By Jenny Romanchuk

The reign of keyword dominance is over. How SEO is changing is about to totally rewrite the rulebook. We’re now in the world of AI, chatbots, zero-click searches, and video content.

But what I love most about all these changes is that there’s finally a laser focus on users and what they truly want and need when searching online.

The new landscape may feel unfamiliar, and some updates might look scary at first, but there‘s more potential there than you might think. Let’s dive into how all these SEO changes can positively impact your rankings.

How SEO is Changing

SEO is changing like crazy, and sometimes it seems impossible to keep track of everything that’s going on. While it can feel overwhelming, the core goal is positive: to show only the best content from the Internet.

Here’s a breakdown of the top 10 SEO trends shaping 2024.

1. AEO takes center stage.

The 2024 HubSpot Consumer Trends report shows that a whopping 79% of people rely on search engines for answers.

However, with the advent of ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI chatbots, no one wants to sift through endless details and jump between sites just to find what they’re looking for. People want answers immediately.

That’s why Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is more popular than ever before. It delivers direct answers to your questions and uses NLP technology to understand your queries in the same way a human would.

Answer engines gather information from different sources, like databases and even real-time data. But probably the best thing about it? You can ask follow-up questions to delve deeper into a topic.

Here are some tips for a good AEO strategy:

• Combine your AEO with your regular SEO.
• Structure longer content around key questions users might ask.
• Focus on making headings that answer common questions directly.
• Your content must be clear and simple for AI to understand and use.
• Always include FAQs in your articles (if relevant).

2. Hello, zero-click searches.

Something closely related to AEO is zero-click searches. Whether it’s converting currencies, checking restaurant hours, or getting a celebrity bio, users want to access all that information ASAP.

Here are some popular ways of providing information through zero-click results:

• Featured snippets. Highlighted blocks of text pulled from websites that directly answer the user’s query.
• Knowledge panels. Information boxes that summarize key details about a particular entity, like a person or place.
• Direct answer boxes. Boxes that display factual answers sourced directly by the search engine without attributing them to a specific website.

Pro tip: Analyze SERPs to find definition-featured snippets, then target those keywords. HubSpot’s SEO Software can help with this by offering …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron