How to Start SEO Fresh in 2024: Tips for Higher Rankings
2024 is here and provides us with another opportunity to reflect. Reflect on what the past year has been like, and what we want to achieve this year on a personal level, but also when it comes to our business goals.
While you are piecing together your marketing strategy for the upcoming year, don’t forget about SEO. It helps you get more (returning) visitors to your website and establish your brand as a trustworthy expert. So whether SEO is already part of your marketing strategy or not, read through these tips to start SEO fresh this year!
Why SEO is the way to go
As a quick refresher, let me explain what SEO is. SEO stands for search engine optimization, the art of optimizing your website for online searches. This means that working on your SEO can look quite different every day. From improving your page speed to writing helpful content for your audience, pretty much anything that influences a user’s experience with your website should be part of your SEO efforts. Or your presence in other (online) places, for that matter.
All of this determines what someone thinks about your brand and with it your services or products. It determines whether they trust you and will buy your stuff. It determines whether they’ll see your website in the search results, as Google will only show you if they feel that you are offering a good user experience on your website. SEO helps you win over search engines like Google, but more importantly, it helps you win over the hearts of your target audience.
Tip 1: Take some time to reflect
To go forward, it’s always good to take a moment and reflect on the past year. When it comes to SEO this means taking a look at what you’ve done that works. Or that didn’t quite work out as well as you would have liked. Are your most important (product) pages performing well enough? Which blog or social posts got you a lot of engagement? Or what campaign took you a lot of time that might not have been worth the investment?
Take some time to dive into the data and figure out what parts of your website could use some more love and what kind of content or campaigns work well for your brand. For your most important pages, it’s worth the effort to go into detail and identify possible improvements (contentwise, technical, or UI/design). But make sure to keep an eye on the bigger picture and figure out what learnings you can take from 2023. And don’t base it all on a feeling, there are tools like Analytics and Google Search Console out there that can help you figure out whether your hunches are correct. Make sure to use them!
Tip 2: Set yourself some goals
A new year calls for new goals. Setting a few overarching goals for your SEO strategy will help you figure out what to work on. It also allows you to measure success and ensure that your efforts are still aligned with your business objectives.
To set realistic goals for yourself or your team, look at how your website is currently performing (as you might have already done in the step mentioned above). This helps you identify areas for improvement and other opportunities you haven’t thought of yet. Throughout the year, make sure to set recurring moments to monitor your progress and adjust your goals based on data and changes in the industry.
To give a few examples of goals for an SEO strategy, you can aim to increase organic traffic, improve your overall rankings, and/or increase conversion. Try not to zoom in on specific pages and keywords too much, with the exemption of really important ones. This can cause you to lose sight of the bigger picture and it’s important that your strategy can evolve and be flexible if needed.
Tip 3: Refresh your keyword research
Any SEO strategy starts with keyword research. Regardless of whether you’ve already done this in the past, the start of the new year is a perfect time to do keyword research. People do not stand still, and their search behavior continuously changes. It also helps you keep an eye on competitors and important keywords emerging in your industry. By regularly refining your keyword strategy, you position your website to stay competitive and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of search.
Find out which search terms your audience is using when they search online. Use tools like Google Trends, Google Search Console, Analytics, Google Ads Keyword Planner, or even the Google search bar to find out what words people use and what questions they’re asking online. Use all of this input to create a list of relevant keywords or tweak your current keyword strategy. This list helps you decide what topics to write about and what questions to answer on your website. This gives you a lot of input to start filling your content calendar for the new year, while also making sure you’re creating content that will get you high up in the search results.
If keyword research is quite new to you, feel free to use our guide to keyword research to get a grasp on it.
Tip 4: Think bigger than the search bar
Not everyone opens an internet browser to do an online search. Especially the younger generation uses social media more and more as a search engine as well. Long gone are the days of just typing a keyword into the Google search bar and getting ten blue links to choose from. Even Google’s ecosystem has become much bigger and more diverse. They have different sections depending on your search intent (Shopping, Videos, News, etc.) and rich results to show you different types of information.
All of this shows the importance of creating different types of content. Of course, you can still write a great blog post about a topic close to your heart (or business). But consider creating videos on how to use a product or a social post that features your newest dish. Or start that podcast you’ve been considering for a while now to establish yourself as an expert in your field. You don’t have to do it all. But know that your audience is changing their search behavior. So find out where they are online, be there and provide them with what they are looking for.
Tip 5: Find your footing in AI
There’s no way around it, AI was a hot topic in 2023. And it will continue to be part of our world in 2024. It’s been embedded in a lot of online tools – SEO tools included. Which is a great help. It takes a lot of tedious, less creative work of our hands, especially if you learn to use prompts properly. Even Google changed their tone on how they handle AI-generated content to remove the stigmatization of using it to help write. That being said, AI should always be used mindfully.
It’s important to maintain a healthy balance between utilizing AI and your input. AI can help us a lot, but keep in mind that authenticity and trustworthiness are important for your audience and SEO. Don’t lose your unique point of view and always do a final edit. Check the tone of voice, check the facts, and rewrite whatever needs to be rewritten. This human element will be what gets you to the top of the search results.
Tip 6: Get started with Yoast SEO
If you are very new to SEO or looking for a tool to help you reach that next level, I would like to introduce you to Yoast SEO. This WordPress plugin helps you by handling a lot of the technical stuff for you and by giving you real-time feedback on your content while working on it. It doesn’t do everything for you, but it does give you clear input on what you can do to improve your pages.
We have free and premium versions of our plugin, so make sure to check it out. We’ve recently added an AI feature to Yoast SEO Premium that we’re quite excited about. It generates meta descriptions and titles for you, leaving you with more time to work on other things. Use Yoast SEO to get started with your SEO in 2024.
Let’s make 2024 your year!
Those are my tips to get your SEO to the next level this year. Reflect on what you’ve done in 2023, set realistic goals, do keyword research, think beyond the search bar, and embrace AI in a way that doesn’t hurt your marketing. All of this helps you create a great user experience for people who come into contact with you online. This keeps them coming back for more and it boosts your rankings in the search results. Good luck!
Camille Cunningham has a passion for SEO and copywriting. At Yoast, she works as a content specialist and enjoys writing content that helps other people master the art of SEO and succeed online.
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