5 Tips to Improve Your Search Engine Optimisation In 2024
. . . . . . . . . . . .
29-11-2023
Mastering the art of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is crucial for businesses aiming to enhance their online visibility. In this blog, we highlight the foundations of effective, best-practice SEO and offer five actionable tips to help you build a winning SEO strategy in 2024.
Good SEO doesn’t have to be expensive – but it does take a commitment to doing things right. Forget about spending money on specialist ‘link-builders’ who guarantee you a top 3 Google ranking, and forget optimisers who recommend you repeat keywords and phrases as many times as possible in your web text.
Good search engine optimisers will want to build your ranking in a sustainable way and will recommend best practices, as opposed to ways of cheating the system. If you cheat, you run the risk of being de-ranked overnight, even blacklisted.
1. Impactful, Relevant Content
With a mass of content out there, writing clear and relevant copy that engages and attracts your target audience is crucial.
Write for your audience: Consider the keywords and phrases your target audience may be searching for. Ensure these are included in your copy. Avoid ‘keyword-stuffing’ as web copy written specifically for search engines looks cheap and is not visitor-friendly. Write for humans!
Keyword planning: Use keyword tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, or SEM Rush to find out what your target audience is searching for and try to include some of these terms. Remember, it’s just as important to know what you DON’T want them to search for, as much as you do. It’s okay to have a unique way of describing your products or services, but make sure people can find you online by using terms an average person might search for in your copy.
Solutions-focused content: Go beyond just using relevant keywords and terms. Develop highly relevant content centred around the pain points your customers experience. Address these with solutions-focused ideas. Where relevant, you could mention your products or services that may help them.
2. Revisit & Refresh Old Content
Frequently check and update old content on your website, changing the publication date to make it current. This shows search engines you’re providing up-to-date content and enhances the user experience.
It’s especially important in blogs or news pages, which can quickly become out of date and appear irrelevant, or where content is viewed often. This is not just for the benefit of search engines. Your users don’t want to read out-of-date, irrelevant copy either. Get reviewing your site content today!
3. Technical Tricks for Search Engine Optimisation
The following best practice website tricks can help to lay strong foundations that result in more effective SEO.
User experience: Your website should offer a seamless and intuitive user experience. This is not only beneficial for site visitors but will also positively influence how your site is perceived by search engines.
Mobile first: Whether developing a new website or evolving an existing site, try to aim for a mobile-first approach, ensuring all components of your site’s design and architecture work seamlessly on mobile and handheld devices, as well as on desktops.
Clean and optimised: Optimise site speeds, ensure website code is clean and tidy, and develop an organised site architecture based on an understanding of your different customer personas and their likely routes through the website.
Title tags & alt tags: Ensure your website’s title tags – that’s the bit at the very top of your web page – make sense, are unique, and are the right length. Search engines rate these tags, and they are often displayed in the search engine results pages. They should contain the relevant keywords for your page content and be no more than 50 or 60 characters long. Maintain good meta descriptions for each page without duplicating. And don’t forget to use alt tags too. These are the tags that define your images and are a valuable tool for including relevant keywords.
4. The Power of Backlinks for SEO Success
Use relevant links: Backlinking is sometimes regarded as a bit of a shady business, and it can be when executed in a disingenuous way (quantity over quality). Done well, it can testify to a site’s credibility and authority.
Seek authentic connections: Build relationships with credible partners for quality cross-linking where there is real benefit to all parties involved. Add links to partner organisations, customers, professional bodies, etc. (without overdoing it) and encourage them to link to your site in return. Good quality blog articles encourage readers to want to link to them. Always reference industry bodies’ sources of information with a relevant link.
Shareable content: Ensure content such as blogs, white papers, product guides, videos, etc., are shareable. Adding buttons for readers to ‘like’ or ‘share with friends’ will help increase the reach of your articles, which, in turn, will increase the probability of linking. This is a great way to acquire valuable backlinks that boost your site’s authority on search engines.
5. Data-Driven Decisions to Improve Search Engine Optimisation
Tools like Google Analytics can help you understand the effectiveness of your SEO strategy. Regularly look at insights such as user interactions, website traffic, and other key performance indicators relevant to your clients to adapt SEO strategies accordingly.
SEO works best when approached holistically, integrating mobile optimisation, highly relevant keywords and content, technically robust SEO elements, mindful backlinking, and constant evolution through data-driven decision-making.
This blog isn’t a silver bullet, but we hope it gives some common-sense guidelines you can follow in the web and marketing content you create. If in doubt, get in touch and we can assist with both your SEO strategy and implementation.