Google’s new Search Generative Experience is using AI to help enhance and improve the quality of its service. The goal is to help people get the information they’re looking for faster, and to be able to elaborate on topics so that a session can take the user from an initial question, right through to followup questions and even action steps like generating images or writing initial drafts of copy.
As with all major changes to the Google algorithms, marketers have been suspicious and a bit nervous about what SGE will mean for SEO and page rankings, so here are the three main things you need to keep in mind about SGE as you’re navigating your 2024 SEO strategy.
1. The aim is to help users, not harm businesses. Of course there are hiccups and growing pains when Google makes big changes, but the goal is always to help users find the best and most accurate information that matches their search query. In other words, they’re not trying to kill your traffic, they’re trying to provide a better user experience. Search result pages are not suddenly going to disappear. As SGE progresses, you’ll be able to see how you can tailor your online presence to get the best results for your business.
2. SEO is going to change, but not as drastically as you think. By now you’re probably used to SEO being dynamic and ever-evolving, so the fact that you’ll need to modify your SEO strategy in 2024 should not be a huge surprise. However, the thing you need to focus on most is the same as always: providing your visitors with the best experience possible. The quality of your content is always going to be the biggest deciding factor in how well your pages rank, and since Google is not aiming to provide direct answers for all queries, ranking highly is still going to be the primary goal.
3. This journey is a marathon, not a sprint. As with all major technological shifts, SGE is going to take time to evolve, and it’s going to be years before we see where this is really going. So there’s no need to panic right now about how your SEO strategy is going to be affected, because we’re all in the same boat, and we’re all going to have the same opportunities to adapt as we go along. The key is to be open to the potential of this new journey, and look for the ways that your business can take advantage.
SEO has never been simple, but the latest optimization strategies are more complex than ever. If you find the SEO landscape intimidating, contact us for a free consultation — we’ll help you find ways to improve your current efforts so that 2024 can be your most profitable year yet.
COGO Interactive is an award-winning digital marketing agency specializing in online marketing strategy, web design, SEO and social media marketing. We work with clients in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, DC and across the nation.
