How SEO Works in 2024

Summary

The video discusses significant shifts in SEO, highlighting three major changes: the rise of AI and Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE), the emergence of short content ranking, and Google Perspectives. It emphasizes the importance of adapting SEO strategies to these changes, offering insights on how to optimize content for SGE, create effective short-form content, and leverage user-generated content through Google Perspectives. The video also provides a step-by-step plan for businesses to prepare for these shifts and ensure SEO growth.

Takeaways

• 🚀 SEO is undergoing significant changes, with AI and Search Generative Experience (SGE) being major factors.
• 🔍 SGE presents a new way of displaying search results, potentially reducing organic listings to just three links.
• 📊 Marketers need to optimize content for SGE to appear in the top carousel section and capture more traffic.
• 📈 Short content is increasingly being rewarded by Google, challenging the long-form content norm.
• 📝 Content should be tailored to answer searcher's questions effectively, regardless of length.
• 📱 Google Perspectives is a new feature that highlights user-generated content, offering a different SEO opportunity.
• 🌐 Experimentation with SGE and Perspectives is crucial for understanding and adapting to these changes.
• 📌 Businesses should focus on user-generated content and engage with customers to improve their online presence.
• 🔍 Keyword research is essential for all new SEO strategies to understand customer search intent.
• 📈 Businesses can leverage user-generated content to enhance their visibility and rankings in search results.
• 📚 The video provides insights on how to perform keyword research, a fundamental step for SEO success.

Q & A

What are the three major changes in SEO discussed in the video?

The three major changes are AI and Search Generative Experience (SGE), short content ranking, and Google Perspectives.

How does Google's SGE affect search results for marketers?

SGE provides an AI-powered snapshot at the top of search results, potentially reducing the visibility of organic results and changing how marketers need to optimize their content.

What is the significance of the carousel section in SGE for businesses?

The carousel section at the top of SGE results can feature businesses that are not traditionally at the top of organic search results, offering an opportunity for increased visibility and traffic.

How is Google rewarding short content in SEO?

Google is starting to rank shorter content that directly answers the searcher's question, even in competitive search terms, which is a shift from the traditional preference for long, comprehensive content.

What is Google Perspectives and how does it impact SEO?

Google Perspectives is a new filter that shows user-generated content, such as YouTube videos, Reddit posts, and TikToks, in search results. It introduces a new type of SEO where businesses need to focus on user-generated content about their products and services.

How can businesses adapt to the changes in SEO mentioned in the video?

Businesses can adapt by optimizing their content for SGE, experimenting with different content lengths to see what ranks well, and engaging with user-generated content through platforms like Reddit and TikTok.

What is the recommended first step for businesses to prepare for SGE?

The first step is to sign up for SGE on Google Labs, experiment with it using Google Chrome, and collect information on how SGE is working for their specific searches and websites.

How should businesses approach creating new content in light of the short content ranking trend?

Businesses should consider the amount of information needed to be useful to customers, check what Google is currently rewarding in their space, and produce content accordingly, whether short or long.

What can businesses do to leverage Google Perspectives for their SEO strategy?

Businesses can experiment with Perspectives to understand which types of searches bring up user-generated content, engage with discussions, and incentivize customers to create content about their products and services.

Why is keyword research important in the context of these SEO changes?

Keyword research is vital for understanding the words and phrases potential customers are searching for, which is crucial for adapting to the new SEO strategies and ensuring content is optimized for the latest trends.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 SEO Changes and Thriving in the AI Era

This paragraph discusses the significant changes in SEO, particularly the impact of AI and Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE). It highlights how SGE presents a new opportunity for businesses to rank higher by optimizing content for AI-powered search results. The paragraph also touches on the importance of understanding and adapting to these changes to benefit from them in the coming year.

05:02

📉 Short Content Ranking and SEO Shifts

The second paragraph addresses the shift in SEO where shorter content is being rewarded by Google. It challenges the traditional wisdom of long-form content being necessary for high rankings. The speaker provides examples of varying content lengths that rank well for specific search terms, emphasizing the need to understand and meet the searcher's intent, regardless of content length.

10:04

📱 Google Perspectives: A New SEO Frontier

This paragraph introduces Google Perspectives, a new feature in SEO that focuses on user-generated content. It explains how Perspectives works by showing individual perspectives and discussions in search results, which can include YouTube videos, Reddit posts, and TikToks. The speaker suggests that this feature could lead to a new type of SEO strategy, where businesses need to engage with user-generated content and potentially incentivize customers to share their experiences online.

Keywords

💡SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to a website through organic search engine results. In the video, SEO is central as it discusses the significant changes affecting how websites rank and how marketers can adapt their strategies to thrive in the evolving landscape.

💡AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. In the context of the video, AI is transforming search engines, particularly Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE), which uses AI to provide a more personalized and conversational search experience.

💡SGE

Search Generative Experience (SGE) is a feature by Google that uses AI to generate a summary of information at the top of search results, often in a carousel format. This new feature prioritizes certain content over others, potentially affecting website traffic and SEO strategies.

💡Short Content Ranking

This concept refers to the trend where shorter content pieces are starting to rank well on search engines, contrary to the traditional belief that long, comprehensive content is necessary for high rankings. This shift impacts how marketers create and optimize content for SEO.

💡Google Perspectives

Google Perspectives is a feature that showcases user-generated content in search results, providing a more diverse range of information beyond traditional branded content. It allows users to see individual perspectives, discussions, and reviews, which can influence search rankings and SEO strategies.

💡Keyword Research

Keyword research is the process of identifying and analyzing search terms or phrases that potential customers might use when looking for products or services similar to a business's offerings. It is a fundamental aspect of SEO and is crucial for understanding and targeting the right audience.

💡User-Generated Content

User-Generated Content (UGC) refers to any content created by users of an online platform, such as reviews, comments, videos, or social media posts. UGC is valuable for businesses as it provides authentic insights and experiences that can influence potential customers' decisions.

💡Content Optimization

Content optimization involves modifying and improving the content on a website to make it more attractive to search engines and users. This includes using relevant keywords, creating engaging titles, and ensuring the content is valuable and informative.

💡Traffic

Website traffic refers to the number of visitors and the amount of time they spend on a website. High traffic is often a goal for businesses as it can lead to increased brand awareness, customer engagement, and potential conversions.

💡Search Results

Search results are the listings displayed by a search engine in response to a user's query. They typically include a mix of organic results, ads, and other features like images or videos. The video discusses how the structure and presentation of search results are changing due to AI and other new features.

Highlights

SEO is undergoing the biggest changes in over a decade.

AI and Search Generative Experience (SGE) are transforming SEO and search engine results.

SGE presents a new opportunity for businesses to rank higher by optimizing for AI-powered search results.

Short content is starting to rank well on Google, challenging the long-form content norm.

Google Perspectives is a new feature that showcases user-generated content in search results.

SGE results can potentially change how people use search engines by allowing more personalized searches.

Marketers need to optimize content for the type of search that SGE supports.

Google Perspectives is currently visible on mobile in the US and may become more widespread.

Businesses should consider user-generated content strategies to capitalize on Google Perspectives.

For SGE, businesses should sign up for Google Labs and experiment with AI-powered search results.

When producing new content, consider the optimal amount of information needed for a great user experience.

Experiment with different content lengths to see what Google is currently rewarding in your niche.

Incentivize customers to create content about your products and services to improve visibility in user-generated content searches.

Keyword research is crucial for adapting to new SEO strategies and understanding customer search intent.

Adaptation to these changes is key to maintaining or increasing organic traffic.

Exposure Ninja offers a free website and marketing review to help businesses optimize for SGE and other SEO changes.

Transcripts

we're going through a period at the

moment that seeing some of the biggest

changes in SEO in well over a decade and

in today's video we're going to show you

not just how to survive but how to

thrive so we're going to cover this in

two parts firstly we're going to go

through three major changes that are

happening in SEO right now and then

we're going to help you plan for each of

these to build them into your strategy

so that you can use them to your benefit

over the next year change number one Ai

and sge for sure AI is the buzzword of

the day but it is transforming not just

the way that marketers do marketing but

also how search engines work and present

their results and Google's sge or search

generative experience is probably the

most profound change that we marketers

need to be aware of and here's how it

works when you search for something

rather than seeing the regular organic

results down here you get this big AI

powered snapshot at the top this is

really significant because rather than

getting a whole list of websites that

people can scroll through the Searcher

basically sees Three Links and of course

this means that if if you're not in

those three links you could see a

significant drop in traffic the race is

on over the longer term sge could

actually change how people use search

engines because it allows you to have a

conversation with Google it allows you

to ask follow-up questions and ask much

more personalized searches than you

would if you are only looking to surface

results from websites and of course if

we as marketers want to take advantage

of this we need to be optimizing our

content for that type of search and to

get it shown in this Carousel section at

the top of the page age this is one of

our key Battlegrounds over the next year

but I think this is an incredibly

exciting opportunity let me show you an

example so here I'm looking at search

for what is a USDA loan now USDA is the

United States Department of Agriculture

and they basically guarantee certain

mortgages in rural areas in the regular

organic results the USDA is ranking

position one and it's ranking position

three which is kind of what you'd expect

right because what is a USDA loan who

knows better than the USDA but here's

where it gets exciting for marketers cuz

the USDA is not linked to in this

section the carousel at the top of the

sge results so if I'm a mortgage broker

or I'm some business that benefits from

ranking for USDA loans finally I get a

chance to LeapFrog the USDA site that's

been ranking at the top of Google for

ages get my business featured here and

pick up some of that traffic now of

course Google may change this and USDA

may be ranking all the time that's not

really what I'm talking about here what

I'm talking about is the fact that sge

seems to use slightly different ranking

factors to the regular organic search

results we've covered this in more

detail in our webinar all about sge but

this is a really exciting opportunity

for any business that is always looking

at the Top Authority sites in their

space ranking for everything saying how

can we beat them well here's an

opportunity to beat them if they're not

even thinking about optimizing for sge

you can just skip them completely and

start picking up way more traffic than

they will be from this new change now

we're going to cover exactly how to plan

for this in just a minute but before we

do that the second major change that

we're seeing over the next year

is short content ranking yes best

practice wisdom in SEO is always that

you need to provide long content on a

page if you want it to rank on Google so

everyone's been writing ultimate guides

answering all of the possible questions

that people might have about a topic in

order to get them ranking on the first

page but over time we've started to

notice a shift where actually Google is

starting to reward in some cases shorter

content instead sticking with our rural

mortgages here's a bunch of website

pages that are ranking well for Rural

mortgages this is quite a high

commercial intent term so it's going to

be very valuable and usually

historically we would have expected to

see medium to long Pages ranking for

this but take a look at the variance in

content length this is the sort of page

that we'd normally expect to rank for

this it's very very long loads of detail

we've got FAQs all answered in detail

we've got statistics all that type of

stuff a very very long comprehensive

page but sometimes maybe that's too long

maybe you don't need the entire history

of the universe you just want a really

simple straightforward page well this

page is also ranking and it is

incredibly straightforward we've got a

couple paragraphs of text here we've got

a testimonial a bit of related info and

then that's pretty much it a really

short page now here's a mid-length page

that's ranking for this phrase It's all

about how to get a rural mortgage we can

see that are lots of sort of related

questions here and then we've got a CTA

at the end so that's a pretty mid-length

page but then look at this one this one

actually has no real sort of long form

content at all it's just a couple of

sections of bullet points and that's it

now here's the important thing to note

all of these Pages answer the searcher's

question some answer it in a long way

others answer it in a short way but they

all serve the Searcher and Google seems

to be rewarding that again we're going

to come back on exactly what you need to

do with this information in just a

minute but but first big change number

three Google perspectives this is one of

my favorite changes to SEO but nobody

really seems to be talking about it now

this is only visible at the moment on

mobile in the US or using a US VPN on

Chrome or on a Google app but this is

already out there Google has already

launched this it's testing and it's

collecting feedback here's how Google

perspectives works when you make certain

types of searches you see these filters

up at the top of the page now we're used

to seeing the filters like shopping or

videos or IM or news but you'll notice

that for some searches there's a new

filter tab called perspectives and when

you give that a tab what you'll see is

user generated content so here we can

see a fairly typical perspectives result

where we've got some long form YouTube

videos we've got some Reddit results

we've got short form videos we've got

some Tik toks we've got some Kora uh

questions and answers in some cases but

all of this is individual people's

perspectives rather than branded content

or you know Tech crunch doing a Roundup

of the best rowers this is all

individual people's content or

discussions you'll also notice some of

this type of thing making its way into

the regular search for example if we

just scroll down the regular search

results page we'll see this discussions

and forums section down here which has

some links to Reddit and when're

noticing Google testing more of this

perspectives content in the regular

search results just as it does for

example by showing videos in the regular

search results as well as on the videos

tab now I suspect that this is Google

sort of hedging against sge feeling a

bit personal for some people if you

watch different types of people search

you'll notice that some people prefer to

go to really high Authority sources that

have done a big round up and evaluated

all the options whereas Sometimes some

people want to go to a whole bunch of

individual people's perspectives and do

that filtering themselves SG seems to be

way more suited to the first category

collecting and aggregating all of the

information on the internet and

providing you with a summary whereas

perspectiv is more about the second

category it enables people to HT through

and find the right information for them

based on the sort of profile that they

see in the results it's also Google's

competitive play against people using

Tik Tok for search and I think that

perspectives is going to open a new type

of SEO for businesses that it's relevant

for a type of SEO where businesses need

to focus on the user generated content

that's being produced about their

products and services where they need to

spend time in Reddit and qu answering

people's questions because those

questions might find their way into sege

a type of SEO where businesses need to

incentivize customers to create YouTube

shorts or Tik toks about their

experience with the products and

services in order to get them ranking in

these types of searches so again we're

going to come back to this and how to

plan for it in the next section so it's

great to know about these three changes

but how do we actually plan for them how

do we make the most of them to make sure

that we're seeing the growth in our SEO

over the next year well let's start with

sge here's my recommended plan of action

step one sign up for sge to do this you

need to go to Google Labs just search on

Google for Google labs and you need to

be using either a US VPN or you need to

be based in the US this will allow you

to sign up for the SG search Labs

experiment once you've done this you can

use Google Chrome to start experimenting

with sge get a feel for what sort of

searches in your space are bringing up

sge results click on the links to see

which sort of websites are being

rewarded and what are the Snippets of

content on those pages that SG is

referencing your goal in all of this is

just to collect information to get a

feel for how sge is working the next

step is the start testing and doing some

experiments with your own site to see

what you can do to get your pages

ranking this is what we're doing for our

clients at exposure ninja so we're

testing with a few pages on each website

just so we can work out what are the

levers that we need to pull for this

specific website for this specific

search to get it ranking in those all

important sge results that way when

Google decides to roll out sge fully we

know okay this is what we need to do

this is our game plan for the rest of

the website but if Google changes SG

significant L before rolling it out we

haven't spent a whole bunch of time

optimizing every page on the website for

SG rankings here at exposure ninja we've

been getting some incredible results

with our own SG experiment so if you

want a hand in optimizing your website

and getting ready for sge then request a

free website and marketing review from

the team here all you need to do is go

to exposure ninja.com review and tell us

a little bit about your business and

your digital marketing goals will then

take a look at how well your digital

marketing is performing for you at the

moment will then make a prioritized

action plan for you to follow including

SG for how to significantly increase the

volume of leads that your website

generates over the next 12 months this

service is completely free of charge so

go to exposure ninja.com review to apply

for your free review today all right

what about this whole shorter content

thing do you need to go back through

your website and start trimming down all

of your ultimate guides into short

bite-sized Snippets no don't do that

here's how I would suggest approaching

this when you're producing new content

think about the amount of information

that you actually need to provide in

order to be really useful to customers

let me show you an example so let's say

I want to make some banana pancakes now

I've noticed that this website here is

ranking for banana pancakes and it's

just two ingredients that sounds about

right to me but let's have a look at the

information on this page okay how to

make two ingredient Banana Pancakes

should be fairly simple this is probably

the sort of thing that you could answer

in a couple of sentences right well yeah

but firstly I need to scroll through all

of this stuff I need to pass ads I need

to pass pictures how do these only have

two ingredients I really need to read

this section don't I do they really

taste like pancakes I need to read tips

on how to flip them I need to see a

presumably affiliate link spatula that I

could use to flip my banana pancakes I

need to find out about adding nuts and

chocolate and more which does sound good

to be fair and only then do I get to the

recipe and the instructions but look how

far I've had to scroll in order to get

that information so it seems to us that

Google is starting to realize that

sometimes this type of thing isn't the

optimal user experience sometimes the

Searcher just wants the information that

they're looking for at the moment though

Google is still rewarding this type of

content in some instances so it's always

important to check even if you think

right we can answer this question in

just a few paragraphs check what Google

is currently rewarding in your space if

you see shorter content ranking then by

all means produce a shorter content

piece and see if you get the ranking

that you're after but however if you see

that Google is only ranking super long

detailed guys with loads of background

and next steps you may still want to

take that approach because perhaps

Google has decided based on measuring

user metrics that actually people do

want that additional info they do want a

bit of backstory they do want to

understand the next steps that they

could take the important thing as ever

is understanding exactly what your

customer or your Target customer wants

and giving them that so long as Google

is rewarding that approach what about

perspectives well again the first thing

to do is experiment with it and see what

types of searches are bringing up

perspectives results and just spend some

time getting familiar with it for

example is it videos that are coming up

is it written reviews and discussions

when you find a discussion going on are

people recommending particular Brands

and could you potentially add your brand

to that list of recommendations and by

the way a bonus of using perspectives is

that you'll start to notice some of the

things that your customers and potential

customers have issue with about your

competitors this can help you with your

brand positioning with the FAQs that you

answer on your own website and on your

product pages as well for example if you

see in perspectives that people are

saying that your competitor's product is

good but the quality doesn't really

match the price well that might be

something that you want to emphasize in

your own marketing knowing that there is

dissatisfaction in your space and then

you may want to think about how you

incentivize your customers to talk about

you online some businesses are already

doing this for example gym shark shares

the images posted by its customers

ambassadors giving them that praise and

boosting their own social visibility

whereas figma has a group of designer

Advocates these are full-time salaried

positions that create figma related

content which figma can then share on

its own social Pages this has way more

credibility than something that looks

overly figma branded because it appears

to be user generated content and it sort

of is so this approach isn't quite an

influencer approach because you're not

actually paying for their influence

you're just paying for them to produce

content for you but it can be a really

powerful way of building up the sort of

user generated content that we're seeing

being rewarded in perspectives but you

also might want to work more informally

with people that have already been

posting about you so have a look at

who's been tagging you on social media

and see if you might want to work with

them to produce some content targeting

ranking and perspectives so to recap SG

is going to have a huge potential impact

on SEO over the next year some

projections have it decimating up to 95%

of a website's organic traffic but only

if you don't adapt to it and figure out

how to rank your website pages in that

Carousel next up we've got Google

ranking different lengths of content and

you need to be thinking about this

experimenting and seeing what's working

in your space that you can then then

apply to the Future content you're

producing thirdly we have Google

perspectives and the opportunity to get

user generated content ranking for these

types of searches knowing that Google is

already starting to show them for some

Industries one of the common tasks

you'll need to do across all of these

new SEO strategies is keyword research

understanding the words and phrases that

your potential customers are searching

for is absolutely vital and in this

video we show you exactly how to do that

keyword research using a similar

approach to what we do for our clients

at a exposure ninja enjoy it see you

soon