In the last few years, we saw a lot of changes to Google, but also other search engines. As it usually goes, the algorithms have become more selective as to which content they present to end-users. Manipulating the system with cheap tricks is nowadays almost impossible, forcing website owners to focus on the quality of information.
In the upcoming 2024, search engine optimization will revolve more around topical expertise. Whether we’re talking about the author or the website as a whole, Google will assess your past work when prioritizing articles within the search results.
In this article, we’ll talk about different SEO strategies and SEO tools that you might want to implement in 2024. Enjoy!
The changes to the SEO landscape
In the last several years, search engines have placed much more emphasis on user experience. Optimizing sites for mobile devices and increasing their speeds are already old concepts. Aside from that, sites can benefit from having higher CTR, more page views, and longer time spent on pages.
Furthermore, there is much more focus on providing quick information that directly answers people’s questions. When browsing different search queries, users are looking for fast replies. They don’t want to read thousands of words to get what they need. Google has made changes to how it delivers results by highlighting the best definitions.
Although these trends are important, the real change came with AI-generated content.
Chatbots such as ChatGPT have changed the content creation process forever. Nowadays, there’s a heated debate regarding computer-generated articles, how they affect optimization, and whether they’ll replace real authors. While this technology is brand new, it’s already sending shockwaves through the community.
17 Biggest trends in 2024
Without further ado, here are some of the biggest trends and innovations lurking in 2024! Some of them are the continuation of previous trends, while others are completely fresh, relating to brand-new algorithm changes.
1. EEAT
EAT, or expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, is a concept that has been around for a while. It was officially introduced in 2014, but it is often overlooked compared to some other search engine ranking factors.
Basically, it tells us about content creators’ proficiency and whether they’re well-equipped to tackle the topic. Google used this system to assess the relevancy of a website to a particular topic and also to analyze if the source is credible enough.
In other words, EAT would assess your entire body of work, but also website factors, to assign rankings. For example, sites that wrote about digital marketing would get a push for digital marketing topics. Pages that were featured and linked to by some of the biggest blogs would get more exposure than those that haven’t, etc.
EEAT introduction
In December 2022, Google expanded the concept by adding another letter. Now, it’s called EEAT and refers to experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
Now, we don’t fully understand what Google refers to under experience as this is a rather comprehensive term. However, we received a few pointers from the company:
- Google gives more credit to authors that are classified as topical experts. For example, if a writer is mentioned on the internet as a flying instructor, he will get a push for related topics.
- The search engine will also use geo-location to weigh your online review activity. If you never ate at a restaurant, your feedback about the establishment will be less relevant. This can be a major breakthrough for local SEO, as your competition can no longer ruin your reviews with negative campaigns.
- The website as a whole might not be relevant to the topic. For example, digital marketing companies shouldn’t be talking about cooking or woodwork.
- Google also assesses pages based on the available information on them. If you have a product page that doesn’t has enough data about the product, it might be downgraded in rankings. Similar goes for the Contact page that doesn’t have enough contact information.
Given that the concept is relatively new, there are a lot of questions looming around it. The most important one is how the search engine assesses someone’s competency.
A potential answer is by checking the author’s bio and analyzing keywords within. Alternatively, the algorithm might access writers’ social media profiles and look for similar information there. As it seems at this point, you can’t game the system by changing your bio for every site you post on.
2. Topic clusters
Topic clusters are one of the best ways to demonstrate authority and expertise. As such, they’re a crucial tool that goes hand in hand with the EEAT concept.
Although the concept has been around for a while, it wasn’t that popular until recently. The important thing about clusters is that they allow you to tie everything together, creating a logical structure between your articles. A piece of writing is no longer seen as an individual post but as a part of a bigger whole.
How to create topic clusters?
First off, you have to find a comprehensive keyword that would serve as a so-called Pillar Page. It would be the focal point of the entire cluster and the actual piece you wish to rank.
The keyword should have enough volume to justify the resource investment. These are usually beginner terms that explain the entire concept. To create such a page, you’ll need to use a content format such as the Ultimate Guide.
The Pillar Page should cover all the angles of the topic and be the largest piece within the clusters. However, you still shouldn’t explain everything as you’ll have to create satellite pages afterward. These are smaller pieces that dissect related concepts in detail. Satellite pieces should link to the Pillar Page and vice versa to round up the cluster.
How do clusters help SEO?
Clusters provide several direct and indirect benefits.
First off, by having all these pieces of content interlinked, you ensure that people stay on your site for a while. This sends a strong signal to Google regarding the relevancy and quality of your content. Furthermore, as visitors can find answers to all their questions in one place, they don’t have to browse other sites.
Interlinking can also provide a boost by itself. Smaller satellite pages will send link juice to the main page. Together with external link building, there will be a lot of links pointing to one page, further improving its rankings. In other words, all these factors will help prioritize one page at the cost of others.
3. Author credibility
Author credibility can somewhat be related to the EEAT concept. Nowadays, web pages have to be written by reputable experts to reach the top of organic search results. You can no longer have a viable SEO strategy by creating fake profiles and using stock images for your bio. Instead, you need real people with real experience to write about the topic.
According to what we know, these are the few areas that Google analyses:
- Author bio – Without the bio, Google can’t properly assess whether a writer is reputable or not. There’s a good chance it analyzes keywords within it, which helps it determine if the person is a subject matter expert. Furthermore, the algorithms might be using the bio as a reference to other places on the web where the author’s name is mentioned.
- Author page – It’s also important to create an author page that will serve as the central hub for all writers’ articles. In a way, the page probably has a similar functionality as the sitemap, which allows search engine crawlers to quickly browse different areas of the site.
- Social media account – Among others, you should also place a hyperlink pointing to the author’s social media profiles. This will make it easier for search engine bots to corroborate the authenticity of the information in the bio.
We presume that author credibility will become an even more important factor for search engine algorithms as artificial intelligence takes over. Experts presume that AI content can severely hinder your ability to place at the top of search rankings. This makes sense, given that all these articles are nothing than regurgitated articles by human authors.
4. AI tools
Like with most other technologies, people are still very reserved when it comes to artificial intelligence. According to many experts, these tools might be detrimental to your placement within Google search, as the algorithm perceives AI-generated posts as low quality.
Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t benefit from this type of software. While AI programs shouldn’t be your focal point, nor should you create whole articles with them, they can serve as ancillary tools for creating quality content. Here are a few things they can help us with:
- Topic ideation – These platforms are especially great for content ideas. Of course, you still need to perform keyword research beforehand, but you’ll no longer have to waste time thinking about the focus of your article.
- Content outlines – Aside from providing a list of relevant keywords, tools such as Surfer SEO can generate headings. With this feature, you can learn a lot about user search intent and what people expect to see in this type of web post. In fact, the automatic generation of outlines is one of the biggest time savers.
- Brief generation – If you have a large team of writers, you can’t allocate enough time to create briefs for each one of them. So, by using AI programs, you can easily point them in the right direction by creating a list of suggested keywords, their volumes, subheadings, word counts, etc.
When we create content, the MiroMind team relies on a combination of topical expertise and AI tools. That way, we can ensure the highest content quality while implementing the best SEO practices. In other words, we can easily satisfy the search engine giant while simultaneously catering to loyal fans. To further enhance your content creation process, you can also leverage the benefits of an AI text detector. This powerful tool can be integrated into your workflow to ensure that the final content aligns with the highest quality standards. By employing the AI text detector, you can effortlessly verify that the AI-generated portions seamlessly blend with the human-written content, maintaining a consistent tone and style throughout the article.
5. User-focused ranking
For the longest time, Google has denied that it relies on user experience as a ranking factor for its articles. The company representatives have only recently stated that it’s much more important to create content that serves the users instead of the algorithms.
That being said, here are a few SEO practices you should implement in 2024:
- CTR – Click-through rate is perhaps one of the more important UX factors for Google. Getting enough clicks from web users shows that a specific page is relevant to their query. That being said, it’s crucial for a website to have well-written titles but also meta descriptions.
- Time spent on page – Another major consideration is time spent on page. Once you reel in users to your article, you need to make sure they stay on it for a while. The more time they spend on a page and website as a whole, the better for your SEO.
- Bounce rate – High bounce rate is common for articles that don’t meet user needs. If people are leaving your pages in droves quickly after landing on them, this sends a signal to Google that your post is missing the target.
- Pages per session – You should try to entice people to visit as many pages as possible during a single session. Checking multiple pages at once isn’t only great for search engines but is also a fantastic method of building brand awareness. The best way to do so is by having a smart interlinking strategy, implementing CTA, and providing overall quality content.
Keep in mind these are just a few main user stats that Google considers when allocating rankings. Aside from working in a vacuum, where each has a value of its own, they probably also have a cumulative effect.
Whatever the case might be, it’s your task as a website owner to create the best possible browsing experience. Among others, you need to create pages that answer user intent, that are interactive, and provide unique knowledge that can’t be found elsewhere.
6. FAQ
One of the latest top SEO trends is adding an FAQ section at the bottom of the page. In fact, if you check the articles published in the last year or so, you’ll notice that most of them have this section.
The reason for adding FAQs is relatively obvious. As of late, Google has started highlighting sentences or parts of sentences and putting them within the featured snippets. So, when looking for something, the search engine will retrieve a direct answer instead of giving you hyperlinks to web posts.
By adding FAQs, SEO experts are trying to optimize for this feature. First off, you add questions related to the underlying topic. These questions usually have a high volume, and it would be beneficial to rank them. Then, right below the question, the writer would add a direct answer to them.
Having a question and an answer just below it helps create a connection between the two. In theory, it would make it easier for the search engine to recognize that one is related to another, increasing the relevancy of the answer.
What type of questions should you add?
Aside from doing keyword research and assessing the volume and difficulty, you can also use tools such as Ask the Public. Google also has a section at the top of the page called People Also Ask, which shows you a few commonly-related questions.
7. Passages
Another major change has to do with the 2021 update called Passages. Similar to quick questions and answers, Google now creates snippets by extrapolating sections of the article. However, it’s worth noting that this is one of the new SEO trends that won’t have much impact on your optimization.
With this new algorithmic change, the search engine ranks sections of an article instead of the whole post. Each passage is allocated a score according to its quality and, specifically, how well it addresses the subheader topic.
In theory, Passages would provide an equal playing field. The update would give you numerous chances to rank for different keywords, sometimes allowing small bloggers to topple large news outlets. However, keep in mind that the algorithm doesn’t analyze paragraphs in a vacuum; you still need links and best SEO practices to rank.
8. Mobile and voice search
Mobile search is nothing new. The MiroMind team has talked about mobile-first indexing for a while now, and we’ve specifically talked about the importance of having an optimized site for phones. Given that most users nowadays access the web through these devices, it makes sense to prioritize this type of browsing.
On the other hand, voice search is a relatively new (although not brand new) technology. While it’s not a perfect system, and it often feels redundant, browsing the internet with your voice is great when driving a car and in some other situations.
According to Google’s representatives, there will be more emphasis in the future on these two types of browsing. Interestingly enough, mobile search and voice search go well hand-in-hand, given that most people perform voice browsing via their phones.
In other words, by optimizing your web pages for both of them, you can reap much more organic traffic in the upcoming years. Specifically, you need to ensure your website opens properly on mobile devices and that it has a fast loading speed.
To learn more about the site’s performance, we suggest you check Core Web Vitals.
9. Video snippets
Google did a great job diversifying its snippets and providing different answer types to its users. Nowadays, readers can get receive much more relevant information in the form they desire. Based on that, it isn’t surprising that videos are frequently featured on search engine ranking pages.
The trend of browsing YouTube for answers is nothing new. It’s especially common for How-To and DIY queries, where you have to perform certain actions with your hands. Video content is also popular among movie buffs and gamers. Here are a few things that might help you rank in Google for videos:
- Title and tags – The best way for algorithms to determine the content of a video is by checking the metadata. The title is the most important factor, showing your post for specific queries. Tags serve as the secondary indicator, potentially increasing the scope of the video and all the keywords it can rank for.
- CTR and time spent on video – After allocating a video to specific queries, Google starts assessing its value through click-through rate and time on video. Content that gets a lot of clicks can quickly reach the top spots on YouTube. Furthermore, having strong user stats increases the likelihood of video showing up on the platform’s homepage, where the majority of views come from.
- Chapters – Chapters is a relatively new addition to the platform. Nowadays, you can split your post into smaller segments, each revolving around a specific subtopic. We’re not certain how important this is for your rankings on YouTube and Google, but it’s definitely something that improves user experience.
- Closed Captions – Similar to chapters, closed captions are important for user experience. They are critical for people with hearing impediments and for foreigners struggling with the language. Although YouTube automatically generates subtitles, they’re often incorrect, so it’s much better to add your own.
It’s really hard to determine how videos are ranked in Google in comparison to YouTube. Our educated guess is that Google’s search engine algorithms tend to show content that has previously performed well on YouTube. In other words, YouTube helps separate the wheat from the chaff.
10. Crawling frequency
Another major change came with the crawling frequency.
As a part of the company’s long-term environmental goals, Google has sworn to reduce its energy consumption in the forthcoming period. The search engine giant has vowed to become a completely carbon-free organization by the end of this year.
To do so, they’ve decided to reduce the crawling frequency. This move might seem insignificant to an untrained eye, but it will actually lead to a massive reduction in computer resource usage. So, how does this affect your website?
Experts suggest that Google will continue crawling new pages as it did previously. However, it will crawl updated content at a much slower pace. In other words, you won’t be able to make constant updates to your post as you could’ve previously. So, each time you write something, make sure it’s fully ready for publishing.
11. Accessibility
Google, but also other search engines, has worked for some time on improving accessibility. As bad as it might sound, only 3% of the total internet content and pages are accessible to disabled individuals.
At this point, you probably shouldn’t worry too much about this concept. However, there’s a chance it will become increasingly important in the future. In fact, Google might already use some accessibility indicators for ranking but hasn’t still notified the public. This isn’t unimaginable, given that the company is often secretive about its algorithms.
Anyway, here are a few areas that you should focus on:
- When sharing videos on your site, make sure to share only those that have user-created captions. That way, you can ensure their relevancy.
- Alt-text is crucial for search engines, but also for understanding what’s on the image.
- One of the better ways to help people with vision impairment is by adding magnification features.
- Using accessibility software such as Wave is also a good way to improve your pages.
Whether accessibility optimization is a thing or not, you should still implement these small tricks. That way, when the new updates kick in, you’ll also have well-built pages. Not only that, but accessibility optimization can also improve your reputation, especially among this segment of the population.
12. Local SEO
Local SEO isn’t anything new. However, you would be shocked by the number of businesses that haven’t done this type of optimization.
Whether you’re a small company that relies on local customers, or a major international brand, it’s crucial to implement the best local SEO practices. Aside from allowing you to rank in Google for local keywords, this would also increase the reputation and authority of your business.
Specifically, adding the website to all major aggregates helps users determine that your brand is legit. And while this might not be as important for most of your customers, you can rest assured that bigger businesses perform a thorough background check.
Aside from helping you gain more local clients and achieve better rankings, local optimization might open new partnership opportunities. In other words, the star-scoring system can tell a lot about a company’s policies and the legitimacy of a business.
13. Link building
Historically, link building was always one of the most controversial topics within the SEO community. There was always a lot of talk as to what’s ethical and what’s not, with opinions varying significantly from expert to expert.
Although Google has become much more sophisticated nowadays, it still uses links as a vital ranking factor. The same premise remains as before: If top-tier sites are willing to feature your posts, this means they’re also of high quality.
In 2024 and after, you’ll have to pay attention to the following link features:
- Link relevancy – As it becomes harder and harder to game the system, links from your industry and from relevant pages will increase in value.
- Link exclusivity – Like previously, you’ll benefit much from links that come from websites that rarely link out.
- Links through relationships – Although hyperlinks were always a result of relationships, it has now become even more important to gain them through real communication.
Anyway, the link-building field probably won’t change a lot compared to 2022, 2021, and before. Besides following well-established practices, you should also avoid anything that might compromise your brand. In fact, even simple guest posting might come back to bite you!
14. Structured data markup
Having easily accessible menus is something that is crucial for user experience. Similarly, having good architecture and organizing content into sections makes it easier for crawlers to sift through it. All that said, you should obviously pay close attention to structured data markup.
Website owners and SEO experts add these tags to web pages as a way of providing more info about the content within. By reading the data, Google can understand the meaning behind every page, which would allow it to allocate rankings accordingly.
Here are a few tips that will help you use it correctly:
- You need to utilize the proper vocabulary when adding tags.
- Rely on Google Search Console for tracking errors.
- Test the data with Rich Results software
There’s much more to structured data than just basic crawling. They are also critical for getting more placements within the snippets, which are, nowadays, the bread and butter of successful sites. By adding schema markup to Q&A, recipes, videos, and other content categories, you can gain a major boost to organic traffic.
15. Engaging content
The days of making an impact with simple blocks of unintelligible text are long gone. Nowadays, you need to invest a lot of money to make your pages stand out. Specifically, you should add videos, images, infographics, and other types of visual and interactive content to move the needle.
With all the improvements to Google’s algorithms, people can get answers to their questions rather easily. They don’t have to waste time browsing through countless pages just to find a line or two of text. In the end, this is why the snippets are invented.
So, if you truly wish to retain their attention, you need to add lots of interesting solutions that would keep them engaged. Among others, here are the types of content you could add to your pieces:
- Images
- Embedded videos
- Charts and other statistical data
- Links to studies
- Infographics
- Games and other clickable content
- GIFs, etc.
Basically, you’re looking for all sorts of ways to break up your texts and add life to them. All these elements and content types have an indirect impact on your optimization by keeping people glued to your pages. In other words, they help increase retention, time on site, and other metrics that will help you break into the top results.
16. Product SEO
If you’re a web store, you should definitely implement the best product SEO practices.
In the last few years, Google has introduced several features that would help it compete with the biggest online stores. Specifically, when people are looking to buy something online, they first go to Amazon.com and use their internal search engine to browse products.
Google doesn’t want that. The company wishes to be the best, direct source of information for online shopping, overshadowing all internal engines of individual stores. Because of that, they added a few new functionalities in 2022 that would help improve shoppers’ experience while browsing.
To be more precise, Google has made a major improvement by adding Pros and Cons snippets. This feature provides more information during product reviews. They also introduced other improvements with product structured data.
If you wish to make a bigger impact, you should add this data and optimize it for Google. With this feature, the search engine can detect and rank your product photos in image search. The product structured data also helps Lens function by helping it find information about items in your store. Lastly, make sure to add drop-down menus and FAQs.
17. Multiplatform signals
Historically, Google has mainly focused on links from other websites to assess the quality of a page. They worked as a vote of confidence from other bloggers, indicating that the article is good enough for their own fans but also other users.
However, with the rise of social media and other types of platforms, the linking game has become much more convoluted. While getting a mention on social media is still not as powerful as getting a link, it has become something that might drive your rankings up.
How does the concept work?
While the links are still crucial for passing link juice, they can also be important vehicles for driving quality traffic. In many cases, a link from an irrelevant site can be much less powerful than a single social media mention.
Why is that, you might ask?
As Google is slowly switching to user signals for assessing content quality, spamming irrelevant links has become much less important. Instead, it’s much better to drive solid traffic, thus boosting your time spent on site and CTR stats.
In other words, we theorize that it’s much more beneficial to get a link from a large site’s Facebook profile than a low/medium tier website link. Even if the social media link doesn’t pass any link juice, it can help with other UX ranking signals.
Of course, this is all in theory right now, and we need much more data to get to the bottom of this. Furthermore, this doesn’t mean that links have suddenly become irrelevant. Instead, we’re just trying to say that you can no longer neglect other sources of traffic and the multiplatform approach.
Struggling to find your footing with all these new Google updates? Get MiroMind SEO services to help you with day-to-day optimization.