Some of the most impactful trends for SEO in 2024 I’ve seen focus on AI use, search intent, and visual aids for ranking. To keep your B2B brand on top, keep in mind these ins and outs for SEO in 2024:
AI Use
What have you and your marketing team tested so far? Are you still wondering if you can just plug in a prompt to ChatGPT and copy/paste the AI-generated blog content to your website? If yes, you should rethink that “strategy.”
COMPETITION
Your competitors are likely exploring AI for use in SEO. They may fail or they may fly up and over your SERP rankings. Whichever of your competitors is testing the limits of AI with SEO is likely to find the efficiency point sooner than everyone else— the balance minimum effort, maximum reward.
GOOD CONTENT
Content remains the king of SEO. Your rankings still rely on good content. What does “good” website content have? Authority, thought leadership, and expertise. If you offer all three in a unique, readable, accessible way, you have a good chance of improving your rankings. Copying and pasting AI-generated content isn’t a surefire way to do this. (Think back to the days of keyword stuffing—it used to be effective for SEO, and now is penalized. Readability, value, and real voice will win out for rankings.)
Marketing teams will continue to test and figure out the best use for AI. It could be best used for keywords or for metas. But AI must be tested if you plan to use it. Try feeding it keywords and content prompts, and have a human person edit and review it. And it’s likely to work better as it evolves—so if it doesn’t work for you at the moment, don’t write AI off completely just yet. For now, someone on your marketing team should dedicate time to reviewing and testing AI for SEO.
Search Intent
Beyond “good content” it’s also vital to consider what the user is expecting to find and read when they enter a search query. In other words, search intent, or user intent, is why someone is searching online; Google and the other search engines really do what to get this right for their users. The idea of intent shouldn’t be ignored; your SEO score is dependent on your being aware of your audience—and creating content that makes it easy for them to find the answer.
LEARN THE USER JOURNEY
Focus on customer journeys, and create pathways for everyone that are logical and helpful. Capture people at every level of the funnel, whether they’re in the research stage or they’re ready to convert. This can mean that their search terms will be different. And the language (and CTAs) you use to attract them can and should be different. For example, a person at the research stage may click “free demo” or “learn more” but a person ready to convert may be looking for “sign up” CTA instead.
ANSWER QUESTIONS
After mapping the user journey, create the content that will be vital to securing that conversion. What visitors see on the page should answer their questions and bring them value.
Consider your home page. If every one of your leads went there first, it wouldn’t be bad, but it won’t be as effective as creating specific landing pages that address their specific pain points. Segments of users and visitors from various industries will want a landing page that’s more helpful and efficient. Determine what terms you want to rank for (or rank higher for) and adjust your landing pages accordingly. If you haven’t built out those landing pages yet, utilize paid search terms until you can get solid SEO rankings for those pages.
Visual Media Boosts SEO
Ever do a search and end up watching a video? It’s easy to consume and sometimes helps illustrate an answer visually. Likewise, your SEO could use visual media to its advantage. In fact, in some instances, videos appear before the listings. Again, Google the top searches you want to rank for. What shows up? For right now, you might see this trend apply more to e-commerce or B2C, but you can jump on this opportunity as a B2B company as well.
Google is trying to maintain its efficiency through quick answers. So it’s no surprise that your schema markup should be offering a shortcut to the crawlers. Add videos to your blog posts if it makes sense (and add schema to those videos), and work out a content calendar that includes visual media as part of the puzzle. While you’re at it, don’t forget your website images either – consider replacing your stock imagery and adding alt image text to help boost your rankings.
SEO Isn’t EVERYthing
Before you balk at this, let me explain. Users should be able to find what they need from your site—no matter where they’re coming from. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, and focus on improving your site and digital presence so you can show up where your audience is – be that Google or an aggregate review site like G2.
OUTSIDE OF SEO
Alternative digital marketing channels are the other “baskets” we’re talking about. Yes, SEO is still needed (don’t get rid of your keyword expert!) but being in additional places online, not just SERPs, is becoming a necessity. For one, by cutting the fat in your website content, you can streamline the way ChatGPT can snag info from your site during its “web scraping” process. Your site architecture should make it easy for the user or bot to find what they need.
GO WHERE YOUR AUDIENCE IS
You want to be where the people are…right? Take the opportunity to shift your focus elsewhere.
- To target matching audiences (rather than just site visitors) use account-based marketing (ABM) providers, such as 6sense or DemandBase.
- To be seen as a trustworthy business, you’ll need to show in the top listings of affiliate sites, like G2, Clutch or Capterra.
If you’re curious where your audience is—Google your most used and most popular services and see which affiliate sites are close to the top. That’s the golden ticket. People need proof of reliability. When you’re ranked well on review sites (that you can’t touch—whether good or bad) that’s one more point for your company.
In closing, for every effort you make towards SEO for 2024, you should be reviewing the results closely. Identify where your quality traffic is coming (looking at conversion rate and the time spent on the site) and adjust as needed.
