It’s a new year so of course it’s time to think about the year ahead, what the latest trends are and how you can stay up to date with them. So here’s our little addition to the cacophony. We’ve pulled out 3 important developments that we think will have an impact on search experience optimisation in the year ahead. Like all trends, these haven’t come out of nowhere, but have been building throughout 2024. 

All you can E-E-A-T

Google’s Experience-Expertise-Authority-Trustworthiness framework has been around in some form for years now, and has shaped how most brands create content. With the explosion in AI-generated content over the last year E-E-A-T is going to be even more important. 

Because of the speed at which anybody can create a piece of content on any given subject and push it out into the digital ether Google (although it’s leaning into AI-generated results) will be more rigorously assessing the quality and source of content. 
Brands will have to double down on quality, helpful content, and ensure that if they are using AI for content production it’s used in the right ways (e.g. to pull together an initial draft) with expert input from humans to give it depth and tailor it to customer intent and user journeys.

Raise up your voice (search)

Voice search has been growing consistently over the last few years. What was once a bit of a novelty is now becoming a more natural way for people to find out important information and carry out tasks. Improvements in the tech means that voice assistants can now be quite practical. We’re expecting this trend to continue and only get stronger as AI improves. Voice search comes with some unique challenges that brands need to be aware of and thinking about including: 

• The importance of natural language and long-tail keywords – Voice search is, by its very nature, much more conversational. So brands need to consider how content is optimised for a more casual and relaxed language.
• Getting into position zero – Unlike typed search, voice search returns a single “best” response to the user’s query. So this puts even more emphasis on position zero and featured snippets. Consider how content is structured to increase the chances of being featured. 
• Emphasis on core web vitals and mobile experience –  The majority of voice search will be done on mobile devices while out and about. So ensuring a fast site, with responsive design and clear navigation becomes more important for voice search as this all impacts your site’s overall search performance. 

The importance of visual search

Visual search is going to continue to grow, and this means brands need to start paying more attention to the quality and optimisation of visual assets like images and video. This has ramifications for SEO and UX. 

Just in case you think this is one fad that you can safely ignore remember that visual search has some real benefits: 

• A slicker user experience – The seamlessness of visual search for users can’t be underestimated: take a photo and get taken to relevant information or shopping results. No typing. No scrolling. It’s snap and tap. 
• Increased engagement and conversion – Generally speaking visual content gets better engagement than text. For e-commerce brands a quality visual search experience has a much better chance of connecting people to the products and services they want, promising improved click through rates and conversions. 
• Improved search rankings – Well optimised images and video, with quality metadata and supporting contextual content is going to be increasingly prioritised in search results. Why? Because this type of content will help search engines deliver relevant and accurate results. 

These are just 3 trends we can see shaping the search experience landscape in the year ahead. Of course there will be many others. So if you want to be prepared, get in touch today.