6 trends & predictions for SEO in 2024
Seatbelt sign on: are we buckling up for another year of turbulent SERPs?
On-site signals as a ranking factor?
Digital PR will demand more expertise?
TikTok: Is time up for Google’s chokehold on search?
Seatbelt sign on: are we buckling up for another year of turbulent SERPs?
2023 was certainly no picnic when it came to algorithm shifts and updates. Google doubled down last year, releasing four core updates versus 2022’s tally of two (head over to this article from Barry Schwartz for a full rundown of last year’s updates). As a result, many sites saw some steep fluctuations in their rankings and visibility and were left without a clear path to rectification. Luce Rawlings, independent Ecommerce & Marketplace SEO Specialist and data journalist at Sistrix expects that volatility to continue:“In recent months, Google has been really struggling to figure out what users want, especially when it comes to more niche industries and topics. As a result, we’ve seen an increase in instances where lower-quality or spammy content ranks higher in search results than content that provides a better user experience. Consequently, I anticipate some algorithmic revisions are on the horizon to get the SERPs back to a similar state as they were in mid-2023. Once the SERPs are in a better position, Google’s latest AI advancements will introduce further SERP volatility.”
On-site signals as a ranking factor?
The effect of on-page signals like bounce rates and time on page have long been suspected to play some role in ranking algorithms, yet nothing was ever confirmed in an official capacity by Google. However, it looks like 2024 might be the year that things change. Blue Array’s resident CRO expert, James Pearce, weighs in:“As we’ve seen in Google’s ongoing Antitrust Trial, they are using user behaviour data to influence the SERPs. We’ve seen several changes in the last few years that are focused on page-experience behaviour, including Helpful Content, Product Review, Mobile Friendliness and Site Speed (to name a few), all being explicitly spoken about by Google’s documentation as important signals for SEO success. It stands to reason that Google may be using more on-site behaviour data to influence a site’s performance in the SERPs. We believe that providing a great experience, from the first impression in the SERP, through to conversion, will be key for business success as well as Organic Search. I expect we will see more updates from Google in the next year doubling down on a focus on user experience-focused metrics.”
Digital PR will demand more expertise
Lauren Hewitt-Crabb, senior Digital PR Manager at Blue Array echoes James’ thoughts around E-E-A-T and believes 2024 will be a year for expertise focused content in Digital PR. She writes:“A winning formula and something that we’ve seen more often over the past few months is content that takes the “Expert Tips” formula. Implementing a reactive and proactive DPR strategy, dissecting everyday activities, online trends and seasonality by debunking and problem-shooting with tips and advice direct from in-house experts. Not only is this a great way to get coverage but creating blog posts looking at these topics helps support the SEO strategy and E-E-A-T. This proactive stance provides expertise from experienced, trustworthy, authoritative individuals that are backed up with links from valued, trustworthy publications. We have to caveat though – relevancy is key – topics must be relevant to your brand and product offering.”Lauren also believes that the theme of expertise extends to Digital PR professionals themselves, with 2024 demanding a stepping up in terms of proving the value behind Digital PR strategies:
“Clients are looking for more than just links. While a few years ago it was all about how many links a campaign or PR story could bring in, in 2023/24 economic pressures and rising industry competition are putting pressure on brands to look for more than just surface-level metrics. It is important – now more than ever – to prove the value of your DPR strategy. As a PR it’s your responsibility to understand the impact that DPR can have, from keyword visibility, and organic traffic to revenue. Look at quality over quantity and understand what value those DPR metrics are providing your client. On the flip side, it’s acknowledging what DPR won’t have a direct impact on – clients need to be aware of these and expectations need to be set.”
The rise of Reddit
Reddit’s also getting on the user experience bandwagon this year. The site is now surfacing for a multitude of branded and informational queries that they weren’t a few months ago. It seems Google has algorithmically deemed that #UGC (and ‘Experience’ in E-E-A-T) has a place back in search (via the ‘Helpful Content’ and ‘Hidden Gems’ updates) and for Blue Array’s founder, Simon Schnieders, it’s a good thing: “6 months ago, Reddit had zero visibility in the top ten results for the following (US) searches. Today, it routinely ranks on page 1, and for some sizeable keywords too:Head terms (more than 100k volume):
- Best Buy
- USPS
(In the UK it’s):
- Rightmove
- eBay
- Netflix
Belly (1k – 10k volume):
- Vanilla pudding recipe
- Things to do in Nassau Bahamas
- Help in Spanish
Tail (11-100 volume):
- Coffee makers with filters
- How to freshen up carpet
- Best kisser in Hollywood
- If you’re visible and happy with Reddit appearing for navigational searches for your brand, linking to these pages (from your home page) can help them rank even higher. Moating results with other third party assets (and linking to them) might also need to be a defensive tactic (if you’re unhappy with the results).
- If there are keywords that matter for your business and Reddit (or any UGC platform) is appearing for them, it’s time to engage in that conversation in a genuine way. Arguably also for branded queries.
TikTok: Is time up for Google’s chokehold on search?
Is the clock ticking on Google’s time as the overlord of all search? Rumblings about the meteoric rise of social search on platforms like TikTok got a little louder in 2023, with some marketers left wondering whether Google would ‘die’ in 2024, but is it all just a storm in a teacup? YouTube is often cited as the world’s second largest search engine (or third, depending on who you ask[1]) but where does the line between search engine stop and social platform begin and will there be a happy crossover? Louise Giddings, SEO Manager at the RAC believes 2024 will indeed blur some lines between social media and traditional organic search:“I think we’ll start to see a shift in the SERPS moving into 2024, with more focus on social media in the results. More and more people are now taking their searches to social media for things like finding restaurants, product reviews and places to visit. With the rollout of features like perspectives, it’s clear that Google are noticing and adapting to show more diverse forms of content. In 2024, I think people in SEO will need to think outside of just traditional search. We’ll not only need to optimise for the web, but also on social platforms, to keep up with the ever changing user behaviour.”
AI: genuinely useful or gimmick?
It wouldn’t be an SEO trends piece without a nod to AI. Safe to say, it looks like it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. ChatGPT is surpassed only by Threads in the fervour amongst users who scrambled to sign up following launch.
Jake Evans, SEO Manager here at Blue Array has a keen interest in AI and is working on some very exciting new developments for the agency. Jake believes AI will continue to evolve over the course of this year, though there may be concerns about how the spiralling use of AI will impact the quality of the web overall:
“Moving into 2024, I definitely see AI taking a much stronger foothold in data analysis, being able to spot trends in traffic and align those with wider seasonality or fluctuations in the market that individual SEOs might have missed. We are also entering an interesting era with Google stating the internet is so large that just getting indexed is going to become an issue, let alone ranking, but sites like Hostinger are developing AI website builders that will inevitably lead to a mass amount more low quality sites online. This combined with content being produced at an astounding rate due to AI content writers, a cheap and cheerful ‘spray and pray’ approach to just plastering sites with content until one sticks is likely going to become much more prominent. One concern I have is around dynamic content on pages and how AI integrates with that, for example on eCommerce sites, if you were to select the ‘Gucci’ category, it would show you all the Gucci products, but this would most likely be a static page. I am wondering if companies are going to adopt AI in such a way that personalises this page to the individual (provided they are logged in), prioritising things that are in their typical price range/products that they would typically go for (shoes, blazers, dresses etc.). How would these pages then interact with search? It would be very difficult for Google to crawl and understand content that is entirely dynamic and changes based on user preferences.”Angie Rooney, SEO Lead at Yell believes that AI can be beneficial for users by providing summaries and taking away repetitive manual writing tasks. According to Angie, AI is “only going to become more prevalent in 2024. Marketplace websites will be using it in smarter ways. As well as enhancing user written content, AI is also being used to summarise UGC reviews to analyse sentiment and pull-out repeated topics mentioned across multiple reviews making it easier for consumers to quickly get the highlights without a long scroll.” Within the world of AI, Search Generative Experience (SGE) is the buzzword of the season. Announced in May of 2023, and still currently only available in the US, SGE is Google’s latest evolution of the SERPs. Google announced that thanks to “new generative AI capabilities in Search, we’re now taking more of the work out of searching, so you’ll be able to understand a topic faster, uncover new viewpoints and insights, and get things done more easily. In December 2023, the team at Authoritas conducted an SGE research study and summarised their findings by saying ‘This (SGE) is arguably going to be the biggest change to Search in the past decade. If Google decides to roll out the current incarnation of its Search Generative Results then SEOs will see the traffic and value from top organic rankings dissipate.” The ranking drops of position 1 queries alone from this study are quite staggering:
SGE may herald a new way of looking at the SERP more holistically since ads appear both above the SGE result and directly below it. Jyll Saskin Gales, marketing consultant at Jyll.ca, believes that SGE will force closer collaborations between SEO and Paid. Speaking at a roundtable with fellow experts at SMX Next, Gales said: “as marketers, we’re used to being super specialized, but those specialities are merging more and more because it’s all just about providing one intent-rich experience for users.” “So we’re going to have to work much more closely with practitioners and other marketing disciplines in the near future.”
Conclusion
The core shifts in organic search in 2024 are likely to centre around two key pillars: AI and automation, and the user’s search experience – from UGC to E-E-A-T, the way searches use and interact with search will take centre stage this year.