2023 has almost gone. It’s time to prepare your eCommerce website for 2024. Many digital entrepreneurs have claimed drop in search results after the Google Spam Report updates. We scanned the web for current SEO trends and algorithm changes, new eCommerce SEO trends and techniques, emerging ranking factors and recommendations to neutralize effects of search rules. In this article, we’ll share some ideas on how to optimize your content and ads to rank higher with search results.
Google Search Generative Experience (SGE)
Entity-based search is a term that includes Google’s endeavors to improve the search process through the utilization of ML (Machine Learning) and AI (Artificial Intelligence). These methods are employed to produce search outcomes that are customized and pertinent to individual users. The essential goal is to deliver a search encounter that is intuitive and personified by comprehending the intentions and circumstances of the user.
To improve SEO for SGE, focus on creating an authentic, meaningful, and valuable piece of text that caters to user intent. Realize what is your consumers’ searching behavior and preferences to provide content that aligns with their needs.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
AEO is a tactic designed to improve content for prominent placement as a featured snippet or answer box in results of search engines. The primary objective is to present clear and precise responses to user inquiries, thereby increasing the likelihood of being prominently showcased in search results and elevating overall visibility.
Make your content clear and concise, covering answers to common user questions related to your product inventory or business niche. Create how-to sections with comprehensive explanations to profit from the AEO trend.
Zero-Click Searches
Zero-click searches refer to instances where a user’s search query is answered directly on the search results page, typically through featured snippets, knowledge panels, or other rich results. Consequently, the user acquires the required information without having to click through to a particular website. The prevalence of zero-click searches is on the rise, and this trend has significant implications for web page visibility and overall traffic.
While zero-click searches can potentially reduce click-through traffic, you can still benefit by optimizing for featured snippets and rich results. Focus on creating content that is likely to be featured in these formats, such as FAQs, how-to guides, and product comparisons.
Mobile-First Approach
Mobile optimization and particularly mobile-first indexing have been trending SEO topics for several years, and they are likely to be crucial in 2024. With the increasing use of mobile devices for internet browsing, search engines have prioritized mobile-friendly web pages.
Mobile-first indexing has revolutionized the way search engines rank and index websites. With this indexing method, search engines rank higher the mobile version of a website, making it mandatory for eCommerce businesses to have a responsive and smartphone-optimized website to succeed in SEO.
As we move towards 2024, mobile optimization will become more critical as the majority of internet users are expected to access the web through mobile devices. This trend highlights the importance of having a fast-loading, easy-to-navigate, and visually appealing mobile website. It also means optimizing for voice search, as more users are using voice assistants on their mobile devices to perform searches.
To stay ahead in SEO, online entrepreneurs must put their primary focus on optimizing content for mobiles and making their websites capable of providing a seamless user experience on mobile devices. This includes optimizing page speed, improving mobile site design, and creating mobile-friendly content. Additionally, applying structured data and mobile-specific SEO strategies will be essential to succeed in the mobile-first indexing era.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) can be a powerful tool for strengthening an SEO strategy, particularly in the context of mobile-first indexing and mobile optimization. PWAs are designed to work well on mobile devices, making them an ideal solution for mobile-first indexing. Search engines prioritize mobile-friendly websites, and PWAs can help ensure that your site is well-optimized for mobile users.
On-Site SEO
In 2023, there has been a noticeable increase in rich snippets and knowledge graph entries, indicating Google’s primary attention on ensuring quick answers. This suggests that longer, in-depth pages covering a single topic are likely to be favored over smaller sites duplicating information already provided by Google.
This year, we anticipate the growing importance of 1000+ word content on pages, while shorter 500-word pages may become less effective. If your pages currently have lower word counts, consider the following strategies:
- Expand your pages or merge two pages with similar content.
- Incorporate video and interactive content, as these formats may be evaluated differently than text.
In addition to content length, on-site optimization remains crucial.
Implement strong tagging protocols and accessibility features, and consider integrating Schema markup into your on-site content. While structured markup is not yet a major factor, it is poised to become an essential part of effective on-site SEO.
Off-site Promotion
A potential game-changer in off-site SEO is the concept of “linkless” backlinks, where Google is exploring the use of brand mentions on websites without direct backlinks as a ranking signal. If this feature becomes integrated into the core algorithm, it could significantly impact rankings and alter how companies pursue backlinks from other sites.
Some effective off-site promotion strategies include guest posting on relevant websites, building relationships with influencers and getting them to share your content, and participating in online communities and forums.
Data Privacy and Security
In light of growing concerns about data privacy, a secure website has become an essential aspect of SEO. Websites with HTTPS are perceived as trustworthy by users and search engines. Furthermore, safeguarding user data and ensuring compliance with data protection regulations can have a positive impact on search rankings.
The emergence of decentralized web and blockchain technology presents new opportunities for enhancing data privacy and security. Transparent data collection practices and clear communication about the use of user data can foster trust and brand loyalty.
As global data protection regulations evolve, regular audits and updates to privacy policies will be crucial to uphold compliance and user confidence.
Semantic Search and Entity Recognition
Search engines are becoming more adept at conceiving context. Semantic search, which focuses on deciphering the intent behind a query rather than solely the keywords, is gaining prominence. This implies that search engines can now identify entities (people, places, things) and the connections between them, emphasizing the importance of content context.
The integration of knowledge graphs and schema markup enables websites to communicate more effectively with search engines, enhancing their semantic understanding. With advancements in natural language processing (NLP) technology, search engines’ ability to interpret nuances, emotions, and context in content will continue to improve. This underscores the need for content creators to prioritize depth, clarity, and context.
To strengthen your SEO with semantic search and entity recognition, focus on using structured data such as Schema markup to provide search engines with context about your content. Finetune your content for natural language and user intent, targeting conversational and long-tail keywords to align with how people seek for information. Create insightful, quality content that covers a topic in-depth, addressing various aspects related to an entity. Build entity relationships by linking related content and demonstrating expertise across a range of relevant topics within your niche. Always track and adapt your SEO strategies to comply with changing semantic search algorithms and user behavior.
Interactive Content and Augmented Reality (AR)
The incorporation of AR and interactive content into search results is an exciting trend for 2024. Websites offering interactive experiences, such as virtual try-ons or immersive product previews, are gaining traction in search rankings. These innovative experiences not only engage users but also increase the time spent on a site, a positive signal for search engines.
In addition to virtual try-ons, AR facilitates interactive 3D product visualizations, allowing users to place products in their real-world environment before making a purchase.
A virtual reality try-on feature for an online store item
Gamified content, where users can participate in playful challenges and interactions, is also emerging as a powerful engagement tool. As AR technology becomes more accessible, integrating it into web design and content strategies will provide a competitive advantage in the SEO landscape.
Organic search beats paid ads
Search engine ad revenue declines. The biggest giant Google showed an income increase by only 10.6% in 2023 (as compared to the previous year).
Revenue of Google from 2008 to 2023 (in million U.S. dollars) according to Statista
Experts forecast budget cuts on paid promotion in 2024. The SEO future is to focus on organic search or making your ads look more natural (‘Sponsored’ label instead of ad). Ad campaigns are the first thing businesses would save on during the financial crisis. Moreover, Google Spam Update report introduced new rules of the game. Based on the new algorithms, any site that contains too many gray backlinks, not original content, or spammed products will be decreased in search.
Fill your site with quality content with originality close to 100% and use more expert articles. Try to bring more value to users, don’t populate your webspace with low-quality, spammy articles.
AI usage for copywriting
With the onset of Artificial Intelligence, we have got various affordable AI tools like Jasper.ai capable of writing original content quickly and efficiently. However, while artificial content creators revolutionize the copywriting sphere, they won’t replace humans. Again, to bring more organic search results, you should bring some value to readers. That is just what AI cannot do till the moment. AI can generate a grammatically correct piece of content, rephrase sentences, or bring new ideas, but without expert added value to users
Read more: Best AI Services For Your eCommerce Business
E-E-A-T, Experience – Expertise – Authoritativeness – Trustworthiness
This is an evergreen formula that will bring you more traffic from organic search. This search engine algorithm trend is a successor of an E-A-T formula (Expertise – Authoritativeness – Trust) announced by Google back in 2018. In general, both principles are almost about the same – content originality. Original, valuable content can be written only by an expert or an enthusiast in the area of interest.
B2B companies are emphasizing the importance of demonstrating expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness in their content to improve search rankings, especially in industries where credibility is crucial. Thus, this is primarily a B2B trend. E-E-A-T factors are affected by credibility of sources you refer to in your materials and relevance of the content to what your website is about. Also, this new trend in SEO makes it almost mandatory to develop your expertise and show it to your audience and search engines to rank higher. Take part in conferences and trade shows in your industry, host meetings and events, share your activity on social media to promote your brand and grow your website audience.
If you are for instance an e-grocery store, collaborate with restaurants and chefs-influencers or food bloggers, use backlinking to contribute to your site’s authoritativeness. Insert links to Wikipedia, a trusted source, to increase trustworthiness. Or, any other well-known expert platform, which is close to your business area and well-trusted on the web. Try to be that knowledge source that people would refer to.
Google Shopping
In the current landscape, local SEO trends remain a dominant trend for businesses. Priorities such as proximity searches, reviews, and rectifying business citations from the previous year continue to hold significance. While we have not yet fully transitioned into the era of hyper-local searching—searches tailored to a user’s real-time smartphone location prevail. By proactively embracing local search strategies, you can position yourself to capitalize on hyper local search opportunities when they arise.
Google Customer Review Add-on Developed by Simtech Development
The search engine is now bigger than just a tool to find things. With Google Shopping, it becomes a digital environment for shoppers that aggregates products, their descriptions, and reviews. It cannot sell goods directly to consumers. Instead, it points to eCommerce sites where these products are offered.
We recommend improving the SEO strategy by adding Google Shopping features. You may drop in organic search for a while, but these clicks won’t go to your competitors who use Google Shopping.
Visual search
Google Lens is not a novelty. Visual search became even more popular after the pandemic, when people weren’t able to go out very often for shopping. The visual search can really bring you more visitors from the organic search. For example, your audience are women looking for a nice dress. They have a picture of what they want to buy, but don’t know where to find it. They place a picture in the search bar, and voilà – a list of dresses with the links to the sites selling them.
To monetize this trend, use more quality images on your website. To save on the space and keep your download speed high, apply the WebPage format. Create your own pictures, don’t overuse the stock ones, as it also affects the search rankings and your brand image. Ensure the images are properly sized for different devices. In responsive CMS such as CS-Cart for example, this feature is provided by default, the same is with the themes).
Voice Search
When applying voice search for your eCommerce store, you provide customers with an opportunity to search for products without manual typing. Potential customers may mispronounce the name of the product or the brand they are looking for. Apart from the voice search convenience, it is capable of reducing zero search results due to mistakes in pronunciation.
Consider an opportunity to connect a voice assistant to your store. Optimize features for voices to make them more efficient. Connect your store to a voice assistant like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, or Amazon’s Alexa. By doing so, you allow voice search queries to work for your eCommerce business the same way as a regular search.
Read more: Voice Search And Virtual Assistants: Pains Vs Gains For ECommerce
Entity-based search
Google understands what your site is about with the help of its algorithms. The search engine checks the user behavior based on entities. This tool analyzes the meaningful terms on a page to define the subject. With the development of these algorithms, we recommend focus on keywords. One said that keywords are just strings, when entities are terms. The entity-based SEO strategy should pay attention to how relevant a query (entity) is to a certain location.
To capitalize on this, make your entities more meaningful. Run your Google Business Profile. Populate it with accurate data so that Google could learn more about your business and show your site where it is relevant. Encourage customers to review your site more often.
Old content updates
This latest SEO trend is about saving your efforts on writing new content. To apply the future SEO trend, you should dedicate more time to creating an evergreen piece of content that you could update overtime. For example, we started writing about SEO trends three years ago and each year, we examine and update the content to bring even more value to our readers. We strongly recommend not to add a specific year in your URLs (as we did once) not to mislead your visitors.
Think about writing long reads to cover more aspects of interest with your audience. In 2023, the benchmark was 3000-3500 per article according to our studies. It is a good idea not to publish a new article on the same subject again from year to year. Instead of writing a Black Friday post every year, consider supplementing it to refresh the content.
Localization in SEO
International SEO trends are shaped by the increasing globalization of businesses and the growing importance of reaching diverse international audiences. Globalization comes hand by hand with localization. More and more results become geo-referenced. For example, if you are in Vietnam, the search engine will first respond to queries in Vietnamese.
A peculiarity of localization by country is that informational queries (like “What is VSEO?”) made in the language of the user location usually reach the TOP region queries. More interesting things began to appear in deep localization for a specific city or a region. If you enter the query “Where to buy a laptop?” stores from your city of location will appear first. For some queries with a significant number of offers, Google will even point out particular stores near you.
The current trend is to add city and country to the search hints along with the request. For commercial queries, the trend is to add a tooltip “Near me” (for example, “Buy laptop near me”). The user sees answers for the city where he or she locates. Well, do not forget about changing the SERP for commercial queries: your potential customer will see a map and offers from Google Shopping, also tied to the user’s location.
SERP Optimization
Search engine result pages (SERPs) are web pages that search engines show as a response to a user query. In the context of SEO, your eCommerce site visibility in the SERPs is a competitive advantage. So, it is vital to include SERP optimization and especially featured snippets (a part of Google SERP) in your SEO strategy. Google is adding more and more blocks to SERPs. It means that to rank higher, you need to somehow convey the user’s query relevant data to the search engine.
Pay more attention to micro-markup (Schema.org) to improve SERPs. Consider what blocks appearing in the SERP are relevant to your business. Connect your website to Google Shopping or add a profile to Google Business. SERP optimization is an enterprise SEO trend. For enterprise businesses with multiple locations, optimizing for local search results and Google My Business listings is a key focus. Run a community on Facebook or get reviews on popular sites like G2.
Switching from UA to Google Analytics 4
In 2023, Google obliged its users to mandatory transit from Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4). And in 2024 you won’t have access to your old view in a standard GA account. For eCommerce businesses, it means that they should dedicate more time to study the new tool and rebuild the way of collecting analytics data to comply with the SEO future trend.
Start migration to the new marketing tool early. By doing so, you have fewer chances to lose your rankings and save time getting accustomed to the new tool.
Key Takeaways
The SEO strategy-2024 for eCommerce businesses can be briefly summarized as: “Be original and precise!” With the focus on authentic quality texts, photos and images, you won’t lose your Google rankings even amid the recent Google Spam Report updates. Don’t overuse AI tools and apply the power of local queries with Google Shopping and Google Business Profile to strengthen your positions in the local search.
We in Simtech Development are real adepts of SEO for website promotions, we have checked most of the abovementioned trends on our web resources and websites of our clients. If you plan an SEO audit or think of a long-term SEO strategy for your eCommerce website or marketplace, don’t hesitate to drop us a line and get a free consultation.
You may also be interested in:
- VSEO: Why Has Video Become A Core Part Of SEO
- 7 Concerns About SEO Online Store Owners Should Be Aware Of
- 10 Steps Towards a Better SEO for Your CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor
- Top Google Ranking Factors and SEO Tips for eCommerce
- A Complete SEO Checklist for Technical, Content, Copywriting, Link Building, Social and Behavioural SEO
