19 SEO Trends You Need to Know In 2024 (Cheatsheet)

SEO is a constantly evolving field of digital marketing that requires continuous monitoring and adaptation to stay ahead of the curve. 

For businesses and website owners, staying informed about SEO trends in 2024 is important for maintaining a strong online presence and maximizing organic search results. 

This article will examine some of the latest SEO trends and practices to help you stay ahead of the competition and achieve your digital marketing goals in 2024. Using these trends in your SEO strategy can rank your website, gain more organic traffic, etc. 

What Is Trending In SEO In 2024?

SEO is a vibrant area of digital marketing. Google and Bing continue to refine their algorithm and constantly update their ranking factors. At that point, SEO trends emerge as a solution that can significantly impact website ranking and traffic. 

Without wasting time, let’s look at the top SEO trends in 2024. 

1. Use Of Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence has become the hottest topic all over the world. Every industry is using AI for its benefit. Then how Digital Marketing field can be behind in the use of AI in their SEO strategy? There are many ways to use AI and Machine Learning SEO. AI is used for content creation. Many content writers are using AI for writing an article. 

Here are some of the ways have given where AI can use. Let’s have a close look at these ways.  

1. Content Creation: 

Everyone definitely has heard about OpenAI’s GPT-3 or ChatGPT these days. ChatGPT is trending all over the internet. ChatGPT gained 1 million users just five days after its launch. ChatGPT bot can interact with humans in a conversational way and create a human-like text. 

ChatGPT can be used to create high-quality content optimized for search engines. Tools like ChatGPT can analyze search trends and generate content that is more likely to rank well in search results. 

Even some people give a big statement on Twitter about their AI content, have a look.

Bonus: Also know how to use ChatGPT For SEO.

2. Keyword Research:

Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning can identify the most relevant and profitable keywords for websites or businesses. This can be done by searching patterns and trends using AI-powered tools.  

3. Link Building:

AI-powered tools can help identify websites and pages that are most likely to link back to a particular website.There are many uses of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in SEO. which is why the use of AI and machine learning is going to be a top trend of SEO in 2024.

Source: Stanventures.com, Surferseo.com.

2. Focusing On Quality Of Content Over Quantity

Everyone should know about Google’s September 2023 helpful content update. Helpful content that answers users’ questions or offers the answer they are looking for is an integral part of giving users a good experience on your website.  

Google always prioritized serving high-quality content to its users. Google BERT filters the content as per users’ search queries and picks the most appropriate content. 

Passage indexing is picking up the most relevant passage to the user’s query from your page. If your content quality is good, then Google will consider it soon. 

So, it is more important to create high-quality content than quantity content. You need to keep your readers longer on your page by providing quality content. High-quality content can help you to increase user engagement, attract backlinks, and satisfy user intent. All these factors can improve your search engine rankings over time. 

Making quality content in 2024 can improve your website ranking, and you can gain more organic traffic. 

Source: developers.google.com, wordstream.com, nealschaffer.

3. Updating Content

Updating your content from time to time is very important in SEO strategy. Updating your content can help you to improve your search engine ranking over time. 

By keeping your content fresh and relevant, you signal to the search engine that your website is active and relevant. 

Updating content also provides an opportunity to optimize your content for new or existing keywords. That means creating more content can generate more keywords. 

By updating your content regularly, you can ensure that it remains error-free, and you can fix broken links too. This can improve user experience and reduce the risk of penalties from search engines for broken links or other errors. That is why this trend will be very important in 2024. 

Source: seositecheckup.com, 

4. Audience Targeted Content, Not Traffic

If your website sells financial software and creates a blog post of food recipes, then definitely Google crawlers will get suspicious. Because does that content really benefits the target audience of financial software consumers? 

Obviously, the answer is NO. If your content is just traffic-targeted and not audience targeted, then your website’s bounce rate will increase. 

By creating content that is tailored to your audience’s needs, interests, and preferences, you can attract more qualified traffic to your website and improve your search engine ranking.

To create audience-targeted content, you first need to understand who your target audience is and what they are searching for. 

Once you have a good understanding of your targeted audience, you can start creating content that is optimized for search engines and designed to meet your audience’s needs. 

Overall, audience-targeted content is a crucial component of SEO that can help you attract more qualified traffic to your website, improve your search engine ranking, and ultimately drive more conversions and revenue for your business. 

Source: wordstream.com

5. SERP Features

SERP features are becoming increasingly important in SEO trends. SERP features refer to the unique features that appear on search engine result pages in addition to the organic search results. 

For instance,  knowledge panels, people also ask, featured snippets, image packs, local packs, etc. 

If your website ranks in organic search but not in SERP features, it will get fewer clicks. 

SERP features like answer boxes don’t feature your website at all and don’t provide direct answers, nullifying the need to click on any links. A study shows that 65% of  Google searches end on the search result page due to this reason. 

SERP features are important due to they can help you to stand out from your competitors and attract more clicks and traffic to your website. If you appear in a featured snippet, your content will appear at the top of the search results and attract more clicks and visibility. 

If you want more clicks on your website in 2024, you must consider the SEFP features. 

Source: ahref.com 

6. Optimizing SEO For Voice Searches

Why should one consider voice searches as an SEO trend? That is because more than 43% of shoppers buy through voice assistants or voice-enabled devices such as smartphones, smart speakers, and virtual assistants. And 60% of buyers search for local businesses by using voice searches. 

For this, many SEO experts have devised many methods to accommodate voice searches. This includes creating content like the way people speak. Because people’s query is like the way we communicate. These searches are longer than six words. So it is important to focus on long-tail keywords. 

Here are some of the voice search tips to follow:

• Make conversational content the way we speak
• Use long-tail keywords
• Optimize for featured snippets
• Add FAQs page
• Update your data often

Source: nealschaffer.com 

7. Image/Video SEO

With the increasing popularity of visual content on the web, optimizing images and videos for search engines is vital for increasing time spent on the page, increasing the visibility of your page, and attracting more traffic to your website. 

Google likes to see schema markup and alt text, which helps Google Crowlers to find the content of images. 

Here are some of the statistics on Image/Video SEO that will make you understand the importance of Image/Video SEO.

• 86% of consumers in the United States say they like to watch more video content. 
• 20.9% of all Google SERPs come from the image. 
• 83% of SEO experts say video content increases visitors’ time spent on the page.

            Here are some of the tips for optimizing image and video SEO.  

• Use descriptive file names
• Optimize alt text
• Optimize file size 
• Optimize file format
• Use video transcripts
• Use schema markup
• Use a video Site Map

Image and video content can engage your visitor on your webpage. That will boost the engagement rate of visitors to your page. This could be the best SEO trend in 2024 that you can optimize. 

Source: nealschaffer.com,  

8. Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, And Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T)

Google introduced the new concept of E-E-A-T. It means Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. 

E-E-A-T quality raters determine the quality and effectiveness of the research results of Google. 

E-E-A-T is not affecting Google’s ranking directly, but it helps to Google to make improvements in its algorithm over time. 

• Experience refers to the level of first-hand and real-world experience of the creator or author when evaluating the quality of content. 
• Expertise refers to the level of knowledge and skill that the author or website demonstrates on a particular topic. 
• Authoritativeness refers to the level of trust and respect that the author or website has in the eyes of its audience.

Trustworthiness refers to the overall credibility and reliability of the author or website. 

It is important to note that while E-E-A-T is a valuable concept in SEO, it is not a direct ranking factor. Instead, it is an indicator of the overall quality and relevance of a website’s content, which can ultimately impact its search engine ranking.   

Source: semrush.com, worldstream.com

9. Optimizing Mobile-Friendly Websites

According to Statista, there are 7.33 billion mobile users worldwide as of 2024. And smartphones and tablets have become the primary means of accessing the internet. 

Nowadays, mobile traffic has overtaken desktop traffic, with 59.16%. Mobile optimization is also an essential aspect of SEO, as Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in its search results. 

Google introduced its Mobile Speed Update in 2018, and the page loading time on a mobile device became a ranking factor of a website.

Here are some of the tips for optimizing your website for mobile devices:

• Use a responsive design
• Optimize page load time
• Simplify your website’s design
• Use mobile-friendly formatting
• Test your websites on mobile devices

Making your website mobile-friendly can increase your website ranking and visibility, which is why optimizing the mobile-friendly website in 2024 is important.  

Source: Statista, nealschaffer.com, techtipswithtea.com.

10. Semantically Related Keywords

 Semantically related keywords trend has been driven by Google’s focus on natural language processing and machine learning algorithms that can understand the intent behind a search query. 

Before, SEO was focused on specific keywords, and website owner would optimize their content by stuffing their pages with these keywords. However, this approach often resulted in poor user experience, as the content was not written for humans but rather for search engines. 

Semantically related keywords are words that are associated with the main topic or theme of a page and that help to provide context and relevance to the content. 

For example, if the main topic of a page is “Digital Marketing,” semantically related keywords might include “SERP,” “SEO,” “Keywords,” “Snippet Features,” “Backlinks,” and many more. 

These keywords are all related to the main topic of the page, and they help to provide context and relevance to the content. And these keywords can provide extra information to users and create a good user experience. 

Before 2013, Google was showing results related to only keywords. But after the launch of the Hummingbird Algorithm, Google read the page and understood the overall topic. And give results where the topic is well covered.  On which page the topic is well covered, that page is coming on top of the result. 

Because of this reason, semantically related keywords are important in website ranking. 

Semantically related keywords will be the top SEO trend in 2024. 

Source: semrush.com, content.ai, backlinko.com.

11. High-Performing and Fast-Loading Website

Google’s algorithm places a high emphasis on delivering a positive user experience. Google wants people to be able to find answers to their questions as fast as possible.

Google started using the page speed factor as a ranking factor in 2010. And from 2018, Google started using page speed as a ranking factor for mobile searches. 

Google has also introduced several tools and resources to help website owners optimize their page speed, including the PageSpeed insights tool and the Lighthouse audit tool.

Here is a list of some of the tools that can evaluate the speed of your website:

• Page Speed
• YSlow
• WebPagetest
• Webmaster 
• Lighthouse

If your page takes time to get load, then the bounce rate of your website will increase. Here is a table showing the possibility of leaving your website if it takes time to load. 

The Time Of Loading Page	Bounce Rate Increased by
1 second to 3 seconds	32%
1 second to 5 seconds	90%
1 second to 6 seconds	106%
1 second to 10 seconds	123%

Page Speed is an important factor in SEO, and it’s likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future. Websites that prioritize page speed will have a better chance of ranking well in search engine results, especially for mobile searches. 

Source: developers.google.com. backlinko.com

12. Featured Snippets

A featured snippet is a snippet of content that appears at the top of Google’s search results, above the traditional organic listing. 

The primary purpose of a featured snippet is to provide users with a quick and concise answer to their query. So users can get their answers instantly without opening a website. But this works only for short answers. 

The text that appears inside of a snippet is pulled from web pages in Google’s index. According to the Search Engine Land, more than 8% of all clicks are received by Featured Snippets. 

Featured snippets impact SEO in two ways:

1. Featured Snippets bring the opportunity to receive more clicks from organic search results without google ranking. 

2. Featured Snippets can increase the number of no-click searches when a Google user does not click on any of the search results. That is because the featured snippet gives the answer to the user they are looking for. 

 Source: backlinko.com

You Might Also Like To Read:

• How To Skyrocket ROI In SEO Campaigns
• DIY SEO Tips To Implement On Your Website
• How To Get Started With Website Flipping

13. Search Intent/User Intent 

Search intent also knows as user intent. Search intent refers to the reason behind a user’s search query. In simple words, what is the user looking for? Are they trying to find information, make a purchase, or just browse? 

Understanding the search intent behind a query allows content creators to provide more relevant and useful content that meets the user’s needs. 

There are four types of search internet:

• Informational
• Commercial
• Navigational
• Transactional

To optimize for search intent, SEO experts need to research the keywords that are relevant to each type of intent and create content that matches those keywords and addresses the user’s needs. 

For example, if someone searches for “Best Food for Dogs” on Google or any other search engine. 

In this case, the user is not trying to navigate to a specific page. And they do not want to make purchases either. 

They are just trying to do their research about the product before purchasing it. That means this keyword has a commercial intent. And we can use this information to create our content to target this keyword. 

Understanding Search or User Intent can impact your rank in search results. If you want to rank your page in Google, then make sure your page satisfies the search intent behind the keywords they are targeting. 

Because of this reason, Search Intent/User Intent will become an important trend in 2024.

Source: Backlinko, semrush.com

14. Google AI Search Algorithm

Google’s AI search algorithm has shifted the focus of SEO towards creating high-quality, user-focused content. By prioritizing the needs of their audience and focusing on providing value, website owners and marketers can improve their website’s search ranking and drive more traffic to their websites.

RankBrain is a machine learning algorithm that helps Google better understand the intent behind search queries and the content on web pages. It is designed to constantly learn and improve its ability to deliver the most relevant search results to users.

Google has many AI Search algorithms, such as RankBrain, BERT, MUM (Multitask Unified Model), Neural matching, Passage Ranking System, etc. These search algorithms will affect your website ranking in 2024. 

AI search algorithms will eventually be able to evaluate your website and mark potential warning signs that might result in a penalty.  

Understanding Google’s AI search Algorithm can make you know how to handle these algorithms. By understanding these algorithms, one can rank their website in 2024. 

Source: analyticssteps.com, lumar.io

Also Read: Google SEO Checker

15. Online Shopping Experiences

The COVID-19 Pandemic has boosted the trend of online shopping all across the world. We are living in a digital world where everyone’s activities are happening online, including shopping. 

According to Statista, the total retail e-commerce revenue is $1,111 billion. And the retail e-commerce revenue is expected to reach $1,705 billion by 2027. 

Google has taken this opportunity to make its sales platform more enticing. Google is now actively promoting its shopping services and will likely continue this trend in 2024. 

Selling on Google is completely free for all businesses, with no commission on the product listing. 

If you have an e-commerce site, then you can set up Google Shopping Feature. 

Sometimes these snippets work as featured ones, which means google pulls them to the top of the SERP.

To improve the user experience in shopping, Google also made a shopping Graph. This is an AI-generated model that brings information related to a product from many sources, like benefits, prices, reviews, and videos. 

Google lens also plays an important role in online shopping. It allows a user to upload an image of the product they are looking for directly into the search engine. This helps users find a product without having a name or brand name. 

This trend is going to increase in 2024 as online shopping continues to grow in the coming years. 

Source: lern.g2.com, link-assistant.com, marketing.sfgate.com

16. Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vital has become a major trend in SEO in recent years, as search engines like Google have placed a greater emphasis on user experience and website performance. 

In May 2021, Google confirmed that Core Web Vital would be a ranking factor. Core Web Vitals are three sets of user-centered metrics that measure important aspects of website performance, including loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. 

Here are the three core web vital factors:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)– LCP means the time taken for the largest element on your page to load. LCP should be equal to or less than 2.5 seconds.

• First Input Delay (FID)– FID means the delay between the page’s response and the user’s interaction. FID should be equal to or less than 0.001 seconds.

• Cumulative Layout Shift (CIS)– CIS means how much on-page elements shift during loading. CIS should be equal to or less than 0.1 seconds.

Core Web Vitals are the indicators of the user’s experience while interacting with your website. 

In 2024, similar to the three CWVs, some of the more metrics attempt to quantify key aspects of the user experience. These metrics are as follows:

1. The total blocking time (TBT)
2. The time to interact (TTI)
3. The interaction with the next paint (INP)
4. The first contentful pain (FCP)
5. The time to the first byte (TTFB)

Overall, Core Web Vitals have become a key trend in SEO. By optimizing loafing speed, interactivity, and visual stability, the website can improve its search rankings, drive more traffic to its site, and ultimately increase engagement and conversions to your website in 2024. 

Source: surferseo.com, noblestudios.com, 

17. Link Building For SEO

Link building is always one of the most important factors used by Google search engines and others for website ranking. 

Backlinks from high-quality websites can help to improve a website’s search rankings and increase its authority. 

However, the trend in link-building has shifted in recent years as search engines like Google have become more sophisticated in their approach to link analysis. 

Here are some of the key trends in link building.  

• High-Quality Content
• Natural link building
• Diversification
• Relevance and Context
• Reviews and mentions
• Links from friends and partners
• Utilizing a link outreach service

Using the above key trends for link building, you can build backlinks. But here, it is important to note that link building can be an effective way to improve your SEO, but it is important to focus on building high-quality, relevant links rather than trying to manipulate search engine rankings with spammy or low-quality links. 

Link building can be very useful to increase your website ranking in 2024. 

Source: business2community.com, wordstream.com, moz.com.

Bonus: Here are the best link building services that you can opt to improve your SEO game.

18. Passage Indexing

Passage indexing is the new algorithm of Google that was introduced on 11th February 2021. 

Not to be confused with feature snippets, passage indexing allows Google to index and rank individual passages of a page based on their relevance to a specific search query rather than just the page as a whole.  

Passage indexing is really helpful for long content. As shown in the above image, before introducing passage indexing, Google was not showing the passage for a query search by users, but after introducing passage indexing, an individual passage also can rank within a page based on the query of users.

Passage indexing helping to Google to understand the content better and find the more relevant answer to a user’s query. 

Through passage indexing, Google tries to give the best answer of all to visitors’ queries. 

That is why passage indexing is one of the most important trends in SEO for 2024. 

Source: neilpatel.com, stanventures.com

19. Creating Topical Authority

Google wants to connect searchers with the most authoritative, comprehensive resources on a given topic. So sites that publish a high volume of in-depth, useful content on a niche stand the best chance of ranking well for related terms. The more authority you build, the more likely you are to appear prominently in search results.

How to Build Topical Authority There are a few key ways to build authority around a specific concept, product, or idea:

• Publish consistently – Establish yourself as a trusted resource by producing content frequently, in-depth articles, videos, podcasts, etc. 
• Optimized content – Include relevant keywords naturally and thoughtfully throughout your content to help search engines understand the topic.
• Promote and distribute – Link internally, amplify through social media, guest posts, and find backlinks from authority sites to expand your reach.
• Diversify content – Go beyond blog posts with ebooks, webinars, infographics, courses, etc., to showcase knowledge in different formats.
• Focus on quality over quantity – Well-researched, useful, engaging content has a bigger impact than churning out lots of thin content.

Topical authority takes time and commitment to develop. But the long-term payoff is rewarding, as you reap the search ranking benefits and establish credibility within your niche. Consistency and persistence are key.

Did you know? You can claim up to 40% discounts on your SEO tools during the Black Friday sale. So what’s the wait for? Hurry up and save some bucks this Black Friday season.

Related Read:

• Technical SEO Checklist
• SEO Abbreviations And Acronyms

Conclusion: SEO Trends (2024)

As we enter 2024, SEO continues to evolve and adapt new technologies. In the upcoming years, we can expect to see some new trends and changes that will impact the way we approach search engine optimization.

In this article, we have compiled all the top trends in SEO. But among these trends, there are also some important trends. 

The rise of voice searches and the need to optimize for voice queries has become important. 

Another important trend is the increased importance of user experience and website performance. Search engines are placing more emphasis on page speed, mobile-friendly sites, and overall website usability as ranking factors. 

Online shopping has also become a trend nowadays, and how Google took this opportunity to make its sales platform more enticing.

Another gearing-up trend is to offer SEO assistance remotely. Check out these benefits of being a virtual SEO assistant.

SEO trends are changing day by day. For the latest update, revisit this article; we will be updating this article with the most recent trends from time to time. 

FAQs

The post 19 SEO Trends You Need to Know In 2024 (Cheatsheet) appeared first on .