Write for AI Overviews: What Actually Works
A customer types a question into Google or asks ChatGPT instead of searching for your business by name, and a written answer appears before any list of websites does. Whether your business gets a mention inside it turns out to have very little to do with the technical extras some agencies keep selling. The honest way to write for AI Overviews, and for the AI assistants sitting alongside them, is closer to how you'd answer the question over the phone than to any markup you could bolt onto the page, and it costs nothing beyond the time it takes to write it properly.
Does FAQ schema still get your page picked up?
No, not in the way it used to. Adding a block of FAQPage structured data used to win a page extra space in Google's results, a dropdown of questions right under the listing. Google's own documentation now says that feature stopped appearing in Search entirely from May 2026, having already been narrowed since 2023 to a short list of well-known government and health sites. It's still valid markup, and leaving it on a page causes no harm, but it no longer buys a local business anything extra.
So what actually decides whether an answer comes from your page?
Two very ordinary things: whether the page is indexed at all, and whether it directly answers the actual question someone asked. We've covered the indexing half properly in our guide to whether AI search optimisation is worth paying for, which walks through what Google says a page needs before it can ever be pulled into an AI-written answer. The second half, whether the page actually answers the question, is the writing problem, and it isn't one anybody can pay their way around. Google's own guidance on creating helpful content says the aim is content "created primarily for people, and not to manipulate search engine rankings". Its page on featured snippets is even blunter about who is in control: "You can't. Google systems determine whether a page would make a good featured snippet for a user's search request, and if so, elevates it." That page is talking about a slightly different feature, but the same principle runs through every AI answer built on top of Search. Nobody outside Google switches it on for you.
How do you actually write for AI Overviews?
The same way you'd write for the person reading it, just more deliberately. Turn each section heading into the actual question a customer asks before they book, then answer it directly in the first sentence underneath, before any scene-setting. A boiler engineer's page does better with "How much does a boiler service cost?" followed straight away by a plain, hedged answer, than with a heading like "Our servicing philosophy" that makes a reader, human or otherwise, hunt for the point.
Keep the paragraph short after that first sentence. One idea, one section, then stop. Our guide to website copy that works covers this same discipline from the reader's side: say the essential thing first, then let the rest of the page back it up for whoever wants more. Writing to be quotable and writing to be read by a busy customer between jobs are, in practice, the same job done once. It also means resisting the urge to pad the opening sentence with a qualifier before the actual answer arrives. "It depends, but generally speaking, in most cases" delays the one line worth reading and gives a skimming reader, human or otherwise, nothing to hold on to.
Is your FAQ section pointless now, then?
No. It's worth keeping, just for the reader in front of you rather than for a schema trick. Real customers still read a FAQ section before they call, checking the thing they're too embarrassed to ask outright. The shape that works for them, one clear question and a short direct answer, is the same shape that works whether whoever reads the page next is a person or a piece of software skimming for the sentence to lift. It just no longer needs a markup block behind it to earn its keep.
What about the extras agencies still sell?
Special files, "content chunking", wholesale rewrites of an existing page purely to please an AI crawler. We've gone through those honestly elsewhere rather than repeat it here: see AI search optimisation: worth paying for? for what Google actually requires, and does ChatGPT know your business? for how ChatGPT specifically finds a site in the first place. Neither turns up a special file or extra markup as the real fix. Both come back to the same two things: get indexed, then answer the question properly.
What to actually do this week
Write down the five questions customers already ask you on the phone before they book. Turn each one into a heading on your site, and put the plain answer in the sentence right beneath it, not the third paragraph down. Skip anything you'd have to guess at rather than state plainly, an invented statistic does more damage than a missing page ever would. If a real figure genuinely matters, hedge it and say where it came from rather than stating it as fact, the same rule that holds for every guide on this site.
If sitting down to write it yourself feels like the wrong use of an afternoon, it's the kind of page we write when we build a site: setup starts from £495 with hosting, security and edits from £69 a month, and you see the finished pages on a private preview link before anything is owed. Get in touch if you'd rather hand the five questions to us.
Frequently asked questions
Does FAQ schema help you appear in Google search results?
No, not any more. Google's own documentation confirms the FAQ rich result stopped appearing in Search from May 2026, having already been restricted since 2023 to a small group of authoritative government and health sites. The markup does no harm left in place, it simply earns nothing extra any more.
Can you pay someone to guarantee an AI assistant quotes your website?
No one honestly can, us included. Google's own guidance on featured snippets says plainly that its systems decide which page gets used, not the publisher, and the same holds for the AI features built on top of ordinary Search.
Do you need a developer to write pages this way?
No. It's a writing habit, not a technical build: phrase the heading as the question a customer actually asks, then answer it directly in the sentence underneath. Anyone who already knows the answer can write it themselves.
Should every heading on the page be a question?
No, just the ones answering something a real customer would ask before they call. A heading dressed up as a question purely to catch a search term reads as hollow the moment someone clicks through, and it does the page no favours either.
Does writing this way replace normal SEO?
No, it sits on top of it. A clearly answered question on a page that is slow to load, or missing from Google's index altogether, still won't get chosen, so the basics come first.