Emerging SEO Trends to Shape the Future
Every year, a new trend appears in the SEO world, which is powered by a technological event, a behavioural change by the searchers or an update by the search engine algorithm. Every year, if someone wants to stay ahead of the competition, one must be up to date with these trends in the SEO world. 2024 is going to see the SEO world different from what it is today because of the presence of artificial intelligence search, increasing level of experience of websites and its interaction with the searchers, increasing popularity of mobile search, and a lot more. While we all know that AI has now become our best friend in doing almost everything, it is important to be aware of what the future may hold in the SEO world. In this article, the SEO trends that are expected to be making the scene in 2024 and beyond will be discussed.
AI and Machine Learning: Revolutionizing Search Engine Algorithms
Since artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning took the internet by storm, search engines started learning about content and ranking it differently.
By 2024, it’s predicted that these technologies will completely change the way search engines treat content. Google seems to be at the forefront of the AI revolution, as their RankBrain and BERT have greatly contributed to searching engines comprehending relevance on a whole different level. Because of these AI technologies, the focus on user intent was pushed to another level too, so much that the pressure on website owners and marketers to focus on content that perceptibly adds value for customers keeps growing. So, if SEO practitioners want their content to be seen in 2024, they have to adapt to the changes that the advanced AI will bring because all content must be created with the quality, relevance, and user satisfaction on top of their minds.
Eventually, AI will enhance search personalisation based on every user action and eyeball movement, further prioritising data-driven content that goes beyond generalising mass audiences into granular targeting. Marketers will need to use SEO data more creatively to pre-empt and respond to an AI-dominated search world wherein compliant practices won’t be enough in ensuring maximum visibility against an algorithm that is aware of how our minds work. And with that knowledge, search engines will likely offer better experiences by letting more of us find what we expect and want. This ability will become a new advantage for savvy SEOs.
The Growing Importance of User Experience (UX) in SEO
User experience (UX) has always been an important element in SEO, but its importance – particularly in the short term – is set to drastically increase in 2024. This is due to Google’s three main Core Web Vitals becoming incorporated into the ranking algorithm. When delivering listed results, search engines will emphasise websites that provide high-quality UX. The resulting metrics focus on load (how quickly a page loads), interaction (how smoothly the page responds to the user’s input), and visual stability. But what do these algorithms infer about our intentions as users? They can derive that slow pages, unintuitive layout, or sudden shifts in content may mitigate against continued engagement. As a result, businesses will need to develop UX optimisation as a cornerstone of their SEO, ensuring that their sites load quickly, respond with sensitivity, and are intuitive to use.
Along with Core Web Vitals, there will keep being a big focus on providing the best possible UX to customers in terms of SEO and its impact on search rankings because the majority of searches are now done on phones. Those who have poor mobile functionality risk having their search ranking affected, so businesses will continue to focus on UX on any device for the next decade. The main UX initiatives centred around making websites more SEO friendly will be responsive design that renders the same experience on desktop and mobile and mobile-first indexing. As this continues to improve, business owners can expect that focusing on stellar UX to enhance organic traffic and conversions will become a successful strategy in 2020 and onward.
Voice Search Optimization: Adapting to Conversational Queries
Voice search is a quickly growing method for how users interact with search engines. It’s so major that SEO will never be the same. With access to more smart speakers and voice assistants – Hey, Siri!, Alexa, can you turn on the lights? or ‘OK Google, how do I make creme brulee?’ – more people will search this way. Voice searches use a natural, conversational way of speaking, so SEO professionals will have to think of different ways to target relevant keywords. In 2024, these voice searches will be particularly long and full of keywords, so optimising for them will mean using long-tail keywords and answering common questions on your website in a straightforward manner.
Voice search will necessitate that businesses ensure their content is structured for easy consumption by voice-activated devices. (Remember, featured snippets are often read aloud from voice assistants as the top search result.) Another aspect of voice search optimisation will be local SEO, which encompasses a large subset of voice searches that are location-based queries. Being proactive enough to understand these search trends means that you can take some of the early wins in the growing segment of search traffic that is voice search. Voice search will become a new branch of your SEO toolkit.
The Rise of Visual Search: Leveraging Image and Video Content
Visual search is a trend that is going to take off next year. It’s when user search for information using pictures and/or videos more than just typing on their keyboards. This type of search will be revolutionizing the search experience. Pinterest Lens and Google Lens are leading the charge for this kind of search. Just take the photo or upload the image that you want to search about. A couple of other trends that will influence SEO in 2024 are the major shifts from text based search (search with keyboards) to visual search options.
Marketers gearing up for visual search should lead with high-resolution, quality visual content that is both relevant to their brand and search-friendly, incorporating practices such as designating keyword-driven file names, alt text, and structured data to tell search engines about visual context (or, when OK, when not to index visual assets at all). Finally, video will continue to play a critical role in SEO as businesses look to platforms such as YouTube for driving traffic and engagement. By adapting SEO strategies to the visual search-driven priority of 2022, they could reach a new level of imagery-oriented visibility and reach.
E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) and Content Quality
Google’s E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) heavily influenced SEO strategies in 2024, and it will continue to be a significant factor in the years to come. Google (and other search engines) is on high alert to provide trustworthy and reliable content whenever someone launches a search. That’s why content that scores high on the E-A-T scale will cut through the rankings. It will be put on a fast track. Its placement on page one (and as high up that page as possible) will eliminate any hesitation, ambivalence or uncertainty from anyone reading the content. In the health, medical, financial, legal fields and others where accuracy is paramount, being considered an authority can only benefit content creators. Businesses have a vested interest in investing quality into their content and giving readers or viewers plenty of reasons to establish trust with them.
To perform in this type of environment, a business must be not only good, but good for SEO. This means having backlinks, a voice, stewardship, recency – in other words, E-A-T. Using subject-matter experts and authors will (ideally) boost your E-A-T score. If you can encourage these experts to do the same for you on their sites, even better. In the case of SEO, you should care about E-A-T if you want a better ranking. The more you produce high-E-A-T content, the more likely you are to rank for that keyword, bringing more traffic and likely more conversion.
The Continued Evolution of Mobile-First Indexing and Local SEO
Google engines have put focus on mobile-first indexing in recent years, and that trend is only going to become more important in 2024 and beyond. As we’ve reached the point where more than 50 per cent of all searches are performed on mobile devices, Google and other search engines are going to continue indexing and ranking for content on the mobile version of a site over the desktop version. This is a trend that will only continue in the future, meaning if you don’t have a responsive, fast site on mobile that people enjoy using, then you’re going to lag behind the competition.
The second is to focus on being mobile-first, making sure that your website is, in effect, a mobile website since most search activity actually originates from mobile. The third is to make local SEO a priority, with local listings in Google My Business and online directories helping to ensure that local searchers are able to find your business. Being mobile-first means you need to optimise your website to mobile and also for appearing in the local listings of search engine results pages.
Conclusion
SEO in 2024 is sure to be shaped strongly by the trends that will continue to emerge in 2023, trends such as AI, machine learning, voice search, and visual search will shape the search engine of 2024. Businesses will need to adapt their approaches in the coming years to incorporate the advances that will make it both harder and more important for them to position themselves with SEO in a way that maximises user experience, written content quality and mobile-first indexing among other factors. Keeping track of current SEO data, and ongoing trends will be a feature of keeping any business competitive in SEO in the years to come. With all the SEO latest news, there will be even more ways for business to disentangle themselves from spammy SEO practices and less that relies on such strategies.