Latest SEO Trends in 2024

While digital marketing is well renowned for constantly evolving and changing, it is easy to argue that SEO has undergone an even more dramatic shift in the past year. Thanks to the introduction of AI content and numerous Google updates to try and keep on top of, it appears that the future of SEO is tending towards a more user-centric and technically advanced approach.

Trying to understand the latest SEO trends is extremely important as it will help you rank higher in search engine results, generate more website traffic, and connect with more potential customers. This blog will take an in-depth look at some of the current and predicted SEO trends of 2024, and how you can utilise them to your advantage.

Google Search Generative Experience (SGE)

Search Generative Experience is Google’s AI-powered search experience, and it means that user will be able to ask extensive questions and the AI will generate an answer to their queries based on existing content found on the web. Don’t worry, SGE won’t steal your website traffic. It simply summarises a quick answer and directs the user to the best-ranking content for more information. People will ultimately keep opening full articles as they want trustworthy content. It is important that you keep creating content that is real and legit, you want to make people keep coming back to help Google rank your website highly. Don’t overhaul your entire website content just for SGE. The basics of SEO are still the same, and you should be creating content that is reputable and provides value for your users and audience. It is a good idea to keep an eye on the hype of SGE, but your main focus should be SEO and trying to hit that top spot on Google.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI appears to be shaking the world, and it can be seen as both a threat and an opportunity. AI is brilliant at creating generic content, but the real threat is that generic content will flood the internet – all because of AI. If everyone starts to rely solely on AI for content creation, every single web page, blog, and article will be exactly the same. You simply cannot rely on AI for content alone, human touch, creativity, and voice are essential when creating content. Human supervision and editorial skill will always feed into the process.

You can, however, see AI an as opportunity, and when used in the right way, it can help you with your web page rankings. AI can be used as a writing assistant, and some tips for using it in the right way include:

• Summarising information that is already well known
• Asking AI to act as an editor
• Help you to apply an established voice and tone to your content
• Create outlines and briefs for content
• Make existing copy shorter
• Turn lengthy paragraphs into punchy and simply bullet points
• Make a table out of the information you already have

Whilst it is not a good idea to use AI to create all of your content, when used correctly and cleverly, AI is a brilliant and helpful tool that you can utilise. It is set to be one of the biggest 2024 SEO trends this year.

User Signals

Recently, Google has revealed some of the patents that their search algorithms use during their huge anti-trust case. It turns out Google relies heavily on user signals to help rank content, not just deep content analysis. What it showed was that Google is extremely good at working out if the users are happy with the content they have found, and they are actually better at working out how a user feels about content than understanding the content itself.

This means that SEO is gradually shifting towards optimising for user engagement and satisfaction, and Google will analyse how users engage with a web page to determine its relevance and usefulness. User signals are extremely important, and it is not just what is on your site that counts. We need to read how your brand creates reactions across the web, and then we need to optimise your brand and web page for user signals. Some tips on how to keep users engaged include:

• Monitor user engagements such as time spent on your page, bounce rate, clicks on buttons, and interactions with features. This will give you a clear picture of how users are interacting with your page, and you can then adjust accordingly.
• Match content to user intent – what was your user actually searching for? If they are looking for a quick answer, there is no point burying the solution in a page of text. Make it easy and simple for them to find what they want.
• Add visual elements and infographics – these elements are engaging and take time for the user to consume the material properly.

Zero-Click Searches

Zero-click searches are on the rise, and this new trend focuses on users who search but do not click on any of the displayed results. There are several reasons that users don’t click, including:

• Searching for local services or businesses – the user will often find all of the information required directly on the local pack or map (location, contact details, business hours etc.)
• Public or celebrity information – when a user is searching for a public figure or a celebrity, a knowledge panel will often reveal the required information (age, occupation, notable works, etc.)
• Quick calculations or conversions – for searches such as ‘how many GBP to USD’ or ‘CM to MM’, Google will provide a quick conversion tool without the need to click on a specific website.

All of these examples will commonly result in zero-click searches. In order to minimise the impact of zero-click searches, you will need to adjust your SEO strategy to focus on securing featured snippets for these kinds of queries. Whilst this might not necessarily generate in helping to get you more traffic, it will help you steal the prime position. If you manage to get the featured snippet, then you will increase your chances of getting clicks from those users who want to explore the results, as well as helping to boost your brand recognition and reputation.

Answer Engine Optimisation

It is no secret that AI and chatbots are shaping how users search and find the information they are looking for. In order to combat this, we need to utilise Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) and adapt web page content accordingly. AEO is the process of optimising your content for these so-called answer engines, and these answer engines are AI technologies that create information to answer the conversational queries that users have.

AEO prioritises answer-based queries, and this means you need to focus on creating clear, concise, and direct content that can be easily digested by these AI algorithms. Your aim is to be cited within the AI-generated responses. One of the easiest and most effective ways to implement this is to create robust Q&A style content, including FAQs in all of your articles and web pages. Try to structure long-form content around key questions and scenarios that a user might use in a conversation search and add these to your website.

Topical Authority

One of the biggest trends of SEO is the shift in focusing on clear expertise on a certain topic, otherwise known as topical authority. In order to establish topical authority, you need to become a go-to source of information on a particular topic or subject and ensure that your content covers all subject matter. Search engines, in particular Google, are steadily prioritising content that demonstrates authority and they require content that shows a combination of experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. However, it is not simply a case of creating a whole bunch of content on a topic. You need to focus on the quality of backlinks as well. This means creating links that are genuinely relevant and authoritative sources on your topic and making sure that they are links that people will want to click on a lot.

Establishing topical authority requires a specific strategic approach to content creation and search engine optimisation. You will need to:

• Build a deep catalogue of content on specific topics and subtopics that are all related.
• Develop comprehensive, high-quality, and expert content across this specific topic
• Implement a website structure that makes it easy for users and bots to discover relevant and related content across your web page.

Video SEO

Creating video content that ranks on Google search results is creating a massive opportunity for many digital marketing teams. People are watching more video content than ever before, and search engines have noticed this. You need to make sure that you are ahead of the game with the latest SEO trends, and you need to make sure that you have a solid video SEO strategy. This doesn’t simply mean grabbing your camera and starting to record, as we predict many people will start to do without much thought. You need to ensure that your videos stand out from the rest of the crowd. You want your audience to view your content, value it, and come back for more. Use SEO and target relevant keywords in the video title, descriptions, and tags to enhance discoverability. You need to understand what your target audience is searching for and create video content that matches what they want.

Overall, in 2024, we don’t see search engine usage changing that much but AI is shifting the search experiences. While this might be seen as a rapid change and trend in 2024, it takes a lot of time to change people’s browsing and searching behaviour. The algorithms show that behaviour and trends seem to be consistent, with only subtle changes in users’ behaviour so far. So, while it is good to stay ahead of the game and keep an eye on how trends are shifting and changing, there is no need to panic and overhaul your entire website just yet!

If you are interested in standing out from the crowd and want your website ready for when these changes come into play, then get in touch with seoBusiness today. We are here for all of your digital marketing needs – no matter how large or small. Our friendly team are happy to help.