By Josh Greene, CEO, The Mather Group

In 2024, organizations have to be authentic. They have to get better at understanding searchers’ intent – and predicting that intent. SEO will be about communicating everything as a story imbued with human emotion. Whether that’s a sixty character post description, or a 1000-word blog. Audiences need to feel the humanity behind what we’re sharing. AI tools are going to continue to make it easier for people to create content – but no tool easily, automatically creates standout, authentic content. This is what we need to master. We can absolutely use AI to help us – help us brainstorm, edit, etc. – but we have to know our users and their stories really, really well if we want to stand out on search engines.

This is because search engines are using AI to get better at personalizing search results. Make sure your content is relevant for your users’ different intents. This may or may not mean creating content that mirrors their keywords and phrases. Are there better keywords that capture their intent? Find them. Dominate them.

Use every tool at your disposal. As I said above, this does include AI. It also includes our old staples – video, ad copy, images, blogs. Don’t forget one of the newer guys on the block – Wikipedia. Wikipedia content continues to show up all across the internet. Your audience
doesn’t have to visit your Wikipedia page to be influenced by its content. It’s being served to them on Google, through AI, via Siri and Alexa. It’s everywhere. Learn how Wikipedia operates and make sure your story is told truthfully in its articles.

To improve and meet your goals throughout the year, take time to continuously train and practice. Telling interesting stories isn’t easy, but it is necessary. Share regularly, humanize your brand, and get better at getting right to the point. You’re telling a story. You can’t hope
someone keeps reading, hoping you get interesting. Be interesting from the get-go.

The Mather Group is a boutique digital marketing and online reputation agency specializing in SEO, Wikipedia, and effective marketing for businesses.