Google AI Overview in Serbia — how to get your site into the AI answer

Google AI Overview is a generated answer displayed above the organic results, with links to the sources it was assembled from. The practical consequence for websites: informational queries lose clicks (the user gets an answer without visiting a site), while commercial-intent queries still drive visits because the user wants a concrete offer. For Serbian companies this means shifting priorities — content that merely explains general concepts returns less and less, while content that leads to a decision and a conversion returns more.

Google selects AI Overview sources primarily from content already ranking well for the query — in practice from the top ten results, with a preference for pages with clearly structured content and structured data. If you are not on page one, the probability of being cited in the AI answer is low. This is why AEO does not replace SEO: first you rank, then you optimise the format so Google can lift a ready-made sentence from your page. Additional helpful signals: authorship and dates, consistency with the rest of the site, and a clearly defined entity behind the content.

AI Overview appears most often for informational queries ("how", "what is", "why", "how much"), comparisons ("X or Y"), and queries involving a process or enumeration. It appears less often for purely transactional queries ("buy", "price", brand names) and local queries where Google shows a map. In the Serbian market AI Overview has been in full swing for Serbian-language queries since 2026, with the same pattern: informational queries are hit hardest. The content planning takeaway: keep writing informational content, but as an entry point to your offer rather than as the goal.

Concretely on your site: rewrite H2 headings into questions users actually type and put a direct two-to-three-sentence answer immediately below; add concrete numbers instead of general claims; implement `FAQPage`, `Service` and `LocalBusiness` schema markup with linked `@id` entities; keep LCP under 2.5s; and refresh modification dates on pages you update. For commercial pages, add what an AI answer cannot replace — prices, examples of work, people's names, proof of results. That is the reason a user clicks through anyway.

Measurement: Search Console does not break out AI Overview as a separate appearance type, but the pattern is recognisable — pages where impressions rise or hold steady while clicks and CTR fall have most likely been absorbed by an AI answer. Build a monthly page-level comparison and isolate those with falling CTR against stable impressions. For those pages, shift focus toward commercial content or add what AI does not deliver. In parallel, track growth in branded queries — if they rise, AI Overview is mentioning you and sending users indirectly. Feather Studio runs this analysis as part of its monthly SEO reporting.