Where should you focus your efforts?

The first half of 2024 in SEO-land was never dull.

Between algorithm leaks, a major core update, AI overviews (the debut, the blowback, and the retreat), and antitrust cases hovering in the background, the headlines have been making a lot of noise over the past few months.

Forget the noise though. What are the most important actions to address for the rest of the year?

Well, Google has been surprisingly straightforward lately, helping us find a few biggies:

• Subject authority.
• AI overviews (they stick, after all).
• Optimizing Non-Google Properties.

1. Core update: Focus on authority

Google’s March 2024 core update really focused on cleaning up bad content and promoting better and more valuable content.

What we see (and this has been echoed in other results) is that building topic authority has been highly effective in signaling to Google that your content is worthy of strong rankings.

Whether you should go broad or deep (or both) to build topic authority depends somewhat on your vertical. Your approach to content should, as usual, be based on knowledge of the customer – and for B2B your customer’s customer.

For example, if you sell software that makes it easier for banks to underwrite mortgages, content that tells banks how your product can ultimately benefit first-time home buyers is gold.

Going broad can be achieved by bringing other people into your content strategy. It can mean:

• Finding guest bloggers.
• Involvement of experts from cross-industry sectors.
• Highlight audience testimonials about the product in use in different settings and scenarios.
• Covers topics taken directly from audience feedback. (Whether it’s good or bad, stay in close contact with your sales and CS teams and you’ll get some nice nuggets.)

One of the ways we love to help our clients establish depth of authority is with proprietary data, research and benchmarking that informs reporting and analysis. SaaS companies can also target different audience segments with technical dives.

Regardless of your product or service, if you know what your audience needs to understand and why you’re the brand to help them get there, make sure that’s reflected in your content strategy.

2. Embrace AI insights

About these AI overviews, they are here, and while they are not as ubiquitous right now as they were in May, I expect it to be temporary. Google will lean into these to make them a big part of the search experience.

How can you take what we know from the early days and shape your strategy to capitalize on them?

Set your tracking

To adapt, you need to know what is actually happening. Impressions, clicks, CTR and on-site user behavior should all be part of your reporting from GA4, Google Search Console and any other platforms you have access to.

A note here: It is probably too early to measure the actual impact of AI Overviews on your business.

• We know that even if your brand is linked as a reference in AI Overviews, you probably won’t get many clicks on that link.
• We also know that if you are included in AI Overviews links, it is highly likely that the linked content will also rank high in the SERPs.

Getting a “before and after” picture of how all of this shakes out in things like organic conversions and revenue will inform not only your approach to SEO, but also any mitigating effects you need to pursue in other channels.

Double down on EEAT

In general, you should stay the course on SEO fundamentals such as:

• Understand keyword intent and build content accordingly.
• Use of internal and external links.
• Mastering metadata.

But EEAT is perhaps the fundamental that needs the most attention right now.

To address the EEAT, ensure that:

• Use of facts and data.
• Citing experts when necessary.
• Building your authors’ profiles.
• Writing with clarity and readability in mind.
• Include all relevant keywords in your content.

There is also a greater opportunity to extend EEAT from Google, which I will discuss in a moment.

Go for objectivity rather than quick sales

I love teaching clients that presenting opposing or alternative viewpoints is great for placements. These days, users are quick to reject content that is overtly promotional and much more influenced by entities that recognize a range of viewpoints.

If Google successfully uses AI to display content that users want to read, this approach will help you succeed in the AI ​​overview landscape.

3. Optimize non-Google properties

“One of the ways to be successful with Google Search is to think outside the box,” Danny Sullivan told us in June.

I’ve been preaching this for a while, mainly because Google has been leading us not so subtly in that direction.

EEA-T’s principles can be addressed incredibly effectively on platforms like Quora, Reddit, TikTok and industry-specific forums, which is one of the reasons why Google has been willing to incorporate them into the SERP.

Also, the nature of these platforms – highlighting expert POVs, soliciting and promoting strong, authoritative positions, and generally putting actual people at the center – is an extremely strong juxtaposition to AI Overviews.

Brands that can harness the power of platforms like TikTok stand to build strong connections with their users in a way that Google search can’t – as my colleague, Kelly Ayres, put it so well in a presentation to SMX Advanced in June .

Among Ayres’ tips (but honestly, you should watch the whole thing):

• Prioritize providing value to users over promoting your brand every time.
• Be authentic – if this is hard to do with a brand voice, rely on employees and influencers and generally invest more in UGC.
• Show customer reviews, testimonials and success stories whenever possible.
• Use tools like GA to identify trends in user behavior on your site that you can leverage in other channels.
• Follow the data to make changes and optimizations (just like you would on Google).

The benefits of this strategy are potentially huge – you won’t just find and engage new pockets of users. You will likely get a nice halo of awareness from the content being pulled into Google.

Key strategies for prioritizing for maximum impact

The only initiative I haven’t covered here is an evergreen one: pay attention to news and trends from your favorite sources (if you’re reading this, I assume you’d wisely include Search Engine Land on that list).

I know for myself that interest in SEO is extremely high right now, which is great for business, but can make it difficult to stay current. But the winds of change are blowing pretty hard, especially given the added dynamism of AI Overviews. So make sure you set aside time to monitor the upcoming shifts.