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

Brian Kato: So for me it's multimodal. We 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 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 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 different to start with.

Brian Kato: 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 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 I completely agree with you. There's a massive overlap. It could even be 80 90 percent overlap of SEO and GEO and AI optimization. However that 10 percent 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. So making certain you're shouting and amplifying that on social media and stuff like that. But getting back to 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 Kato: I think a lot of that still comes down to third party validation. We're using things like press releases third party sites social quite a bit. 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 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. 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 Kato: Yeah so I actually have been using I use 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 I've seen press releases kind of come and go. Right now they're working incredibly well and I've used a couple of other services as well and 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.

James Dooley: So when you're writing the content for the press releases of any kind of advantage 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 for the brand. Are you just bothered about the semantic triples of who you are and what you do and why you are great.

Brian Kato: Yeah so we focus on a lot of the semantic triples. Really I'm more concerned about getting the keywords in the URL. I don't really care about the in body citation. Google's pretty good about that and they'll pull different subsections or snippets from that without even having a link. So that's kind of our strategy right now is we treat it more like a brand would or a PR agency. 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 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 Kato: 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. So in the title you might get brand and five star reviews or something like that. What type of nuances are you trying to put in there in the title.

Brian Kato: So we write press releases on just about anything that the business does. If they're doing any kind of you know if they get a five star 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 trying to tie that to their geo location. So if it's this company in city sponsors little league or sponsors local football team something like that. That's really what we're looking for.

James Dooley: 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 AI overviews within Gemini. What about then you mentioned socials. Is there any specific socials you're finding are working better than others. So 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 Kato: Yeah so Instagram Facebook and TikTok.

James Dooley: Instagram Facebook TikTok. Okay. Yeah. And is that text based image based video based or all.

Brian Kato: Short form video actually short form video.

James Dooley: 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. 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 if you've got a face or an actual person behind it. So yeah that's one of the big things that we look at. We're also you know I'm also all about communities. That's another one that I really like. Reddit. LinkedIn Pulse still works. I know that's a parasite or it seems like such a dirty word doesn't it parasite but yeah we still use LinkedIn Pulse quite a bit. We'll use Facebook groups the public facing groups a lot of those things because those actually will appear in your forums tab on the Google SERP.

James Dooley: Yeah for sure. For anyone who's watching this 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 looking out for heavily related to Gemini AI overviews. 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 Kato: Yeah so look for brand confusion. Like if you're not focused on brand and before we even touch an SEO tool if I look at the Google SERP and I Google your brand and you're not taking up at least the first two pages with 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. 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. 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 Kato: So 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 business brand right. Like if you put in your business name you want to think through other queries as well. So like brand reviews right. You want to own all of those as well. Think through what that customer journey looks like because 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. 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 they're looking for all of 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. 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 zero clicks. Well the point is they're not zero clicks. 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 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 own 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 Kato: 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 because those can also be 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 Kato: Yeah typically Facebook is the best way to get in touch with me. 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 Kato: Absolutely. Thank you for having me on.