Optimising for Google Gemini AI Overviews (James Dooley Interviews Brian Kato)

James Dooley: Google Gemini AI overview optimization. Today I'm joined with Brian Ko who is an absolute legend when it comes to AI SEO or GEO or whatever anyone wants to call it. Um in 2026, how are you Brighton looking to optimize to get your brands and your clients in the AI overviews?

Brian Ko: So for me it's multimodal. are looking at a bunch of different third party stuff to mention the brand to get the brand recognized and especially when it comes to Google we want to we want to integrate that bring it all back into either third party tie it back into the website leverage you know Google properties things like that press releases those are the ways we're doing it right now

James Dooley: yeah so obviously there's quite a few people who's watching this and I've had quite a lot of people within the community reach out because I've done quite a few different videos on AI SEO Well, and obviously there's a debate out there saying that is is SEO and GEO the same thing is it different? Is there any different nuances of what you're doing? So getting into that, what do you think is do you think it's the same or do you think it's um different to start with?

Brian Ko: So I think fundamentally you can't ignore good SEO, right? Your fundamentals have never changed. They haven't changed in 20 30 years. They just haven't. That said, AEO, GEO, whatever we're going to call that now, um it it's an enhancement on it. So, a lot of what I'm seeing is they're looking to not just like look at my website. They're really looking for what do other people say about your website? Can it be corroborated that you are who you say you are?

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. I think for me, uh I completely agree with you. There's a massive overlap. It could even be 80 90% overlap of SEO and GEO and SEO optimiz and AI optimization. However, that 10% nuance of trying to do the corroboration against contradiction and stuff like that. So, make sure you're trying to complaints are being kind of reframed in a way in a positive manner. I think there's more emphasis on reputation like case studies, awards, reviews, testimonials more than ever before. Um, so making certain you're shouting and amplifying that on social media and stuff like that. But getting back to like specifically Google Gemini AI overviews, what bit of advice would you give to a web master who's watching this? They're ranking in position number one for the primary keyword, but then they're not being cited in the AI overview. Why do you think that is the case where they're ranking number one, but not in the AI overview?

Brian Ko: I think a lot of that still comes down to third party validation. We're using um things like press releases, uh third party sites, uh social quite a bit. Um but those are all things that historically a lot of SEOs have kind of pushed off to the side and said, "Well, social doesn't really move the needle. Let's not do that. It's not a good use of time. And everything that I'm seeing when you're tapping on all of those secondary type types of brand signals, that's what's helping pop things into AI.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. So, let me just dig in a little deeper on that. Um, let's talk about press releases. So, press releases you're saying help you get potentially that third party corroboration to get in Gemini AI overview. Is there any specific press releases that you're using to try and give some takeaways for someone to say, "Well, do you know what? I use two or three different press release providers and these are all great." Or do you have one that you double down on and this works well?

Brian Ko: Yeah. So, I I actually have been using I I use a a couple different press release providers. My primary one is Press Advantage, and I've been a customer of theirs for almost like 10 years. So, um I've seen press releases, you know, kind of come and go. right now they're working incredibly well and um you know I've used a couple of other services as well and the the whole idea is that you're just getting that third party mention right you're actually doing it like a brand would not thinking like an SEO so when you're writing the content for the press releases of any kind of like advantage like what you're trying to do is it about case studies is it literally just to keep mentioning the brand and getting branded are you doing like anchor text um for the brand Are you just bothered about the semantic triples of who you are and what you do and why you are great?

James Dooley: Yeah, so we we focus on a lot of the semantic triples. Uh really I'm more concerned about getting the keywords in the URL. Um I don't really care about the uh like inbody citation. Um Google's pretty good about that and they'll they'll pull different subsections or snippets from that without even having a link. So that's that's kind of our strategy right now is we we treat it more like a brand would or a PR agency. Um like public relations, not press release, but a typical PR agency. They're not going to have a ton of links everywhere. They're going to mention the brand. They're going to say, you know, who they are, what they do, why they do it, where they do it, what's in it for the customer. It's brand.

Brian Ko: And so I think that that's a fundamental shift when it comes to GEO that a lot of SEOs in particular are going to have a tough time wrapping their head around. if they're not already doing it.

James Dooley: Have you got any great kind of examples of let's say a title tag for a press release that you think this is work? Like so in the title you might get brand and five star reviews or something like that. Like what what type of nuances are you trying to put in there in the title?

Brian Ko: So we we write a press releases on just about anything that the business does. if they're doing any kind of, you know, if they get a fivestar review, if it's their 10th year in business, if it's that they are involved in some kind of local philanthropy, anything like that, we're we're trying to tie that to their geo location. So, if it's this company in city sponsors little league, right, or sponsors local football team, you know, something like that. That's that's really what we're looking for.

James Dooley: Yeah. Yeah. And obviously that then on third party sources there maybe 300 350 syndication it's building up consensus which then hopefully then gets you in the the AI overviews within Gemini. What about then um you mentioned socials. Is there any specific socials you're finding are working better than others? So is obviously you've got Instagram, you've got Facebook, you've got Twitter, you've got LinkedIn, you've got places like Reddit as well and stuff like that. Which ones are you thinking that if someone came to you and said, "Brian, I want to concentrate on three different social profiles." What would be those three profiles you would double down on?

Brian Ko: Yeah. So, Instagram, Facebook, and Tik Tok. The Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok. Okay.

James Dooley: Yeah. And is that um textbased, image based, video based or all

Brian Ko: short form video? Actually, short form video. Yep. So what we typically will do is we'll do a long form, chop it into short form, and then you can segment that out with topics. Uh typically what we're seeing is faces tend to work better than no faces. So sorry, faceless Instagram accounts, you're typically not going to rank as high as uh if you've got a face or an actual person behind it. Um so yeah, that's one of the big things that we look at. We we're also, you know, I'm also all about communities. Um that's another one that I really like. Reddit. Uh, LinkedIn Pulse still works. I know that's a parasite or it seems like such a dirty word, doesn't it? Parasite, but um, yeah, we we still use LinkedIn Pulse quite a bit. Um, we'll use Facebook groups, the public facing groups, a lot of those things because those actually will appear in your forums tab on uh, the Google SER.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. for anyone who's watching this, um, with regards to Brian, your background, the cyber security side of things, is there anything that people should be, Obviously, we've got a whole episode talking about how to defend against blackout SEO, so I don't want to go too deep about that. Is there anything that people should be just heavily related to Gemini AI overviews that people need to be looking out for? I want to try and pull upon your expertise from this cyber security side that you should be looking out for AI within AI overviews.

Brian Ko: Yeah. So look for brand confusion. Like if if you're not focused on brand and before we even touch an SEO tool, if I look at the Google SER and I Google your brand and you're not taking up at least the first two pages with, you know, be it your website, your socials, like all of that. If you're not taking up the first two pages, I don't even touch an SEO tool. That's our first step. We've got to lock in that brand. Um, we we've seen some really really precarious things when people neglect brand first and a competitor can come in, swoop that up, take over your brand, and we've seen brand hijacking quite a bit from the cyber side.

James Dooley: Yeah. I mean, everyone seems to in the last 18 months talk about brand, brand, brand, brand for the win. It's all about brand and do you know what I do completely agree with you um within the let's say the query fan out of AI that is the entity part who are you are you legitimate are you trustworthy and stuff like that so is there any advice so you're saying the first two pages so the top 20 results you want to own that entity you want to own that brand is there any bits of advice you could give to someone to say go obviously go and get all your social media profiles and try and rank or is there anything else they could go and do to try to own them top 20 results that work well?

Brian Ko: So, I I would be creative, right? Like you want to Yes, brand is really important. You're also not just going to want to look at your the the business brand, right? Like if you put in your business name, you want to think through other queries as well. So, like um brand reviews, right? You want to own all of those as well. think through what that customer journey looks like because a especially on Google Gemini and the AI overviews on Google, people are the your website is a final conversion. It's bottom of funnel now. Whereas it used to be people would go to Google, they'd find your website, right? Everyone complained about zero click and this is the next evolution in that from what I'm seeing where your website is really the conversion point. People are on Google, they're looking for all of the reviews. um they're looking for all of the um you know the details about your business. Are you a good company? Can we trust you? What are other people saying about you? Then they're going to move on to your website.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. I mean, so many people now are getting from top of the funnel straight down to brand and then checking how good you are before they're even getting the click. So, there's a few people out there that are moaning about um zero clicks. Well, the point is they're not zero clicks. the the clicks have definitely gone down, but they're perfect the clicks that are getting through. So, they're coming through and they're literally already pre-sold on wanting to use up your brand. So, like conversion rate of clicks to actual conversion is crazy. So, that's massively up. Although clicks are down, conversions massively up once they come through. But you mentioned there brand top 20 results to try to know on the first page. Then you started talking about attributes. So like brand reviews and then obviously let's say brand testimonials. Have you got like a checklist for someone to go you should be owning the first two pages for brand brand reviews brand testimonials maybe like brand awards or something like that. Is there anything else that people should be concentrating on to say you want to own this and dominate everything like that for reputation?

Brian Ko: Yeah I think any of the positive sentiment is something you want to own. You also want to monitor any negative sentiment. Right. So, brand scam, brand bad reviews, you want to you don't want to necessarily own that, but you want to at least monitor it. Um, because those can also be um absolutely devastating when it comes to a brand in AI overviews because AI is again very receptive to those kinds of things as well. If you have negative sentiment about your business, AI is going to pick up on that.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. So, anyone who's watching this, there's lots of different ways there that you might be ranking to the top of Google, but might not be getting into Gemini AI overviews within the Google search. Brian, it's been an absolute pleasure. Appreciate all the advice you've given there. For anyone who's reaching out and wants to try to speak to yourself, where's the best place to try and get hold of you?

Brian Ko: Yeah, typically Facebook is the best way to get in touch with me. Um, I'm also on Instagram X and LinkedIn.

James Dooley: Perfect. There'll be links in the description for anyone who wants to know a little bit more about Brian. And Brian, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Brian Ko: Absolutely. Thank you for having me on.