We’re seeing a lot of change in the SEO industry now that generative AI is being included. This evolution has led to the emergence of some trends that are essential for staying ahead.
In this article, we have brought up 7 SEO trends that will shape the SEO scene.
The Rise of AI-Powered Content Creation
In 2024, we expect popular AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. to be more advanced and precise in capturing the essence of the user’s intent.
AI is already all over the SEO industry, from keyword research to writing emails for outreach and generating complete blog posts, AI has been doing it all.
In 2023, we saw the use of AI in image generation, video editing, etc., but this year with the imminent release of OpenAI’s Sora, video creation will be within the domain of artificial intelligence.
To justify our prediction, here are some statistics about AI-
- By 2032, the global AI market is expected to reach $2.6 trillion.
- 81% of office workers believe AI improves their productivity.
- By 2025, 80% of retail and consumer executives expect their businesses to use AI automation.
So, if you were reluctant to use AI before, now it’s time to move away from that mindset. From 2024 and onwards, it will be much harder to move forward in the SEO landscape without AI.
How to Effectively Use AI to Create Content
- Before using AI tools, you need to learn and understand its capabilities and limitations.
- Instead of blindly relying on AI, make sure you cross-check the credibility of important information.
- The output an AI tool will give you will totally depend on the instructions you provide. So, be as detailed as possible when using prompts.
- AI tools are the best for bulk data analysis. Besides using SEO tools, you can use AI for keyword research, competitor analysis, etc.
- AI is also great for researching generic information that doesn’t require human experience and generating content ideas.
- You can fine-tune your own content according to your brand statement after generating content with AI.
- Always add a human touch or offer unique insight to AI-generated content which will make the content more valuable. Using only AI will limit your creativity.
Content is King But Experience is Queen
With AI tools, content creation is easier than ever. There are thousands of websites solely made by AI and these websites are plaguing the SERP.
That’s why, search engines, especially, Google have taken steps so that garbage AI content that provides no value to users cannot contaminate the SERP.
That’s where experience comes in.
No matter how advanced AI tools become, they can never replicate the first-hand human experience. So, content that has depth and provides a live experience is considered helpful by Google and is prioritized in search rankings.
If you write a blog about traveling in Italy and use AI to write the content, it will never beat the content that someone who visited Italy wrote. It’s the original experience and the minute details that make human content more valuable than AI.
That means, as SEO professionals, your content must offer real insights and experience to the user that is unique. Otherwise, you will fall behind for sure.
This is also the reason why video content and other user-generated content platforms are on the rise. Users can get what they want from people who have real experience with their problems.
How to Add Experience to Your Content
- If you are creating content that you are already experienced in, just write what you know and offer your own solution to the user’s problem.
- Instead of focusing on different topics at the same time, create multiple content on the same topic to establish topical authority.
- Create authentic author pages for your sites and link to their socials if possible. Share details about their background, areas of expertise, and links to their posts.
- Publish some guest posts with the same authors on other sites, too. The author’s footprint will grow, and Google will know that the author is real.
- If you have to write about topics that you don’t have experience with, collaborate with the people who have. Collaborating and conducting research with subject matter experts will help you create the content that will rank.
- Make it more obvious that the content is written by experts by including their bylines, as well as distributing with them. This adds credibility and makes it clear that the content comes from experts.
Backlinks Will Be More Important Than Ever
Having topic expertise is important, but that’s not all; getting earned links will complete the package for establishing authority in your industry.
Backlinks have always been important and in 2024 it will be an even bigger ranking factor than before, even though Google said backlinks are not a top ranking factor anymore.
Well, sure, maybe the quantity of backlinks isn’t as important as before but the quality still is and it will thrive more than ever in 2024.
That’s because it’s almost impossible and too expensive to track all the websites on the internet based on their topical expertise. Comparatively, tracking backlinks is easier and needs fewer resources.
However, that doesn’t mean you can build your domain authority by buying cheap links in bulk. Google discourages the use of Parasite SEO, even stating in its helpful content update that such websites will be deindexed.
That means, implementing link-building strategies focusing on getting high-quality, relevant backlinks should be the highest priority.
How to Get High-Quality Relevant Backlinks
- Collaborating with SMEs (subject matter experts) for guest posting is a great link-building strategy for getting organic backlinks.
- Working with niche influencers or content creators can give you the edge in getting brand mentions and links.
- Exchanging links within your relevant industries. For better results, try A-B-C link exchange because direct link exchanges are discouraged by Google.
- Use HARO to get high-quality organic backlinks.
- Conduct experiments and research to collect original data and make pillar content with them. This will help you get brand mentions and links.
- Use contests, challenges, or social media hashtags to encourage your audience to create and share content related to your brand or industry.
From SEO to SXO: Search Experience Optimization
There’s another tiny detail that you need to know besides creating helpful content and building links, which is optimizing for user experience.
Think about it, Google wants you to create content that is useful to the readers. So, you have your content written by experts and build links to rank well. But what if users do not find your content helpful?
Well, then all of your SEO efforts go down the drain because you won’t rank anymore.
Google has certain metrics to measure if and how the users are engaging with your content. For example,
- “Engagement rate” measures how many sessions are considered “engaged” by Google, like sessions that lasted longer than 10 seconds, viewing at least two pages, or completing a conversion.
- The “average session duration” shows how long users spend on your site or app, with longer times indicating more engagement.
- “Bounce rate” measures how many visits end after viewing just one page, so a lower rate means users are exploring more content.
- The “number of pages” viewed per session indicates how much interaction the user has with your site on average.
- “Time spent on page” shows the average duration users spend on a specific page, which helps identify the best content.
- The “event tracking” offers insights into user interaction with content elements by tracking specific actions like video plays and form submissions.
- “User Engagement Score” in GA4 combines multiple engagement indicators to show how engaging your content is.
That means in addition to creating valuable content, you need to present them in an engaging way to the audience so that they spend more time on your website. Also, you have to take into account your website’s core web vitals.
How to Optimize for User Experience
- Improve your website’s loading speed by optimizing images, utilizing browser caching, and minimizing scripts that slow down your site.
- Put clear headings, a well-structured menu, and a search function on your site so users can find what they’re looking for easily.
- To accommodate the growing number of people accessing the web via smartphones, your website should be mobile-friendly. Optimize your site for usability, speed, and design on mobile devices.
- Track metrics like time on page, bounce rate, clicks on buttons, and interactions with features to understand user behavior and improve accordingly.
- Your content needs to directly align with what users are searching for. Provide concise, easily accessible answers for those seeking quick information, and detailed content for those seeking in-depth information.
- Add engaging visual content like videos and infographics. These not only attract attention but also help users understand your content better.
- You can keep users on your site longer by using interactive elements like comment sections, polls, and quizzes.
- Add links that provide additional value to your site’s visitors. This builds trust in you as a reliable resource and enhances your user’s journey.
- Your content should contain calls-to-action (CTAs) and monetization elements that are relevant to the user’s intent and the content they are engaging with.
- Popups can be effective for conversions, but they can also be intrusive. Make sure they add value rather than detract.
The Era of Brand Dominance
With priorities on topical authority, backlinks, and user experience, brands will dominate the SERP in 2024.
In 2024, SEO won’t just be about keyword targeting, but about establishing a strong brand identity that stands for expertise, trust, and customer satisfaction. These key elements can help brands dominate search engine results pages (SERPs) by focusing on them.
That means you will see established brands getting more and more traffic to their sites in their relevant topics. However, brands will lose some traffic for keywords they rank for outside of their domain.
So, to stay relevant in the SEO industry in 2024, you need to focus on building a brand that your target audience will trust.
How to Build a Brand that Users Trust
- Make sure you define what your brand stands for, its values, and what makes it unique. This helps users understand your brand and builds trust through consistency.
- To foster trust and loyalty, ensure that your products or services meet or exceed customer expectations consistently.
- Your customer service should be outstanding. Respond promptly to their questions and concerns, and strive to exceed their expectations.
- Communicate with customers honestly and openly, sharing information about your brand, products, and practices.
- You can share valuable resources, such as courses, knowledge bases, or informative content for free with your audience. Doing so will show your commitment to building trust and goodwill among your audience.
- You can make potential customers feel more confident in choosing your brand by displaying testimonials and reviews from satisfied customers.
Google’s Search Generative Experience and Zero Click Searches
Google’s SGE is the most hyped drop in the SEO industry in recent times and as always people are saying that it will kill SEO.
Well, let me stop you right there, it won’t and there are multiple reasons for that.
- Users will always value human content more. Over 75% of US consumers are worried about AI giving them wrong information. For reference, you wouldn’t want a restaurant recommendation from AI, who doesn’t even have the ability to taste.
- Google’s AI gets its information from content that is published by website owners. So, if Google SGE discourages site owners from creating content, then that means AI won’t have any resources to learn from.
- Google’s SGE will also kill Google Ads, which is the highest revenue generator for Google.
In light of these reasons, SEO experts all over the world are saying not to worry about losing traffic to your website.
However, recently Google made a deal with Reddit to use their content to train its generative AI. That means, the AI has an abundance of user-generated content to train from.
With this huge deal being made, we believe that although SGE will not kill organic traffic, it’s definitely going to change how people search for information.
How to Prepare for Google’s SGE
- Keep doing your best and do not compromise your SEO efforts. Make sure you’re following SEO best practices and building your brand.
- Keep a constant eye on Google’s algorithmic changes. Google’s update will have more impact on SEO than SGE.
- Optimize your content for featured snippets and rich snippets by directly answering search queries and using schema markups. SGE is likely to pull the top answer from Google in its snapshot.
Google vs Other Platforms
In recent times, there has been a change in how users search.
Firstly, people who are in need of more expert opinions are moving to platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, etc.
Secondly, people who want more personalized responses to simple queries are gravitating toward AI tools like ChatGPT. What we mean is, that if you search for something like “explain thermodynamics to me like I’m 5” you probably will get a better answer from ChatGPT than Google.
To stay relevant in 2024, SEOs and marketers will have to up the game keeping this change in user habit in mind. It’s going to get harder to drive organic traffic, so new metrics will emerge.
How to Drive Traffic From Other Platforms
- To maximize your reach and drive traffic from various platforms, it’s crucial to diversify your content strategy. Creating content in multiple formats for multiple platforms.
- Use analytics to track where your traffic is coming from and adapt your strategy accordingly. Focus on what works best for your brand.
- Promote a sense of community by hosting live Q&A sessions, creating discussion threads, and setting up a forum on your site.
Stay Relevant in 2024
As always, the SEO industry will be volatile and unpredictable. So, be aware of making mistakes and with these SEO trends, you can stay relevant in the industry.
There is no shortcut to creating high-value content that is helpful to the user. To rack up more domain authority, get authentic backlinks, and prioritize UX.
On top of these, keep researching, and staying up to date will keep you ahead of the others.