The rise of AI-powered search results is reshaping how banks and credit unions approach their online presence. Google’s AI Overviews, which summarize content using advanced algorithms, now play a central role in how users find information. For financial institutions, this shift introduces both new opportunities and challenges, especially when understanding how users engage with their content and optimizing for visibility.
What Are Google’s AI Overviews?
Google’s AI Overviews use large language models (LLMs) to search through vast amounts of data, offering users concise, relevant answers to their queries. These overviews are designed to provide the most accurate information quickly, ensuring users continue to rely on Google as their primary search engine.
However, this presents a challenge for banks and credit unions: Google doesn’t always notify site owners when their content has been used in these Overviews unless someone clicks on the result. This creates a blind spot, making it more difficult to measure the return on investment (ROI) for SEO and content marketing. mhp.si can help you navigate these challenges and implement the necessary changes for you to appear in Google’s search results.
How AI Overviews Impact Financial Institutions
Banks and credit unions have relied on organic traffic driven by search engine results for decades. Users searching for mortgage rates, loan options or financial services often find themselves clicking through to a website. However, as Google integrates more AI-driven summaries into its search results, many financial institutions will notice a decline in organic traffic. AI Overviews often provide users with enough information in the search result, reducing the need to click through to a website.
While this shift in search behavior can reduce traffic, it does offer a silver lining. The users who click through to a bank or credit union’s website will likely be more qualified leads, as Google’s algorithms are designed to deliver high-quality results that match user intent. This means fewer but higher-quality leads.
The Rise of Zero-Click Searches
One of the key changes brought on by AI Overviews is the rise of “zero-click” searches. In the past, users typically clicked on one of the top links in a search result to get the information they needed. But with AI Overviews, users can find the answer they’re looking for without leaving the search page.
For example, if a user searches “current home equity loan rates,” Google might display the rates directly in the AI Overview, sourced from various websites without requiring a visit to those sites.
For banks and credit unions, this means that simply ranking high in search results may no longer be enough to drive traffic. Instead, it’s crucial to ensure that content is structured so that it can be pulled into AI Overviews—through the use of structured data, rich snippets and optimizing for key financial queries.
How AI Overviews Affect Paid Advertising
Google’s reliance on AI Overviews isn’t limited to organic results. Recently, Google announced that paid search ads are now being integrated into generative AI Overviews for queries with commercial intent. While this might seem more relevant to retail and e-commerce, paid ads for financial institutions may also appear in these AI-generated summaries. This is particularly important for banks and credit unions running paid search campaigns for services like personal loans, credit cards or mortgages.
The key takeaway here is that AI is not just a passing trend. Google is betting heavily on this technology and integrating it deeply into its search engine results page (SERP). Whether through organic search or paid ads, financial institutions must be prepared to adapt.
Strategies for Banks and Credit Unions in the AI Overview Era
Given Google’s rapid evolution of SERPs, what can banks and credit unions do to stay competitive in this new landscape?
- Invest in Structured Data and Local SEO: Financial institutions must ensure that their website content is tagged with appropriate schema (structured data) to increase the chances of appearing in AI overviews. This is especially important for local searches, where users might look for the nearest branch, ATM, current mortgage rates or home equity loans.
- Create People-First, Trustworthy Content: Google’s algorithm places a heavy emphasis on written content that is helpful and reliable for people, not just search engines. For banks and credit unions, this means crafting content that answers consumers’ most pressing financial questions, such as “How do I refinance my mortgage?” or “What are the best savings account rates?”
- Leverage Social Proof and Referral Channels: Google increasingly pulls content from social platforms like LinkedIn, Reddit and Quora into its AI Overviews. Financial institutions should ensure they are active on social media, engaging with customers and using these channels to build brand credibility and authority.
- Optimize for Voice Search and Mobile: With the growing use of mobile devices and voice search, banks and credit unions need to ensure their websites are mobile-friendly and optimized for voice queries. This is especially relevant for location-based searches where users might ask, “Where’s the closest credit union?” or “What’s today’s best CD rate near me?”
- Monitor Performance and Adjust Strategy: Since AI Overviews don’t always provide data on impressions (only clicks), monitoring performance and continuously refining SEO and content strategies is essential. Regularly reviewing traffic data and understanding shifts in user behavior will help banks and credit unions adapt to the changing search landscape.
Write helpful content for your customers and focus your efforts on bottom-of-the-funnel activities because the chances of your content ranking well for top-of-the-funnel awareness and middle-of-the-funnel consideration queries by consumers will become increasingly less likely.
If you need help with your funnel tactics, don’t hesitate to contact mhp.si. We can help you with everything from organic to paid ads within the banking customer journey and harness the transformational power of AI Overviews today.
