SEO in 2024: Do you update yourself with the latest SEO trends? If you’re worry about a lot of things Google is constantly launching, let me tell you that ‘basics are the most important’. But at the same time, with the evolving nature of the technology and the introduction to the AI & ML in SEO, it becomes more important task for the SEOs to stay ahead of the game. In this detailed article, we’ll discuss about what’s in the bag for SEOs in 2024 and how this year is going to be for all of us.
In this article, experts from different brands with over a decade of experience shared their views on this topic. So, it’s going to be a nice topic for you on the board.
Before that, let’s have a quick overview for you on what’s currently happening in the search, because there are huge volatility in the SERP in all the regions and a lot more updates are in a test-mode from Google.
| Google Updates 2023 | Released on |
|---|---|
| Product Review Update | February, 2023 |
| Core Algorithm Update | March, 2023 |
| Google Reviews Update | April, 2023 |
| Core Algorithm Update | August, 2023 |
| Helpful Content Update | September, 2023 |
| Spam removal Update | October, 2023 |
| Ranking Update | October, 2023 |
| Core Algorithm Update | October, 2023 |
| Core Algorithm Update | November, 2023 |
| Google Reviews Update | November, 2023 |
With these much of Core updates, and SGE with Gemini Pro launches, SEO field becomes more volatile than ever. Lot of industries seeing more pump and dump in Google Search Console. But, 2023 is gone now! Let’s talk about what 2024 might have for you.
Contents
What Experts’ Prediction on SEO in 2024
Note: This is opinion of the respective contributors. I thank all the participants who contributed to this blog to make it’s content rich and engaging to the audience.
Peter Rota:
Senior Technical SEO Manager, Hub International
I see SGE being rolled out in some capacity to all users, which will likely kill top-of-the-funnel/ some lower-funnel type searches. But, also, it is not too much because Google does not want to shoot publishers in the foot and have them no longer want to add their sites to Google Search.
For the second part, I think Google will have the HCU update be a bit more aggressive with AI content sites. It’s essentially like cheat codes right now, and the content can rank easily, and fast. Because of this, I see links getting a boost as they’re harder to come by. At least quality, strong links. This is a bit rarer these days.
Lastly, I think they will continue to roll out more serp features and paid ads to take up more of the first page. While Google does want the best search results, money is the primary driver in there.
Malte Landwehr:
Enterprise SEO, Head of SEO at Idealo
I think in 2024, we will see two major shifts in SEO.
For informational queries, especially simple informational queries, Google will use AI to answer even more questions Directly. I expect SGE but tuned down to “just” a Featured Snippet on steroids. This will massively reduce organic traffic for publishers in many verticals.
The second shift is focused on ecommerce. Google will roll out the ecommerce SERP layout used in the US to more countries. The Popular Products box will replace traditional organic results. With filters on the top and left for manufacturers, colors, and other product-attributes, the Google SERP will soon look like the category page of an online shop.
Since Google already tested highlighting stores that offer Google Pay, I expect that online shops will be downgraded to merchants who ship orders. The whole ecommerce experience, from research, to product comparison, product selection, price comparison, checkout, and payment will happen on Google.
While these two predictions sound very dire, I expect positive changes as well. With LLMs, a lot of SEO tasks can be automated. Clever SEOs will treat ChatGPT like having 100,000 smart but very inexperienced interns. With the right training and instructions, such an army of intern can perform a lot of monotonous tasks – every single day.
You need every page on your blog or online shop rewritten to Spanish? Done. You are a news publisher and report news for Republicans? With a few clicks you can rewrite every single story to resonate with a Democratic readership. You could also perform a content audit every single day, considering yesterday’s news and web traffic data. The possibilities are limitless.
Nikola Roza
SEO at nikolaroza.com
SGE – SGE is going to roll out very slowly in the SERPs, starting with the US market. Google simply has to roll out this feature to show they’re relevant when it comes to AI.
However, because AI text generation with LLMs is expensive, impractical and often inaccurate (AI hallucinates), they’re going to roll out this feature on a limited number of queries, and most of the time you’ll have to hit the toggle button for the AI snapshot to generate.
I predict some traffic loss for sites, but not that much.
HCU – I predict Google is going to roll out a new HC update soon and that one will in large part reverse the effect of the previous HCU. Currently, the SERPs are a mess and I can’t see Google not fixing this promptly. Even clueless web users are bound to notice this mess soon.
AI content – My prediction is bold. I predict Google is going to double down on catching and punishing AI content while publicly saying they don’t care how some text was generated. This is because the ability of any blogger in the world to create an unlimited number of articles per day on any topic is a fundamental threat to Google (they’re in the quality content, written by true experts game), and they just have to tackle this problem proactively or face the consequences.
In my personal example, I’m still writing content by myself as I don’t trust Google on AI content and I don’t trust most writers not to use AI writing tools when creating content for my blog.
Shekhar Chatterjee
Managing SEO at hoichoi.tv
With so much volatility seen at the backend of the year 2023, it is really hard to predict how the next year is going to be for the SEOs and online businesses. Google is trying to keep the users in Google and away from the niche blogs or websites.
We have seen SGE and Gemini pro and are slated to be launched in the near future. The introduction to many SERP features lead to uncertainty in the SEOs’ mind.
The tech SEO is surely going to be a key point for all the websites. Properly implementing schema markup and website structure will boost impressions for sure. Travel websites and affiliate websites might seen a big drop in traffic as the new sections shows top reviews of places from Google maps and another section ‘Discussion and Forums’ seems to be launched out there.
Another thing to consider here is HCU and how Google handles the Parasite SEO results. Backlinks are still and will be one of the crucial point out there, if implemented correctly.
Conclusion
The above authors have represented many brands’ SEO efforts over the years. The views and opinions on SEO in 2024 is solely the author’s. I hope you liked this article and gain a lot of insights from this. Do share!
