Director of SEO Kelly Ayres had plenty to say in a recent Q&A with content writing leaders Compose.ly. The experts covered a ton of ground on the things that matter in SEO as 2024 nears..
Drum roll for the top three takeaways…
Yes, we know “Is SEO dead?” is a question that’s been brought up often over the years, but AI is putting it back in fashion. Kelly’s answer is that great SEO today means optimizing for the search experience, not the search engines.
To do this, find people wherever they search (including Reddit, TikTok, Quora, and other forums) and then drive them to their final destination by matching intent to the full user journey – not just to a blog post or highly optimized landing page.
The overarching mission of effective SEO has always been to help every potential customer discover you by search – no matter where they’re searching – and give them the opportunity to solve their problem by reading your content, then using your products or services. Nothing about AI/SGE has changed that mission.
If there’s one question we get most frequently these days, it’s how SGE will change the SEO landscape.
Kelly’s prediction, grounded in what we’re seeing early on from SGE results, is that generative search will consume most top-of-funnel content and SERP queries. Those take the form of “easy” content formulas like “what is…?” queries, FAQs, {topic} 101 content, etc.
That still leaves SEO practitioners a ton of ground with middle-funnel and bottom-funnel queries that rely on an understanding of user intent – essentially, what they’re actually looking for with their queries and how to provide content that meets those needs. Ultimately, that may mean SEOs focus less on head keywords and more on lower-volume but more precise keywords that play an important role in moving users closer to conversion.
We’ve all heard “Helpful Content” hundreds of times from Google, and it’s a good base – it helps SEOs focus on defining and writing content to address known wants and needs.
The next evolution: thoughtful content, which targets unknown needs and anticipates user interests and questions. Yes, it’s a more advanced concept, and it requires SEOs to understand what their audience thinks and wants – and what you know they need to learn. You should aim to build experiences that anticipate audience needs and put your brand in the natural path of qualified searchers. It’s about the right content, at the right time, for the right person.
If any of these topics strike a chord with you, and you’d like to connect with Kelly to chat further, let us know! We’re always down to get into discussions on great SEO.