SEO Trend Predictions for 2024

2024 is set to be another disruptive year for SEO trends. Following the 2023 Helpful Content Update (HCU), which shook the industry, seeing an average position change of 2.5% across all sites. That, combined with the ramifications of AI content surfacing in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) every day, it’s safe to say that being aware of the future 2024 SEO trends is vital to stay ahead of the algorithm curve.

As we move into 2024, we can expect a ‘native’ integration of AI into Google’s search systems, meaning AI-assisted search will be accessible to aid our searches, accompanying the ‘traditional search’ system we have used since 1998.

But the robots aren’t set to replace SEOs just yet. Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) met a lacklustre reception in Google Labs (Google’s beta testing platform) and was delayed because of this.

Although Bing launched its search companion aptly named ‘Co-pilot’ last year, the search engine doesn’t hold 82% of the global market share like Google do. As you can imagine, Google risks alienating its entire market if it released SGE without market testing first.

AI has made it really easy for anyone, and especially those without genuine skills, to make content. On the surface, this is bad for everyone involved. The quality of online content is lowered as millions of AI articles are pumped out every month, leaving searchers fatigued with the inescapable generic content that is ranking for their search queries. However, the silver lining is that the introduction of AI content now makes human-written content even more valuable than it already is, which we predict Google will favour in 2024.

At Zelst, we have an optimistic view of future SEO trends and believe content made by humans for humans will preside over generic AI content!

As you can imagine, as search marketing specialists, we’re excited to see what SEO trends take off in 2024. So, based on our hands-on experience and understanding of the industry, we share our team’s very own predictions below!

Table of Contents

• Google SGE to impact Healthcare and Ecom the most

• Google to reward legitimate topical expertise

• Businesses to join TikTok or lose out on potential traffic

• The proliferation of black hat techniques and AI

• Creating content that matches user intent

• A crackdown on quality content with Google favouring thought

Leaders

• WebP images to eventually replace traditional JPEGs

• A shift away from Google's dominant market share as users’ attention spans decrease

• Short-form content to become king

• Video content to become the best way to establish a brand

• Voice search to grow in popularity alongside wearable tech

• Technical SEO will make a comeback

• SEO will be labelled ‘dead’ (again)

Prediction made by Kieron Platt, Digital Marketing Assistant at Zelst

After analysing one billion queries to see which queries were most impacted by Google Search Generative Experience, healthcare and ecommerce searches were the most widely affected. This was closely followed by B2B, insurance, education, restaurants and entertainment.

It's clear SGE will impact each industry differently, but depending on the reaction of users, we predict it will only become a more permanent feature piece of your Google search dashboard; whether you personally choose to use it or not might boil down to what ‘quality of life’ improvements you find useful, such as:

• Will SGE provide a faster answer to your question?

• Will SGE provide a tailored experience, using cookie data to make e-commerce shopping quicker from query to point of sale?

• Will the lack of human input make you scroll past the SGE feature to find an answer autonomously?

Each of these points could make or break your perception of AI’s usefulness as a search engine tool. The reaction that users have to SGE could cement the current market’s attitude toward AI and its place in human-influenced industries like search engines.

Prediction made by April Leadbitter, Head of Content at Zelst

Chat GPT’s release in November 2022 signified a seismic shift in digital content creation of all kinds. With 42% of Brits concerned about AI’s impact on the loss of human skills, a logical SEO prediction for 2024 would be that Google will start to place added value on human-written content produced by a qualified expert. This is especially true for Your Money or Your Life industries, where uneducated and inaccurate AI models might churn out potentially harmful information to users.

In other words, Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT) will be ever more important in a world of content authored entirely by Chat GPT.

Prediction made by Georgie Foley-Brickley, Visual Media Specialist at Zelst

As of the start of January 2024, TikTok has 1.1 billion active users per month. If your business appeals to the demographic between 16-60 and you don’t use TikTok, you're missing out on a slice of the ‘brand exposure pie’.

In 2023, the average TikToker spent 95 minutes on the app daily. Imagine using even ten per cent of that time to market your brand or business? Compared to conventional means of advertising, which cost far more, this method of brand exposure is free and reaches far more people.

If you consider the fact that more and more users are spending time on TikTok, we predict that if you're not on the ‘TikTok bandwagon’ you're missing out and leaving money on the table.

Prediction made by Phoebe Redfern, Head of Technical at Zelst

The war against black hat SEO rages on; even though most of the battles are won, black hat SEO techniques still reside, mainly in buying backlinks to boost domain authority (DA).

SGE is set to fit seamlessly into Google's existing search interface and follow the same principles as the ‘non-SGE’ search engine. But, although this seems like a simple integration, the reality is that any new software rollout always has a userbase ready to exploit it, especially in the early days.

We predict a new wave of black hat SEO algorithm tricks that might influence the way AI search engines choose sites or products to show users. Keyword stuffing is currently easily spotted by Google bots, but AI-focused keywords designed to bait SGE into choosing a particular site could be just as effective at manipulating the algorithm.

Prediction made by Lauren Whitaker, Technical SEO Specialist at Zelst

To make AI work for us, and not against us, we need to create content that serves a specific need, which the algorithm can easily identify and show a user in organic SERPs or SGE results.

Tailoring content to match a user's search intent will become vital as AI search is challenged with distinguishing between millions of potential options before it picks a few sites to show a user, based on that specific user’s search intent.

Do users looking for new trainers want to learn about the history of trainers, or are they ready to purchase a pair? Both require a distinctly different content optimization strategy.

We predict that sites with a sales funnel optimized for users’ search intent will be easily recognized by AI-assisted search and, therefore, more likely to be presented to users when they search for a query. Of course, this still applies to traditional non-AI search.

Prediction made by Rebekah Crinean, Content Strategist at Zelst

Low-quality AI content could lead to industry-wide generic answers being presented to users. And, as we know, Google prioritizes helpful content, and generic answers aren’t helpful. This means people will naturally gravitate toward ‘thought leader’ businesses pioneering unique answers.

We expect Google to recognize a user preference for unique answers and begin favoring businesses with original insights and unique points of view.

We believe that platforming experts, collaborating with in-house and external industry professionals, and producing original research will contribute to your business becoming a thought leader. The trend of ‘10x content’ could be surpassed by content that reflects first-hand experiences and originality. So, instead of making a blog ‘bigger and better’, why not try making it ‘more human and unique’?

Prediction made by Lottie Joy, Digital Marketing Specialist at Zelst

Google confirmed that WebP files require fewer bits per pixel than JPEG images on average. This means that WebP offers significant compression improvements over JPEG.

In terms of the technical side of SEO, we know that Core Web Vitals is a direct ranking factor. ‘Heavier’ images can slow down your page, negatively impacting your search visibility. It's clear that a slow but incremental shift to more ‘streamlined’ file types will be adopted in 2024 and beyond. And this is not just for images, but potentially for other file types too.

Prediction made by Vic Dillon, Content Marketing Specialist at Zelst

The search industry is much bigger than just Google. As attention spans decrease decade on decade (attention spans have decreased by nearly two minutes in two decades), it's no surprise users are turning to alternative platforms like TikTok, Pinterest and Reddit for content that's ‘easier to digest’ and more stimulating.

This ongoing attention-shift will see SEOs adapt by leveraging data from these alternative sources of traffic. We predict that SEOs will find meaningful ways to interpret the traffic coming from alternative media platforms and potentially placing more value on using them in marketing strategies.

Furthermore, as driving traffic from organic sources becomes increasingly competitive, new measures of success will need to be used, i.e. assessing the value of TikTok metrics, namely views, likes, and favorites.

Prediction made by Jordan Briggs-de Beere, Technical SEO Specialist at Zelst

Building off the back of our reduced attention spans, we predict a shift to short-form content preferences of all kinds. Be it crowd-sourced Reddit threads that allow users to join a conversation thread or YouTube Shorts that allow users to infinitely scroll in a particular niche, it's clear that users want quick and easily-digestible content for their search queries.

This prediction extends to the world of traditional content forms, such as blogs. It is likely users want the answer either in a featured snippet or in the article's first paragraph. Users will want the answer and they want it now!

Prediction made by Chris Kamm, SEO Specialist at Zelst

Last year, Google started prioritizing YouTube videos in their search results for many search queries, particularly long-tail keywords and ‘how to’ search terms.

We believe that this trend will continue to grow, with video content becoming as important as written content for a brand’s presence in the SERP.

Adapting blog content to video content will be a good way to capitalize on this shift in the SERP. This trend might even extend to short-form content, with YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok being displayed in the SERP for certain queries.

All in all, it will certainly be important to not only include but prioritize video content as part of your brand’s marketing strategy.

Prediction made by Tunisha Chesman, SEO Strategist at Zelst

In 2024, the Apple Vision Pro launched, introducing ‘experiential marketing’, allowing users to experience a brand’s story or products in a theatre-like Augmented Reality (AR). Thus far, the term ‘experiential marketing’ is still emerging to the masses. Although we are in the ‘baby's first steps’ phase of AR, the possibilities of experiential marketing and immersive brand storytelling will unleash a new sector of the SEO industry, attracting creatives and pioneers alike.

Voice search is a feature that comes built-in with much wearable tech, such as the Apple Watch. The voice recognition market is projected to amount to almost $50 billion in 2029, up from $12 billion in 2022. Because of this, we predict that optimizing your site for voice search will continue to become more and more important, as the technology we use every day becomes more voice-activated.

Prediction made by Sophie Challis, Technical SEO Specialist at Zelst

Technical SEO never really ‘left’ per say, but compared to the other aspects of digital marketing, it can be overlooked as it is less glamorous than perhaps content marketing, social media marketing or keyword research.

For this reason, and as SEO becomes more chaotic and unpredictable, we predict a ‘return to basics’ approach coming back as an SEO trend.

Optimizing for users that speak other languages, using hreflang rather than Google Translate, focusing on optimizing images, improving internal linking and enhancing UX will be prioritized.

A ‘fundamentals-first’ approach that positions a site on good SEO fundamentals will outperform sites using ‘game-changing’ marketing tactics but ignore the ‘back end’ health of their site.

Prediction made by Peter Van Zelst, Managing Director at Zelst

Each coming Google update, be it big or small, always brings a pessimistic view of the lifeline of SEO from many in the industry. And, although each coming Google algorithm core update could negatively impact unoptimized sites, such as the Helpful Content Update, an element of ‘improvise, adapt, overcome’ can be used to remedy changes post-update. And then, proactively prepare your site for upcoming algorithm updates.

SGE is set to change how people search by making it faster for users to receive an answer to a question. However, the techniques used to make Google favor sites in organic search will still apply to AI search; the methods are just likely to change slightly.

Google’s goal from the inception of its search engine was to make its user experience as helpful and intuitive as possible. SGE is simply the next step in that process, be it on desktop, mobile, or Apple Vision Pro. It’s our job as SEOs to adapt and apply our services to the fast-paced modern world of search.

We believe that future SEO trends will be majoritively positive for both the user and the SEO. We hope to see AI and search engines working synergistically to provide a next-generation experience to its users, and the value that ‘optimistic’ SEOs could bring to businesses looking to rank higher could be invaluable. Smart companies will see the real value in SEO, invest and reap the benefits accordingly. Come and talk to us about your search marketing strategy and staying on-top of the SEO trends of 2024!