If you have searched for something on Google recently, you may have noticed a significant change. Instead of the usual list of blue links, you are often greeted by a shaded box at the very top of the page containing a direct answer to your question. This is Google’s AI Overview, formerly known as the Search Generative Experience (SGE), and it is arguably the biggest shift in search engine behaviour in twenty years.
For users, it is convenient. For small businesses in Wales and the UK, it presents a new challenge. If Google answers your customer’s question directly on the search page, will they still click through to your website?
At Pedwar, we believe this shift is not the end of SEO, but rather an evolution that rewards technical excellence and genuine expertise. Here is what you need to know about AI Overviews and how a bespoke web strategy can help you stay visible.
AI Overviews use generative artificial intelligence to synthesise information from multiple sources across the web. Rather than just indexing your page, Google now reads it, understands it, and uses that information to construct a unique answer for the user.
This feature began rolling out in the UK in mid-2024. It effectively pushes the traditional "organic" search results further down the page. For a user asking "how to fit a new kitchen tap", Google might provide a step-by-step guide within the search results, citing various websites as footnotes.
The immediate concern for many business owners is the potential drop in traffic. This phenomenon is often called the "zero-click" search. If a user gets the phone number, opening hours, or pricing estimate they need from the AI summary, they have no reason to visit your site.
However, this does not mean your website is obsolete. It means your website has a new audience: the AI itself. To appear in that prime top spot, or to be cited as a source within the AI answer, your content must be structured in a way that machines can easily digest and verify.
This is where the difference between a cheap, off-the-shelf template and a bespoke web solution becomes critical. AI models rely heavily on clarity and structure. They need to know exactly what part of your page is a product price, what is a review, and what is an author biography.
Template websites often come bloated with unnecessary code, third-party plugins, and messy structures that can confuse search engine crawlers. A bespoke website, built from the ground up by a dedicated developer, provides a clean and semantic code structure. This makes it significantly easier for Google’s AI to parse your content and understand your relevance to a user’s query.
You may have heard of "Schema markup". This is code that lives in the background of your website and tells search engines explicitly what your content is. For example, it can tell Google that a specific string of numbers is the price of a service in GBP, or that a paragraph is a customer testimonial.
While many templates offer basic schema options, they are rarely comprehensive. At Pedwar, we can implement advanced, custom structured data tailored to your specific industry. This signals to Google that your content is authoritative and data-rich, increasing your chances of being featured in AI Overviews.
Technical foundations are vital, but the content itself matters just as much. Google’s algorithms are increasingly prioritising content that demonstrates E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
The era of stuffing keywords into a generic WordPress theme is over. Google’s new search environment demands websites that are technically robust, fast, and structured with precision.
This shift plays to the strengths of a custom-built approach. Because we build our own proprietary CMS and develop sites from scratch, we have total control over how your data is presented to search engines. We do not rely on a plugin to guess what your content means; we code it to ensure Google knows exactly who you are and why you are the expert.
If you are worried about how AI Overviews might affect your business, or if you feel your current site is not working hard enough, let us have a chat. We can explain your options in plain English and help you build a web presence ready for the future of search.
We're proud to have been recognised as Wales' Most Trusted Web Design & Development Company for 2025. This award reflects our commitment to delivering exceptional digital solutions and outstanding client service that sets the standard for excellence.
