Every home care agency owner needs to be aware of the changes coming to Google in 2024. Lots of home care agency owners need to understand these changes because the marketing agencies currently providing their Search Engine Optimization and Google ads management services may or may not be on the cutting edge of things and just deliver “SEO” as usual. So, I have bad and good news for you. You can win #1 rankings by understanding some of these basic changes Google will be making in 2024 and beyond.
The good news is that if you are aware of these changes, you can make informed digital marketing decisions in 2024 to compete and outperform other home care agencies on Google. The bad news is that if you don’t do anything about these new Google changes you will slowly start to see your digital leads decline or fall off a cliff completely.
So, let’s jump into some of these changes Google is making in 2024 to their search engine. There are roughly 9 new things we need to be aware of and I will cover 2 main ones in this article. If you want to read about all 9 new things you can check out our website to read the full list with all the details.
The 2 big changes to be aware of are:
- SGE – Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) is an innovative AI-based search interface that aims to enhance how users interact with search results. It uses generative AI to provide concise, informative summaries of search topics, allowing for more natural, intuitive query responses and unlocking new types of questions. SGE represents a significant evolution in Google’s search capabilities, emphasizing content relevance and quality over traditional keyword density, and is part of Google’s ongoing efforts to integrate AI more deeply into search
- E-E-A-T – This isn’t about food, but it’s like Google checking if the information is healthy and good for you. E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It means Google makes sure the answers you get are from people who really know what they’re talking about.
So what does SGE and EEAT even mean and man oh man I am probably talking over your head and your eye balls are rolling right about now. Let’s break down in easy to understand terms what SGE is and how it can be applied to work for you to outrank your competition on Google.
Think of Google’s Search Generative Experience, or SGE, like a super-smart assistant for your Google searches. Normally, when you ask Google a question, it gives you a list of websites that have the answers. But with SGE, Google does something extra. It uses advanced AI (Artificial Intelligence) to read through all those websites and then gives you a quick summary of the best answers.
It’s like if you asked a really smart friend a question, and they read a bunch of books and articles to give you a simple, clear answer. SGE is designed to make searching on Google faster and easier, giving you helpful answers without having to click through lots of websites. This is great for anyone using Google, not just those who understand SEO. But instead of listing lots of websites it will summarize a few websites and provide a link to maybe one or two websites instead of many. This is good on one hand because if you have optimized your website for SGE it will get lots of traffic and thus leads!! On the other hand, if you haven’t optimized your website to get featured by Google in their new SGE index you will start to see your leads drop considerably.
Example screenshot of Google’s new SGE search engine.
Ok so SGE will summarize websites and only list a few examples and thus lead to less clicks on your website unless it has been optimized for SGE. Got it?
Alright let’s understand Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). It is part of Google’s strategy to be the best search engine in the world by only showing and listing the BEST OF THE BEST. Let’s put it like this, if you needed heart surgery or say brain surgery, would you want the 3rd best heart surgeon in your region or the #1 best heart surgeon or brain surgeon? Well, heck, yes, I would want only the best. And Google understands this and doesn’t want you using other search engines to find the best businesses. They want you to use them.
So, one method to find the BEST OF THE BEST and show you, the searcher, those businesses is to look at the businesses Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness and calculate each one of those categories and give you, the business, a rating. Based on that rating it will help or hurt your business ranking…
- Experience: Google looks at whether the people giving information have real-life experience in what they’re talking about. Like, if someone is giving health advice, are they a doctor or a nurse?
- Expertise: This is about having deep knowledge in a specific area. Google wants to make sure that the person providing information isn’t just guessing but knows a lot about the topic.
- Authoritativeness: This means being recognized as a leader or an authority in a particular field. It’s like when everyone knows a teacher is great at teaching math.
- Trustworthiness: This is about being honest and accurate. Google checks if a website is truthful and provides correct information.
So, E-E-A-T is Google’s way of making sure that when you search for something, the information you get is from people who really know what they’re talking about and can be trusted. It’s like having a filter that helps you get the best, most reliable information from the internet. So, one thing we will be rolling out for our clients considering SGE and Google’s E-E-A-T is to try our best to create knowledge panels for them that Google will then use to power these two things. Again, these aren’t the only two new things that Google is rolling out in 2024, the rest of the list is on our website, but these two things alone will have a massive impact on incoming client and caregiver leads.
As the business owner I wouldn’t recommend trying to figure this out on your own, but I do believe you need to know about these changes and confirm your SEO / Google ads agency is doing what they need to do to prepare for these changes.
Here is the shortlist of what your SEO / Google marketing agency should be doing:
- Develop High-Quality, Relevant Content
- Optimize for User Experience
- Leverage Structured Data and Schema Markup
- Focus on Building Authority and Trust (knowledge panels)
- Adapt SEO Strategies for AI Integration
I have the full list of what you need to confirm that your digital marketing agency is doing on our website.