SEO 2024: Navigating the future of Search
In the evolving sea of digital marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO) has been a valuable tool to guide businesses toward greater visibility and success - but new trends and technologies are on the horizon.
Let’s take a look at the current status of SEO - and the future outlook.
Charting the course: SEO vs. SEM/PPC
Before we dive deep, it’s important to distinguish between SEO and SEM (Search Engine Marketing). While both aim to steer traffic toward your website, their methods differ slightly:
SEO is like a skilled navigator guiding organic traffic focusing on long-term visibility.
SEM combines the power of both organic and paid strategies, ensuring a faster, more direct route to your target audience by incorporating Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns.
The six Benefits of SEO 2024: anchoring your strategy
SEO is more than just a navigation tool; it’s the anchor that stabilises your entire digital strategy. Here are six benefits that show why SEO remains indispensable in 2024:
1. Attract the right audience
With a well-developed keyword strategy, your content draws in potential buyers, making it easier for your target audience to find you through higher search rankings.
2. It builds credibility and trust
Websites that rank higher are often perceived as more credible, establishing authority and trust with potential customers.
3. It helps you gain strategic competitor insights
SEO allows you to understand the competitive landscape by analyzing your competitors' strengths, weaknesses, and market opportunities, helping you identify new business opportunities.
4. Stay ahead of the competition
A strong SEO strategy can help you surpass competitors by capturing more traffic and visibility that might otherwise go to them.
5. Increase website conversion rates
A user-friendly website, enhanced by effective SEO, leads to higher conversion rates by ensuring visitors have a positive experience and are more likely to become customers.
6. Cost-effective marketing
SEO is a long-term investment that delivers consistent traffic over time, making it more cost-effective than constantly paying for PPC campaigns.
4 x How to ready your brand for upcoming SEO shifts
To ensure your website remains effective in the face of the new SEO 2024 trends, focus on these critical elements.
#1 Mobile-First: Steering toward the future
A technically optimized site ensures that search engines can easily crawl and index your content. Focus on mobile-first optimization, as most consumers are using mobile devices today.
According to Statista, as of the first quarter of 2024, smartphones constituted around 77 percent of retail site traffic globally, responsible for generating two-thirds of online shopping orders.
In 2024, mobile-first indexing is no longer optional—it’s essential for search visibility. As of July 5th 2024, Google will fully implement mobile-first indexing.
Google sees the future of browsing dominated by mobile devices and sites that aren’t optimized for mobile are at risk of disappearing from search results.
To ensure your website is mobile optimised and has fast page speeds:
Test your URL’s indexability using Google Search Console’s URL Inspection tool.
Check your mobile page speed using the Page Speed Index tool.
Fix all technical issues that impact your page speeds or mobile-UX.
Upgrade your site with a mobile-first UX design strategy, ensuring it’s accessible and easy to navigate on any device.
#2 E-E-A-T: Aligning with Google’s lighthouse
High-quality, authoritative content is essential for driving your business forward. By implementing a strategic keyword approach and following Google's E-E-A-T principles (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), you ensure your content ranks higher and builds audience trust.
Google’s ranking systems prioritize content that is informative, trustworthy, and genuinely helpful to users.
Enhancing your E-E-A-T signals aligns your content with Google’s definition of a good search result, ensuring your site remains visible in the increasingly competitive search environment.
To optimize your E-E-A-T, focus on:
Create content that helps your target audience while showcasing your brand’s expertise.
Follow editorial standards to maintain high content quality.
Build brand reputation through PR, influencer marketing, guest posting, and social media distribution.
Credit your content creators and adding bio pages for them.
Use trustworthy sources and outbound links to enhance your content reliability.
#3 Promotion for findability, authority, and trustworthiness
Effective promotion is crucial for maximising your website’s visibility and credibility. Implement a comprehensive strategy that includes:
Content distribution: Amplify your reach through both organic and paid social channels. This generates social signals—likes, shares, and comments—that enhance your SEO by signalling content relevance to search engines. Utilize your social media platforms to engage your audience and drive traffic. Increased interaction boosts content visibility and credibility.
Influencer partnerships: Collaborate with influencers to reach their engaged audiences. Their endorsement can drive traffic and improve your content’s credibility.
Collaborations and PR: Work with other brands and leverage press releases to boost visibility. Effective PR can increase brand exposure by up to 68% and generate valuable backlinks.
#4 AI Overviews: The new currents in Search
The seas of SEO are being reshaped by AI-driven technologies. Google’s AI Overviews (AIO), rolling out in 2024, is set to transform how search engine results pages (SERPs) work.
AIOs will provide in-depth answers at the top of the search results page, pushing traditional organic and paid results further down—impacting organic traffic and click-through rates (CTR) even if your rankings remain unchanged.
AI Overviews leverage AI in three key ways to enhance the search experience:
AI snapshot: An AI-generated snippet located at the top of the Google SERP that answers users' questions.
Conversational mode: This allows users to ask related follow-up questions, keeping the context of the original search.
Vertical experiences: Provides a preferred list of features and more product details in commercial searches.
To prepare for the storm AIOs might bring for SEO, focus on:
Create helpful, unique content that answers search intent, improving your E-E-A-T signals and updating content regularly. With EEAT, your content snippet can be included in the AI’s results.
Make sure your website is mobile-optimised and easy for AI to crawl and index.
Optimize your SEO for natural language queries and different types of search intent.
Expand your marketing channels beyond organic and paid search, preparing for increased competition and higher CPC prices.
Ai Overviews has been available in the USA since May and expanded to 5 other countries since. AI Overviews are currently not a pressing concern in the EU, as the region has yet to finalize its stance on AI and intellectual property infringement, giving businesses more time to adapt to potential changes.
While the full impact of AI Overviews on SEO remains uncertain, it's crucial to start preparing now. By adapting to these emerging trends, you can position your brand to not only withstand the changes but also to excel in the evolving digital landscape.
