We Read “SEO Trends 2024” So You Don’t Have To

Keep these nine SEO predictions in mind as we kick off 2024.

Holiday Newton
January 17th, 2024

If you stay up to date on industry news and follow all the big sources, you likely received an email from Search Engine Journal promoting their “SEO Trends 2024” ebook. And if you’re like us, you immediately filled out the form, downloaded the book, and balked at the 80-page length. Don’t have time to carefully read through every page? We have you covered! We read every single word and want to share nine key takeaways. Remember, these are all predictions. Some may be accurate, some may not. Still, it’s important to be aware of them as we kick off 2024.

Google’s “Helpful” Revolution: Your Entire Site Matters
Quality Matters: Don’t Forget User Experience
Unique Value Propositions: Make Alternate Sites Stand Out or Miss Out
E-A-T Evolution: Adding Experience to the Mix
SGE Mastery: Learn to Navigate the SEO Landscape
SEO and AI: A Dynamic Duo
Content Strategies: Diversify Your Assets
Proactive SEO: Prepare for Disruption
Human-Centered Search: Go Beyond Keywords

1. Google’s “Helpful” Revolution: Your Entire Site Matters

Google’s game-changing shift focuses on the overall helpfulness of websites. Forget isolated pieces of excellent content. Consistently publishing helpful content across your entire site will help you stay in Google’s good books.

2. Quality Matters: Don’t Forget User Experience

User experience takes the spotlight. Elements that create poor experiences, like oversized hero images and broken links, will negatively impact site rankings. Maintaining high-quality standards ensures a positive user journey and preserves strong SEO standing.

3. Unique Value Propositions: Make Alternate Sites Stand Out or Miss Out

No more playing it safe. Alternate sites (those in different languages) without unique value propositions risk having their hreflang and canonical tags ignored. You can’t just change the language and currency and expect the site to perform well.

4. E-A-T Evolution: Adding Experience to the Mix

E-A-T gained an extra “E” for Experience. Searchers want content from real people, not AI. Google rewards content from real individuals with expertise, and a conversational, helpful approach is your ticket to better visibility.

“Google has never favored content for the sake of content, which is still much of how AI content reads. But in 2024, it’s likely to be even less favorable. In other words, don’t just put words on a page and expect to see them rank. Instead, put search intent at the center of your content strategy, and write in a way that makes your content the obvious choice to answer a query.” Adam Newbern, Sr. Digital Marketing Analyst, GPO

5. SGE Mastery: Learn to Navigate the SEO Landscape

Understand and adapt to Search Generative Experience (SGE). Identify when SGE is your friend and when it’s your foe. But, most importantly, focus on user needs. How can you help the user find the answer they need or get where they want to go? Remember, SGE is not solely AI. It’s a collection of the best results combined into an AI summary. Make sure your content is the best it can be so it’s included in that summary.

6. SEO and AI: A Dynamic Duo

AI is powerful, but it’s no substitute for human expertise. Explore how you can leverage the strengths of AI to support your SEO program. AI can churn out generic content based on what already exists. Your own experience and knowledge will be irreplaceable. Incorporate AI into your daily tasks, but acknowledge it can’t replace your genuine experience.

“As a rule of thumb, don’t publish AI-generated content unless it’s been changed or added to by a human with experience.” Gabe Wateski, Digital Marketing Manager, Nesnah Ventures

7. Content Strategies: Diversify Your Assets

Generative AI is being used to crank out countless articles every minute. While you should continue with a robust blog program, you want to branch out and include diverse formats in your content strategy. Invest in webinars, research reports, expert roundups, and data-led case studies.

8. Proactive SEO: Prepare for Disruption

SEO has always been prone to disruption, and 2024 is no exception. This year, we face more unpredictability, though. Watch out for how major changes in user behavior, decreasing clicks, technical SEO’s growing importance, and Google’s evolving systems and metrics (like Core Web Vitals) will impact SEO. Be ready to catch shifts in performance and adapt to a quickly changing landscape.

“In many ways, it feels as if Google wants us to ignore trying to rank altogether and focus solely on quality content creation. But proactive SEO means finding a balance between keeping an eye on SEO trends and creating quality content and a healthy site experience in spite of them.” Adam Newbern

9. Human-Centered Search: Go Beyond Keywords

You can’t optimize for keywords without considering the human behind the search. Optimizing for human-centered search, understanding intent, and focusing on semantic matching will be critical for SEO success. Schema markup, on-page SEO, and entity linking will become more significant for your strategy.

“SEO strategies may have changed and will continue to change, but the humans looking for answers, recipes, informative content, etc., have not. Google (and other search engines) have every incentive to give humans the best answers to questions as fast and efficiently as they can. Always aim to be the best information on the internet.” Gabe Wateski

Make Your SEO Thrive in 2024 and Beyond

We may see a significant shakeup in the search landscape this year, and GPO can help you stay informed, stay ahead, and stay relevant. Our SEO consulting services will set the stage for your digital success in 2024 and beyond. With keyphrase research and tracking, comprehensive content calendars, technical SEO audits, backlink analyses, page speed reports, ongoing site monitoring, and more, we push your competitors out and put you front and center. Chat with us today about how we can help your website not only survive but thrive in 2024.