AI is everywhere in 2024.
With AI large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini truly changing the SEO game (along with everything else in content marketing), we thought it high time to share our insights on this year’s SEO Trends. (Psst: check out
SEO trends for 2023 to see all that’s changed).
The good news? Your blog content, and getting your SEO right, is still hugely important and relevant—even as times change.
Read on to learn about all the latest SEO trends and how to adjust your blog content this year to keep pace.
#1. The Age of AI: Google is Taking Steps to Combat Spam Content
As of March 2024, Google’s latest update—the recent version of the Helpful Content Update—is all about prioritizing human-first content. And that means de-prioritizing spammy, AI-written content.
While you shouldn’t abolish ChatGPT or Gemini entirely, you DO need a real human to brief, edit, and review your AI-written content. Otherwise, you might get penalized. That’s the last thing you want after spending hours on a 2000-word blog to improve your rankings.
And speaking of the number of words…
#2. Word Count DOESN’T Matter As Much As You Thought. Phew!
Previously, content length (i.e. number of words) mattered a lot.
Yes, long-form content is still valuable. But lately, Google doesn’t care about word length. It cares more about getting your point across. If you can explain your concept in 500 words to your unique audience, that’s great! If you need 2000 words, that’s fine too. Word count isn’t a significant ranking factor anymore.
Either way, a good rule of thumb, aim for over 500 words. It’s hard to truly demonstrate your knowledge of a subject in less than that.
#3. A Key SEO Trend in 2024: Continue to Optimize Your Images
This isn’t a new trend by any means, but it’s still relevant in 2024. Optimize all your images for SEO. That means updating image file names with relevant keywords, compressing images, using supported file formats, and adding appropriate alt-tags (without keyword stuffing). The little things go a long way. This will definitely help your brand’s presence in search this year.
#4. Prepare for SGE
In line with the AI wave, Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) is on its way to regular ol’ search, using generative AI to provide users with high-level overviews of search topics—without them having to visit webpages.
While SGE rolled out in 2023, users still have to confirm access to it. At the time of writing, it’s more prevalent in the U.S. compared to other parts of the word… for now.
While SGE certainly won’t eradicate SEO, it will change things once it becomes the norm—which is only a matter of time. Here’s how to prepare:
- Demonstrate E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authority, Trustworthiness) in your content. Google evaluates content based on E-E-A-T, and SGE is no different. Here are some tips on how to demonstrate E-E-A-T in your content.
- Write clearly and concisely. Speak your audience’s language, answer your audience’s questions directly, and don’t be too wordy. SGE pulls content from the web (i.e. your website). Make it easy for it to feature yours.
- Update your content. Check your publish dates and keep your content up-to-date, as SGE will try to pull newer content.
- Keep publishing new, high-quality content. Keep gaining greater market share online to gain visibility and stay ahead of the curve.
#5. That Being Said… Audit Existing Content First
But one of the most effective SEO “trends” of all? Audit your existing content. Yes, publishing new content is crucial, but auditing your content might be more effective from an SEO perspective. The content is already published, right? You just need to make a few tweaks to see better results.
Here’s what we recommend.
- Step 1: go into your favourite SEO tool—Semrush, Ahreds, Moz… whichever you prefer.
- Step 2: filter your blogs by positions 4-20. These are your low-hanging fruits, i.e., some of the best blogs to optimize. They may only need small changes to jump the ranks.
- Step 3: research what’s in SERPs for those keywords. See what competitors are doing in higher positions, and apply those to your low-hanging fruit content.
- Step 4: optimize accordingly. This might mean adding more high-quality imagery, making your writing more scannable, restructuring your content, refining the target keyword, updating the title tag, etc. But with any changes you make, log your updates in a document so you can note what worked/didn’t work.
- Step 5: monitor your results and see what makes an impact. Rinse and repeat!
Final Thoughts
While it’s hard to say where the future of SEO will go, as with all aspects of content and digital marketing, things change fast. To stay on top of it, you have to evolve too. Stay tuned for our next SEO trends blog—it might come out sooner than we think.
