Google Updates for 2024: What happened and what to expect?

While one cannot really know what is in “Google’s mind” for 2024 we can certainly make some assumptions based on what we have seen in 2023 regarding Updates.

Let’s take a look on what we can expect for Google’s 2024 Updates

Google Updates for 2024: What to expect?

Up until 2021, we saw Google putting a major weight on Technical performance and SEOs rushing to make pages faster, easier to render and basically just trying to please Google on all possible ways. 

However, with the increased focus on AI and Usefull Content we have seen over the past year, the shift to promoting a valuable user experience and engagement has raised many flags and twitches in Digital Marketing Strategies. 

Useful Content is King Again: Human Content

Many SEOs experimented a lot in 2023, launching whole websites or creating content strategies with the use of ChactGPT and other AI tools. And the results were clear: Google initially picked up all the content, served it to users, and soon realised that their data base was full of “fluff” and useless text. The big Update of 2023 came to rectify this problem and so did now the March 2024 Update (apologies, for I started writing this article 3 months ago). Soon enough all these websites lost all the traffic and the experiments were over. 

In 2024 we can expect Google to become more and more demanding with the content we post out there: 

• Unique: Writing a text with AI is simply mixing up a bunch of content that already exists. Google is smart enough to see this so having a human writing content from their unique perspective is absolutely essencial to rank and convert.
• Straight to the Point: The content should appeal to the users, be written FOR THEM and not for google. Long pieces of text stuffed with keywords are very 2012: If your title, meta description and markup are correctly done, your text should simply be interesting, new and engaging. 
• Engaging and Conversion oriented: Make your pages clear whether you are selling, informing or providing help. Build up your funnel before you publish your pages and define exactly how the user should navigate throughout your website. Google acts like a user so if you think as a user, you will please it. 

We saw the massive “destruction” of affiliate websites 2 years ago. This is an excellent example of something that we can analyse and learn from. 

Are affiliate websites dead forever? 

Definetely not. Affiliate websites are still a great way to provide compiled information to users about certain topics and we certainly appreciate it (as customers). This being said, affiliate websites are a great way to build a business as long as you still consider the rules above!

Do not just make lists of products with a fancy title! If you do this, Google will always prefer to show the actual pages selling the products and not your own page. When creating an affiliate website, make sure you are making your client’s time worth spending on it:

• Explain the purpose of the list
• Why you choose such products
• Compare te products to each other 
• Focus on the pros and cons of each product

User Experience: Make your website easy to navigate, to read and to purchase from

We covered the huge chunks of text so now let’s go over some other metrics. 

We all know the importance of CTAs, Interlinking and Conversions but let’s take a look at them once again with the eyes of a potential 2024 extremely Human Google. 

Align your page Call-To-Actions with the marketing funnel stages 

We know that not every client visiting a website is one step away from clicking “buy”. As user experience becomes increasingly more important, the proper use of buttons and links throughout a page serves as proof of our understanding of the client, their stage in the purchasing process, and the market itself.

Purpose-aligned CTAs are essential, as they should mirror the visitor's stage in the customer journey:

• Giving the chance to Top-of-the-funnel users to learn more about a product or read articles that give credibility to the company in the eyes of the user. 
• Allowing users already in the funnel to read case studies, see testimonials or read technical specifications. 
• Giving  users the chance to reach customer support at any time during the checkout and making sure the information is always available. 

CTAs and color: is this a science?

The choice of CTA color also plays a significant role, using contrasting colors to make buttons stand out and tapping into color psychology to influence user actions. Depending on your brand colors you can play with these buttons, differentiating “buy” buttons from “read more” or “contact us”. 

And believe it or not, Google has an aesthetical taste and it will judge your buttons (and website) by their colors. 

Does Google really care about User Experience?

You may be asking at this point why is this important for Google but the truth is that: 

• Google will understand the flow of your website 
• Users will have better engagement, which in turn, will make Google rank your website higher.
• Google is now displaying products directly on the SERP and even allowing to buy them directly so if you don’t act on this, you will loose your chance to sell. 

Speed and Rendering in 2024

While INP was all over Social Media last year upon Google’s announcement for this year CWV. The truth is that Google is just not into that. Well, not at least so much anymore. 

I will repeat: Content is King, Brand is Kind, and UX is King. 

So what should you have in mind regarding speed and rendering in 2024? 

• Crawlability: Make sure your pages can be easily discovered and crawled by Google. 
• Interlinking: Allow Google and users to easily navigate your website. Plus! Make sure to increase your credibility by offering users and google the chance to visit external sources that confirm who you are, what you do and why they should trust you. 
• Rendering: Be careful not to block essential content in JS files, keep your 3rd party elements to a minimum and remember that less is more. 
• Schema Markup: Yes! This is still a thing and with all the AI going around, you want to make sure markup is as complete and obvious as possible. 

Google Knowledge Graph Updates! 

Knowledge Graph updates are not announced by Google and unless you have some super tool like the one offered by Kalicube, you will not even know the updates happened. 

Google is desperately trying to understand entities: businesses and people. And with the rise of SGE, Copilot ansd ChatGPT you want to make sure your entity is clear, transparent and trustable. If you did not start working on your Brand yet, tomorrow might be already too late. 

I hope this article helped clarify some of the questions users and companies have regarding Google Algorithm Updates in 2024. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions or if you would like us to help you with your website and digital marketing startegies! 

Author: Mariana Franco