Here’s What SEO Experts Have To Say About Leveraging SGE In 2024 via @sejournal, @fiverr

Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) has come a long way since its experimental launch in May 2023.

Starting out by simply generating paraphrased snippets for search engine queries, SGE now offers more comprehensive summaries and source links.

Essentially, Google’s SGE is an interactive generative AI-powered feature that uses existing results to answer search queries.

Think of it as a chatbot — but Google’s organic search results power it.

Every indexed webpage that crosses a search engine results page (SERP) helps teach SGE what it knows.

As exciting (and partly terrifying) as the feature is, you may be trying to understand its true potential to leverage it for your businesses.

How Does Google SGE Work?

SGE offers comprehensive answers to search queries, just like Open AI’s ChatGPT, but SGE cites sources.

To see SGE in action:

  1. Navigate to Google to begin a search.
  2. Enter a search query or question into the search bar.
  3. Watch as multiple search results are written as a conversational response to your question.

Context and more information are added to your result through SGE, especially when compared to the old featured snippets, which only displayed a snippet or sentence without its full context.

Screenshot from Google for [conversational analytics] using normal search and SGE, February 2024

As you can see, pre-SGE days allowed you to sift through multiple websites, giving each result traffic to their respective webpages.

Now, SGE takes up the space where direct webpage results used to display, meaning that many websites may no longer get the traffic they used to get.

How Will SGE Change How Google Search Works?

As you can imagine, many SEO experts believe SGE will eat into organic traffic from top-of-funnel queries.

There are three key reasons for a potential drop in organic traffic from SERPs:

  • Featured snippets only offer one clickable source, while SGE offers many. If you owned the top position, you may now be sharing clicks with multiple sources.
  • SGE takes up too much space on the SERPs, pushing the traditional SERP below the fold, resulting in fewer clicks.
  • You can ask follow-up questions right, which keeps searchers on the SERP instead of traveling to a site for more information.

That said, there is still potential for pages to get traffic as long as the content answers the query.

SGE Sites Pages That Are Not In The Top 10

There have been many instances where SGE cites pages that don’t rank in the top 10 results — indicating that the data is pooled from a larger sample.

However, you should adapt your strategy as SGE emerges from its experimental phase.

A recent study found that 49% of consumers are interested in AI-powered searches, indicating that AI-generated SERPs are perceived positively.

If Google wants to stay competitive, especially with Bing Search’s hard comeback last year, SGE will eventually be a permanent part of the SERPs.

What SEO Experts Have To Say About SGE’s Impact On Digital Marketing

Many businesses, like yours, rely on Google for their revenue. Whether that’s in the form of ads or organic results, SGE is set to disrupt both of these formats.

How SGE Impacts Organic Traffic

On the organic side, achieving the top 3 positions could lead to lackluster results.

How SGE Impacts PPC

On the advertising end, you might be safe, as Sponsored results appear above SGE.

However, that only pushes organic results even further down.

Screenshot from Google for [monday competitors], February 2024

Some experts believe SGE to be like Featured Snippets but on steroids. Ihor Rudnyk, CEO of Collaborator, explains:

We saw sites that gave simple and fast answers lost some of their traffic. That’s because users receive these answers directly in the SERPs. For example, weather prediction, currency rates, short facts, etc.

Businesses focused on short, easy answers and fast information are in the worst position. I don’t see how you can change it without creating additional value for users. However, it’s easy to predict that the importance of brand awareness and direct traffic will continue to grow.

Additionally, there will be a larger focus on creating pages with depth. It could be in the form of original data, a differentiated view or commentary on trends.

SEO professionals will start to become more quality-focused, and quality will be defined as bringing something new, original or interesting to the debate in contrast to what it is defined as now — being ‘comprehensive’ (code for boringly covering the same stuff the next guy does).

— Patrick Herbert, Director at Singularity Digital

What Can You Do To Leverage SGE For Your Business?

So, how can you prepare to stay relevant on the SERPs as SGE will soon dominate?

Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Move From Informational To Transactional Content

SGE is the biggest threat to informational content — especially concise content.

Businesses that create thin content optimized for search will suffer. Creating more transactional pages could help you avoid this issue.

Transactional content is more nuanced and requires extensive research, so users will be more likely to dig deeper into product/service websites.

Not only that, but it also allows you to appear in SGE for high-intent search terms, which is the goal for businesses.

Screenshot from Google for [best accounting software], February 2024

2. Monitor Changes In Search Intent Over A Period

Many marketers will soon shift their reliance on traditional keyword metrics like keyword density (KD) and search volume to search intent.

Even with high KD and search volume, ranking for these keywords can be difficult. So, with SGE, it doesn’t make sense to go after such queries unless you’re prepared to write ultimate in-depth guides.

This is why you need to look at search intent first.

Ask yourself:

  • Does the topic make sense?
  • Can I realistically rank for this topic or at least get credited by SGE?
2024 SEO Tools & Tactics To Refresh Your Strategy & Boost Performance via @sejournal, @ahrefs

This post was sponsored by Ahrefs. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

With AI taking the digital world over, constant Google algorithm changes, and growing competition, how can you shift your strategy to keep up?

Constant changes mean SEO professionals need to find new ways to reach SEO success in 2024.

If you’re looking to not simply survive but thrive amidst these seismic changes, it’s important to keep up with the latest trends and look for new ways to work on SEO.

In this guide, we’ll uncover strategies to help you increase search discoverability, and we’ll introduce the tools you’ll need to implement them effectively.

Some of the most significant improvements you can start making in 2024 include:

  • Knowing how to optimize processes with AI.
  • Mastering technical SEO and website optimization.
  • Executing and measuring your SEO more efficiently.

How AI Capabilities Can Be Applied To SEO

Everyone’s talking about how to best harness the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 2024.


But if there’s one thing you should take away from the AI conversation, it’s this: AI can’t replace humans.

Utilizing AI in 2024 is about striking the perfect balance and finding the synergy between human ingenuity and AI advancements.

Rather than relying solely on AI technology, find ways to use it to enhance your results.

For instance, if you’re a content marketer looking to streamline your process, AI could assist by offering insights, recommendations, and data-driven strategies to elevate the quality and relevance of your content.

How Ahrefs Integrates AI in SEO & Content Marketing Tools

With modern tools, keyword research became a simple and streamlined task. Except for finding good seed keywords to start with.

If you’re familiar with Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer tool, you’ll be pleased to know that it was improved with a new AI assistant that effortlessly generates keyword suggestions.

You can get AI keyword suggestions directly within the platform, without needing to go back and forth with ChatGPT when doing your keyword research.

And when it comes to content marketing applications for AI, Ahrefs released a number of free AI-powered writing tools. With these tools you can:

  • Input your rough ideas and get an organized, well-structured outline in minutes.
  • Improve the quality, clarity, and readability of a sentence or paragraph with an instant content refresh.
  • Generate optimized meta titles for better search engine visibility.
  • Craft informative, SEO-friendly meta descriptions for your articles quickly and easily.
  • Simplify and summarize your content with precision.
  • Brainstorm variations of ready-to-use, SEO-friendly blog post ideas to drive more traffic to your blog.
  • Generate descriptive alt text for your images to improve accessibility and SEO without a hassle.
  • Get inspiration for your next piece of content by generating a variety of creative ideas.
  • And more!

Stay ahead of the curve and start leveraging AI to your advantage with Ahrefs.

How To Master Website Optimization & Technical SEO

A well-optimized and technically sound website acts as a sturdy foundation, insulating you from the impact of ruthless core updates that search engines may roll out.


With search algorithms becoming increasingly sophisticated, seamless user experience, fast loading times, and adherence to Core Web Vitals have become critical factors in SEO success.

By mastering technical SEO and keeping your site in top-notch condition, you’re not just offering a seamless user experience but also signaling to search engines that your content is reliable and trustworthy. 

This proactive approach helps to ensure your site remains visible and valuable amidst ever-evolving ranking criteria.

With Ahrefs Site Audit tool, you can run a thorough SEO audit to uncover your website’s technical and on-page SEO issues, and find out exactly what’s holding your website back.

Plus, the platform recently added some exciting new features to enhance your analysis efforts.

Here are some key updates you should know about:

  • Core Web Vital (CWV) metrics: Filter your pages by various CWV data points during website recrawls. Visualize CrUX and Lighthouse scores, historical changes, and individual metric performance in the Performance report.
  • Google Data Studio integration: Build personalized reports by blending data from different sources and visualizing everything in the form of reports and dashboards.
  • Search by HTML code and page text: Easily search for specific elements extracted during a crawl, such as Google Analytics IDs or “out of stock” labels.
  • List of issues for a particular URL: Addressing an issue on a specific URL is streamlined with a dedicated tab showcasing all related issues, allowing comprehensive fixes.
  • Links Report in Site Audit Issues: Navigate issues more effectively with an additional links report tab, facilitating in-depth analysis at the links level. For instance, browse and export links related to 404 pages for a thorough understanding.

Easy Way: Use An SEO Plugin To Help Optimize Your Content

Ahrefs also launched a WordPress SEO plugin to further assist in your optimization efforts.

With this new plugin, you can automate content audits and see how each article performs for a chosen target keyword.

The tool also provides recommendations on how you can improve the article for better results.

Here are a few key capabilities:

Ready to get your site in tip-top shape for the year ahead? Check out Ahrefs’ latest offerings today.

How To Execute & Measure Your SEO KPIs More Efficiently

Keeping your website up-to-date with SEO trends is important – but the buck doesn’t stop there.


Staying competitive requires you to keep a vigilant eye on your rival sites as well, dissecting their strategies, and adapting your own accordingly.

Success in SEO isn’t just about visibility; it’s about outperforming your peers.

With Ahrefs, you can use the Site structure report in Site Explorer to quickly see how a competing website is structured, and which parts generate the most organic traffic.

Reassessing the competitive landscape and recalibrating your strategy based on real-time insights are the secrets to staying ahead of the curve.

Site structure is not the only noticeable update to Ahrefs Site Explorer tool. Its overview report has also been updated and is worth exploring.

Not only does it load noticeably faster than the previous version, but you get access to the following new features:

  • New history chart.
  • Comparison mode.
  • Paid traffic data.
  • Year-over-year mode.
  • Google algorithm updates.
  • Calendar report.
  • Site structure report.

Start Ranking Higher & Maximizing Opportunities With Ahrefs Now

In the rapidly evolving SEO landscape, Ahrefs emerges as a strategic ally, providing the tools you need to not only stay afloat but rise to new heights.

From leveraging AI tools intelligently to mastering technical SEO and executing with precision, we’ve dissected the key strategies that will redefine your SEO in 2024 and beyond.

It’s time to embrace change and elevate your search performance.

Start your journey to sustained SEO success with Ahrefs’ vast array of tools and exciting new features.

With their updated usage-based pricing model, you can access the features you need most. Try it today!


Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Ahrefs. Used with permission.

Google Spam Policies, Explained

Google released this month updates to its core algorithm and spam policies. It also issued widespread manual penalties to sites with excessive AI-generated and low-grade content.

Google is prioritizing spam — manually and algorithmically. If you’ve experienced a decline in rankings but no manual actions, audit your content for potential spam violations.

Here’s where to start.

Scaled Content

“Scaled content” refers to expanding articles rapidly via automation or AI. Google has advised against scaling for years. It has now provided example violations:

  • Using generative AI to create content.
  • Scraping content — e.g., from RSS feeds, search results —  and publishing it without changes.
  • Combining content from many sources and republishing it without alteration.

To my knowledge, Google has not to date expressly disallowed AI content, but including it now as “scaled” implies a dislike.

Expired Domains

Domains become available when their owners forget or neglect to renew them. In many cases, expired domains retain link authority, prompting some search optimizers to buy them and then publish new (vaguely relevant) content or 301-redirecting the domain to a third-party site.

Google now includes such expired-domain tactics as spam, but its examples are extreme:

  • Affiliate content placed on previous government-owned content.
  • Medical products sold from expired domains of non-profit organizations.
  • Casino websites hosted on domains previously owned by schools.

Apparently Google is targeting aggressive cases, but it may eventually include common uses.

Parasite SEO

“Parasite SEO” involves placing low-quality content on a trusted domain. Google calls this “site reputation abuse.”

Google’s examples mainly include content unrelated to the domain, such as:

  • An educational site hosting a page for payday loans.
  • A news site hosting automated coupons.

The guidelines also emphasize a lack of editorial oversight and include scenarios not considered spam:

  • Press release sites.
  • News publications with syndicated content from other quality publications.
  • Sites with user-generated content, such as a forum or comment sections.
  • Native or third-party ads, sponsored content, or appropriately tagged affiliate links for monetization, not rankings.
  • Manually selected coupons.

Unaware?

Most businesses have never participated in these tactics, but some may have done so unknowingly through external consultants. Keep an eye on Search Console notifications and organic traffic.

10 Steps To Grow Your SEO Authority & Topical Expertise via @sejournal, @Brian_W_Gareth

Step 1: Demonstrate Each Element Of E-E-A-T

First things first: how do you assert yourself as an authority on your chosen topic?

If you are familiar with the concept of E-E-A-T, you won’t be surprised that it’s closely tied to topical authority. Working on one is the same as working on the other. And E-E-A-T makes it very easy to understand what exactly you need to do.

What does E-E-A-T mean, and how do you demonstrate it?

  1. Experience: what you have personally dealt with as a person and a professional, and what you can share with your audience. Example: a detailed product review where you describe how you have used it.
  1. Expertise: a high level of skill and knowledge in your field. Example: a Knowledge Panel with an expert’s name, photo, credentials and contact information.
  1. Authoritativeness: earning the title of an expert by creating content and gaining rankings and backlinks over a long time. Example: being referred to as a credible source of information by another website.
  1. Trustworthiness: having a good reputation in the eyes of your target audience. Example: positive user reviews.

Each of these elements signals to Google that your website is run by a real pro who knows what the users want. This is your end goal in very simple terms; now it’s time for details.

Step 2: Stick To A Single Niche

Can you dedicate your site to multiple niches?

Sure. But as the saying goes, the person who chases two rabbits catches neither.

If your chosen niches are not closely related, then Google will not view you as a specialist. But if they are closely related, then it’s very much possible.

For example, TripAdvisor is a very well-known authority on all things related to travel: destinations, HoReCa, popular activities, and more.

If you want to be acknowledged as an expert, the best bet is to pick a single niche – and commit to it fully. But if you are feeling ambitious, then pick several related topics and start pumping out content like the Internet will shut down tomorrow.

Step 3: Start Gaining Experience & Never Stop

How do you get good at something? By doing it countless times, of course!

The more experience and knowledge you have, the more you can put into your content and show to your audience – and to Google. And the more you have to show, the more credible you appear in everyone’s eyes.

And don’t be afraid to make mistakes. A bad experience is also a valuable experience.

Step 4: Create Original, In-Depth Content – Lots Of It

Obviously, no expert steals other people’s work. Real stars create their own content and make it as good as they can.

Be original, be amazing, be productive – that’s pretty clear.

What else should you do to get the most out of your content?

  • Update your outdated content. It’s easier and faster than writing a more up-to-date article from scratch. It’s also more correct from an SEO standpoint, as older pages have more authority than freshly made ones.
  • Include links to other sources. The more authoritative they are, the better. It makes your own content look more credible too, since you clearly know the best sources.
  • Fill your content with relevant keywords and phrases. Only your own experience can identify the best phrases to use, but WebCEO’s Keyword Suggestions tool is a great place to start looking.
  • Promote your content. Social media and email outreach are your best options.

Also, quantity matters as much as quality. If you want to become a real authority, one or two articles won’t be enough no matter how great they are – you will need to make many more to cover your niche in full.

Step 5: Create Different Types Of Content

You may be sticking to one niche, but every niche can be presented in multiple formats.

Therefore, you should rely on more than just blog posts. What else is there?

  • Podcasts.
  • Graphs and diagrams.
  • Case studies and research reports.
  • Images (photos, infographics).
  • Videos (including shorts, streams, webinars).

The more you can make, the better. However, it’s okay to focus on only a few types of content as long as you can make them excellent.

Step 6: Use An Efficient Internal Linking Structure

When one page links to another, it shares some of its own authority with it.

Interlink your site’s pages in an efficient way, and you will achieve two important goals:

  1. Your visitors will easily find any content they want.
  2. Your important pages will receive as much authority as possible.

Note that page authority is not the same as topical authority. But the two are still connected, and increasing one increases the other.

How Do I Create An Efficient Internal Link Structure?

As was mentioned before, you need to create lots of content to explore a niche in full.

Some of the pages you make will be closely related by covering different aspects of the same topic. Those pages can be grouped into a topic cluster.

What Is A Topic Cluster?

A topic cluster has (usually) one page with the main topic and several others with related topics. For example:

10 Steps To Grow Your SEO Authority & Topical ExpertiseScreenshot from Conductor.com, April 2018

The hub page has the most authority in the cluster and shares it with the rest, making them more visible in search, too.

So how do you maximize your page authority – and topical authority with it? For that, you need to know exactly how much authority your pages hold. Find out with WebCEO’s Internal Links tool.

10 Steps To Grow Your SEO Authority & Topical ExpertiseScreenshot from WebCEO, February 2024

Then build topic clusters around your most authoritative pages.

Step 7: Get Backlinks From Authoritative Sites

Remember about authoritativeness? That’s the A in E-E-A-T, and it’s one of the most time-consuming parts because it requires building links to your content – the toughest part of SEO.

But before anything else, you must find trusted sites whose backlinks will boost your authoritativeness. And the best way to do it is to see where your competitors are getting their backlinks.

Open WebCEO’s Competitor Backlink Spy.

10 Steps To Grow Your SEO Authority & Topical ExpertiseScreenshot from WebCEO, February 2024

Add your competitors’ sites in the Settings and press Save. The tool will generate a table with all of your competitors’ backlinks, with anchor texts and domain authority.

Ideally, you will want to build your own backlinks from the most authoritative sites. And yes, your competitors are fair game, too! Here are a few effective link building methods:

  • Create content that’s likely to get backlinks. The best examples include case studies, research papers, and statistics – users love interesting data.
  • Find unlinked mentions of your brand and turn them into backlinks.
  • Find articles with outdated information on other sites. If they have links to outdated sources, offer to replace them with a link to your own, up-to-date source.
  • Find broken links on other sites and offer a replacement from your own site.
  • Collaborate with other specialists in your niche (e.g. via podcasts).

Step 8: Grow Your Online Reputation

Gaining clout requires transparency.

People and companies cannot become authorities by staying hidden in the shadows like the infamous hacker Anonymous. At the very least, you will need to attach a name and a face to your content – for example, in an author bio.

10 Steps To Grow Your SEO Authority & Topical ExpertiseScreenshot from Inc.com

The more professional it looks, the better.

What else can you do?

  • Get positive reviews from your users. Often, they leave a review if you simply ask. Don’t be discouraged by bad reviews – having a few of them makes you look more natural than having none at all.
  • Create an About Us page. Describe your company and your experts, and feel more than free to brag about your successes.
  • Create pages on social media. Ideally, you want a page for your company and a page for each of your experts on every social network where your presence makes sense. Of course, if you work solo, then all you need is a single page just for you. Don’t forget to link to your social media pages from your site.
  • Engage with your followers on social media. Like their posts, follow them back when appropriate and, most importantly, reply to them as soon as possible. Setting up a chatbot can help you tremendously with the latter.
  • Engage with your competitors in social media. Be active on their pages, and you just might end up stealing from them a client or two (or more).

Step 9: Create A Wikipedia Page

Wikipedia is a very well-known and trusted resource. Having a page there is a huge boost to any person or brand’s image – especially if the article is filled with detailed information.

Of course, you can only create a Wikipedia page about yourself as a person if you are already famous. Otherwise, your best bet is a page about your company.

Either way, you are going to need an auto-confirmed Wikipedia account – one that is at least 4 days old and has made at least 10 edits. After that, you can start making your page. Feel free to use other, similar pages as a basis.

And remember to include citations and sources from sites other than your own.

Step 10: Provide Excellent User Experience

And of course, a true expert’s website is expected to run flawlessly. Professionals have standards – and so do users who consult experts.

What can you do to make your site a welcoming place?

  • Increase your loading speed. Find your slow-loading pages with WebCEO’s Speed Optimization tool and follow its recommendations for improving them.
10 Steps To Grow Your SEO Authority & Topical ExpertiseScreenshot from WebCEO, February 2024
  • Ensure mobile-friendliness. Your site must be responsive and work well on all devices. In the same Speed Optimization tool, click the Mobile tab and see where your site is falling short.
  • Fix technical errors. Find all errors on your site with the Technical Audit tool and fix them promptly.
10 Steps To Grow Your SEO Authority & Topical ExpertiseScreenshot from WebCEO, February 2024
  • Translate your content into multiple languages. If you are after a multilingual audience, this is a must.
  • Ensure user accessibility. Make sure all kinds of visitors can use your site, not just healthy ones. Use a tool like ARIA by EquallyAI to see what sort of additions your site needs.

Wrapping Up

If you set the goal to become an expert in your field, then gaining topical authority will be a natural part of the process. It will take years of hard, prolific work; it’s your choice whether to commit or not. But the reward for this choice is acknowledgment in your community and in search engines.

Take the first step on this long road. Arm yourself with SEO tools that will help your content reach the top rankings faster.

Helpful Content Recovery, per Studies

Google’s Helpful Content algorithm is now part of its core ranking system. Still, the impact of the Helpful Content component has been both severe and vague. The effect can be sitewide, with no clear recovery path.

Google states that its algorithms “are designed to present helpful, reliable information that’s primarily created to benefit people, not to gain search engine rankings.”

What does that mean? Do we not optimize for keywords?

SEO Studies

The answer may be to examine the data. A study by Cyrus Shepard, the founder of Syppy SEO, a consulting firm, examined 50 sites that lost or gained organic search traffic from Google updates in August through December of 2023.

The study found:

1. Sites with excessive ads risk being hit by a Helpful Content update. This aligns with Google’s page experience guidelines, which include a self-assessment for site owners. Google says answering “yes” to the following questions means the site is “on track in providing a good page experience”:

  • “Does the content lack an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?”
  • “Do pages lack intrusive interstitials?”
Screenshot of an illustration from Google of a mobile screen with a pop-up blocking the content.Screenshot of an illustration from Google of a mobile screen with a pop-up blocking the content.

Avoid interstitials that block content, such as this example from Google.

The guidelines also advise against using “intrusive interstitials [pop-ups] and dialogs … that obstruct users’ view of the content.”

The findings in Shepard’s study align with those of Glenn Gabe, the founder of G-Squared Interactive, an SEO firm, who revealed a strong correlation between sites heavily punished by Helpful Content updates and poor user experience, especially intrusive ads.

In short, to recover from a Helpful Content update, remove ads that obstruct a view of the content.

2. Writing in the first person may prevent a Helpful Content loss. Shephard’s study found a correlation between using first-person pronouns and not losing rankings from Helpful Content updates.

This also aligns with Google’s guidelines for human search-quality evaluators (PDF), which emphasize the importance of first-hand experience on the topic.

To me, first-person pronouns are not a direct ranking factor, although they may inform Google of first-hand experiences.

Thus to recover from a Helpful Content update, personalize your content with first-hand experiences, opinions, and observations.

For example, when reviewing platforms and apps, I describe how I used each tool and the features I liked and disliked.

3. Other elements correlate with Helpful Content impacts. These include:

  • Cookie consent forms (positive impact),
  • Contact details (positive impact),
  • Stock images (negative impact).

I believe these may be coincidences rather than causes. Higher-authority sites with quality content tend to have cookie consent forms and contact-us details. They are also less likely to use stock images. They are unaffected by Helpful Content updates owing to their content and topical authority.

I am unaware of a Helpful Content recovery example, especially after the dramatic September update. Google claims it takes months to recover — likely in the next update. Hence, while studies are helpful, recovery strategies largely rely on theories and guesses.

An SEO Expert’s Playbook To Optimizing Websites For E-E-A-T via @sejournal, @fiverr

This post was sponsored by Fiverr Pro. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

It’s been over a year since Google added “experience” to its search quality rater E-A-T guidelines, transforming it into E-E-A-T.

However, many websites still struggle to establish a digital presence that follows these rules.

While most assume that optimizing for E-E-A-T is as simple as adding an author bio on their website, that’s not true.

Let’s look at what E-E-A-T entails and what SEO experts say about meeting these requirements.

A Quick Recap Of E-E-A-T & Its Relevance In 2024

Every year, Google releases an algorithm update to improve its algorithm’s capabilities in surfacing good content.

The most recent algorithm update was in December 2022, where Google’s search quality rater guidelines were modified to reflect the following:

  • Experience (E): Indicates whether the author and website owner have the real-life experience to offer advice or commentary on a topic.
  • Expertise (E): Indicates if the author has the necessary education, credentials, or market presence to speak on the topic.
  • Authority (A): Assessment of the author’s and website’s authoritativeness – usually measured through industry-wide recognition, backlink quality, and signals of reputation (awards, citations, recommendations).
  • Trustworthiness (T): Indicates if you offer a trustworthy website experience to your users. It combines the E-E-A part of the equation with the end-user experience to determine quality.
e-e-a-tImage from Fiverr Pro, January 2024

Trustworthiness is considered the horizontal bar that nests the other elements.

Taylor Scher, an SEO consultant, explains that people take the T element too seriously – creating a contradictory effect.

“It’s a tale as old as time in SEO, but you shouldn’t hurt your website’s UX in favor of SEO.

E-E-A-T is based around page experience and displaying trustworthiness anyway, so it’s a mistake to go in with the mindset of improving it and not thinking about how to do all this while providing a better experience to your readers/website visitors.”

Let’s say you’re offering advice on YMYL topics (Your Money or Your Life) like “How to treat cold at home.”

From an on-page SEO standpoint, you might have an author bio and a high domain rating.

However, from a technical SEO and user experience standpoint, the lack of SSH encryption on the website could create a subpar experience. Users might think it’s a duplicate of another medical website.

It’s a combination of these four elements that enable your success. This is why even non-YMYL sites have to up their game to stay relevant in the SERPs.

An SEO Expert’s Playbook To Optimizing Websites For E-E-A-TImage created by Fiverr Pro, February 2024

7 Strategies For Optimizing Websites For E-E-A-T

Optimizing for E-E-A-T requires a complete audit of technical SEO and other tactics.

Here’s what you need to optimize:

1. Create An Author Bio & Editor Schema For Each Article

A well-written author bio does two things:

  1. Shows personal experience.
  2. Establishes the author’s expertise.

Think about it this way. Would you like to go to a finance website and see if it’s written by the company’s team or a PhD in Corporate Finance?

That said, your authors don’t need a PhD, but rather a modicum of success in the industry.

How To Create An Authoritative Author Bio

Showcase your author’s credibility by adding their:

  • Years of experience.
  • Areas of focus.
  • Education (if applicable).
  • Professional accomplishments.
  • Social media/website links.

Add schema markup for editors and reviewers, even in non-YMYL industries like SaaS and renewable energy.

It goes a long way in showing the editorial integrity of your brand.

It also sends trust signals to Google’s quality raters, even though author bylines are not a ranking factor.

Pro Tip: Hire experienced freelance SEO experts to build this in your CMS’s backend.

2. Don’t Forget To State The Obvious

“Wirecutter does an incredible job at stating the obvious: each of their product reviews typically begins with a short paragraph describing the lengths they went to to produce the review,” says Jamie Sutton, Marketing Lead at HeadshotPro.

In Wirecutter’s example, they explain how they tested each one and their differences.

They also cite their sources for each interview and bedding example, adding trust in the product.

An SEO Expert’s Playbook To Optimizing Websites For E-E-A-TScreenshot from Wirecutter, January 2024

Similarly, you can explain your review process, criteria for data selection, or expert invitation.

3. Source Expertise To Improve Your Reputation

Internal expertise is not always easy to come by. That doesn’t mean you can’t look beyond your own company.

This is especially true if you’re a newer brand still working on improving your E-E-A-T.

Collaborate with industry experts and ask them to contribute when possible.

Here’s how you can do that:

  • Send quote requests via HARO, Help a B2B Writer, Qwoted, etc.
  • Participate in LinkedIn or Facebook groups.
  • Invite thought leaders for an interview.
  • Ask subject matter experts to contribute a guest post.
  • Source insights from podcasts or webinars (with attribution).

Alternatively, you can pitch your brand and internal experts to get featured.

4. Write High-Quality Content With Attribution

Content lies at the center of it all.

The better the content quality, the better your reputation (with users and search raters).

Even Google has published clear-cut guidelines around this:

“People-first content means content created primarily for people, not to manipulate search engine rankings. We recommend that you focus on creating people-first content to be successful with Google Search rather than search engine-first content made primarily to gain search engine rankings. (Google)”

So, create helpful content that has depth – not breadth.

With artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT raising the bar for the bare minimum, you need to go above and beyond with your content.

Here are a few best practices to keep in mind:

  • Stick to core topics relevant to your business.
  • Collaborate with other experts or companies.
  • Develop topic clusters that indicate your authority.
  • Avoid surface-level insights that even SGE can provide.
  • Distribute content on other channels to provide external signals.
  • Conduct regular content audits to identify gaps & refreshing opportunities.

Google’s algorithm prefers fresh content — published recently.

An SEO Expert’s Playbook To Optimizing Websites For E-E-A-TScreenshot from search for [productivity management], January 2024

Additionally, cite your sources. Google’s algorithm monitors inbound and outbound links. So, cite and link to high-authority websites in your industry.

For instance, Medical News Today cites scientific journals like The Lancet in every piece.

An SEO Expert’s Playbook To Optimizing Websites For E-E-A-TImage from Fiverr Pro, January 2024

5. Build Backlinks From Relevant Websites

It’s 2024, and backlinks are still relevant.

A Backlinko study analyzed 11.8 million search results and found that top-ranking web pages have more backlinks than lower-ranking ones.

But there are two things to remember:

  1. The number of referring domains.
  2. Backlink quality.

The links should come from relevant websites. For instance, ecommerce fashion websites should get links from fashion and clothing publications.

Also, create valuable content that acts as link magnets.

Anurag Surya, SEO specialist at Freshworks, explains that he uses research articles to do this.

“I’d invest in creating industry-research articles that’ll have metrics based on primary research. No other websites would have these numbers, which means anyone searching for them would visit my page and hopefully link to it.”

So, build links, but build them strategically.

Pro Tip: Work with experienced link builders who can identify such opportunities for your brand.

An SEO Expert’s Playbook To Optimizing Websites For E-E-A-TImage from Fiverr Pro, January 2024

6. Focus On Your Online Brand Reputation

Audit your brand’s presence online.

Survey your customers, monitor incoming reviews, and observe public forums. These are common sources for getting feedback and understanding how people view your brand.

You can also use tools like UserTesting or Maze to determine if users actually consider your site trustworthy. Display social proof to appear credible in the eyes of users.

Add social proof not just from users but industry publications too.

Also, respond to good and bad reviews pleasantly. It’ll improve brand perception over time.

Ultimately, the better the brand perception, the better your overall authority.

7. Attract & Use More User-Generated Content (UGC)

User-generated content is an excellent way to increase your website’s E-E-A-T.

Why? Because an unsolicited or unpaid review does the heavy lifting for your brand’s perception.

Examples of UGC include:

  • Case studies.
  • Forum posts.
  • Public comments.
  • Ratings & reviews.
  • Videos on social media.
  • Personal blog posts.

Google’s crawlers can access social sites like Reddit and Quora. Make sure your reputation has a positive feel to it.

It gives you much-needed social proof and tells Google your site is a trusted resource.

An SEO Expert’s Playbook To Optimizing Websites For E-E-A-TImage from Fiverr Pro, January 2024

It’s Your Time To Become Relevant

Optimizing your website for E-E-A-T requires a strategic approach.

The process can be a massive undertaking, but it doesn’t have to be. Consider outsourcing your operations to SEO experts who monitor these changes and adapt to secure their search rankings.

Ultimately, it’s a strategic decision that brings you one step closer to improving your website’s E-E-A-T.


Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Fiverr Pro. Used with permission.

In-Post Images: Images sourced by Fiverr Pro. Used with Permission

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024 via @sejournal, @WixStudio

This post was sponsored by Wix. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

In the last 18 months, conversations about SEO have been dominated by artificial intelligence.

New ways of working and new user journeys for search visitors have come to the forefront.

In 2024, we can clearly see that there’s a great mix of “old hat” and “new hat” SEO best practices that you can start implementing right now.

To help you keep up with the current SEO best practices, we’ve created a series of:

Why Use SEO Checklists?

Doing SEO is often a bit like conducting a symphony.

There are lots of SEO activities, big and small, taking place across each website, and each SEO task, whether it be on-page or technical, contributes to the larger success of your website.

Just as a conductor has their sheet music, the best consultants and agencies use SEO checklists, templates, cheat sheets, and other project management documents to make sure everything is on track.

The medium of the SEO checklist has evolved from being as simple as a few items scribbled on the back of an envelope to something as complex as a dynamically generated interface within your CMS, offering AI functionality and integration with your favorite tools.

This versatility means that they can be reworked to suit most requirements.

In the sake of versatility, here are three, high-level types of SEO checklists that can help you elevate your brand’s website.

1. SEO Checklists On Shared Documents

If you’ve been in the industry for a while, you’re probably familiar with using a spreadsheet to keep track of SEO progress.

Now, we’re living in the fast lane, with the ability to leverage shared SEO. Easily transferrable, this can be as complex or simple as required.

Downloadable SEO checklists & templatesImage created by Wix, February 2024

2. Dynamic, Real-Time SEO Checklists

Fast forward to a next-generation SEO checklist: The Dynamic SEO Checklist.

A dynamic SEO checklist responds to updates in content in real-time.

This means that anytime a change is made to your website, you get a series of next steps to execute to make your content rank.

Examples Of Real-Time SEO Checklists

Site-level SEO Assistant is one new example of a real-time checklist.

This type of checklist is built directly into your CMS and includes entry points and integrations that allow users to complete tasks in the list.

From setting indexability to connecting to Google Search Console, you can complete important tasks from within the list itself.

With intelligent recommendations and the ability to skip tasks as necessary, this kind of checklist works in tandem with your website.

Built-in functionality like this can help you save time and get the most out of a CMS.

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024Experience created by Wix, Feburary 2024

3. AI-Powered SEO Checklists

With the assistance of AI, you can get a dynamically generated checklist to help you execute your SEO workload.

Plus, this type of list can also help you carry out within the list itself, simply by using AI inputs.

For instance, the checklist in the Wix SEO Assistant uses a keyword prompt to create AI meta descriptions and title tags for a page.

Once these are generated, you can add and tick them off your list, right in the CMS.

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024Experience created by Wix, February 2024

Looking at user data, we see that the addition of AI to a checklist can increase usability significantly.

How To Properly Use An SEO Checklist For Success

If you aren’t already using an SEO checklist to manage your workload, we urge you to try any of the above styles of checklist.

Increase Your Agency’s Profitability

If you’re an agency owner or account manager, checklists are particularly efficient because they can be reused and adapted for each client.

This can save time on research and development (R&D) and become part of the corpus of resources you make available to clients and staff.

Checklists for SEO tasks can also assist with more efficient onboarding for new clients and projects, and help you expand your offering and improve client satisfaction.

When managing clients, tools like the Wix Studio Client Kit mean that account managers can upload client checklists, templates, and even video tutorials directly into the dashboard of the CMS.

This means that materials for client success are accessible to everyone working on the site, at all times.

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024Image created by Wix, February 2024

If you’re managing SEO teams, creating frameworks for SEO account management can help you gain and retain clients for the long term.

Joshua George, founder of Clickslice Agency explains that he developed his SEO project proposal template “after testing 20 different variants of proposals,”  but once he “finally found one which converts the best,” he was able to get better results from client pitches.

Similarly,  freelance SEO, Nick LeRoy, developed a client retention checklist to manage touch points and habits that build client trust.

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024Image created by Wix, February 2024

Better efficiency for SEO agencies and freelancers means more opportunities to deliver high-value outcomes and increase profitability – a checklist can be an important part of that process.

Make Knowledge More Accessible Across Your Team

Templates and checklists are also a highly accessible way to hand off to juniors and even clients easily.

As well as being designed to help your team accomplish goals, checklists can also serve as a knowledge base to help your team grow. This approach can help you get drive visibility on the SERP.

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024Image created by Wix, February 2024

Founder of AS Marketing agency, Adriana Stein, explains that she uses a blog writing template because, “when you use a particular structure, provide helpful information, as well as follow SEO best practices, that gives your content the best possible chance to rank, drive organic traffic, and when scaled out, drive conversions.”With live collaborative documents, teams can adapt lists to changing requirements and ensure that the knowledge base of the team continues to grow, even if account managers change roles.

Improve Quality Assurance

It is often assumed that it is beginner-level SEO specialists who use checklists, but this is not exactly the case.

For more seasoned SEOs, checklists often serve as a means of maintaining the quality of implementation when working with multiple teams and stakeholders. Experienced SEO professionals create checklists to ensure consistency of delivery when handing off day-to-day tasks to other members of their teams.

Ashwin Balakrishnan, Head of Marketing at Optmyzr, explains that for tasks like backlink tracking, he creates templated documents to reduce errors and ensure a consistent level of implementation.

Balakrishnan says that, “transferring knowledge and experience to junior SEOs (especially teammates) goes a lot smoother for everyone when you use checklists and templates. It gives newer SEOs confidence and frameworks to work off, and it allows more seasoned practitioners to review work faster and avoid giving arbitrary feedback.”

This can free up time for senior SEOs to pursue more complex SEO, billable tasks.

So rather than dying a death, the humble SEO checklist has evolved.

What’s Next For SEO Checklists?

Given the wealth of data sets, data feeds, automation, and AI tools available to marketers, the active integration of AI into SEO should only continue. But as well as being able to generate inputs, we are likely to see data-driven, AI-crafted guidance from checklists become more common.

Those who use checklists in the format of Google Sheets and MS Excel will benefit from generative native apps and enhancements in the AI workspace race. Being able to harness scripts, feeds, and add-ons is nothing new, but AI offers new scalability for task completion, offering new opportunities for growth but the value of the SEO checklist is alive and well in 2024.

Download checklists, templates, and toolkits to develop smoother SEO processes and ramp up productivity—on any project.


Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Wix. Used with permission.

10 SEO Problems You Never Knew You Had – And How To Solve Them via @sejournal, @Brian_W_Gareth

1. Manual Actions & Penalties By Google

You may have been breaking Google’s guidelines or posting spammy and harmful content without realizing it.

These things can incur a well-deserved manual action.

How To Uncover Manual Actions & Penalties

To find out if you have been smacked with a penalty, look inside Google Search Console.

10 SEO Problems You Never Knew You Had – And How To Solve ThemScreenshot from Google Search Console, January 2024

If it says anything other than “No issues detected,” you are in trouble.

Luckily, Google will describe what they did and why, so you will know right away how to lift the sanctions against your site. Sometimes it will be as easy as deleting offending content.

2. Inefficient Internal Linking

Hyperlinks do much more than just let users jump between pages.

They have two important jobs:

  1. Transfer authority from one page to another.
  2. Shape the user journey.

These jobs apply both to external and internal links. While the content of an externally linked page is often out of your control, the internal links are fully under your control, so you can’t afford to neglect how you use them.

Otherwise you will end up with a site that neither ranks in Google nor is user-friendly.

How To Make Your Links User-Friendly & Google-Friendly

To interlink the pages on your site efficiently:

  1. Make your links’ anchor texts descriptive. Users must be able to look at a link and immediately understand where it leads.
  2. Link from pages with high authority to pages with lower authority. That way, low-authority pages can receive more authority and rank higher. Find pages that could benefit from it with WebCEO’s Internal Links tool.
  3. Use a navigation bar and a footer. They contain links to some of the most important pages (like homepage, FAQ, About Us, Contact Us) which users must be able to find at any time.
  4. Create topic clusters. A good practice for increasing your site’s authority is creating multiple pages on several related topics and linking them together.
  5. Make the user journey as short as possible. An unwritten three-click rule states that users must be able to find anything they want in three clicks or fewer. Even if no evidence supports this rule’s impact on SEO, it’s hard to deny that it’s good for user experience.

3. Lack Of User Accessibility

As we know, not all users are perfectly healthy. Old age, diseases, or disabilities can make it very hard or even impossible to comfortably browse the Internet.

If your website does not cater to all levels of users, it becomes less user-friendly, which gets in the way of a positive user experience.

It’s so important that it’s even required by law. You can’t fix a lawsuit with SEO, so don’t tempt fate.

You want your site to be available to as many people as possible – and for that purpose, there is user accessibility.

How To Improve The User Accessibility Of Your Website

Is your site accessible? There are many tools to find that out, like ARIA by EquallyAI.

10 SEO Problems You Never Knew You Had – And How To Solve ThemScreenshot from EquallyAI, January 2024

World Wide Web Consortium provides several extensive resources for designing and developing accessible websites.

If your site doesn’t pass the accessibility test, or if user feedback lets you know about any problems, you should apply practices from those resources.

4. Using The HREFLANG Tag Incorrectly

If you target a multilingual audience (for example, with an ecommerce site), you need to watch out for this one.

You don’t want to ruin the users’ experience with a language barrier.

The hreflang tag’s job is to show the visitors the version of your site they can read, based on their location and language.

How To Use The HREFLANG Tag Correctly

A properly coded HREFLANG tag should look similar to:

Parts Of An HREFLANG Tag

The “en-GB” attribute means it targets English-speaking users in the United Kingdom. “En” is the language code (ISO 639 format) and “GB” is the region code (ISO-3166-1 alpha-2 format). Always remember to refer to these Wikipedia links to pick the correct codes!

If the tag has the wrong attribute or none at all, you risk giving your visitors a bunch of text they can’t read or navigate, making your site useless to them. Kiss those conversions and rankings goodbye, say hello to bounce rates.

So make sure your hreflang tags are in order by scanning your site with WebCEO’s On-Site Issues Overview tool.

10 SEO Problems You Never Knew You Had – And How To Solve ThemScreenshot from WebCEO, January 2024

Although, the hreflang tag isn’t a perfect solution. There’s always a non-zero chance the user’s native language isn’t even used wherever they reside. For these cases, and for all others too, it’s best to have an option to manually switch between the languages on your site.

10 SEO Problems You Never Knew You Had – And How To Solve ThemScreenshot from Facebook.com, January 2024

5. Opening New Links On The Same Page

This problem can affect your rankings by diverting traffic before a conversion.

While Google have an opinion about the links’ target=”_blank” attribute, it’s still a good idea to use it on your links.

Why Should You Open All Links In A New Tab?

When the link opens in the same tab, users leave the page they were on – often before there was a conversion. That makes your high-ranking pages less useful. And if it keeps happening, Google will agree and lower the rankings.

Fortunately, the solution is simple: include the target=”_blank” attribute in your links’ HTML code. Some platforms, like WordPress, often add this attribute automatically.

Important! The target=”_blank” attribute should always be used together with rel=”noopener” or rel=”noreferrer” for security reasons. If you inadvertently link to a shady page, either of these attributes will prevent it from gaining access to the tab from which the user opened the link, protecting both your site and the user’s device.

In other words, the HTML code for a secure link will look like this:

Your link

6. Poorly-Optimized Images

Image quality is a very obvious factor, so let’s assume your site uses only good-looking images. But at the same time, this factor is a double-edged sword: with high quality comes high file size.

And large images affect your site loading speed.

Website Image Best Practices

You should never sacrifice the quality of your visuals. So what can you do instead?

  • Save your images in the most optimal format. The logo icon should be ICO or SVG, large photos should be JPG, and you can use WEBP instead of GIF (although not all browsers support WEBP).
  • Manually set height and width. Shave off all the excessive pixels.
  • Merge images if they are placed right next to each other.
  • Compress your images with software like TinyPNG.

And then upload them.

7. Website Caching Issues

In addition to poorly optimized images or assets like CSS and Javascript files, your site could be loading slowly because of caching issues.

A cache is where browsers store a website’s elements upon visit.

For example, a website’s logo is the same on every page, so once it’s stored, your browser doesn’t need to load it anew – instead, it will just retrieve it from cache, and your site will load faster.

How To Properly Cache A Website

If your website suddenly starts showing resistance to caching, you should check the .htaccess file on your server.

The .htaccess file can be used for many cool things, like password-protecting your site or customizing your error 404 page.

It can also be used to set expiration dates for the cached resources.

Open your file and look for code like this:

 

  ExpiresActive on

  ExpiresDefault "access plus 2 days"

  ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 month"

  ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"

  ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"

  ExpiresByType text/javascript "access plus 1 month"

  ExpiresByType image/ico "access plus 1 year"

  ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 600 seconds"

If there’s nothing like that at all, feel free to copy and paste this example.

Otherwise, tweak those “access plus time” bits to your preference or add entries for additional file types.

The trick is to set a long expiration period for elements that don’t change often, like the logo icon. That way, they will stay cached for as long as you decide.

8. Failing To Match User Search Intent

You’ve probably used SEO tools to find the best keywords: long-tailed, with a high search volume, not too competitive.

You’ve put them in all the right places: title, description, URL, headings, and throughout the text too.

Yet your site rankings and visits aren’t increasing. Why not?

It’s possible you forgot to account for the most important factor in keyword optimization: user search intent.

What Is User Intent In SEO?

You don’t want to bring users without purpose.

You want them to do specific things: learn, discuss, subscribe, purchase, share, and so on.

This variety makes it possible to categorize user search intent under several types:

  • Informational (learning new information).
  • Navigational (looking for a specific website).
  • Commercial (looking for a product).
  • Transactional (buying a product).
  • Locational (looking for a place or information about a place).
  • Seasonal (tied to a time period or a date, like Christmas).

That’s why not only your content, but your keywords must reflect it as well. And with so many types, it’s easy to make a mistake and choose the wrong keywords for the job. Knowing the difference between them can make or break your SEO.

How Do I Implement User Intent Into My SEO Strategy?

Target users with even higher accuracy by remembering the stages of the keyword funnel:

  • Awareness: the user has a need and starts searching for a solution, possibly not knowing yet what it could be. Example: buy laptop.
  • Interest: the user narrows down and explores the options. Example: best gaming laptops.
  • Action: the user knows exactly what they want and intends to get it. Example: laptop Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3.

Choose the best keywords that reflect these stages and you’re good to go.

9. Accumulation Of Harmful Backlinks

Backlinks are necessary for building up your site’s authority – and site rankings. It’s a crucial step in SEO: very hard to do right and incredibly easy to mess up.

Having no backlinks at all is bad, but it’s even worse to have lots of low-quality backlinks.

If you don’t check your link profile from time to time, you won’t even know you have this problem and need to fix it.

How To Find Harmful Backlinks & Remove Them

First, scan your backlinks with WebCEO’s Toxic Pages tool.

10 SEO Problems You Never Knew You Had – And How To Solve ThemScreenshot from WebCEO, January 2024

It will look through all of your site’s backlinks and display the potentially harmful ones in a table. If you find any backlinks from sites you actually trust, you can keep them. But the ones that do look bad have to go.

Your options are:

  • Delete those backlinks yourself.
  • Ask somebody who can edit the linking site to delete them.
  • Use Google Disavow (in-built in the Toxic Pages tool) to make Google ignore those links.

10. Failing To Follow SEO Trends

Search engine optimization has come a long way since its inception.

Many new things were introduced, many old things stopped working, and even more were improved upon and made more accurate. And this process continues.

So if you don’t monitor the SEO news and innovations, you may find that your SEO efforts aren’t effective anymore.

Make it a habit to read SEO news regularly (like on this very site). Pay attention to any important updates – especially to Google’s core algorithm updates. When those roll out, SEO changes drastically for everybody.

The more you know about different SEO problems, the easier you can identify and fix them in time. All you need is a good eye and reliable tools. Stay sharp and check your site for signs of trouble often.

2024 SEO Success Guide: Tools & Tactics To Refresh Your Strategy & Boost Performance via @sejournal, @ahrefs

This post was sponsored by Ahrefs. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

With generative AI and constant Google algorithm changes, how can you shift your strategy quickly enough to keep up?

How do you stay on top of the latest SEO trends, while maximizing your site performance?

2023 has forced SEO professionals to begin finding new ways to adapt their approach to SEO success in 2024.

The rise of AI technology is becoming a strong force in shaping search algorithms and user experiences.

Meanwhile, Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) is shaking things up and altering the dynamics of online discovery by influencing how search engines interpret and deliver information.

So, if you’re looking to not simply survive but thrive amidst these seismic changes, a strategic pivot is imperative.

The key to success in today’s world of SEO is standing out and boosting your online presence.

In this guide, we’ll not only uncover strategies to help you increase your search discoverability, but we’ll also introduce the tools you need to implement them effectively.

Some of the most significant improvements you can start making in 2024 include:

  • Knowing how and when to leverage AI tools.
  • Mastering technical SEO and website optimization.
  • Executing and measuring your SEO more efficiently.

Let’s dive into how these key strategy tweaks can completely transform your SEO this year and get you on track for higher SERP rankings and better performance.

How & When To Leverage AI Tools For SEO

Everyone’s talking about how to best harness the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 2024.

But if there’s one thing you should take away from the AI conversation, it’s this: AI is not a human replacement.

Think of it more so as a formidable ally that exists to amplify the capabilities of human expertise.

Utilizing AI in 2024 is about striking the perfect balance and finding the synergy between human ingenuity and AI advancements.

Rather than relying solely on AI technology, find ways to use it to enhance your results.

For instance, if you’re a content marketer looking to streamline your process, AI could assist by offering insights, recommendations, and data-driven strategies to elevate the quality and relevance of your content.

What To Use AI Tools For In Content Marketing & SEO

With Ahrefs’ free AI-powered writing tools, you can:

  • Input your rough ideas and get an organized, well-structured outline in minutes.
  • Improve the quality, clarity, and readability of a sentence or paragraph with an instant content refresh.
  • Generate optimized meta titles for better search engine visibility.
  • Craft informative, SEO-friendly meta descriptions for your articles quickly and easily.
  • Simplify and summarize your content with precision.
  • Brainstorm variations of ready-to-use, SEO-friendly blog post ideas to drive more traffic to your blog.
  • Generate descriptive alt text for your images to improve accessibility and SEO without a hassle.
  • Get inspiration for your next piece of content by generating a variety of creative ideas.
  • And more!

Not only can AI help you save time while crafting compelling copy, but it can also automate keyword research processes.

If you’re familiar with Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer tool, you’ll be pleased to know that they recently launched a new AI assistant to generate keyword suggestions effortlessly.

With this new update, you can get AI keyword suggestions directly within the platform, without needing to go back and forth with ChatGPT when doing your keyword research.

Stay ahead of the curve and start leveraging AI to your advantage with Ahrefs.

How To Master Website Optimization & Technical SEO

A well-optimized and technically sound website acts as a sturdy foundation, insulating you from the impact of ruthless core updates that search engines may roll out.

With search algorithms becoming increasingly sophisticated, seamless user experience, fast loading times, and adherence to Core Web Vitals have become critical factors in SEO success.

By mastering technical SEO and keeping your site in top-notch condition, you’re not just offering a seamless user experience but also signaling to search engines that your content is reliable and trustworthy. 

This proactive approach helps to ensure your site remains visible and valuable amidst ever-evolving ranking criteria.

With Ahrefs’ Site Audit tool, you can run a thorough SEO audit to uncover your website’s technical and on-page SEO issues, and find out exactly what’s holding your website back.

Plus, the platform recently added some exciting new features to enhance your analysis efforts.

Here are some key updates you should know about:

  • Core Web Vital (CWV) metrics: Filter your pages by various CWV data points during website recrawls. Visualize CrUX and Lighthouse scores, historical changes, and individual metric performance in the Performance report.
  • Google Data Studio integration: Build personalized reports by blending data from different sources and visualizing everything in the form of reports and dashboards.
  • Search by HTML code and page text: Easily search for specific elements extracted during a crawl, such as Google Analytics IDs or “out of stock” labels.
  • List of issues for a particular URL: Addressing an issue on a specific URL is streamlined with a dedicated tab showcasing all related issues, allowing comprehensive fixes.
  • Links Report in Site Audit Issues: Navigate issues more effectively with an additional links report tab, facilitating in-depth analysis at the links level. For instance, browse and export links related to 404 pages for a thorough understanding.

Easy Way: Use An SEO Plugin To Help Optimize Your Content

Ahrefs also launched a WordPress SEO plugin to further assist in your optimization efforts.

With this new plugin, you can automate content audits and see how each article performs for a chosen target keyword.

The tool also provides recommendations on how you can improve the article for better results.

Here are a few key capabilities:

  • You can import “focus keywords” for each article from Yoast, RankMath, and AIOSEO.
  • Smoother audit progress that shows real-time audit completion percentages.
  • Export to CSV all metrics for all analyzed articles or only articles with selected performance status.

Ready to get your site in tip-top shape for the year ahead? Check out Ahrefs’ latest offerings today.

How To Execute & Measure Your SEO KPIs More Efficiently

Keeping your website up-to-date with SEO trends is important – but the buck doesn’t stop there.

Staying competitive requires you to keep a vigilant eye on your rival sites as well, dissecting their strategies, and adapting your own accordingly.

Success in SEO isn’t just about visibility; it’s about outperforming your peers.

Reassessing the metrics that matter most and recalibrating your strategy based on real-time insights are the secrets to staying ahead of the curve. 

In this evolving landscape, the ability to execute with precision and measure impact accurately will be the key to unlocking sustained SEO success.

You can start by knowing how to spot SERP changes effectively.

For example, with Ahrefs’ historical SERP checker tool, you can go back in time and see what the SERP looked like for any given query in their index.

And if you already use Ahrefs Site Explorer tool, you’ll love the recent updates they’ve made to their overview report.

Not only does it load noticeably faster than the previous version, but you get access to the following new features:

  • New history chart.
  • Comparison mode.
  • Paid traffic data.
  • Year-over-year mode.
  • Google algorithm updates.
  • Calendar report.
  • Site structure report.

Visit Ahrefs to learn more.

Start Ranking Higher & Maximizing Opportunities With Ahrefs Now

In the rapidly evolving SEO landscape, Ahrefs emerges as a strategic ally, providing the tools you need to not only stay afloat but rise to new heights.

From leveraging AI tools intelligently to mastering technical SEO and executing with precision, we’ve dissected the key strategies that will redefine your SEO in 2024 and beyond.

It’s time to embrace change and elevate your search performance.

Start your journey to sustained SEO success with Ahrefs’ vast array of tools and exciting new features.

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Search Evolution 2024: Navigating SEO’s Future Landscape [Webinar] via @sejournal, @sejournal

We’re hosting an exclusive deep dive into the evolving world of search – and you’re invited!

On November 29, join our live, roundtable discussion on the evolution of search, and learn how to navigate the changes that will shape your SEO journey next year.

This webinar features a panel of SEJ experts, led by editor-in-chief Amanda Zantal-Wiener. You’ll get insights directly from our very own SEO content strategist, as well as our senior news writer and editor.

Our team has combed through the year’s most substantial SEO developments and they’re ready to unpack what they mean for your strategies.

From tips on integrating AI into your content marketing and SEO, to the impact of SGE on SERPs, we’ve got you covered.

Meet The Experts:

  • Shelley Walsh, SEO Content Strategist: Shelley is a distinguished digital consultant with over 20 years of creative, marketing, and tech experience. In addition to her work at SEJ, she’s also been published by Moz, Econsultancy, Smashing Magazine, and State of Digital.
  • Matt G. Southern, Senior News Writer: Matt oversees strategy development for SEJ’s news department. He specializes in gathering details, checking facts, and making complex subjects easy to understand.
  • Ben Steele, Senior Editor: Ben has over six years of experience in crafting and refining SEO content. As a pivotal member of the editorial team, he spearheads the creation and development of SEJ ebooks.
  • Amanda Zantal-Wiener, Editor-in-Chief: Amanda is a versatile professional with a diverse skill set in writing, editing, and marketing. Joining the SEJ team from HubSpot, she has a proven track record with bylines featured in Thrillist, EcoSalon, and Fast Company.

Key Discussion Topics:

  • The biggest changes to the world of search in the past year, and where they’re leading: 2023 saw some significant shifts in the search landscape. From algorithm updates to user behavior changes, understanding these changes can provide crucial insights into the future of search, helping you adapt your strategies accordingly.
  • The fundamentals to focus on for next year, from the impact of SGE’s evolution on SERPs to addressing challenges with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines: As search engine algorithms continue to evolve, a renewed focus on SEO fundamentals is essential for the upcoming year. Find out how updated search engine guidelines are redefining SEO success and learn how to align with these evolutions to boost your website ranking and visibility.
  • The leading Google ranking signals to focus on right now: In the realm of SEO, several ranking signals play a pivotal role in determining a website’s position on SERPs. Understanding the most influential Google ranking signals is key to optimizing strategies. We’ll provide valuable insights into which ranking signals and systems deserve the bulk of your attention in 2024.
  • How to integrate new AI technologies into content marketing and SEO (and where to avoid it): As AI continues to shape the digital landscape, it’s important to know how it can be used to your advantage. We’ll explore the practical applications of AI tools and technologies, and how they can significantly enhance content creation and optimization. We’ll also delve into the limitations and areas where AI might not be as effective.

Sign up now and secure your spot for this essential exploration of the evolving search landscape.

Whether you’re a seasoned SEO pro or new to the game, this session is your gateway to understanding what it takes to stay ahead in the rapidly evolving world of search.