How to do SEO in 2024 – the Ultimate Guide [Beginner Friendly]

by ana k.
January 13, 2024

As a (small) business owner or marketer, you know that having a strong online presence is crucial for success in today’s (crazy, too-saturated 🫣) digital world. And at the heart of a successful online presence is search engine optimization (SEO). How to do SEO in 2024? 👇

I am sure that you already know that the goal is to get Google and other search engines to list your website on their first page, preferably at the top of the results.That sounds really nice, but it is easier said than done.

Hey, but I am sure this is why you stumbled to this article after all!

In this beginner friendly guide to SEO in 2024, my aim is to take you through the ins and outs of SEO and provide you with a comprehensive strategy to boost your website’s visibility and rankings in search engine results.

I will recommend some tools, resources and next steps so you are well equipped for your SEO journey. You’ll see, it is actually fun and you’ll be loving the results!

Disclaimer: As said, I will recommend stuff that I personally find useful, but I am not affiliated with the mentioned tools or resources in any way.

…feel free to skip to the part that you are interested in! 👇

What is SEO?
How Does SEO Work?
The Importance of SEO
How Does Google Rank Pages?
The Core Components of a Strong SEO Strategy
Technical Setup: Ensuring Your Website is Search Engine Friendly
Content: Creating High-Quality, Keyword-Optimized Content
Links: The Power of Backlinks and Link Building
Monitoring and Tracking SEO Results
Local SEO: Optimizing Your Website for Local Searches
The Dangers of Black Hat SEO
Outsourcing SEO vs. In-House SEO

1. What is SEO Exactly?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of improving a website’s visibility in organic search engine results. The goal of SEO is to drive more organic (unpaid) traffic to a website, ultimately leading to increased conversions and revenue. When someone searches for a product or service related to your business, SEO ensures that your website appears prominently in the search results.

In simple terms, SEO is about making your website more visible and accessible to search engines like Google. By optimizing various elements of your website and with a proper content strategy you can improve your website’s rankings and visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).

2. How Does SEO Work?

SEO works by optimizing a website’s content, conducting keyword research, and earning high-quality backlinks. The process starts with understanding what keywords your target audience is using to search for products or services similar to yours. Keyword research helps you identify these keywords and incorporate them into your website’s content in a strategic manner.

Once you have your keywords, you can optimize your website’s content by incorporating them into your page titles, headings, meta descriptions, and body copy. This helps search engines understand the relevance and topic of your content, improving your chances of ranking higher in search results.

I’ve prepared for you a FREE Keyword Research Template

Additionally, building high-quality backlinks is an essential part of SEO. Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your website. Search engines consider backlinks as a vote of confidence in your website’s authority and relevance. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the better your website’s chances of ranking higher in search results.

🎁 Small Bonus: Best Keyword Research Tools for 2024

(listed in no particular order)

Each of these tools has its own unique features and pricing models, so you might want to consider your specific needs and budget when choosing the right tool for you. Some offer free versions or trials…which we all love, don’t we? 🙂

3. The Importance of SEO

Yes, SEO is crucial for businesses of all sizes, from small local businesses to large multinational corporations. Here’s why SEO is so important:

Increased Visibility: When your website ranks higher in search results, it becomes more visible to potential customers. The higher your visibility, the more likely users will click through to your website.

More Organic Traffic: Organic traffic refers to visitors who find your website through unpaid search results. By optimizing your website for SEO, you can attract more organic traffic, which often leads to higher conversion rates.

Better User Experience: SEO involves optimizing your website’s design and structure to make it more user-friendly. A well-designed and user-friendly website improves the overall user experience and keeps visitors engaged, ultimately leading to higher rankings in search results.

Long-Term Results: Unlike paid advertising, which stops generating traffic once you stop paying, SEO can provide long-lasting results. With ongoing optimization and maintenance, your website can maintain high rankings and continue to attract organic traffic.

Cost-Effective Marketing: While SEO requires an investment of time and resources, it is generally more cost-effective compared to paid advertising. Once your website is optimized, the traffic it generates is essentially free, making SEO a cost-effective marketing strategy.

Competitive Advantage: In today’s competitive online landscape, businesses that invest in SEO gain a competitive edge. By outranking your competitors in search results, you can attract more customers and establish your brand as a leader in your industry.

4. How Does Google Rank Pages?

Google’s primary goal is to provide users with the most relevant and useful information in response to their search queries. To achieve this, Google uses complex algorithms that analyze various factors to determine how to rank web pages. While the exact algorithms are kept secret, SEO experts have identified some of the key factors that influence rankings:

Relevance: Google analyzes the relevance of a web page to a user’s search query. It looks at factors like keyword usage, content quality, and topic relevance to determine how well a page matches a user’s search intent.

Authority: Google considers the authority of a website when ranking its pages. Authority is measured by the number and quality of backlinks pointing to a website. Websites with a higher number of high-quality backlinks are considered more authoritative.

User Experience: Google assesses the user experience of a website to determine its rankings. Factors like page load speed, mobile-friendliness, and ease of navigation contribute to a positive user experience.

Content Quality: Google values high-quality, informative, and original content. Websites that provide valuable content are more likely to rank higher in search results.

It’s important to note that Google’s algorithms are constantly evolving, and SEO best practices change over time. Staying up-to-date with the latest SEO trends and algorithm updates is crucial for maintaining and improving your website’s rankings.

5. The Core Components of a Strong SEO Strategy

To build a successful SEO strategy, you need to focus on three core components:

Technical setup
Content
Links

Each component plays a crucial role in improving your website’s visibility and rankings. Let’s dive deeper into each component:

5.1 Technical Setup: Ensuring Your Website is Search Engine Friendly

Technical setup involves optimizing your website’s technical aspects to make it more search engine friendly. Here are some key elements to consider:

Website Navigation and Links: Search engines crawl websites by following links. Ensure that your website has a clear and user-friendly navigation structure, with text-based links that are easy for search engines to crawl and understand.

URL Structure: Keep your URLs short, descriptive, and keyword-rich. Avoid using long, complex URLs that are difficult for both users and search engines to understand.

Page Speed: Page load speed is an important ranking factor. Optimize your website’s performance by optimizing image sizes, minifying code, and leveraging caching techniques.

How to check your site’s page speed? Just head to Pagespeed, it’s FREE!

Sitemap and Robots.txt Files: Create a sitemap to help search engines understand your website’s structure and index your pages more effectively. Use a robots.txt file to control which pages search engines can access and index.

Duplicate Content: Avoid duplicating content across multiple pages of your website, as search engines may penalize duplicate content. Ensure that each page offers unique and valuable information.

5.2 Content: Creating High-Quality, Keyword-Optimized Content

Content is at the heart of SEO. Creating high-quality, keyword-optimized content is essential for improving your website’s visibility in search results. Here are some key strategies for optimizing your content:

Hey, have you already checked this? Content strategy: what is it & how to create a good one

Keyword Research: Conduct thorough keyword research to identify the most relevant and high-traffic keywords for your industry. Use keyword research tools to discover popular search terms and incorporate them naturally into your content.

Here’s a FREE Keyword Research Template to Download

On-Page Optimization: Optimize your content by incorporating keywords in strategic places, such as page titles, headings, meta descriptions, and body copy. Ensure that your content is well-structured, easy to read, and provides value to your audience.

Long-Form Content: Long-form content tends to perform better in search results. Create comprehensive, in-depth content that covers a topic thoroughly. This not only helps with SEO but also establishes your website as a valuable resource in your industry.

Multimedia: Use images, videos, infographics, and other multimedia elements to enhance your content and engage your audience. Optimize these elements by adding descriptive alt text and relevant file names.

5.3 Links: The Power of Backlinks and Link Building

Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors in SEO. They act as votes of confidence in your website’s authority and relevance. Here are some strategies for building high-quality backlinks:

Natural Link Building: Focus on creating high-quality, valuable content that naturally attracts backlinks from other websites. Promote your content through social media, email outreach, and influencer partnerships to increase its visibility and likelihood of being linked to.

Guest Posting: Write guest posts for reputable websites in your industry. Include a relevant link back to your website within the content or author bio. This helps you build relationships with other websites and gain exposure to new audiences.

Outreach and Relationship Building: Reach out to other website owners, bloggers, and influencers in your industry to establish relationships and explore opportunities for collaboration. This can lead to guest posting opportunities, mentions, and backlinks.

Here’s How to do (effective) outreach — actionable experience-based tips

Internal Linking: Internal links are links that point from one page on your website to another. Use internal links strategically to guide search engines and users to relevant content on your website. This helps improve the overall structure and navigation of your website.

6. Monitoring and Tracking SEO Results

Monitoring and tracking your SEO efforts is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of your strategy and making data-driven optimizations. Here are some key metrics to track (I recommend to use Google Analytics for this matter, combined with some other tools, depending on the metric you monitor):

Organic Traffic Growth: Monitor the overall increase in organic traffic to your website over time. This indicates the success of your SEO efforts in attracting more visitors from search engines.

Keyword Rankings: Track the rankings of your target keywords in search results. Identify keywords that are performing well and those that need improvement. Regularly analyze and optimize your content to boost your rankings.

I suggest you check these in Google Search Console (but, it can be integrated in Google Analytics, as well) combined with a SEO tool, like Ahrefs, or SEMRush.

Conversions from Organic Traffic: Measure the number of conversions (such as form submissions, purchases, or downloads) generated from organic traffic. This helps you understand the ROI of your SEO efforts and identify areas for improvement.

This is something you need to set up in Google Analytics, or on another platform you are using. For example, if you use a e-comm store builder like Shopify, you have these analytics already integrated. Same goes for some other platforms.

Average Time on Page and Bounce Rate: Analyze the average time visitors spend on your pages and the bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page). Low bounce rates and longer average time on page indicate engaged visitors and high-quality content.

Top Landing Pages: Identify the pages on your website that attract the most organic traffic. Analyze these pages to understand what makes them successful and replicate their strategies on other pages.

Links Growth: Monitor the growth of your backlink profile. Keep track of new backlinks acquired and identify any lost or low-quality backlinks that need to be disavowed.

Ahrefs and SEMRush are your go-to tools for this matter!

7. Local SEO: Optimizing Your Website for Local Searches

If you have a local business, optimizing your website for local searches is essential for attracting customers in your area. Here are some key strategies for local SEO:

Google My Business: Create and optimize your Google My Business listing. Provide accurate and up-to-date information about your business, including your address, phone number, business hours, and website URL.

NAP Consistency: Ensure that your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent across all online directories, review sites, and social media platforms. This helps search engines verify the legitimacy of your business and improves local search visibility.

Local Citations: Build local citations by getting your business listed in relevant online directories and local business listings. Include your NAP information and a link to your website. This improves your business’s visibility in local search results.

Online Reviews: Encourage your customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook. Positive reviews not only boost your reputation but also improve your local search rankings.

Local Content: Create content that is relevant to your local audience. Write blog posts, articles, or guides that highlight local events, attractions, or news. This helps establish your website as a valuable resource for local information.

Boost Your Business with Local SEO [2024]: A Step-by-Step Guide

8. The Dangers of Black Hat SEO

While SEO can be highly beneficial for your website, it’s important to avoid engaging in black hat SEO practices (…and I really mean this! ⚠️ ). Black hat SEO refers to unethical techniques that aim to manipulate search engine algorithms to achieve higher rankings. These practices can lead to severe penalties from search engines and harm your website’s reputation. Some common black hat SEO practices to avoid include:

Keyword Stuffing: Overloading your content with excessive keywords in an attempt to manipulate rankings. This results in poor-quality content that is not user-friendly.

Cloaking: Showing different content to search engines than what is shown to users. This deceptive practice aims to trick search engines into ranking a page higher.

Buying Links: Purchasing backlinks from low-quality or spammy websites. Search engines can detect unnatural link patterns and penalize websites that engage in this practice.

Duplicate Content: Replicating content from other websites without permission or proper attribution. Search engines penalize websites with duplicate content, as it provides no unique value to users.

To maintain a healthy and ethical SEO strategy, focus on creating high-quality content, earning natural backlinks, and following best practices recommended by search engines.

9. Outsourcing SEO vs. In-House SEO

Deciding whether to outsource SEO or keep it in-house depends on your resources, expertise, and business goals. Here are some factors to consider:

Doing SEO Yourself

If you have the time and interest to learn about SEO, doing it yourself can be a cost-effective option. By learning the basics of SEO and implementing best practices, you can improve your website’s visibility and rankings over time. However, keep in mind that SEO requires ongoing effort and staying up-to-date with the latest trends and algorithm changes.

Delegate SEO to a Team Member

If you have a team member with an interest in SEO or digital marketing, delegating SEO responsibilities to them can be a great option. This allows them to develop their skills and contribute to your overall marketing strategy. However, ensure that they have the necessary resources and support to stay up-to-date with SEO best practices.

Outsource SEO to an Agency or Consultant

If you lack the time, expertise, or resources to handle SEO in-house, outsourcing it to a reputable SEO agency can be a smart investment. SEO agencies and consultants (like me 🙂) have the knowledge and experience to develop and execute effective SEO strategies tailored to your business. They can provide ongoing optimization, track results, and adjust strategies as needed.

Hey, I have some people on my team and I looooove working on SEO as well 👉 get in touch so we have a quick SEO chat!

Consider your budget, goals, and available resources when deciding whether to outsource SEO or keep it in-house. Remember that SEO is a long-term strategy and requires continuous effort to see results.

🎁 Small bonus: SEO Blogs and Trainings

(listed in no particular order)

Let’s wrap it up

SEO is a powerful tool for improving your website’s visibility and rankings in search engine results. By following the strategies above you can optimize your website’s technical setup, create high-quality content, build authoritative backlinks, and monitor your SEO results. Whether you choose to do SEO yourself, delegate it to a team member, or outsource it to an agency, investing in SEO is crucial for long-term online success. So, start implementing these strategies today and watch your website climb the ranks in search engine results.

You can always reach out if you need a hand! Let’s talk!

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