SEO In 2024 – An Overview
When it comes to attracting more visitors to your website, search engine optimization (SEO) is by far the most effective strategy. However, it is important to employ this strategy in the right manner. As SEO continues to evolve, you need to stay updated on the latest changes. Though it is a challenging task, it is very much worth the effort. Statistics show that approximately 70 to 80 percent of the users focus only on organic search results and nearly 28 percent of these searches result in a purchase. This post aims to provide an overview of the top SEO trends in 2024.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence or AI is changing the way users interact with the content they find online. The AI algorithm RankBrain unveiled by Google a few years ago will play a key role in ranking pages in search results. Google has not shared details as to how RankBrain will impact SEO in 2024. However, experts opine that signals related to user experience could be the primary factor and could include aspects ranging from time spent on a page to click-through rate.
Voice Search
Innovations such as Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, and Apple’s Siri have significantly contributed to the popularity of the voice search technology. With 55 percent of the households expected to use a smart speaker by the year 2022, optimizing websites for voice search by incorporating phrases that people use in their conversations every day becomes very important.
Mobile-Friendliness
Google introduced the mobile-first indexing in 2019. The search engine attached more importance to the mobile version of a website than its desktop version. With approximately 73 percent of the users predicted to access the Internet on their mobile devices by the year 2025, you need to ensure that your website’s mobile version is capable of clearing Google’s mobile-friendly test.
Google’s EAT Principle
Google has said time and again that content quality is a critical factor in ranking web pages. According to Google’s EAT principle, pages displaying subject Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, will rank higher in search results. To ensure content quality, you need to create buyer personas, study user search intent, back your claims with facts and statistics, and link to reputed sites.
Core Web Vitals and Page Experience
Google's focus on user experience remains strong in 2024. Core Web Vitals, including page load speed, interactivity, and visual stability, continue to influence rankings. Optimizing your website for an exceptional user experience is essential for SEO success.
Long-Form Content
Studies have shown that articles and blogs that contain 3,000 or more words receive 3 times and 4 times more traffic and shares, respectively. Such articles also get 3.5 times higher backlinks than those containing around 1,000 words. Content quality is important and you should make the content easily readable and shareable by including sharing links obviously at the top and bottom of the page.
Featured Snippets
If you are looking for an alternative to long-form content for climbing the Google rankings ladder, Featured snippets will be of great help. It offers a shortcut to improving prominence in Google. Featured snippets provide a good amount of information and are often structured as a brief bullet-point, Q and A, or how-to guide. Rich snippets include images, product prices, and star-based reviews, among others.
Predictive Search
Google Discover launched in 2017 unleashed a different kind of search. The AI-driven tool doesn’t require any user query. The tool senses the behavioural pattern of the user over time and recommends content that is interesting to the user. According to Google, the tool is being employed by over 800 million users. The search engine giant includes Discover when indexing your page.
Video Content
As many as 1 billion people use YouTube. If you don’t create video content, you stand to lose out in 2024 as experts believe that video will surpass all other forms of content. It is not enough if you create effective video content, you need to optimize the name of your YouTube channel and the description.
Local Search Listings
Most people search for the availability of goods and services in their locality. For example, a user might want to know where he/she can find a good restaurant in a neighbourhood. Therefore, local SEO is very important and it is continuing to evolve. To optimize your business website for local searches, you need to create a Google My Business page.
Data and Analytics
Data science enables you to understand buyers, design campaigns, and send targeted messages. Analytics helps you verify as to which of your URLs are being crawled, check page load time, identify referral sources, and get an idea of indexing, redirects, bounce rates, and response errors, among others. To capture this information, you need to make use of an efficient SEO toolkit.
In summary, these are the prevailing SEO trends for 2024. Staying updated and implementing these strategies is essential for optimizing your website's performance. If you're looking to prepare your website for the challenges of 2024, My Search Global Rewards, renowned as one of the leading digital marketing agencies in Kerala, is here to provide expert SEO services. Get ready to elevate your online presence and achieve your goals in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
