Top SEO Trends of 2024 to Follow for Higher Rankings

As a marketer, navigating through the ever-changing world of SEO can prove to be quite challenging. To stay at the top of your game in 2024, it pays to know about where SEO is headed next — what the newest trends and techniques might bring. To help you stay ahead of the curve, we’ll take an inside look into some predictions for upcoming SEO trends in 2024. From emerging technologies like voice search optimization and machine learning, to shifts in popular keywords & new strategies for achieving organic rankings – we’ll cover it all so you can come out on top as an expert this year!

If you have hired the SEO services from an agency, you have nothing to worry as they will be the ones to do all the hard work for you. However, if you are into DIY SEO, these twelve trends will come handy in the year that will unfold. 

Latest SEO Trends in 2024

1. Another E in E.A.T

In December 2022, the new “E” in E-E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness), which stands for “Experience,” was made available to Google’s quality rater guidelines. Google is looking for content that clearly demonstrates a degree of experience relating to the product, information, or service being promoted, which is basically what this latest addition means. Therefore, content from a source with experience hiking in Scotland should be promoted in the search engine results page (SERPs) if someone is looking for information about hiking in Scotland. Similarly, if a user is looking for a particular kind of bike, Google wants to make sure it shows them content written by someone who has used that bike firsthand.

It is a common misunderstanding that E-E-A-T is an algorithm; in fact, it is a concept that is incorporated into Google’s search algorithm when determining a website’s content’s quality and relevance. Google search quality evaluators provide feedback that is used to help refine and improve the algorithm by evaluating the quality of websites using the criteria outlined in the Quality Rater Guidelines. This indicates that these evaluators’ comments may affect the order in which all websites appear in Google search results.

Also, Read: Google’s Update E-A-T — How it Affects Your Industry (and What to do about it)!

2. SEO Automation Tools

SEO automation is the process of automating simple or repetitive tasks, as the name suggests. The ability to spend more time on the creative aspects of optimization is the primary advantage of automating your SEO practices. You can concentrate on strategies that produce the best results now that you have more time. Even though having a single tool that can handle all of your SEO needs would be amazing, automating certain aspects requires careful planning. Also, automation does not substitute for hands-on analysis and activity, rather, it merely simplifies your efforts.

SEO Tools come in handy while automation is needed and even if you cannot automate the whole SEO process, they are useful in backlink analysis, rank tracking, SEO audits, site monitoring and analyzing metadata. Google offers excellent analytics and automation tools, despite its constant secrecy about its algorithms and updates. You can see in Google Search Console where your pages rank for various keywords and which ones bring in the most traffic. Since the keywords you want to rank for might not be related to your website, this insight could be very helpful. If something is wrong, Google will also automatically notify you. Other than Google tools Semrush Site Audit, Screaming Frog SEO Spider, Ahrefs are some of the other SEO automation tools that help save time and money.

Broken links, missing tags, or inconsistent information are all examples of these problems. You can let Google know once you’ve fixed the issues so that it can update its sitemap accordingly. You should make use of the URL inspection tool to get started.

Based on the most recent web crawl, this tool examines a specific page and provides comprehensive information about it. This data can help you optimize each page more effectively.

Also, Read: Top 15 Best SEO Tools (Updated 2024) 

3. AI Content Writing Software

In spite of all of the updates that were made in 2022 to combat auto-generated content, the use of AI content is likely to continue growing in 2024. There is a steady rise in the number of marketing applications that now incorporate AI and SEO. And it makes sense, since these integrations can save a lot of time. Over the past year, the majority of content marketers have utilized AI content generators like Jasper, Frase and QuillBot in some form, with Open AI Chat GPT taking the lead. 

Although using auto-generated content is a big no-no, marketers can use these tools to speed up their content workflows and still produce high-quality, original content. The following are some of the uses of these tools that do not compromise originality or context.

• Your writers can get a better understanding of the crucial keywords, topics, and subtopics that should be included in their original content by using content tools that generate content briefs
• Providing your writers with an outline is a great way to show them how to produce useful content without relying on artificial intelligence
• The process of brainstorming can be sped up with tools like blog topic generators. Using an idea generator can help you overcome writer’s block and move from a keyword to a useful content idea

4. Changing CTRs with SERP Positions

In the SEO industry, the question of whether click-through rate is an official ranking factor has been debated for years. The connection between CTR and ranking has been the subject of numerous CTR experiments. Numerous have demonstrated a strong link. A 2022 CTR study suggests that If a user clicks on your SERP result instead of a competitor’s that ranks higher than yours, this indicates that the user finds your result to be highly relevant or appealing. Google can tell that your result is satisfying users’ needs and desires if it has a high click-through rate. Regardless, customers are acquired through clicks. Increasing your CTR across all of your websites has no negative effects.

Google has made it much simpler for users to scroll through multiple pages of search results in order to locate the content they are looking for by making endless scrolling available on both mobile devices and desktop computers. The majority of clicks go to the first three results, so the relationship between ranking position and CTR has remained fairly stable over time. Even though it’s still best to get to the first page, there are more advantages to being on page two or three thanks to endless scrolling. Therefore, to make your content more engaging and clickable in the SERPs, ensure that you are optimizing those meta descriptions and making use of features like schema markup.

5. Crawling Frequency to be Reduced by Google

Google is significantly reducing the number of times it crawls and indexes websites.

In November 2021, Google’s spokesperson had confirmed about testing IndexNow protocol for indexing and crawling. With Index Now, search engines are informed of changes to a page’s content, making it easier and quicker for them to crawl and add them to the index.

Now, because indexing and crawling primarily involve the use of computer servers and other digital technology, you may think the impact on the environment is fairly minimal. But, as with any other form of computing, if the electricity used to power the computers and servers comes from non-renewable sources, it will create environmental issues as well as increase emissions of greenhouse gasses. Google has remained committed to its carbon-neutral policy and aims to eliminate all carbon emissions by 2030.

This can only be accomplished in one of two ways. The first strategy is to use renewable energy sources like solar or wind power to power their servers and other computing equipment. The other is to reduce the amount of energy required for indexing and crawling by optimizing their algorithms and utilizing additional technologies. Google is trying to go with the second option because it can be implemented more quickly than switching entirely to renewable energy.

6. Helpful Content

The actions and intentions of searchers are ever-evolving. They use Google or other search engines to learn more about a subject or find answers to their questions. Businesses and users benefit alike, when they understand what users are looking for and provide them with content that answers their questions. They ought to concentrate more on the intent of the search. Businesses will be able to produce competitive content that the online audience wants to consume if they pay close attention to search queries.

Google’s most recent Helpful Content Update is a significant step toward ensuring that only useful and high-quality content ranks at the top of Google. This update aims to remove sites that provide surface-level content from the top of search results and will categorize websites according to how useful their content is. Google can now mark a website as unhelpful if a significant number of articles are found to be less trustworthy because of this.

The Helpful Content update may also affect websites that use artificial intelligence to generate content automatically. Websites should use real people to write content for real users, according to Google. When SEO professionals truly create content that users are looking for, they will be able to dominate search in 2024. In addition to promoting their products and services, brands will need to meet the needs of their target audience. This means that you shouldn’t make users sign up on your website, show them unnecessary pop-ups, or send them to registration forms.

Also, Read: Google Helpful Content Update: Everything You Need To Know! 

7. Page Speed and Technical SEO

While many website owners are aware of the significance of on-page SEO and content, technical SEO is often overlooked due to its perceived “complexity”. Technical SEO, on the other hand, is crucial because it enables search engines to crawl your website and rank it in the first place in search results. Technical SEO includes everything that makes your website fast, mobile-friendly, user-friendly, functional, and easy to navigate. If you don’t have it, you might have a pretty website that loads slowly, isn’t usable on mobile devices, doesn’t get users the information they need, or crashes when people try to get in touch with you or buy your products.

Page speed refers to a specific page rather than the entire website’s average loading time. Quality of the server, image compression, file sizes, and other factors influence page speed. It is time to work toward improving this performance once you have a precise understanding of the page speed you are dealing with. To determine which areas require the most attention, make sure to refer to the results of the page speed test by Google. Improve your website’s code since the website’s performance is heavily influenced by the code, particularly in terms of loading times. 

For faster load times, make sure to get rid of any unnecessary characters, such as commas, spaces, and other elements. Users may not always have the connection they need to load your website correctly. In these situations, your page can automatically reduce file sizes using an application that enables compression. We all desire that crystal-clear quality, but making use of smaller images can greatly speed up a website. It is essential to strike a balance between image size and quality.

8. Conversational Queries

Conversational and increasingly complex search queries are on the rise. This means that if you want your content to rank higher in Google for more queries, it needs to be able to answer multiple questions in a coherent way. To accomplish this, you must first comprehend the kinds of queries that users are entering, then break those queries down into their component parts, and finally address each part in your content. Natural language processing, or NLP, may also be required to comprehend the query’s purpose more precisely. You may be able to create content with this assistance that better matches the user’s search criteria, increasing your chances of appearing in search results.

For instance, if a user searches for “what are the best cloud-based CRM solutions for financial service companies”, you should produce content that not only discusses the best cloud-based CRMs for financial services but also explains what to look for in a cloud-based CRM, what the particular requirements of financial service companies are, and how to use the software. This makes sure that users don’t have to go back to the initial search results page to find more information because they get all the information they need in one place. The need for content to be in line with search intent is also reinforced by the complexity and conversational nature of queries. Writing content that is completely tailored to the query’s purpose will help you rank well.

9. Core Web Vitals

A collection of three web performance metrics by Google is known as the Core Web Vitals. These three metrics are taken into account by Google’s search engine when deciding which pages to show in search results. As a result, practitioners of search engine optimization should improve the core web vitals of their pages as part of a comprehensive strategy to boost those pages’ rankings.

The Core Web Vitals include, Largest Contentful Paint, which measures loading speed, First Input Delay, which measures page interactivity and Cumulative Layout Shift, which measures visual stability. Google stated in the announcement that the CWVs would be taken into account when determining a page’s search ranking using page experience signals. HTTPS security, mobile-friendliness, and the absence or presence of intrusive interstitials (such as pop-ups) are additional aspects of the page experience. The objective of the update was to honor websites that enhance the user experience.

Google has confirmed that Core Web Vitals will be a factor in determining how pages are ranked. However, Google also stated in a subsequent announcement via an FAQ regarding Core Web Vitals, that the impact will be restricted to mobile search results.

In addition, Google has confirmed that Core Web Vitals compliance may not be a concern for websites that have enabled AMP because AMP-enabled pages typically satisfy the requirement. Because they are rendered from Google’s server, AMP pages contain fewer elements and may consequently take less time to load. 

Google also warns not to use large images or other external elements within AMP because doing so could affect the score on the web vitals. It is important to keep in mind that Core Web Vitals will not be the primary indicator used to rank pages on SERPs. Even if a website does not meet Web Vitals standards, Google claims that it will continue to rank pages with high-quality links and content.

10. Featured Snippets and Zero-click CTRs

Although featured snippets are not new, their use continues to influence the way content is displayed in Google search results. Google can more easily identify and comprehend a piece of content’s context with structured data. As Google places an increasing value on structured approaches to content signals, properly optimizing structured data will become increasingly important for SEO success in 2024. Add structured data and markup to your content if you want it to appear as a featured snippet. Additionally, you will need to write content in a way that makes it simple to extract and display in search results.

Semrush Zero Clicks study suggests that a how-to post, for instance, ought to have a straightforward structure with easy to follow steps. The items needed should be clearly described in a list. Questions and answers that can be easily extracted and displayed in the SERP should be included in a FAQ.

Your website’s visibility can be increased by optimizing for featured snippets. Websites that are featured in featured snippets are likely to anticipate a higher click-through rate and more traffic due to the fact that the featured snippet is displayed more prominently than organic search results, right at the top. Now, only the paid ads stand in your way of reaching the top of the SERP. Regarding the zero-click searches, CTRs may not suffer as much from no clicks as Google continues to add more featured snippets and other search features like People Also Ask, Knowledge panel, related searches and rich snippets.

11. Visual SEO

Visual content is an efficient and effective means of communication because the human brain is hardwired to absorb images and almost half of our gray matter is dedicated to visual processing. Therefore, it is not surprising that visual storytelling has become such a popular method of delivering a message. Search engines also have quickly recognized the significance of visual search results. Even when you conduct a text-based search, a lot of visual content such as Google images and YouTube videos will appear. These outcomes frequently yield better responses to the query as well. Naturally, YouTube and Google Image Search are also respectable search engines in and of themselves.

Visual SEO is what you need to do if you want your website or business to appear in visual searches as well. Yes, you can make your video and image collection more visible to relevant searchers. Video content, in contrast to traditional text marketing, is less static and can better keep customers’ attention. Given that video marketing relies heavily on graphics, audio, and storyboarding, it’s not surprising that many brands are reluctant to tackle the seemingly difficult task of making videos. However, in today’s information-saturated digital environment, video content may prove to be a much more palatable source of information for many. You will probably rise up the ranks of search engine pages to promote your page if you have a good video.

12. AI Image Creation

AI image generators can be used for a variety of things, including coming up with ideas for creative projects, visualizing them, investigating various scenarios or concepts, or just having fun with the AI. Using AI image generators, you can quickly create images of anything you can imagine, landscapes, animals, objects, characters, 3D models, and then modify them with a variety of customization options and details. They can also be used to enhance your own photographs. Jasper has a separate feature for creating images called Jasper Art. You just have to feed the requirements and the AI will weave its magic. Tools like Copy.ai, Nightcafe, Dall E 2 and StarryAI are going to rule the year.

An algorithm that looks at the photo and makes it better is used to accomplish this. For instance, red eyes can be fixed automatically. Additionally, contrast and sharpness can be enhanced. Images generated by AI can also produce brand-new images. A generator that extracts new images from a variety of elements is used for this purpose. So,new artworks or unusual perspectives on previously existing images can be created.

Wrapping Up

Over time, Google’s AI-powered search engine algorithm has become increasingly complex. Businesses today need to be well-versed in the latest developments in organic and local search engine optimization (SEO) as well as any upcoming changes. For your business to achieve maximum success, SEO trends should always be at the forefront of your digital marketing strategy. To take advantage of these strategies and stay ahead of your rivals, you need to stay up to date on the most recent SEO trends.

Your brand’s website will receive more targeted traffic as a result of a new SEO plan, which will keep you performing well in search engine results. It’s also essential to keep in mind that what works now may not work tomorrow. SEO’s future is always a dynamic process that requires careful consideration. However, keeping up with it while running a business is difficult. Because of this, many businesses decide to outsource their search engine optimization (SEO) marketing to an expert who will devise an effective SEO marketing strategy to boost their visibility.

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