The Top 10 SEO Trends To Watch Out For In 2024

10 SEO Trends To Watch Out For In 2024

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an ever-evolving field. As search engines like Google continuously improve their algorithms and searchers change their online habits, SEOs must adapt their strategies accordingly.

We are just a few months away from 2023, it’s time to look ahead at the SEO trends that are likely to dominate in 2024. Understanding these upcoming trends will help SEOs, digital marketers, and business owners prepare for the future so they can continue driving organic growth.

Below are 10 major SEO trends predicted for 2024 and tips on how to leverage them:

1. A Shift Towards Long-Form Written Content

In 2023, we saw the value of long-form, in-depth written content continue to increase. This trend will only intensify in 2024. As search engines get better at understanding language and analysing content, focusing on long-form articles, pillars, and other types of informative written content will likely become even more important for rankings.

Tips for 2024:

• Optimise your site architecture around long-form content, such as pillar pages and blog posts over 2,000 words.
• Make sure your long-form content is focused on providing value, answering questions, and solving problems for your target audience. Well-researched, comprehensive content ranks well.
• Pay attention to your content’s readability, structure, headings, and paragraph length. Break up dense text with bullet points, images, infographics, etc.
• Promote your long-form content across social media, email newsletters, and other channels. Amplify reach and engagement.

2. Voice Search Will Keep Rising

Voice-activated devices and assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Google Home are only continuing to grow in popularity. ComScore predicts that 50% of searches will be voice searches by 2020. As more people get used to voice searching, SEOs need to Optimise for spoken keywords and conversational queries.

Tips for 2024:

• Research what voice search queries are popular for your industry and Optimise content around common questions and commands.
• Use natural language and conversational words, phrases, and questions throughout your content.
• Optimise your pages and metadata for featured snippets to appear directly in voice search results.
• Create audio/video content and transcripts that align with voice search behaviour.

3. Mobile-First Indexing Will Become More Important

As Google continues transitioning to mobile-first indexing, having a fast, mobile-friendly site will only grow in importance. Page speed and performance will continue to be a ranking factor. Structured data and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) can also help improve mobile SEO.

Tips for 2024:

• Test your site speed on mobile and use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to improve performance.
• Make sure your site is responsive on all devices and that content is easy to read and navigate on small screens.
• Implement AMP pages and leverage structured data like schema markup.
• Avoid interstitials and popups that negatively impact mobile UX.
• Monitor your site with Google Search Console and fix any mobile usability errors.

4. Personalisation & Local SEO Will Grow

Personalised, localised search results are a growing focus for Google and other search engines. In 2024, optimising content for local markets and personalising the experience for each user will become more central to SEO success.

Tips for 2024:

• Create localised content and web pages optimised for different regions, cities, and languages.
• Use Google My Business, schemas, and other markup to help search engines understand your locations.
• Target local keywords and be consistent with your NAP (name, address, phone number) details.
• Personalise content with weather widgets, calculators, and interactive elements based on the user’s location.
• Serve localised results and recommendations to users visiting your site.

5. Trust and Expertise Gain Importance

After years of fake news and misinformation, developing authority and trust is becoming more vital in SEO. Search engines are putting greater emphasis on assessing the expertise and trustworthiness of pages and content. Signals like time on site, bounce rate, links, and brand awareness all factor in.

Tips for 2024:

• Publish high-quality content that adds value for readers and establishes thought leadership.
• Build natural links from authoritative sites related to your industry.
• Participate as a guest author on reputable third-party publications.
• Focus on brand building online and offline to improve familiarity and trust.
• Leverage testimonials, awards, certifications, reviews, and other social proof signals.

6. BERT & Machine Learning Advancements

Google’s neural network algorithm BERT radically improved search engines’ ability to interpret language and understand context. The capabilities of BERT and other machine learning advancements will continue to improve in 2024. 

Optimising for semantic search will keep getting more important.

Tips for 2024:

• Use natural language, vary sentence structure, and avoid repetition.
• Help search engines understand context with related hyperlinks and Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI).
• Include semantic keywords and synonyms throughout your content.
• Structure content clearly with descriptive subheadings, bullet points, and paragraphs.

7. Social Media & Search Integration Strengthens

As social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest and others continue growing, expect them to become even more important for SEO off-site optimisation. Social signals like likes, shares, links, and user engagement already impact search, so leveraging social should be part of every SEO strategy.

Tips for 2024:

• Share your blog posts, videos, and other content across all relevant social platforms.
• Use keywords in your social captions and meta descriptions for each platform.
• Involve social sharing buttons on your site to encourage easy sharing.
• Build your follower count and social community. Engage with your audience.
• Advertise or boost high-quality content on social to extend reach.

8. Featured Snippets & Ranking Factors Evolve

The way search engines decide on featured snippets, Knowledge Panels, and top-ranking results is changing constantly. In 2024, featured snippets are predicted to incorporate more images, videos, and structured data. Gaining visibility in these prime spots will be more challenging but also more rewarding.

Tips for 2024:

• Follow Google’s best practices for writing content optimised for featured snippets.
• Include relevant images, charts, tables, or other visual elements where beneficial.
• Leverage structured data like FAQ schema markup to stand out.
• Analyse competitor-featured snippets and identify where you can create better, more useful content.

9. Pages Per Session and Bounce Rate Factor More

User experience metrics like pages per session and bounce rate already influence search rankings. As Google continues improving at understanding user satisfaction signals, these factors will play an even greater role in 2024 SEO strategies.

Tips for 2024:

• Review your analytics to diagnose pages with high bounce rates and identify UX issues to fix.
• Build more internal links between related content to encourage visitors to read multiple pages.
• Add related links modules or suggestions for further reading at the ends of posts.
• Develop content pillars and series that connect information across multiple pages.

10. Loading Speed Becomes More Critical

Faster websites produce better user experiences, lower bounce rates, and higher conversions. With mobile traffic continuing to dominate, site speed will increasingly become an SEO necessity in 2024. Slow load times can negatively impact rankings, so improving performance should be a priority.

Tips for 2024:

• Use PageSpeed Insights and other speed check tools to Optimise page load performance.
• Enable compression, caching, and other optimisations.
• Follow Google’s technical SEO best practices to speed up your site.
• Shift towards AMP and other fast mobile-optimised frameworks.
• Minimise HTTP requests, page weight, Javascript, and other speed-draining elements.

Conclusion

These are 10 of the most influential SEO trends that are likely to shape organic search strategy in 2024 and beyond. Savvy SEOs and digital marketers will stay ahead of these rising trends and find new ways to leverage them for maximum search visibility and traffic.

As Google’s algorithms get more advanced, it will keep getting harder to rank without high-quality, optimised content that answers searchers’ queries and provides a satisfying user experience. The search engines of the future will heavily factor in things like mobile friendliness, page speed, local targeting, personalised results, and semantic analysis.

Brands that keep their finger on the pulse of these SEO trends will gain a distinct competitive advantage. While the specifics will evolve, focusing on the search and user experience will remain the core pillars of effective SEO.

What SEO trends are you most excited about or concerned about for 2024? What strategies are you planning to leverage these upcoming shifts in the industry? Let Reposition handle your SEO for 2024.