Search engine optimization.
Three little words that can make a huge difference between successful business growth or failure.
SEO is a powerful marketing channel. Studies show that the first search result on Google gets 31.7% of all clicks. They also show that only 0.78% of searchers click on anything on the second page.
This means for your inbound marketing efforts to bear fruit, page one of the search engine results pages (SERPs) is the place to be.
That’s why you must know and leverage the top 7 SEO trends of 2024 we’ll talk about below.
Particularly with the way SEO is ever-evolving, keeping up to speed with trends is critical to informing your SEO strategy and, ultimately, beating your competitors.
Top SEO Trends of 2024 (& Beyond)
To drive organic traffic to your website (and continue doing so), you need to be quick to adapt to search engine algorithm changes. As you prepare your SEO strategy for 2024, here are some SEO trends and best practices to keep your finger on:
1. Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are changing the world in unimaginable ways. For brands and marketers, two significant areas that AI has improved are lead generation and SEO.
But we’re talking about SEO, so we’ll focus on that.
Search Engines Are Relying More on AI and ML
One of the biggest ways AI has impacted SEO is that search engines rely on it more to provide better answers to queries. For Google, this is evident in the Rankbrain algorithm. Rankbrain is a deep learning system that handles search queries better than algorithm-based systems. As a result of AI, Google can better understand what users are looking for and can thus deliver personalized results.
What does this mean for marketers?
It means you have to keep up and adapt. Ditch outdated practices like keyword stuffing and using (buying) spammy links.
This brings us to the next point.
The Rise of AI-powered SEO Tools
One of the biggest changes to SEO in 2024 is what Google is doing with its new AI-enhanced search feature, the Search Generative Experience (SGE).
Google’s SGE signifies a move towards more interactive and conversational search results. Unlike a chatbot, SGE presents an AI-generated summary at the top of the search engine results page (SERP), gathering information from various sources to provide the best answer to a question. This summary includes relevant links to its sources, and as an enterprise SaaS company, you want your content to make the cut.
So, what does this mean for enterprise SaaS companies? First, every page on your site should feature valuable, concise information. This goes beyond mere keyword placement; your content should define and explain your key terms, much like how a well-optimized page strategically uses keywords in headers and opening paragraphs. This approach aligns with Google SGE’s preference for well-organized text blocks and bulleted lists, similar to the criteria for featured snippets.
Secondly, with users increasingly receiving direct answers from SERPs via SGE, the focus shifts to how your content is presented and consumed. It’s no longer just about getting users to click on your site, but about providing succinct, authoritative information that Google can use to summarize topics and information your target audience is searching for directly in the SERP.
With the AI revolution at full throttle, the world of SEO is already enjoying its fruits. AI-powered SEO tools are flooding the market. While some still need much work to offer meaningful help, some are decent enough to offer value. Examples include:
Many industries benefit from improved and more efficient processes and faster execution of tasks that AI tools offer. Examples of tasks AI can help with include:
- Identify better SEO opportunities and competitive gaps
- Optimize on-page SEO to attract the right kind of traffic
- Automate research using AI-powered SEO tools like BrightEdge, MarketMuse, Frase, and a slew of others.
Content creation also benefits from AI and ML thanks to third-generation Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT-3). GPT-3 is a neural network ML model that can be trained using internet data to generate text on any topic.
A classic example is ChatGPT by Open AI.
A word of caution is in order here. Despite AI-powered SEO tools being as powerful and celebrated as they are, they are still just tools. A human touch is still needed in creating and executing an impactful B2B content strategy.
Alright, we’re geeking out here!
Another aspect of SEO gaining more attention is entity SEO. This branch of SEO deals with the relationships between entities and search queries to give users more relevant and personalized results. Of course, all this requires advanced AI to get fast results at scale.
2. MUM (Multitask Unified Model)
Many people don’t know how to formulate search queries that end in the right results. This can be frustrating for users. However, it could also mean less traffic to your pages if users struggle to formulate search queries related to your brand or solution.
And this is where Google’s Multitask Unified Model (MUM) comes in.
MUM is one of Google’s latest algorithm updates. It’s a development in how the search engine works and, like all updates, focuses on ensuring users get the best possible experience.
To better understand MUM, we need to take a brief look at BERT, MUM’s predecessor. In short, BERT worked through advanced natural language processing (NLP). This allowed Google to better understand complex search queries and the semantic context behind the query. This resulted in better results.
What about MUM?
According to Google, MUM is a thousand times more powerful than BERT. For example, before MUM, the search giant says complex queries sometimes took users eight searches before answering.
MUM was developed and trained across 75 different languages and can perform many different tasks at once. This allows the system to develop a more comprehensive understanding of information and world knowledge than previous models. And because it’s multimodal, it understands information across different content formats like text and images (and soon, video and audio too).
This allows the search engine to provide comprehensive and more accurate answers to complex search queries.
Again, the implication on SEO for marketers is that it’s becoming more difficult to game the system with black-hat techniques. The only way to ensure your SEO game is effective is to understand what search engines and people are looking for and meet those needs.
Another impact MUM will have on SEO is that it levels the playing field when it comes to content format. To improve your chances of ranking, you must ensure you have content in different formats.
3. E.A.T Becomes E.E.A.T, Barnacle SEO Continues to Catch On, & Social Signals Still Relevant
To ensure users only get the best possible experience, search engines are beginning to place a higher value on webpages:
- Quality
- Relevance
- Authenticity
- Trustworthiness
These are just a few significant factors you should consider as you plan for any piece of content on your website. To ensure your content meets these requirements, you must factor in Google’s E.E.A.T guidelines, barnacle SEO, and social signals. Let’s briefly take a look at each one to see the role it plays in a successful SEO strategy:
E.E.A.T — Guidelines for Quality Content
A few years ago, ranking high on SERPs was easy. All you had to do was create content on a topic, hit publish, build a few links to the content, and hello page one. Today, however, Google scrutinizes the quality of content and uses that to determine the quality of a web page.
Enter Google E.E.A.T.
E.E.A.T is an acronym that stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. The main content creator, the website the content is published on, and the content itself must exhibit these qualities. E.E.A.T is an important element of Google’s updated search quality rater guidelines the search engine uses to determine the quality and value of a webpage. A few factors that can help you achieve high E.E.A.T standardsthis include:
- Linking to reputable sites
- Citing facts and statistics
- Showing the author’s credentials
- Getting backlinks from authoritative sites
- Optimizing your homepage and relevant pages to showcase your experience
- Involving subject matter experts (SMEs) in content creation
The quality of content is increasingly playing a greater role in how search engines rank content. Thin, flaky content stuffed with keywords just won’t cut it anymore. That’s why you must invest in valuable content that meets Google’s E.E.A.T criteria.
Besides, meeting E.E.A.T standards also helps you create content that stands out. Your target audience can tell the difference between content designed solely for traffic generation and that created to truly help readers. It’s the latter kind of content that helps boost your conversion rates.
Barnacle SEO — Leveraging Established Website’s Rankings
Barnacle SEO is a strategy whereby you leverage the authority of websites that rank high for competitive keywords you want to rank for. Attaching your website to these bigger and better-performing websites can help you show up for search queries that include your target keywords. Some examples of barnacle SEO at work include:
- Listing your website in business directories
- Guest posting
- Taking part in round-up posts
When your website or content is associated with larger, more prominent websites, its profile is raised. When choosing sites to attach yours, make sure they’re not competitors. At the same time, they should be websites that attract the type of audience you cater to.
Social Signals — Shining the Spotlight on Your Content
Social signals refer to the engagement your content receives on-page and off-page. These can be shares, likes, and any other social media visibility picked by search engines.
While social signals are not a ranking factor, greater social engagement signals to search engines that a piece of content is resonating with users. Other reasons why you should pay attention to and encourage social engagement (organically and through paid means) include:
- They boost your content’s visibility
- Increase the chances of earning backlinks
More importantly, social engagement signals that your content is value-packed and worth the reader’s time.
4. SERP Analysis
As an SEO or digital marketer, you must constantly keep an eye on search engine results pages (SERPs).
You need to conduct SERP analysis regularly.
SERP analysis involves investigating and exploring the top ages on search engines to determine what top ranking websites are doing to get there.
This is because SERPs are constantly changing. Keeping an eye on them helps you:
- Understand the content formats that rank high for your target keywords
- Know which competitors are ranking high
- User intent behind top-ranking pages
- Predict content and SEO trends
Conducting SERP and competitor analysis is essential to helping you uncover SEO opportunities and create better strategies that will help you outperform the top-ranking pages.
So what trends can you be sure to notice on the SERPs in 2024 and beyond?
A few examples include:
- More rich snippets
- Including affordable picks on mobile
- The rise of knowledge panels at the top of SERPs
By creating content that is optimized for these three, you stand a better chance of being featured right at the top of the SERPs (position zero).
5. Video SEO
Video has fast become one of the preferred content formats. If you’re not investing in video content, you’re missing out on a powerful opportunity to attract and engage your target audience.
But the popularity of video isn’t the only concern when it comes to successfully reaching your audience. You also need to pay attention to video SEO.
A few examples of video SEO best practices include optimizing your description and providing essential information such as the thumbnail URL, and video upload date and duration.
But video SEO has evolved to be more than just those basics.
For example, Google recently announced a new structured data feature that helps users get better video results for their search queries. The new feature, called Key Moments, enables users to navigate video segments easily. As a result, they’re more able to engage with your video content.
Key Moments also makes it easier for Google Search to understand your video better. This helps it better recommend your video for relevant search queries. To do this, Key Moments introduced two significant types of structured data for videos:
- Clip markup: this specifies the exact start and endpoint of each segment. It also helps assign labels to be displayed for each segment
- Seek markup: tells Google where timestamps typically go in your URL structure. This enables Google to automatically identify key moments and direct users to those points in the video
These two types of structured data help with search rankings. They also encourage users to click on your video in the search results.
6. Page Experience Coming Into Full Effect
SEO is no longer just about creating content that ranks. User experience (UX) now plays a huge role. Starting from 2021, one of the ranking signals Google will be using is page experience.
Page experience goes beyond just optimizing for speed and encompasses many factors into one ranking signal. To help SEOs better optimize for page experience, Google outlined a set of metrics to guide them. These metrics, called Core Web Vitals, are user-centered metrics that help quantify essential aspects of the user experience provided by your website. Core Web Vitals include:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This metric shows how long it takes for the largest element of your content to load
- First Input Delay (FID): FID measures how long it takes for a browser to respond to an interaction triggered by a user. It’s a measure of interactivity
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): This is a relatively new metric that measures the percentage of the user’s screen affected by movement. It’s a measure of your website’s visual stability
Core Web Vitals were a big deal in 2021, and they’ll continue being so into 2024 and beyond. Especially since Google emphasizes UX as a ranking factor, optimizing for page experience should play an essential role in your SEO strategy.
7. Voice Search Continues To Rise
Research shows that 65% of 25-49-year-olds use voice-enabled devices daily, showing the rising popularity of voice search. Sure, voice assistants haven’t truly lived up to the hype that surrounded them in their early days. However, the use of voice search is increasing YoY, making it one SEO trend to definitely pay attention to.
However, optimizing for voice search isn’t as straightforward as optimizing for text. That’s primarily because each voice assistant draws its answers from different sources. For example, Google Assistant responds to local queries with content from Google My Business (GMB) and Google Search. On the other hand, Siri draws primarily on Yelp, while Alexa relies on Bing, Yelp, and Yext. That means when optimizing for voice search, you must factor in the best practices for those platforms.
How can you power your voice search SEO in 2024 and beyond?
A few tips include:
- Optimize for local search
- Create conversation content
- Focus on long-tail keywords
- Optimize for mobile
- Build FAQ pages
Ignoring voice search in your SEO strategy will cripple your SEO efforts. People rely more on voice-based search queries as it’s faster, easier, and more straightforward than typing.
8. Zero-Click Searches Are On The Rise
With Google SGE giving people the answers they need right on the SERP, fewer and fewer people are clicking through to find answers to their queries, resulting in a hefty rise in zero-click searches.
A zero-click search happens when a user performs a search but doesn’t actually click on any of the links on the SERP to direct them away from Google. A recent study found that as many as 57% of users on mobile and 53% on desktop don’t click an organic or paid result — they find what they need on Google and leave it at that.
To stand out in search results, enterprise companies need to invest in high-quality, in-depth content that signals expertise, authority, and trust to Google. An enterprise SEO audit can help you target the places you might be lacking so you can reassess, fill any gaps, and stay top of mind (and top of the SERP).
9. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is Becoming Crucial
Answer Engine Optimization (or AEO) is about optimizing content not just to be found, but to be the best answer.
AEO goes beyond traditional SEO practices of keyword placement and link building. Instead, it focuses on understanding and addressing the specific questions and needs of your target audience. For enterprise SaaS companies, this means creating content that is not only high quality and informative but also directly relevant to the queries of potential users.
The key to AEO is understanding user intent. It’s about anticipating the questions your audience is asking and providing clear, authoritative answers. This might involve creating detailed FAQ sections, insightful blog posts that address common industry challenges, or comprehensive guides that explore key topics in depth.
Moreover, with the increasing use of voice search and digital assistants, AEO also involves optimizing content for conversational queries. Your content should be structured in a way that it can be easily interpreted and used by these AI-driven platforms to provide direct answers to users.
10. There’s an Increased Focus on Topical Authority
What do Google SGE, zero-click searches, and AEO all have in common? These trends demand your enterprise SaaS company to establish topical authority online.
Establishing topical authority means consistently producing high-quality, in-depth content that covers a topic comprehensively. This approach signals to search engines that your website is not just relevant, but a go-to resource in your industry. It involves a strategic blend of content types — from blog posts and white papers to case studies and webinars — each contributing to a holistic view of the subject matter.
Claiming your spot as an authoritative resource has several advantages. Firstly, search engines are better at identifying and rewarding websites that offer comprehensive and knowledgeable information on a topic. Secondly, users are seeking trustworthy sources of information. When your content consistently appears in their searches, providing valuable insights and answers, your brand credibility and trustworthiness increase — and in turn, so does your customer base.
To build this topical authority, start by identifying key topics central to your industry and your audience’s interests. Then, develop a content strategy that covers these topics from various angles, ensuring depth and diversity in your coverage. Remember, it’s not just about the quantity of content, but its quality, relevance, and the value it offers to your audience.
11. There’s a Rising Need for Updating and Refreshing Existing Content
In a digital landscape where user needs are constantly evolving, “set it and forget it” models aren’t going to cut it anymore.
Refreshing old content isn’t just about ensuring information is current; it’s about improving and optimizing based on new data, user feedback, and changing search engine algorithms. For enterprise SaaS companies like yours, this means revisiting blog posts, articles, and even web pages to update statistics, incorporate new insights, and refine SEO elements like keywords and meta tags.
This approach signals to search engines that your content is not only relevant but also actively maintained, which can positively impact your search rankings. Plus, it provides an opportunity to deepen the engagement with your audience by offering up-to-date and comprehensive information.
Another aspect of this trend is content consolidation. As you audit your existing content, you might find opportunities to merge similar or overlapping topics into a single, more comprehensive piece. This not only streamlines your content offering but also gives your topical authority a boost.
An SEO consultation can help you identify web pages that might need a refresh — helping you climb to the top of the SERP and get the rankings you deserve.
12. There are Evolving Search Engine Ranking Factors
Historically, search engine algorithms have been a moving target, with factors like keywords, backlinks, and mobile usability playing key roles in how well your content ranks on the SERP.
However, as search engines become more sophisticated, they’re now considering an even wider array of factors. These include user experience signals like page load speed, interactivity, visual stability, and the overall user journey on your site.
Like the previous trends we discussed, this means that SEO is no longer just about optimizing for specific keywords or building backlinks. Enterprise SaaS companies need to go deeper, creating a comprehensive, user-centric experience on your site and within your product. Your website must not only contain high-quality, relevant content but also provide an exceptional user experience that encourages engagement and reduces bounce rates.
The evolution of search engine ranking factors demands a holistic SEO approach from enterprise SaaS companies. It’s about striking the right balance between technical optimization, high-quality content, and an excellent user experience, ensuring that all these elements work in harmony to improve your search engine rankings.
Trends Don’t Mean Anything if You Don’t Have Solid Foundations in Place
While we may get caught up in the latest SEO trends, the truth is they may not work if you don’t get the basics right. You must have a solid SEO foundation in place. Before implementing a new element, always remember the basics of your:
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
- Technical SEO
These must always be 100% on point for any new SEO trend to be effective.
And if you’re not sure about the effectiveness of your SEO efforts, RevenueZen is a full service B2B SEO Agency, named a Top B2B SEO Agency by Vendry and Clutch. and we’d love to help you boost your SEO, drive relevant traffic, and generate more inbound leads.
