SEO or search engine optimization is as relevant for business owners as it used to be some years ago. Over the past couple of years, SEO has changed comprehensively. Now it is not just limited to stuffing keywords as Google penalizes practices which are designed to manipulate search engines. There are a lot of benefits of SEO for business owners, right from increased leads to better brand awareness to improved conversion rates.

To improve the quality of search results, Google keeps changing its algorithms, and hence it is imperative upon website owners to stay on top of such changes and update their SEO techniques. The techniques that were effective a decade ago are no longer effective and hence it is important for business owners to change their strategies with time or run the high risk of being left behind their competitors. In this article, we’ll talk about the advanced SEO techniques that you must use for getting better rankings in 2024. Let’s get started

1. Work on Speed loading:-

Majority of internet users in today’s day and age are characterized by rapidly declining attention spans and very little patience. They wish to find out exactly what they want and in the minimum time possible. Your website should ideally load in less than three seconds because if it takes longer than that, then you are sure to experience high bounce rates. Further, high bounce rates have a detrimental impact on your Google rankings. You can use some tools to examine the current speed of your site. Such tools will also recommend the changes that you can make to improve your site speed. For a better result, you can always call in the experts and have them check and improve your loading speed.

2. Use the right keywords:-

The use of right keywords is still as important as it used to be a decade ago. You need to use keywords without breaking the natural flow of the content. If and when use keywords properly, you are sure to get a better ROI on your digital marketing efforts. To figure out the right keywords to target you can use tools like Google AdWords Keyword Planner to conduct keyword research. Such tools will provide you with search volumes and information about the keywords that are being targeted by your competitors.

3. Produce more videos:-

One way of getting better rankings in 2024 is by incorporating video content in your SEO strategy. The preferences of people have changed substantially over the past couple of years which has made video content more important than it ever was. All studies, surveys and statistics point to the rising importance of video content and for very valid reasons. Video content can easily capture a broader audience and it is very easy to tell stories through videos. In today’s day and age, you don’t really have to break the bank to produce professional videos as there are many useful tools available in the market.

4. Use Voice Search Ranking: –

You just can’t afford to miss voice search in 2024 because it is expected that by the end of the year around 50 % of all searches will be made via voice. You need to optimize your website for voice search because Google pays a lot of attention to voice search optimization. For voice search optimization you need to have a responsive website which works well on all kinds of devices. Make sure that images are optimized properly and the response time from the server is very low. The most important thing that you need to do is to write content in the way people speak. Your major focus should be on local search as most people using voice search are looking for local products and services. You also need to target long-tail keywords for a better ranking as voice search queries often have more words.

5. Internal Linking:-

You can use internal linking to lower your bounce rate which will keep your search engine ranking from plummeting. Through internal linking, you will also be able to create a better structure for your blog. You can follow the example of Wikipedia while interlinking your blogs. As soon as you are done writing an article, you must link it to other similar or relevant blogs on your website. This will encourage visitors to visit the blogs they find interesting and read them.

6. Mobile-responsiveness:-

It is very important that you have a mobile-responsive website in today’s day and age. It is because more people use their smart-phones and tablets for accessing the internet than they have ever done in the past and the numbers are all set to increase in the years to come. Your website should offer the same effortless experience on mobile phones as it does on desktops because of Google’s Mobile-first indexing update. Make sure that your website has an attractive design and is easily accessible on mobile phones. If you haven’t switched over to a responsive website yet, then it is high time that you do so. Create content which can be easily read over a smart-phone and use different tools to check the mobile-friendliness of your
website.

7. Include scheme microdata in your HTML code:-

The way search engines understand web content and index it has changed considerably in the past couple of years. In today’s day and age, Google has become much better in understanding queries of users and hence they are able to provide such relevant results. Many business owners don’t realize the importance of schema markup and structured data in transmitting information to crawlers and search engines quickly. Thus, it is important for you to include scheme microdata in your HTML code so that search engines can interpret the content of your pages more effectively.

The Bottom Line

SEO is crucial for every business to sustain and survive in today’s ruthlessly competitive marketplace. With SEO, you can not only improve your rankings but also improve your conversions. Apart from that it is also one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your brand. To get the best results, you need to keep up with the latest SEO techniques and you can consider some of the techniques that have been aforementioned.

SEO can also help in managing your reputation by ranking positive content higher on search engine result pages (SERPs) and pushing down negative content. If SEO alone isn’t able to relegate negative content to the second or third page of search results, then it’s time to call in the experts and hire ORM services of an online reputation management agency