Introduction 

If you’ve done any recent research into SEO, you have seen people talk about the massive changes coming to the Google Algorithm and the potential negative effect it will have on many people’s search rankings. It can be discouraging especially when we see our rankings take wild dips and peaks. Unless we adapt our SEO strategies to the coming changes, the negative impact on our rankings will last longer. Although there are still a lot of specifics to discover (as is true with any algorithm update), there is a consensus about how to best adapt in the coming months. 

Understanding Google

One of the most important things to remember about Google is they are first and foremost focused on the user. Seems simple, right? Google is a business that wants to keep users coming back to their product. How do they do that? Ensure that users can easily find the best responses to their search queries with minimal effort. Most of the updates and changes Google makes can be traced to the intent to improve users’ search experience.

Since 2018, with the release of BERT, the algorithm has improved its ability to understand the nuances of human language. Google is moving away from lexical search (ie matching specific keywords) to semantic search (ie matching meaning). In the coming year, ranking on Google will be less about placing keywords in the right places, the right number of times and more about providing unique, helpful, and trustworthy content.

Content is Key 

In 2024, producing high-quality content is going to be the key to success in many instances. With the increased popularity of AI, it is easy to use that as a time saver when writing content, but with current technology, AI isn’t capable of producing the kind of content that Google is attempting to prioritize. Remember, we know Google wants to keep people coming back to their product by ensuring they get the best and most accurate results for their queries as quickly as possible. Although we don’t know all the specifics of what Google considers “ranking factors”, a combination of tests and what Google has told us gives us a pretty decent insight into their thinking. 

According to tests done by NP Digital, human-written content generated more SEO traffic 94.12% of the time, but only 12.3% of marketers surveyed were using solely human-written content. This study aligns both with the recent changes to the algorithm and also with the addition of an extra factor in the way Google determines the credibility of a website. 

Originally the three factors Google used were expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. They have now added another: experience. This is arguably the one element that AI can’t currently replicate and will be one of the things that separate sites in the rankings.

Frequently writing good quality content that is geared towards helping the user answer specific questions or quickly find information will help boost your SEO performance in the long run. Make sure that your articles are user-friendly and have the appropriate schema to help Google read them. Having specific keywords strategically placed is going to be less important with the coming changes. Focus your content on providing unique and valuable insights to your user and you stand a better chance of coming out of the next couple of months in a better position for your company. 

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