SEO has come a long way in the past decades. For the past few years, the pace of development has been running high. Previously, SEO strategies were highly reliant on keywords and their optimal usage. Then search engines adapted to that, and the cat-and-mouse race began. Now, things have changed, and everything relies on complex algorithms and natural language, which means that SEO work has had to adapt to that.
That is an SEO megatrend I’ve been following, but it’s far from the only one. Several trends are currently developing in the SEO world, but the direction is clear. We are moving towards a future where new trends, search engines, providers, and features are constantly changing, and it takes some dedication to keep tabs on all of it.
In this article, I’m taking you down the rabbit hole and exploring which trends you should keep an eye on, and perhaps leverage in marketing.
Understanding the current state of SEO
A brief history of SEO
When modern search engines, more notably Google, emerged, we used keyword tags to describe the content. Then, the search engines crawled the pages, found the keyword tags, and used that information to show search results.
If you are at least a little familiar with Google’s search engine, you know how that turned out. The abuse of the system led to the complete discarding of keyword tags in search results. In fact, if you now try to use those, you will most likely get severely penalized by Google.
However, this has been the case for a long time. SEOs also adapted to this change by adding “natural” keywords to text. This means that instead of using keyword tags to describe the content, an abstraction of “keywords” was created. One would choose a few key terms related to the content and then use those in the text. It quickly became the norm, and for most people, this is what they think when they think about SEO.
This has changed relatively recently, and Google’s algorithms have become more sophisticated. Now, they can easily tell if someone is deliberately trying to stuff keywords in the text to get better rankings in search results. That was really common, and it led to Google changing its systems once again. Now, it’s almost impossible to get good rankings without using natural language. Google has hundreds of different signals to use in its algorithms, and its search crawlers are constantly getting better at processing language. Their official stance is that web pages should have natural language and engaging content around a specific topic.
Search engines today
Today, we have a couple of major search engines and several smaller ones. Google and Bing are the most prominent names that come to mind, followed by DuckDuckGo. What may not be so obvious is that nowadays, YouTube is considered a major search engine. In addition, we have seen reports that Apple and Meta, and probably many others, are also maintaining their own search index. Just recently, OpenAI made the ChatGPT search available to all. Then we have all the other services, like Google’s and Apple’s Maps, which can also be considered search engines.
Key SEO trends and developments
So, what are the current major SEO trends? There are several, some more prominent than others, and some developing at a slower pace than others. Here, we summarize the most important aspects of each trend.
User experience and Core Web Vitals
This is one of the most significant shifts in Google search. Some time ago, their indexing system was changed to mobile-first, with a huge emphasis on page user experience. Technical metrics, like how fast a page loads, became quite significant, but more in the context of user experience rather than as a hard metric. If a page’s user experience is terrible, then it’s likely that the page will have fewer returning visitors.
For businesses today, it’s imperative to consider the user experience of their website. Moreover, trying to cover the whole search and social media presence with a unified and good user experience will be even more important going forward.
Voice search optimization
With smart speakers came the concept of voice search. It was supposed to be one of the next big things in search, but after a while, it kind of lost momentum. However, many users still use it, so we are not talking about a dying trend.
In my opinion, voice search is now in a phase where it’s trying to develop into a fully mature and used concept. For many, it’s not considered a useful feature because you can’t quickly “scan” the search results. Users have to listen to what the system decides is relevant.
Going forward, the relevancy aspect will probably improve as new solutions like AI and voice search gain more users. For a business to make the most of this, one needs to create content that is actually useful and helpful to the user. Of course, the same can be applied to almost anything today.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning
AI is generally a hot topic now, and with search it’s no different. There already had been multiple SEO and other tools using different machine learning and AI features to collect and understand large datasets. Now we have multiple generative AI powered search engines that are trying disrupt the search industry. Most notable ones are ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini.
These AI models work a little bit differently than traditional search engines, but obviously, they are not magic. For example, Google’s crawler system is already highly sophisticated in knowing what is on a web page, and its search algorithms are already using the newest machine learning tools. So, when it comes to listing the search results in Gemini, they are probably not doing anything that different. What is new, however, is the user-facing search results page, which is now providing information that answers the queries directly. This is another example where natural, relevant, and helpful content is critical to ensure that your content will get highlighted by Gemini.
E-A-T
SEOs have for long used different third-party metrics to measure a domain’s or website’s authoritativeness and trustworthiness. But they have always been just best guesses, since nobody knew whether Google actually used that kind of information in their algorithms.
Nowadays, Google emphasizes E-A-T, which stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. This means that websites and pages that are highly specific, have high authority, and are trustworthy are considered better and thus get better rankings. This shift has changed SEO strategies radically because, now, high-quality and highly relevant content will be the most important aspect of any SEO strategy.
Video content
It should be no surprise that video content is one of the most significant forms of content today. The biggest players are YouTube, TikTok, and Meta, with Facebook and Instagram, with many lesser platforms gaining traction in smaller communities.
The goal of social platforms is to engage users and keep them on the platform. Some try to do this by providing a neverending feed of videos tailored to users’ liking. Some give more freedom by providing a search function so the user can find what they need more quickly.
All of the video platforms today are trying to provide users with content the algorithm thinks they would like to see. This includes YouTube, which has a search function as well. The thing is, that the algorithms are getting really good at knowing what kind of videos to deliver to whom and when.
Optimizing videos is a bit different because the most relevant metrics include engagement, view time, and view count. For businesses, this creates an additional challenge because now the content has to keep users watching and, at the same time, fulfill the business functions.
Mobile-first and responsive design
Mobile-first as a concept is not new, but somehow, many businesses still don’t understand the shift it represents. It’s actually rather simple: all of the Google indexing is done with a crawler that crawls the pages like it’s on a mobile device. This includes how the page looks and functions, and how accessible it is with slower connections.
Responsive design is also already a pretty old technique of creating websites, but the concepts are now more relevant than ever. The most important aspect of it is, that it’s impossible to know what kind of screen or device is used to visit the website. Therefore, the design should be able to adapt to massively different sized screens. This is obviously an important factor when thinking about user experience.
Semantic search and intent-based content
We are at the point where machine learning algorithms are so advanced that they can reliably determine whether text is “naturally written” or deliberately made to attract search algorithms. This has a huge impact on SEO, because it becomes more difficult to game the system. No system is SEO-proof, but for now it’s simpler to just try to create content for the users.
This connects well with semantic search and intent-based content, which means that search engines are now trying to guess the intentions of search queries rather than just taking the query and providing the answer. This is a big trend and covers most searches done today
SEO tools and technologies
Also SEO tools have come a long way. Many of them have incorporated AI at some point of the workflow. In my experience, the biggest improvements have been in the analysis department. The amount of data is so huge that without additional tooling it’s almost impossible to make sense out of it. Predictive analytics has been quite a popular trend for the last couple of years, and there are many platforms that offer predictive analytics in some capacity.
Some other areas have improved as well, namely content creation (which has its problems as well). Getting a solid plan, proofreading, and even ready-written text for articles is now easier than ever. I’m referring to generative AI tools, but there are highly advanced expert applications and tools that do fewer things really well.
Challenges and barriers to future SEO trends
With the development of technology, one can always expect legal and regulative challenges somewhere down the line. Although search engines have been available for like forever, the regulators have curiously not been that interested in taking any action. Only in recent years have some real regulations been put into place in the form of GDPR and CCPA. These don’t, however, affect the search engines themselves all that much. The nature of user tracking on those has been quite limited when compared to some other systems, like cross-site tracking used by many social media platforms.
And then there is, of course, the matter of algorithm updates and their unpredictability. Google has stopped disclosing regular algorithm updates to the public, but they still provide information about bigger updates. One such update was the recent Helpful content update, which affected a large number of websites, and some fluctuation in search rankings is still occurring. It’s these kinds of updates that make predicting search performance extremely hard because the ranking system works differently after the update.
Competition with AI-generated content
Everybody has easy access to powerful writing tools and assistants now, so it may become very difficult to differentiate from the rest, let alone be better. This is one of the reasons for the aforementioned Helpful content update. Google is monitoring the trends and impacts of new technologies very closely, so they knew what they were doing with the update. The purpose is quite simply to try and push more natural and authentic content to the top of search results. Many tools have already adapted to this, though, and their systems are getting better all the time.
Preparing for the future of SEO
I see the future of SEO as being quite complicated, at least in the near term. Many new search platforms are already challenging Google and Bing. It’s difficult to say whether the status quo will change, but probably, at some point, a new player will emerge and challenge Google.
So, how should you prepare for the future? It’s difficult to know for sure, but these things will be helpful regardless:
- Focus on making high-quality content that is user-focused and offers something valuable to the users
- Stay curious about new technologies, like AI, VR search experiences, and changes in user behavior
- Realize that there are multiple platforms providing search features and diversify beyond just Google
Conclusion
Remember to experiment with new search features and platforms. Trends like intent-based content, user experience, E-A-T, and AI are constantly playing a more significant role in SEO.
Adapting to new things is a necessity in today’s marketing landscape, and learning to use new technologies effectively will get even more important. But, at the same time, one shouldn’t forget the non-tech principles like user experience or providing helpful content to the people.
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