Future of SEO in 2024: 8 Critical SEO Trends to Know

SEO is no longer just about the keywords and content length. Search engines like Google are shifting towards a more advanced and user-centric approach. User experience is considered an important factor for websites to rank higher. However, this is not the only thing you need to be aware of. As we are moving to the next year, it is quite important to understand the latest SEO strategies that might impact the rankings and performance of websites in 2024.

Talking about the future of SEO, we can expect that Google will keep focusing more on user experience. This doesn’t mean that you have to completely ignore traditional SEO practices. Keyword research, link building, and all those traditional practices are okay, but you should include some additional strategies to keep up with the competition. Let us now discuss some crucial SEO trends that may affect the future of SEO in 2024 and the coming years:

1. Google SGE (Search Generative Experience) 

SGE (Search Generative Experience) is an AI-powered software by Google that produces AI results for search queries. These AI-generated results appear on the top of SERPs. SGE has become extremely popular and hence is expected to impact the way users interact with search engines like Google. It can also change the way websites are optimized to generate organic traffic.

Looking at its features, you may think that SGE is similar to ChatGPT. However, it is not. It is introduced by Google to improve user experience by providing them with more clear and concise answers to their queries. When you search for something on Google, these AI-generated results appear on the top. They also contain links to key sources of information and additional prompts to help users explore the topic further. 

How Can You Prepare?

Although it may seem too early to optimize for Google SGE now as it is only available in the U.S, it would be a good idea to focus on the quality of content you publish on your website. Through your website content, you should try to answer frequently asked questions by users. This is because the results shown by SGE include relevant links as well. Though the factors that influence the appearance of these links alongside the SGE snippet are still unknown, looking at its characteristics, it can be said that content that seems to answer the user query appears there. 

It is still too soon to find out to what extent users will be relying on SGE results. However, it is advisable to consider factors like direct language and new information when creating or updating your website content. But do not overlook traditional SEO strategy as search result pages still include traditionally optimized content pages. SGE-based results may impact the way users interact with search engines, but will not completely remove the traditional results.

2. Zero Click Searches

As per a study, around 57% of mobile, and roughly 25% of users leave SERPs without even clicking on a result. These types of searches where users do not click on any of the result URLs are known as zero-click searches. There may be several reasons why users do not click on these results. For example, if a user searches for a business or location, public information, quick calculations, etc, he/she will most likely get the required information without opening any of these pages.

How Can You Prepare?

One of the effective ways to minimize the impact of zero-click searches on your website is to focus on securing more and more feature snippets, especially for queries that usually do not result in clicks. Some most affected queries include result pages with a rich featured snippet and information keywords that this featured snippet answers. Targeting these keywords may be helpful, but that’s not what your goal should be.

You need to focus on securing position zero, i.e. rank on featured snippets. It doesn’t only help you get more clicks but also improves your brand image. Users consider your website information authoritative and may directly refer to your website when they need some related information in the future. 

For this, you first need to understand which queries display definition-based featured snippets. You can do this by performing a SERP analysis and targeting the specific keywords. 

3. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)

Chatbots and other AI-based tools have changed the way searchers find and interact with information. To keep up with modern technology, you can utilize content strategies like answer engine optimization. AEO refers to the process of optimizing your website content for answer engines, i.e. AI-based chatbots like ChatGPT, Google SGE, MS Bing, etc. With the evolution of these advanced chatbots, users tend to look for immediate answers without clicking on a web page.

How Can You Prepare?

The best way to prepare your website for AEO is to focus on AEO-based content strategies along with traditional SEO practices. You can do this by creating clear and concise content that AI and ML algorithms can understand and incorporate into their responses. Including FAQs in your articles or writing content around key questions is a great way to optimize for these so-called answer engines. 

Include more conversational keywords in your content to make it visible to search engines. If your content contains concise answers to such questions, AI chatbots might pick answers from your page and provide links to your content in their responses. AEO is different from SEO. But the best way to keep up with the modern SEO trends is to align both these strategies. 

4. Focus on Topical Authority

As mentioned earlier, SEO is not just about keywords now but it is highly focused on strategies for illustrating expertise over a particular topic or area. This is what we call topical authority. Establishing topical authority refers to becoming the preferred source of information for a particular topic or niche. Search engines like Google are now prioritizing content that demonstrates topical authority. As per Google, expertise can be defined as a combination of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).

How Can You Prepare?

To establish topical authority, you need a very clear and strategic approach. This approach should be focused on developing high-quality content on a specific niche, covering every important topic, incorporating important statistics and case studies in your articles, and implementing a user-friendly website architecture. You can perform keyword research to find the most relevant keywords and topics to cover in a particular niche. Your content strategy should be focused on covering all the suggested topics and that too in thorough detail.

Creating topic clusters is a great way to establish topical authority. You can write content on multiple related topics and link them together to create a topic cluster. In a cluster, you can create a main page and link all the sub-topics to this page. This doesn’t only improve your site’s topical authority but also provides you with internal linking opportunities.

5. Video SEO

The number of online video viewers is expected to reach 3.5 billion by the end of 2023. This number shows how big an opportunity Video SEO is. Video SEO refers to optimizing your video content for video platforms like YouTube as well as for search engines like Google. The popularity of video content is constantly increasing and it is expected to become more important for SEO shortly. 

How Can You Prepare?

Video SEO is not about just grabbing the camera and recording any random stuff. Even if you are doing that, you should have a proper content strategy before you start creating video content. As per a report, 70% of non-video-creating marketers plan to start creating video content. However, not everyone can excel in video SEO as it requires proper strategy. 

If you want to expand your reach through video SEO, you can perform keyword research using YouTube keyword research tools. Once you find relevant keywords, start creating videos on related topics and make sure that the videos are perfectly designed and edited before your audience sees them.

6. Evolving Search Engine Ranking Factors

The factors that influence Google search engine rankings are continuously evolving to provide customers with better experiences. Search engines aim to push content that offers the most relevant answers to user queries. Google's recent updates like the Helpful Content Update clearly state that Google pushes high-quality helpful content over just SEO-optimized content. As per a survey conducted on more than 3,500 SEO professionals, three key factors influencing search engine rankings include core web vitals, E-E-A-T, and machine learning/AI. 

How Can You Prepare?

User experience should be the foundation stone of your content strategy. Instead of just incorporating keywords, focus on creating high-quality content that is helpful for your audience. As Google has constantly focused on improving user experience, we can expect that this trend will continue in 2024 and the coming years as well. Therefore, your goal should be to develop content that demonstrates expertise in an area and provides relevant answers to user queries. 

7. Updating Existing Content

In this highly competitive digital environment, keeping your website content up-to-date is extremely important. To keep your content relevant to users and maintain its rankings, it is essential to update it with the latest information from time to time. The relevance and value of a content page can change in a microsecond. It is not only essential to keep your content updated, but also important from the aspect of SEO best practices.

How Can You Prepare?

Your content strategy should include reviewing, updating, and optimizing every piece of content regularly. This is important to keep your content relevant and competitive. You can even use SEO tools to get alerts whenever your content pages experience ranking fluctuations so that you can update the content on time. 

8. Shifting User Search Intent

Google’s search intent is shifting away from just informational content to content answering transactional and commercial queries. Transactional and commercial keywords are showing an upward trend and we can expect them to remain trendy in 2024 as well. This indicates a shift in Google’s search intent from purely informational content. Search engines play an important role in SEO strategy as they help ensure that the content aligns with users’s requirements.

How Can You Prepare?

You can use advanced keyword research tools like Semrush to understand Google’s new search intent and optimize your content accordingly. Make sure that your product and pricing pages are well-optimized for relevant user queries. Also, you need to track the performance of your content pages after implementing a new strategy based on the shifted search intent.

Keep Your Website Updated With the Latest SEO Trends with MadHawks

As 2024 is almost here, you must prepare a list of your objectives for the new year. If your goal is to get your website ranked on top of SERPs, you must be aware of the latest SEO trends and strategies you can adopt to keep up with the competition. By understanding these trends and optimizing your website content accordingly, you can get insights into the future of SEO and focus on how to improve or maintain your rankings. 

You can also consider partnering with the top SEO companies like MadHawks. Our team of SEO professionals, with their thorough understanding of the latest SEO trends, can help you take your website to the next level in 2024. Contact us now for further information!

FAQ

1. How is AI going to affect SEO strategies in 2024?

Ans. Yes, AI can affect SEO strategies in 2024 in multiple ways. It can improve and automate keyword research, enhance user experience, understand search trends, etc.

2. What is the future of SEO in India?

Ans. As more and more companies and startups are registering themselves online, we can expect that the demand for SEO will continue to grow in India. 

3. Is SEO still worth it in 2024?

Ans. The simple answer to this is ‘Yes.’ Although AI is playing a major role in improving the user experience online, SEO still remains a very important aspect of digital marketing.

4. How will Google SEO change in 2024?

Ans. Although the basic SEO strategies remain the same, we can expect Google to release more updates related to spam and helpful content. Moreover, more AI-powered features are highly likely to influence SEO in 2024.

5. How do I prepare for Google SGE?

Ans. The best way to prepare your website for Google SGE is to generate high-quality content and answer frequently asked user questions through your website content.

6. What is the SEO strategy for 2024?

Ans. While AI and ML technologies seem to dominate the SEO industry, the value of human-written content still remains the same. An SEO strategy focused on publishing human-approach content and using AI-powered techniques for keyword research and other SEO tactics might work the best in 2024. 

7. How do I optimize for zero-click searches?

Ans. You can optimize for zero-click searches by answering user queries through your content and structuring your website content for featured snippets. You can do keyword research to identify keywords for which Google shows featured snippets and optimize your content for the same. 

8. Why is SEO important in video marketing?

Ans. SEO is not just important in content marketing but in video marketing as well. It helps get your videos to rank higher on search engines and drive more engagement.

9. How much is E-E-A-T important in SEO 2024?

Ans. E-E-A-T, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, still remains important in SEO in 2024 as these are the important factors considered by Google to evaluate the quality of Google Search results. 

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