Top 9 SEO Practices in 2024

Contents

SEO best practices in 2024 are tried-and-tested tactics for improving a website or brand’s visibility in search engine results pages. Without paying for ads.

Following these best practices can help you improve brand awareness. And get more organic traffic (unpaid clicks) from search engines like Google. Let’s dive into the top SEO strategies for 2024 that can help you stay ahead of the curve.

Let’s introduce our expert who responded to the invitation to talk about TOP SEO trends.

Ramazan Mindubaev

Head of SEO at JetTRINET. One of the top SEO specialists according to the SerpStat rating. Ramazan regularly organizes SEO conferences. Author of the book “The Bright Side of Website Promotion”.

1. AI Content Creation

AI is becoming a key part of SEO. If you need to change or rephrase your content, you can turn it into a new script or use an AI tool to adjust your existing content.

This powerful tool can help you improve your website and content for both users and search engines, leading to better rankings and results.

It can assist in numerous SEO tasks, including keyword research, content creation, content optimization, and many more.

Here are the top AI tools that SEO agencies use for achieving better results in 2024.

ChatGPT

Key Features: ChatGPT is recognized as one of the largest and most powerful language-processing AI models today, boasting 175 billion parameters. Its large number of parameters enables it to process complex language tasks with great accuracy and efficiency.

Cost:

ChatGPT-3.5 is free and easy to sign up for and use.
ChatGPT-4, a more advanced version, is available for paid subscribers at $20/£16 per month.

Pros:

Significantly saves time, particularly beneficial for SEO tasks.
Produces thorough and contextually appropriate responses.
ChatGPT excels in conducting thorough keyword research.
With GPT-4, you can tailor interactions to create a personalized user experience that meets your specific needs.

Cons:

ChatGPT may struggle with complex or specialized questions due to its limited domain knowledge.
Generated content can be identified by AI checkers.
While generally accurate, ChatGPT is not flawless and may occasionally provide incorrect information.

Midjourney

Key Features: Midjourney is well-known for its precise image generation from text prompts, making it a favored option among AI-based image tools. It excels in effectively visualizing a wide range of concepts—you can bring any idea to life with ease.

Pros:

User-friendly interface—simply input text prompts to generate images effortlessly.
Consistently delivers precise results with high-quality visuals.

Cons:

No free trial is available; subscription costs range from $10 to $120 per month.
Generated images are shared among users, limiting privacy for proprietary designs.
Exclusive availability through the Discord platform.

Surfer SEO

Key Features: Surfer SEO is a cloud-based platform designed to assist in planning, writing, and optimizing SEO content such as blog posts and website pages.

Pros:

The Content Editor feature stands out as one of Surfer SEO’s most powerful tools, analyzing your content and recommending improvements based on algorithmic requirements.
The AI Outline Generator simplifies content organization by providing a clear and structured outline, making it easier to plan and structure your SEO content effectively.

Cons:

Surfer SEO’s pricing may be higher compared to some competitors, which could be a consideration for budget-conscious users.

Frase.io

Key Features: Frase is an AI-powered content tool designed to enhance SEO and content creation processes by enabling faster research, writing, and optimization of SEO content.

Pros:

Frase provides precise guidance on keyword usage and tracks used keywords within your content.
It supports creating multiple pages in a single document, allowing separate sections for research and writing, with the option to add additional pages.

Cons:

Frase does not grant users a trial period.
Access to unlimited use of Frase’s AI writer requires purchasing the Frase SEO add-on.

AI-powered tools streamline time-consuming SEO tasks, allowing for smarter workflows and resulting in more engaging and unique content creation.

2. Quality and Expert Content

Google is working to reduce spammy content that’s created just to influence rankings. Instead of penalizing AI-generated texts, Google emphasizes the importance of content that genuinely benefits users. For more details on the latest Google update, visit the Google Blog.

In 2024, the key is to prioritize quality over quantity. Here’s how to create content that meets these standards:

Comprehensive and Expert Content: Create thorough content that covers topics your audience finds interesting. This includes industry insights and data sheets to help them with their challenges.
Creating a Blog: Writing content is the key for SEO and marketing strategy. It enables you to share valuable information with your audience at no cost, attract potential customers to your site, and maintain engagement with existing customers effectively.
Regular Updates: Ensure your content stays fresh. Regularly update old posts to keep them valuable and engaging for your audience. This helps maintain your site’s credibility and improves SEO.
Content Compilation: Don’t just optimize your website—use tools to create and compile articles effectively. For example, Frase.io can speed up content generation by providing AI-driven insights and suggestions.

Here’s how Frase.io can help:

Research Assistance: Quickly gather relevant information and data for your articles.
AI-Powered Writing: Generate high-quality content drafts with AI-driven writing suggestions.
Keyword Optimization: Ensure your content is SEO-friendly by incorporating the right keywords.
Content Structuring: Use the AI Outline Generator to create well-organized content structures.
Content Analysis: Get recommendations for improving your content based on algorithmic requirements.

By utilizing these features, you can streamline your content creation process and enhance your website’s overall quality and relevance.

Engaging Formats: Try different content formats like videos, and podcasts to keep your target audience interested. Mixing up your content makes it more exciting and caters to different preferences.
Creating Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Pages: FAQ pages help answer your customers’ most common questions clearly and concisely. They also assist search engines in understanding the focus and content of your website, improving overall visibility and user experience.

3. SERM: Working with Reputation

Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) is a tool used by websites and businesses to maintain a positive image on search engines and effectively manage reputation issues as they occur.

Here are some examples:

Google Maps

Google Maps can boost your visibility and help you engage more local customers.

An example of working with reputation

Reviews

Reviews about a company enhance its credibility with users, making the business more reputable and positively impacting its SEO ranking on Google.

Review sites. This is where you can gather feedback from users, address buyer concerns, and actively build your brand’s reputation.

An example of working with reputation – https://www.trustpilot.com/

Resources with ratings and selections on a variety of topics. It’s essential not just to receive ratings, but also to achieve high rankings and excel over competitors. This also helps drive traffic quickly and improve your website’s search engine ranking.

An example of posting links: https://www.ranker.com/list/best-gyms/ranker-travel

There are other effective PR tools. The key in their use is “not to harm.” Even minor issues can impact a website or brand’s reputation negatively, and the elimination of mistakes will be challenging, requiring a significant amount of time, effort, or resources to address or resolve.
Employment websites. These platforms help boost a company’s public image and elevate its status in the eyes of potential clients and search engines. The company transforms into a trusted source of information, not just a business entity.

An example of posting information on an employment website: https://www.indeed.com/

4. E-E-A-T and YMYL

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) and YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) aren’t just buzzwords; they’re standards Google uses to evaluate the quality and reliability of your content, particularly in critical areas such as health, safety, financial stability, or happiness.

In 2024, ensure your content is supported by experts, clearly credited to its author, and meets Google’s trust standards for both users and the platform.

Improve E-E-A-T and YMYL

Fortunately, It’s not necessary to completely redo your SEO approach to boost your E-E-A-T and consider YMYL factors.

Here are five practical steps:

1. High-Quality Content

You should offer content that prioritizes the reader. This means addressing questions, providing helpful tips, and ensuring the reader finds it fulfilling.

Search engine’s latest guidelines emphasize:

Authentic
Useful to Audience
Authored by humans, for humans

2. Author Information and Transparent Disclosure

Search engine values content credibility, so it’s crucial to show that the content creator is a trustworthy provider.

Ensure to feature a “Meet Our Team section” to spotlight different content creators.

Their profiles promote clear disclosure and E-E-A-T highlighting expertise and previous work.

Website: https://www.webmd.com/

3. Utilize Credible Resources

Ensure reliable resources are consulted when crafting content.

Consistently connect to recognized references, publications, academic studies, etc.. This could include posts on Twitter and blogs written by specialists in your industry.

It’s also wise to utilize reputable preferences. These might differ by industry but can encompass repositories, news outlets, or reputable experts’ and organizations’ websites.

4. Build a Strong Brand Image

Your image significantly affects how trustworthy your website as a whole.

Therefore, managing your reputation on the internet is vital for Google E-E-A-T SEO.

Keep an eye on negative feedback or publicity. If problems arise, handle them quickly and with professionalism.

5. Backlinks

Boost your site’s credibility by getting links from well-known sources.

These links serve as endorsements from experts, validating the credibility and value of your content.

When reputable websites link to your pages, it signals to both users and search engines that your information is trustworthy and relevant within your industry.

How can I improve E-E-A-T and YMYL

What steps can you take to ensure that both visitors and search engines trust and respect your authority?Here are some practical suggestions:

Contact Information: Make sure to include your phone number, email address, social media pages, and business location (if applicable) on your website. This shows that your company is real and trusted by customers.
Portfolio: Showcase the clients who already trust you. Display your past projects to demonstrate your experience and success in delivering quality work. Let your achievements speak for themselves!
Case Studies: Highlight specific projects where you’ve solved problems or achieved outstanding results. This showcases your expertise and reassures potential clients that you can handle their unique challenges too.
Team Members: Introduce your amazing team to highlight the skills and capabilities of your company. Sharing team bios and qualifications helps build trust and shows potential clients the talented professionals behind your brand.
Social Media: Link to your active social media profiles. Engaging on these platforms helps build a vibrant community and shows that you’re accessible and responsive. Connect with your audience where they are!
Videos: Create and share engaging videos that explain your services, give behind-the-scenes looks at your work, or provide helpful tips. Videos are a powerful way to connect with your audience and showcase your expertise in a dynamic way.
Customer Reviews: Include positive testimonials and reviews from happy clients. These endorsements build credibility and can inspire new clients to trust and choose your services with confidence.

5. SILO Structure

Silo structure in SEO is a website organization method where you group, separate, and link content based on specific topics. It is used for better positioning of pages in relation to user requests.

Here’s what SEO silos typically look like:

site: https://ahrefs.com/blog/seo-silo-structure/

Before the implementation of the SILO structure, the site looks like a chaotic accumulation of various pages.

Such content groups help you cover all topics and queries relevant to your site (main topic, main keyword), breaking them down into smaller and smaller categories (pages, articles, posts). It also allows Google’s algorithm to understand what your site is about, what sections it has (content groups), and how its hierarchy is structured.

PageRank

PageRank (PR) is how Google rates a page’s importance, based on the number and quality of links leading to web pages.

Developing strong internal linking is essential for both SEO and providing a user experience. Here are some strategies to help you excel in this aspect:

Pyramid site structure

Pyramid structure puts your most important content at the top, followed by your second most important content, your third most important content, etc.

site: https://ahrefs.com/blog/seo-silo-structure/

Thus, each page acts as a “hub” and contains links to related pages. This approach helps create thematic clusters—groups of closely related documents.

Advantages of this approach:

Intuitive navigation for users.
It is easier for crawlers to understand the structure of your site and crawl your pages.

Create hubs for blog content

Blog content typically suffers from a lack of hierarchy. Pros of creating content hubs:

Content hubs show search algorithms that a site specializes in a particular topic, emphasizes its authority and speeds up indexing;
Content hubs are also useful for visitors. They can get all the necessary information in one place and quickly find an answer to their query. Simplifying the experience can reduce bounce rates;
And one more plus: if you collect all the content on a topic in one place, you can immediately see which keywords have not yet been covered. It’s easier to close the gaps and get into SERP for more queries.ё

Make sure important content isn’t too deep

Ensure that key content is not too deep and easily accessible within your website’s structure. As long as your content is internally linked, Google will be able to find and index it.

How to Visualize a Site’s Structure

Screaming Frog – Force-Directed Crawl Diagrams
The force-directed crawl diagram and 3D force-directed crawl diagram are like a map, with the start URL represented by the darkest green, largest node (the circles) in the middle.

By implementing an internal linking strategy, you’re not just boosting your SEO; you’re creating a web of resources that will keep your target audience of business professionals and marketers engaged.

6. Get High-Quality Backlinks: Tips

Securing high-quality backlinks is crucial for successful SEO. Backlinks signal search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. Here are some methods:

Create Link-Worthy Content: Begin with creating content others want to link to. Make comprehensive guides, insightful tutorials, or compelling case studies. High-quality content naturally draws backlinks.
Outreach: this method involves collaborating with website or blog owners to secure link placements. This approach enables you to obtain links from authoritative sources, such as informational websites that rank highly for targeted search queries.
Dropped domains: “Drops” refer to domains previously utilized by businesses for promotion, often containing existing backlinks. When these companies cease operations, these domains become available once more. By reactivating these websites and their associated URLs, one can incorporate links to their own promoted resources. This method allows for acquiring links to your website with a relatively modest budget.
Crowd Marketing: Participate in various events and actively respond to users’ messages and comments on social media and forums. Ensure your responses are relevant and thoughtful, and showcase your expertise, providing value and addressing questions.
Local Partnerships: If you’re a local business, collaborate with other local businesses or organizations for link exchanges. It’s a great way to build community ties and enhance your SEO simultaneously.
Question-and-Answer Platforms: Comments are effective across various platforms, including forums, social networks, and blogs, even those not affiliated with the company. It’s crucial to understand that, as in previous instances, simply leaving a link isn’t sufficient; it’s essential to offer genuine value to the reader.
Submission Sites: These are the websites where you can freely or optionally pay to add a link to your site, share contact information, and draw in fresh visitors. Examples of such submission sites include directories, lists, compilations, and business listings.

Link building is necessary for external SEO. The most effective approach involves utilizing a combination of strategies to acquire a robust package of inbound links, thereby enhancing your website and improving its rankings. Other benefits of employing proper link-building strategies include:

increase in organic traffic and enhancement of visitor loyalty;
gradual and consistent enhancement of your website’s search engine ranking for specific queries;
amplification of brand visibility across social media platforms, in addition to your website, accounts, and communities;
expansion of audience reach, leading to increased page conversions and sales, particularly for companies involved in manufacturing and/or service provision;
amplified brand mentions across various sources, resulting in a natural uptick in inbound links;
safe promotion.

Implementing any link-building strategy typically doesn’t yield immediate tangible results. It often requires weeks or even months to achieve the desired impact. However, it’s important not to become complacent with initial progress but instead to continuously develop a well-defined promotion strategy and progress consistently in the chosen direction. A comprehensive and meticulously planned approach is key to success in this venture.

7. Essential Technical SEO Audit

Crawlability

No matter how good your content is, it won’t achieve higher rankings if search engines can’t crawl it properly. Crawling issues often stem from errors, broken links, and incorrect redirects.

To ensure that crawlers have efficient access to your site, adhere to these essential guidelines:

Make sure each URL returns with a 200 OK without errors.
Correctly set canonical URLs.
Ensure all URLs are fully indexable.
Confirm that there are no errors in the linked URLs.
Examine if your pages’ display are exact and the speed is optimal.
Verify whether the XML sitemap’s entries are accurately specified and open smoothly.
Guarantee that all redirects function correctly without any issues.

Indexability

Allowing search engines to crawl your site is the first step. However, it’s all for nothing if their indexing isn’t adequate enough.

Make sure your content is readily indexable by dealing with these common issues:

fix any client-side errors (4xx)
resolve server-side errors (5xx) that may have occurred from previous downtimes
ensure the server permits access to every URL
correct any misuse of nofollow tags
avoid using JavaScript for site navigation; stick with CSS for better indexability

8. Mobile-Friendly User Experiences

Mobile optimization involves fast loading times, easy navigation, and content that adjusts seamlessly to various screen sizes. Doing this strategy enables you to deliver an excellent viewing and interaction experience, ensuring users can access your content effortlessly on any device. This approach promotes increased engagement and conversion rates.

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are page experience signals that measure the UX for your site by looking at 3 main things:

the website’s loading speed;
stability;
interactiveness and responsiveness.

By optimizing for Core Web Vitals, you’re not just pleasing search engines—you’re creating a better experience for your visitors.

Largest Contentful paint (LCP)

LCP measures how long it takes for the largest content element on the page to load, such as an image, video, or text block.

This reflects how quickly the user can see the main content of the page, and how long they have to wait before they can interact with it.

A good LCP score is 2.5 seconds or less. To improve your LCP score, you can:

Use a fast and reliable web hosting service.
Optimize your images and videos, and use responsive formats.
Minify and compress your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files.

First Input Delay (FID)

FID measures how long it takes for the browser to respond to the first user interaction on the page, such as clicking a button, entering a text, or opening a menu.

This reflects how responsive and interactive the page is, and how quickly the user can perform a task or action.

A good FID score is 100 milliseconds or less. To improve your FID score, you can:

Reduce the amount and size of JavaScript code on your page, and split it into smaller chunks.
Use a web worker to run JavaScript code in the background, without blocking the main thread.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS measures how much the layout of the page shifts or moves during the loading process, due to changes in the size or position of the content elements, such as images, ads, fonts, or widgets.

This reflects how stable and consistent the page is, and how comfortable the user feels while viewing it. A high CLS score can cause frustration and confusion for the user, and lead to accidental clicks or errors.

A good CLS score is 0.1 or less. To improve your CLS score, you can:

Use fixed dimensions for your images and videos, and avoid using dynamic or responsive sizes.
Reserve enough space for your ads and embeds, and avoid inserting them above the existing content.

9. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Conversion rate optimization is necessary for marketing success. You can make the most of your existing traffic and turn more visitors into customers by improving your conversion rates. So embrace the trend, and get ready to equip yourself with the necessary CRO tools to leverage its benefits effectively.

Create text-based CTAs within blog posts

Banner blindness is a real phenomenon related to people becoming accustomed to ignoring banner-like information on websites. Since site visitors often “snack” on content rather than reading to the bottom of a blog post, a different approach is required.

Integrate text-based calls to action (CTAs) within your blog posts to capture attention and encourage engagement without relying on traditional banners.

Add messages to high-converting web pages.

Use live chat software to chat with your website visitors in real-time and offer support and guidance as needed.

To increase conversions, add these messaging features to your high-performing web pages — such as your pricing and product pages. This real-time interaction can provide leads with the information they want, right when they need it, helping to drive conversions.

Run tests on your landing pages

Landing pages are an essential part of the modern marketer’s toolkit and, as mentioned earlier, integral to conversion rate optimization.

That’s because a landing page is where a website visitor becomes a lead or an existing lead engages more deeply with your brand. To optimize a landing page, run A/B tests to identify your best design and content features for your audience.

Looking for a way to improve your conversion rate? There are websites offering services that can assist you.

In the article you will find the best customer support solutions for small businesses – Usedesk.

With features like:

multichannel support;
live chat;
a comprehensive knowledge base

Don’t hesitate to take advantage of Usedesk’s services to boost your conversion rates and optimize your online presence.

Takeaway

And that’s a wrap! The tips above are proven to drive up your organic traffic and improve your SEO strategy for 2024.

Remember, every strategy takes time to show results, and various factors influence how quickly you’ll see improvements. While implementing just one tip might not make a huge impact, using a combination of these strategies will significantly enhance your SEO performance.

Top 9 SEO Practices in 2024