What I’m watching in 2024: AI, SEO and marketing

I don’t mind playing the prediction game. I have made some predictions in the past. I have a tendency to keep the pulse of what’s going on in marketing.

As for specifics, that isn’t my best skill. I can see themes happening, but when you get into the details, I may not understand as much.

But, I am watching a few things as 2024 approaches in marketing for web care consultants and agencies. I am watching what experts are calling “the future” and trying to comprehend more and more.

In some ways, the way of the future in marketing is like 50 years ago. In other ways, it looks nothing like 5 years ago.

Take your pick!

With that said, here are a few things in marketing and beyond that I am watching for 2024.

Generative AI

I have been watching this for quite some time and have experimented with AI software and ChatGPT. For now, most of what I have used Generative AI for is to clean up and sharpen my content.

Using AI to help edit your content is a great way to use the new (to us) technology. Software like Grammarly and ProWritingAid have this helpful tool and they’ve made it even better recently.

Notion rolled out AI a while back to provide support. I put together a quick document on logging into a WordPress website from Notion’s AI. It was pretty good.

Using AI to generate informational based content is one of its best uses. However, consider where that information is coming from. In other words, is it swiping existing content from somewhere and not telling you?

Get ready for some seriously cool stuff with AI in marketing. I’ve seen some use cases from different peeps that were impressive.

AI, however, can not replace personalization, your own personality, and your own creativity. We need to keep that in mind moving forward. AI prompts are tools you can now access and are being sold in various products.

In the future, it appears you can train your AI to write like you help your content production (more on that soon). That being said, there are things you need to add to your content that AI cannot do. In other words, you need to edit and edit with great care!

As AI improves, so will automation. Even so, don’t reduce your rates because you are saving time!

There are other places AI has popped up, including in Google Documents using Google Workplace Labs.

SEO

AI is making strides in SEO as well. In fact, Google has implemented its Search Generative Experience (SGE) in the search results.

It has come with some interesting results. Lily Ray, an SEO consultant I follow on Twitter, seems to always find the interesting ones.

My teammate Pascal – @theseonewbie – just spotted this SGE result.

“According to a Quora user” as the source of truth for an academic query.

What could go wrong? 🤦🏽‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/O85LTstGDr

— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) December 28, 2023

Have you noticed SGE in your search results? Here’s one I found recently.

SEO seems to be disrupted at the moment. I have watched as SEO consultants I know have shifted what they do. One consultant I know is moving more to an analytics consultant. Another is more of a content marketer now.

Many who are still doing mostly SEO do it for much larger companies that have larger budgets. Have we come to where SEO is an umbrella term for certain types of activities, much like marketing has become in recent years?

The future of SEO in 2024 may have some adventurous changes. My friend Ann Smarty recently gave her predictions for SEO in 2024.

Here are more SEO predictions from Clearvoice.

What does this mean for agencies and consultants?

I think by now you know that business is not a one size fits all. You can absolutely learn from people who have come before you and been successful, but it’s important to remember they had their success in a specific context.

In the future, we should focus more on principles and less on tactics. Especially when you think about some tactics that were good 5-10 years ago, but now they simply are failing to work.

I talked about that in this article here.

Go back to the basics. Create a good marketing message and distribute.

Be personable.

As my friend Steve often says, “Do the things that don’t scale.”

Find an advantage, YOUR advantage. Be willing to be different than your competitors because we all tend to look the same to our potential clients.

Help your customers navigate this changing climate! Be willing to offer them advice that helps them do better and generates revenue. Be their advisor, one that gets them results.

Wrapping it up

May your 2024 be better than the year before! We live in a different time in business and life and we can make it work better for ourselves and our clients!

The future is on its way. What will we do with that future? How will we adapt?

What are you watching in 2024?