With the new year drawing closer, it is a good time to look at SEO and marketing trends that you should keep an eye on as they might grow and become more integral to your marketing strategies as they become popular.
These are the trends that will make the most impact in 2024, how they will affect your traffic, and how to make the most out of it.
1. AI content
In less than a year, generative AI has risen in popularity and has become a big source of usage for creating content in different formats. The tools that have been created, facilitate the content creation process. With generative AI’s rate of improvement, it will soon be able to surpass the current standards of output it produces.
However, in its current form, it is important to note that human-driven content will still be required. You will need a proficient writer or editor to fact-check all your content, in order to make sure that the content written leans into your area of expertise. You will still need to omit generalizations and edit it to the quality and standards that you generally use in your content creation, prior to using AI.
In addition to content creation, AI is also being leveraged in automation and other data analysis processes. It will soon become a tool that requires minimal assistance from outside sources.
2. Local SEO
Local SEO needs to be a big part of marketing efforts, as it can give businesses a boost over competitors. Local SEO can also help boost your visibility and help you connect better with your local customers.
Ways to boost your local SEO would be to update your Google My Business with accurate information, consider local citation submission or other local link-building campaigns, and develop a mobile-friendly interface among other on-page optimizations.
3. Content relevancy
For both SEO and marketing processes, the creation of relevant content is very important to boost the reception of it from your target audience and to help you rank higher in response to questions used in search engines.
When it comes to posting relevant content, it needs to be research-driven, it must be of interest to the target audience and it must be a valuable source of information for them. This is also a space where you can lean into your own expertise and leverage real-life examples in your content.
In addition to being relevant, it will also drastically improve the quality of your content.
4. Voice Search Optimization
Mobile devices now come with an added feature of digital assistance that comes standard on your phone. Users now use this feature and the voice search feature on search engines to conduct their searches instead of typing out the entire query manually.
They do this by tapping on the microphone icon in the search bar, however, results are displayed in the same way they always are on SERPs.
The way questions are phrased when speaking them out as opposed to when we type it out is more conversational, and our content needs to be optimized to respond to this conversational tone as well. This will help your content reach more people instead of optimizing it for text-based queries. The best part of optimizing your content for voice search is that it will also benefit your website’s SEO efforts.
Ways to implement voice search optimization, you need to research both voice search keywords and questions. You also need to take into consideration customer behavior and device usage when you are optimizing your website and content.
The best way to optimize for voice search is to use customer-prioritized content and provide detailed, clear, and concise answers to questions that are asked.
It is important to take into consideration local SEO practices, as people tend to use voice search for places near them, this will signal to the search engine that you fit the criteria.
5. Zero click search
A Zero-Click search answer is the snippet of information that you see at the top of the SERP before the organic results are listed. This snipped answers the question that you asked.
If your content occupies this spot, it will be good for traffic to your website and an added boost in credibility for your website. However, it is difficult to occupy this spot on SERPs and requires constant optimization of your content.
You need to ensure that the content answers the 5 Ws and H of the topic that it is based on. Use a variety of mediums to create this piece of content - include text lists, and images to help instruct users.
Ideally, the content you are creating should be a page on your site that responds to a specific frequently asked question. This is so that you can build up an answer around it, and constantly update it with new information. Make sure that you add a “last updated” tag in your content to signal to the search engine that this piece is constantly updating and they will know when it updates.
6. Google’s search generative experience
Earlier this year, Google launched its Search Generative Experience feature, whereby the search engine uses generative AI tools to respond to a question by scouring the web for relevant information and displaying a snapshot of information.
This program is currently in its testing stages and is available through Google’s Search Labs program to be downloaded.
Search Engine Optimization plays a big part in this, as only high-quality and relevant will be featured in the snapshot. The snapshot will also include links to the information that they used, which can lead back to the importance of local search optimization.
7. Google’s E-E-A-T criteria
Google is constantly updating its content algorithms as part of its Helpful Content Updates, which addresses content that Google deems as content made specifically for ranking purposes. This is where the E-E-A-T criteria comes in.
The acronym expands into Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness and applies to the content you create and utilize on your website.
You need to make sure that your content has first-person accounts - which gives it credibility. In addition to this, your content needs to be of high quality that is informative to your target market. The trustworthiness factor comes in by making sure that your website is optimized for SEO, is a secure site, cites information correctly and the backlinks are from authoritative sources.
By following the E-E-A-T criteria it will also be beneficial to your website, as it also can help boost your website’s credibility and authority.
8. Immersive & interactive marketing
Immersive marketing aims to use consistent marketing techniques to engage with the customer and generate an emotional response from them. This type of marketing drives engagement, brand awareness, and consumer loyalty.
You can make the most of this type of marketing by using tools such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to create an interactive experience for the customers. However, the use of these tools is dependent on the industry that you are in and your target audience - you need to be aware of the receptiveness to this type of content.
Interactive marketing is used to engage audiences and to create an elevated experience for them. This type of marketing gives the client an opportunity to engage with the product and allows them to have a say about it.
This creates a two-way communication between the client and the company. Customers can give their opinions and views on choices about the company, products, and advertising. This will see an increase in customer engagement, brand awareness, customer loyalty, lead generation, customer feedback, and an ability to increase in advertising personalization.
9. User-generated content
This type of content is created by audiences and they give their unbiased thoughts and opinions on a product and service. This content is usually shared on social media platforms.
People love sharing content on their platforms about the products they buy and the services they use. This type of content serves as a “word of mouth” type of advertising that comes straight from the perspective of genuine clients. It is also a great way to connect with your audience and build your brand’s social media identity
In summary
These are the trends that you need to keep a lookout for in the upcoming year and find the means of implementing some of them into your SEO and marketing strategies. They will help you produce better content that is tailored to your audiences and will help boost the traffic to your website in the same breath.
