oil. Just useful content that ranks in Google and gets cited in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI Search.
Your customers are searching right now across Google and AI-powered answer engines. When your content is ready, you won’t just be found. You’ll be cited.
Call (647) 707-2672 for increased visibility and customer engagement on Google and AI Search platforms, and ask for Ray. Or simply claim your free SEO copy review and quote today. You’ll be glad you did.
Ray Litvak is the founder of Writing Web Words Inc., a Toronto SEO Copywriting and AI SEO Agency serving small and medium businesses across Canada and North America since 2008. 85% of new business still comes from client referrals.
