Pillars of an Effective SEO Strategy for 2024
Search engine optimization (SEO) has come a long way since the 2010s when keyword stuffing and link farms ruled the roost. Back then, it was all about outsmarting algorithms with tricks and hacks – but that won’t cut it anymore.
Fast forward to 2024. It’s no longer a game of cat and mouse. Instead, effective SEO strategies are more about quality content, user experience, and mobile optimization. Google’s search engine algorithms have become smarter, focusing on intent and relevance.
Just this year, Google introduced some big updates to its algorithm. They reduced unhelpful content by 45% and significantly boosted AI integration to make searches more effective.
The question is: how does this affect your business, and what can you do about it?
At Wahha Design, we get how frustrating it can be to keep up with Google’s ever-changing algorithm. If you’re running a small to mid-sized business, you may not have the resources, time, and skill to stay afloat in the complex world of SEO.
That’s why we’ve put together this blog post of 9 tips for a successful SEO strategy in 2024. These are tips designed to help North Carolina businesses like yours rank better, build credibility, and establish a lasting presence with top search engines.
Let’s take a look.
1. Keyword Research and Optimization
Conducting keyword research has long been the key to successful search engine optimization. It ensures your content matches what people are searching for so your audience is more likely to find you.
For any SEO strategy in 2024, keyword research is now more about a user’s search intent – not just hitting the right words. Google prioritizes content that provides clear, valuable answers to user queries.
Example: if you run a Charoltte nursing home, and you don’t just want to rank for “North Carolina nursing home” in Google searches. You also want to appear in search results for queries like “How can I afford quality senior care?” and “Finding long-term elder care” etc.
If you’re not sure how to begin identyfing the right keyword phrases and queries, tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Google’s Keyword Planner can help. These tools can pinpoint target keywords with high search volume. They can also identify ones with less competition including long-tail keywords, which are easier to rank.
We use these tools frequently at our agency to support businesses throughout North Carolina. Although they are available to everyone, they do take some skill, time, and experience to maximize their value.
Remember: don’t just cram in as many keywords as you can. This is known as keyword stuffing, and it’ll harm your overall SEO. Instead, focus on placing them naturally in titles, headings, and throughout your content.
2. Creating High-Quality Content
You might be creating content for your NC business already, but is it quality content?
With the rise of AI-generated content, quality matters more than ever for SEO strategies. Web pages with truly helpful and original content help you build authority in your industry, as well as trust from your target audience.
Think about it this way: if every plumber in the state can use AI to create blog posts, web pages, and other content, you need to step up your game in order to outperform them.
To get started, research your audience’s interests. You can do this by using the keyword tools mentioned above, conducting surveys, or paying attention to sentiments shared on social media.
The bottom line is that quality content requires getting to know your audience. Use this data to craft content that speaks directly to their interests and pain points, while also integrating your unique industry knowledge. This will set you apart from other SMBs using auto-generated AI fluff.
Bonus Tip: Produce Diverse Content
It’s not just about how much high-quality content you business produces – it’s about the variety. For example, blogs are ideal for in-depth articles and updates, while videos can quickly communicate key messages or showcase your services.
Each form of content serves a different purpose, which means that when you diversify, you can hit more targets at once. Don’t restrict your company’s marketing to one medium, or your risk minimizing your presence across different kinds of searches and platforms.
3. Technical SEO Strategy
Technical SEO is the process of refining a website’s technical features to enhance its performance and visibility in search engine results. Think of this as the “behind the scenes” stuff. It involves fine-tuning the backend of your website to ensure that search engine bots can crawl and index your content.
While your content management system (CMS) handles much of your technical SEO, it’s still crucial to check for areas of improvement. Even the best content won’t rank if search engines can’t access or understand it.
Key Aspects of Technical SEO
Here are some of the main technical SEO elements:
- Site Speed: A faster site is also favored by search engines, which can help improve your rankings.
- Mobile-Friendliness: An increasing number of users are accessing the web via mobile devices, so your site needs to be optimized for mobile.
- Crawlability: Make sure search engines can explore your site without any obstacles (for example, a “robots.txt” file).
- Structured Data: Implementing structured data helps search engines understand your content better, which can lead to your site being featured in search results.
How to Improve Your Site’s Technical SEO
For technical SEO analysis and improvements, tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, Google Search Console, and Screaming Frog SEO Spider make a world of difference. They identify issues and suggest fixes—so you don’t have to do it manually.
However, these tools can highlight problems and provide recommendations, but they can’t handle more complex aspects of technical SEO.
For best results, consider hiring an SEO agency like ours. We develop and apply technical SEO strategies that align perfectly with your business goals, ensuring we’re accouting for industry-specific requirements and regional preferences..
4. User Experience (UX)
We’ve all visited a website and quickly left because we had a poor experience.
A subpar user experience can turn visitors off and hurt your search engine rankings, causing your brand to miss out on valuable revenue and customers. Even small details can send people running for the hills!
Google and other trusted search platforms don’t want to prioritize sites that users dislike. Therefore, if people aren’t enjoying their time on your website and leave quickly, search engines will view the exit and bounce rates as big red flags.
For instance, when a website’s call-to-action buttons are hard to find, they will naturally get less engagement. In turn, this can lead to a low conversion rate, signaling to search engines that your site isn’t useful for visitors and shouldn’t be ranked highly.
To improve UX, it’s best to focus on making your website’s layout clean and easy to navigate. Ensure that your pages load quickly, as slow speeds can frustrate users and increase bounce rates.
It’s also essential to use clear and concise language throughout your site. This enhances readability by not overwhelming users with too much information.
All in all, your website should offer value and enjoyable experience to human and search engine visitors alike. If it doesn’t, your SMB likely isn’t going to maintain a strong SEO presence.
5. Link Building and Authority
If another website uses a link from yours, it’s called a backlink. Backlinks signal to search engines that other websites find your content valuable.
When this happens, it acts as a vote of confidence and raises your overall domain authority (aka website credibility score). Moreover, building a collection of reputable backlinks, known as link building, can significantly boost your authority. It’s a clear signal to Google that your website is reliable and trustworthy.
In a way, think of link building as an endorsement opportunity. It’s great to build connections with other businesses or credible resources in your location or industry.
Strategies for Getting Backlinks
To acquire high-quality backlinks for your website, here are a few strategies we recommend:
- Guest Blogging: Write guest posts for reputable blogs in your industry, including inbound links back to your website.
- Content Marketing: Create shareable content such as infographics, videos, and blog posts that others are likely to link to. This content should be relevant, informative, and offer unique insights.
- Outreach and Networking: Send personalized messages to build relationships with influencers, bloggers, and industry experts who may share your content.
- Resource Pages: Seek out resource pages in your niche that list valuable content or tools. If your content fits, request to be included on these pages.
The Importance of Domain Authority
With a high domain authority (DA) score, your website is seen as more authoritative and trustworthy. As a result, you’ll have better rankings in search engine results.
Google wants to put credible, industry-leading links at the top of their search results. If you want to rank on that first page, you need to build your authority, carefully and consistently (regardless of what kind of business you run).
Keep in mind that domain authority is built over time through consistent, quality link-building efforts. Focus on acquiring backlinks from authoritative sources, rather than simply collecting as many as you can from random places.
6. Local SEO
For brick-and-mortar stores or service-based North Carolina businesses that rely on the surrounding area, local SEO is vital. Local SEO is about improving your online visibility so that people in your local area can find your business when they search for related products or services.
Mastering your local SEO strategy means an increase in foot traffic, more phone calls, and higher rankings in organic search results. It also carves out a place for your business in its respective market.
Strategies to Improve Local SEO
Google My Business (GMB)
Enhancing your local SEO should start with optimizing your Google My Business profile.
First, make sure your listing is fully detailed with accurate information. This includes your business name, address, phone number, and operating hours.
Beyond the basics, keep your GMB profile active by regularly posting updates, adding new photos of your products or services, and responding to customer reviews.
Local Citations
Local citations refer to when your business is mentioned on other websites, like directories and review platforms.
This includes, for example, a Yelp listing. Most listings include details such as the business name, address, and phone number. They may have additional information like hours of operation, website, and customer reviews.
To boost your local search visibility, make sure your business details are consistent across all citations. This uniformity helps search engines verify your business’s authenticity and location.
7. Mobile Optimization
You’ll notice that certain websites render and function perfectly on any size device, which is all thanks to seamless mobile optimization. Since most people will find your website on mobile, making sure it operates smoothly should be a top priority.
Moreover, Google now uses mobile-first indexing. This means that they use the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking pages in search results instead of the desktop version. It’s not just about what the people want – it’s about what search engines want.
In summary, it doesn’t matter if you run an NC restaurant or bank: whatever industry you’re in, people are going to visit your website from portable devices – so make sure your site is completely mobile-friendly.
Best Practices and Tools for Mobile Optimization
Mobile SEO starts by implementing responsive design so your site automatically adjusts to various screen sizes and orientations. You should also simplify navigation with clear, clickable elements and avoid complex menus.
Navigating mobile optimization can be tricky. For the best results, work with a professional website designer who has experience in this area. A professional will streamline the optimization process, saving you time and ensuring your site meets all mobile-friendly requirements.
8. Analytics and Reporting
Keeping up with core web vitals, like organic traffic, bounce rates, and conversion rates, provides insight into how users are interacting with your site.
Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console help you analyze user behavior and traffic sources, as well as offer data on how your site appears in search results. Additionally, using tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs can provide deeper insights into keyword rankings, backlink profiles, and competitor analysis.
Using these tools, you can generate reports that highlight areas for improvement and strengths, refining your SEO strategies.
If you think that sounds like a headache coming on, don’t worry: you’re not alone. That’s why countless businesses outsource this part of their online business to the pros (like us!).
Outsourcing to SEO professionals is the best way to stay on top of your data analysis and identify your search engine pain points. Our job isn’t just to maintain your SEO strategies – it’s to continually assess your analytics, generate reports, and find opportunities for improvement.
9. Voice Search Optimization
Last but certainly not least, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that voice search is a rapidly growing trend.
An increasing number of users rely on voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant to search for things. Statista has projected that the speech recognition industry will reach a whopping $19.57 billion by 2030.
Note that voice search queries often differ from traditional text searches in length and structure. Focus on using conversational language that matches how people speak naturally. You should also optimize for question-based queries, as many voice searches are framed as questions.
Example: instead of trying to rank for “hair salon near me,” you may want to try targeting more natural voice queries such as “Where can I get my hair cut today?”
To find the right voice-search phrases to target, you can use tools like AnswerThePublic and Google’s Keyword Planner. These can identify queries and long-tail keywords relevant to your content. Long-tail keywords tend to align with the conversational nature of voice searches, helping your content rank higher for more detailed queries.
The Wrap-Up: Let’s Modernize Your SEO Strategy
As a recap, we’ve explored SEO strategy for 2024, from the shift towards quality content and user experience to the necessity of mobile optimization. Keeping up with these SEO changes is essential to climb Google’s search engine results pages (and stay on top).
At Wahha Design, we’ve worked with countless North Carolina SMBs – and we understand your challenges. If you don’t have the staff, skill, or resources to compete in search engine results, don’t worry: that’s what we’re here to help with.
Chat With Our SEO Team & Marketing Consultants
Wahha Design is a digital marketing agency determined to make results-driven SEO accessible to businesses throughout North Carolina (and beyond). Our focus is on delivering tailored, strategic services that will help your business thrive, serving as an extended branch of your business’s team.
That means doing the heavy lifting for you, so your team can focus on other things – like growing your revenue streams and keeping customers happy!
We also offer marketing consulting services, so if you’re just looking for a third opinion or some extra guidance in your marketing efforts, get in touch.
Set up a discovery call today. We’d love to discuss how we can get your website ranking better and draw in more customers.