SEO is changing and its future looks to be more user-centric and technology-driven. In 2024, those changes could be drastic as AI and machine learning help search engines deliver results based on user intent.

So what are the SEO trends we see in 2024?

Google’s SGE is transforming the search experience with generative AI. The goal is to provide more relevant and comprehensive information to users based on questions. SGE also provides relevant links and has a conversational mode where users can follow up with more questions – in essence, have a conversation with Google.

The experience is due to be rolled out in 2024 and these new ‘AI snapshots’ will likely have a huge impact on search. From a traffic perspective, we are anticipating this could potentially decrease clickthrough rates for websites, which is scary for us in SEO.

Expert tip: Proactively monitor when you're appearing in an AI snapshot. Because once SGE fully rolls out in (probably) early 2024 and you can access the tools to start analyzing, it will be critically important to let the data tell the story.

How can you prepare for this change?

Create content that’s worth talking about & sharing

It’s always been important to create great content, but in 2024 if you want to appear on search results, what you create needs to be ramped up. Your success is going to be tied to whether you can create content that's much better than AI-generated content.

In recent months, there have been rumours about backlinks dying off. In fact, interviews with Google employees have uncovered that backlinks are not a top three ranking factor. However, we believe backlinks will continue to be a signal of popularity to Google, especially when it is planning to corroborate its AI snapshots with sources across the web.

Expert tip: Google is surfacing videos in high-quality imagery directly in the SGE carousel. Although the quality isn’t quite there yet, you should expect that playable videos will become a really important part of your content strategy.

Create high EEAT content

Google’s EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) framework is not a ranking factor but a component of its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. While this framework has existed for a decade, this year Google added an extra E for ‘Experience’.

This is significant as AI cannot generate real-world experience like people can. This gives human content marketers an advantage and cements the importance of having experts write or inform content.

As you develop your content strategy, think about how to weave in proof that the writer or person running your website has Expertise, first-hand Experience, Authority, and Trust, so they deserve to be listened to.

Expert tip: Make a checklist of all the EEAT signals that matter to your business and grid it like a scorecard. Look at what your competitors are doing to build trust and authority. Then grade yourself against all the things your competitors are doing and figure out how to improve.

Focus on conversion rate & UX

Google always makes changes that affect your ability to capture people directly in the search engine results page (SERP) with clicks. Unfortunately, that's out of your control. But you can control user experience (UX).

You can't afford to have slow page speed and poor user experience. You want to make sure that for every user that visits your site, you are absolutely maximizing your chance at converting them.

Want to learn more about Optimizing EEAT? Check out our full blog here.

Need help navigating these changes? Reach out and lets chat!