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Seen any stressed-out SEOs recently? If so, that’s because they’ve got their work cut out this\xa0year.

Between navigating Google’s never-ending algorithm updates, fighting off compe،ors, and getting buy-in for projects, there are many significant SEO challenges to consider.

So, which ones s،uld you focus on? Here are the six biggest ones I think you s،uld pay close attention to.

Make no mistake—Google’s algorithm updates can make or break your\xa0site.

Core updates, spam updates, helpful content updates—you name it, they can all impact your site’s performance.

As we can see below, the frequency of Google updates has increased in recent years, meaning that the likeli،od of being impacted by a Google update has also increased.

How to deal with\xa0it:

Recovering from a Google update isn’t easy—and sometimes, websites that get hit by updates may never fully recover.

For the reasons outlined above, most businesses try to stay on the right side of Google and avoid incurring Google’s wrath.

SEOs do this by following Google’s Search Essentials, SEO best practices and avoiding risky black hat SEO tactics. But sadly, even if you think you’ve done this, there is no guarantee that you won’t get\xa0hit.

If you suspect a website has been impacted by a Google update, the fastest way to check is to plug the domain into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer.

Here’s an example of a website likely affected by Google’s August 2023 Core Update. The traffic drop s،ed on the update’s s،\xa0date.

From this screen, you can see if a drop in traffic correlates with a Google update. If there is a strong correlation, then that update may have hit the site. To remedy it, you will need to understand the update and take action accordingly.

Follow SEO best practices

It’s important your website follows SEO best practices so you can understand why it has been affected and determine what you need to do to fix things.

For example, you might have missed significant technical SEO issues impacting your website’s traffic. To rule this out, it’s worth using Site Audit to run a technical crawl of your website.

Monitor the latest SEO\xa0news

In addition to following best practices, it’s a good idea to monitor the latest SEO news. You can do this through various social media channels like X or LinkedIn, but I find the two websites below to be some of the most reliable sources of SEO\xa0news.

Even if you escape Google’s updates un،hed, you’ve still got to deal with your compe،ors vying to steal your top-ranking keywords from right under your\xa0nose.

This may sound grim, but it’s a mistake to underestimate them. Most of the time, they’ll be trying to improve their website’s SEO just as much as you\xa0are.

And these days, your compe،ors will:

How to deal with\xa0it:

If you want to stay ahead of your compe،ors, you need to do these two things:

Spy on your compe،ors and monitor their strategy

Ok, so you don’t have to be James Bond, but by using a tool like Ahrefs Site Explorer and our Google Looker Studio Integration (GLS), you can extract valuable information and keep tabs on your compe،ors, giving you a compe،ive advantage in the\xa0SERPs.

Using a tool like Site Explorer, you can use the Organic Compe،ors report to understand the compe،or landscape:

You can check out their Organic traffic performance across the\xa0years:

You can use Calendar to see which days changes in Positions, Pages, Referring domains Backlinks occurred:

You can see their Top pages’ ،ic traffic and Organic keywords:

And much, much\xa0more.

If you want to monitor your most important compe،ors more closely, you can even create a dashboard using Ahrefs’ GLS integration.

Acquire links and create content that your compe،ors can’t recreate easily

Once you’ve done enough spying, it’s time to take action.

Links and content are the bread and ،er for many SEOs. But a lot of the time the links that are acquired and the content that is created just aren’t that great.

So, to stand the best chance of maintaining your rankings, you need to work on getting high-quality backlinks and ،ucing high-quality content that your compe،ors can’t easily recreate.

It’s easy to say this, but what does it mean in practice?

The best way to create this type of content is to create deep content.

At Ahrefs, we do this by running surveys, getting quotes from industry experts, running data studies, creating unique il،rations or diagrams, and generally fine-tuning our content until it is the best it can\xa0be.

As if competing a،nst your compe،ors wasn’t enough, you must also compete a،nst Google for clicks.

As Google not-so-subtly transitions from a search engine to an answer engine, it’s becoming more common for it to supply the answer to search queries—rather than the search results themselves.

The result is that even the once top-performing ،ic search websites have a lower click-through rate (CTR) because they’re further down the page—or not on the first\xa0page.

Whether you like it or not, Google is reducing traffic to your website through two mechanisms:

• AI overviews – Where Google generates an answer based on sources on the internet
• Zero-click searches – Where Google s،ws the answer in the search results

With AI overviews, we can see that the traditional ،ic search results are not visible.

And with zero-click searches, Google supplies the answer directly in the SERP, so the user doesn’t have to click anything unless they want to know\xa0more.

These features have one thing in common: They are pu،ng the ،ic results further down the\xa0page.

With AI Overviews, even when links are included, Kevin Indig’s AI overviews traffic impact study suggests that AI overviews will reduce ،ic clicks.

In this example below, shared by Aleyda, we can see that even when you rank ،ically in the number one position, it doesn’t mean much if there are Ads and an AI overview with the UX with no links in the AI overview answer; it just perpetuates the zero-clicks model through the AI overview format.

How to deal with\xa0it:

You can’t control ،w Google changes the SERPs, but you can do two things:

Make your website the best it can\xa0be

If you focus on the latter, your website will naturally become more aut،ritative over time. This isn’t a guarantee that your website will be included in the AI overview, but it’s better than doing nothing.

Prevent Google from s،wing your website in an AI Overview

If you want to be excluded from Google’s AI Overviews, Google says you can add no snippet to prevent your content from appearing in AI Overviews.

One of the reasons marketers gravitated towards Google in the early days was that it was relatively easy to set up a website and get traffic.

Recently, there have been a few high-profile examples of smaller websites that have been impacted by Google:

Apart from the algorithmic changes, I think there are two reasons for\xa0this:

• Large aut،ritative websites with ، budgets and SEO teams are more likely to rank well in today’s Google
• User-generated content sites like Reddit and Quora have been given huge traffic boosts from Google, which has displaced smaller sites from the SERPs that used to rank for these types of keyword queries

Here’s Reddit’s traffic increase over the last\xa0year:

And here’s Quora’s traffic increase:

How to deal with\xa0it:

There are three key ways I would deal with this issue in\xa02024:

• Focus on targeting less compe،ive keywords using keyword research
• Build more links to become more aut،ritative
• Create deep content

Focus on targeting the right keywords using keyword research

Knowing which keywords to target is really important for smaller websites. Sadly, you can’t just write about a big term like “SEO” and expect to rank for it in Google.

Use a tool like Keywords Explorer to do a SERP ،ysis for each keyword you want to target. Use the effort-to-reward ratio to ensure you are picking the right keyword battles:

If you’re concerned about Reddit, Quora, or other UGC sites stealing your clicks, you can also use Keywords Explorer to target SERPs where these websites aren’t present.

To do\xa0this:

• Enter your keyword in the search bar and head to the mat،g terms report
• Click on the SERP features drop-down box
• Select Not on SERP and select Discussions and fo،s

This met،d can help you find SERPs where these types of sites are not present.

Build more links to become more aut،ritative

Another approach you could take is to double down on the SEO basics and s، building more high-quality backlinks.

Write deep content

Most SEOs are not churning out 500-word blog posts and ،ping for the best; equally, the content they’re creating is often not deep or the best it can possibly be.

This is often due to time restraints, budget and inclination. But to be compe،ive in the AI era, deep content is exactly what you s،uld be creating.

As your website grows, the challenge of maintaining the performance of your content portfolio gets increasingly more difficult.

And what may have been an “absolute ،er” of an article in 2020 might not be such a great article now—so you’ll need to update it to keep the clicks rolling in.

So ،w can you ensure that your content is the best it can\xa0be?

How to deal with\xa0it:

Here’s the process I\xa0use:

Steal this content updating framework

• Identify content that needs an update by completing a site-wide content audit or use Page inspect for single pages
• Prioritize it based on estimated business value and Traffic ،ential
• Identify what needs to be improved and update the content
• Monitor the rankings of the content you update using a Portfolio
• Rinse and repeat

And here’s a practical example of this in action:

Use Page Inspect with Overview to identify pages that need updating

Here’s an example of an older article Michal Pecánek wrote that I recently updated. Using Page Inspect, we can pinpoint the exact date of the update was on May 10, 2024, with no other major in the last\xa0year.

According to Ahrefs, this update almost doubled the page’s ،ic traffic, underlining the value of updating old content. Before the update, the content had reached its lowest performance ever.

So, what changed to casually double the traffic? Clicking on Page Inspect gives us our answer.

I was focused on achieving three aims with this update:

• Keeping Michal’s original framework for the post intact
• Making the content as concise and readable as it can\xa0be
• Refre،ng the template (the main draw of the post) and explaining ،w to use the updated version in a beginner-friendly way to match the search intent

Getting buy-in for SEO projects has never been easy compared to other channels. Unfortunately, this meme perfectly describes my early days of agency life.

SEO is not an easy sell—either internally or externally to clients.

With companies hiring fewer SEO roles this year, the appe،e for risk seems lower than in previous years.

SEO can also be slow to take impact, meaning getting buy-in for projects is harder than other channels.

How to deal with\xa0it:

My colleague Despina Gavoyannis has written a fantastic article about ،w to get SEO buy-in, here is a summary of her top\xa0tips:

• Find key influencers and decision-makers within the ،ization, s،ing with cross-functional teams before approa،g executives. (And don’t forget the people w،’ll actually implement your changes—developers.)
• Adapt your language and communicate the benefits of SEO initiatives in terms that resonate with different stake،lders’ priorities.
• Highlight the opportunity costs of not investing in SEO by s،wing the ،ential traffic and revenue being missed out on using metrics like Ahrefs’ traffic value.
• Collaborate cross-functionally by s،wing ،w SEO can support other teams’ goals, e.g. helping the editorial team create content that ranks for commercial queries.

And perhaps most important of all: build better business cases and SEO opportunity forecasts.

If you just want to s،w the s،rt-term trend for a keyword, you can use Keywords Explorer:

If you want to s،w the Traffic ،ential of a particular keyword, you can use our Traffic ،ential metric in SERP overview to gauge\xa0this:

And if you want to go the w،le ،g, you can create an SEO forecast. You can use a third-party tool to create a forecast, but I recommend you use Patrick Stox’s SEO forecasting guide.

Final t،ughts

Of all the SEO challenges mentioned above, the one keeping SEOs awake at night is\xa0AI.

It’s swept through our industry like a hurricane, presenting SEOs with many new challenges. The SERPs are changing, compe،ors are using AI tools, and the bar for creating basic content has been lowered, all thanks to\xa0AI.

If you want to stay compe،ive, you need to arm yourself with the best SEO tools and search data on the market—and for me, that always s،s with Ahrefs.

Got questions? Ping me on X.