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The world of SEO is ever-evolving, and 2024 has brought some significant changes that you, as a business owner should be aware of. With the introduction of AI, the rise of zero-click searches, and new factors affecting search engine rankings, staying ahead of the curve is essential for maintaining your online presence.
We’re going to break down the most important updates, making it quick to read and easy to digest, and show you what you need to do to keep your website competitive.
What’s happening: The last year has seen an explosion in AI-generated content. This has increased the volume of content online, not all of it is high quality.
What this means for you: The influx of AI-generated content means that the online landscape is becoming more crowded. It may be harder to get seen or compete with others who are producing content at scale. It may also be harder for you to be seen as an “authority” in your industry (by Google) if you are not speaking to the things your customers want to know about and others are.
What you should do: Focus on creating authoritative, valuable content that stands out from the AI-generated noise. Tailor your content to your audience’s specific needs and interests to maintain credibility and attract meaningful traffic. Use real-world examples, case studies and personal experiences in your content.
What’s happening: Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) now presents AI-generated answers at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), which could potentially reduce traffic to traditional websites.
What this means for you: With AI-generated answers appearing at the top of SERPs, users may find what they need without clicking through to your site. This could lead to a decline in organic traffic even though you’ve given people the answers they’ve looked for.
What you should do: It’s crucial to establish your website as an authoritative source in your field. Implement schema markup to help search engines understand your content better and ensure that your site remains a trusted resource even as AI-generated answers become more common. You can also create content that is more complex and requires more than a quick answer.
What’s happening: Google’s Helpful Content Update has shifted the visibility of some content. So far it seems this has reduced spam along with traffic for some content creators while maintaining it for business websites.
What this means for you: Understand that business owners seem to be at an advantage at the moment for getting their content found online.
What you should do: Prioritise creating content that genuinely helps your audience and aligns with your business goals. This approach will keep your content relevant and valuable in the eyes of both your users and search engines.
What’s happening: Zero-click searches, where users find the answers they need directly on the search engine listings, without clicking through to any website, are on the rise.
What this means for you: As more users find what they need directly on the search results page, your website might experience a decrease in click-through rates or less traffic.
What you should do: Optimise your content for featured snippets and local packs. This will ensure that your business information is visible and accessible, even in zero-click search scenarios, helping you capture valuable search traffic.
What’s happening: SEO is increasingly focused on demonstrating clear expertise in specific topics, a concept known as topical authority.
What this means for you: Websites that demonstrate expertise in a particular area or category are more likely to rank higher in search results, leading to increased visibility and credibility. If you have a lot of content focused on what you do, you’ll likely rank higher and if you don’t, you may not do as well as others.
What you should do: Build comprehensive content clusters around key topics relevant to your business or the services and products you offer. This strategy will help establish your website as an authoritative source, improving your rankings and visibility in search results. (Hubspot has a great resource explaining this if you’d like to understand further.)
What’s happening: Video content is booming, with billions of digital video viewers worldwide. Search engines are paying attention to this trend.
What this means for you: There’s a significant opportunity to reach a broader audience through video content. As search engines prioritise video, incorporating it into your SEO strategy can drive more traffic to your site.
What you should do: Invest in creating high-quality video content and optimise it for both Google and YouTube. By doing so, you can tap into the growing demand for video content and increase your reach in search results. Grab your phone and film yourself or team members talking about your products and services, providing information for your clients and customers that’ll benefit them. Add the content to social media depending on where your audience is, and embed those social posts on your website’s blog.
What’s happening: With increasing competition and content velocity, regularly updating your content is essential for maintaining relevance and rankings.
What this means for you: Outdated content can lose its relevance and ranking over time. Regularly refreshing your content helps maintain its position in the search engines and keeps your site relevant to your audience.
What you should do: Conduct regular audits of your existing content and refresh it to align with current trends and your audience's reason for searching. This will help keep your content relevant and improve its performance in the rankings. As a reminder, we recommend keeping older content on your website, to ensure your indexed pages don’t become broken once deleted. Once you add new content such as blog posts and push the old ones down, they become harder to find but still provide your website with needed SEO benefits.
What’s happening: Google is increasingly prioritising content that matches the user’s search intent, with a shift towards transactional and commercial queries. This has been a helpful change, overall, for businesses.
What this means for you: If your content doesn’t align with the intent behind users’ searches, it may struggle to rank well. Matching search intent is crucial for attracting the right audience. If the keywords you chose to focus on previously are broad and don’t have the right search intent, it may impact your rankings negatively.
What you should do: Take a fresh look at your keywords, content and pages. Be sure your website content is aligned with the search intent of your target audience. Focus on creating content that addresses what your users are most likely searching for, whether it’s information, products, or services. For example…
What’s happening: User experience continues to be a critical factor in SEO, with Google’s Core Web Vitals playing a key role in how websites are ranked. This basically refers to how well your site does technically and how fast or slow it is to load.
What this means for you: A poor user experience can negatively impact your site’s rankings and reduce the likelihood of visitors staying on your site (think small buttons on a phone’s touch screen - they’re hard to click, which is a poor experience for your user). If visitors leave your site because it takes too long to load or is hard to navigate, Google tracks that and may show your website less to searchers.
What you should do: Improve your site’s speed, ease of navigation, and overall user experience. Ensuring a positive user experience will not only enhance your rankings but also keep visitors on your site longer. If you're after a new, user-focused website, get in touch.
What’s happening: Social media platforms and AI chatbots are emerging as new competitors to traditional search engines.
What this means for you: Your audience might increasingly seek information through social media and AI chatbots rather than search engines, leading to reduced traffic from traditional search sources. However, they will likely still search for local business services and products through a search engine.
What you should do: Diversify your digital presence by expanding your reach across social media and exploring AI chat integrations. This will help you stay competitive and capture traffic from a variety of online sources.
At Itag Media, we understand that keeping up with the latest SEO trends can be challenging, even mind-boggling, with the introduction of AI and how it may change the way we use the internet.
If you’re looking for expert help to ensure your website stays ahead in this fast-changing landscape, we’re here to help. Our team offers comprehensive SEO services tailored to your business needs.
Contact us today to learn how we can boost your online presence and drive more traffic to your site.
