Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
If you’re working on driving traffic to your engineering website, you’re hopefully already familiar with some of the SEO basics.
But the SEO game changes all the time, especially now as Google fights against spam and AI, prioritizing helpful content above all else.
It’s tough staying on top of it all.
So, in this article, I’ll remind you of a few of the SEO basics, give you an update on the latest in the SEO world, and share some top keyword research tips.
It might be easy to start thinking that SEO no longer matters. And to some extent, it does appear to be losing its dominant edge.
SEO is certainly no longer the only thing that matters, and there are many other ways to drive traffic to your website.
The rise of social media and using platforms like TikTok and YouTube as search engines, as well as the advent of AI and asking ChatGPT to answer questions, are certainly affecting Google’s dominance.
However, Google is still the world’s largest search engine and most searches still take place via this powerful platform.
This means that paying attention to SEO still matters – yes, even in 2024!
You can’t get your engineering website to the top of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) without paying attention to Google’s ranking factors, and focusing on the quality of your content and overall SEO game is more important than ever.
Before I share some of the most important SEO changes to consider for 2024, let me quickly give you a reminder of the basics.
You’ll probably already be familiar with these, so I’ll keep it super short:
- On-Page SEO: With on-page SEO, as the name suggests, you need to look at optimizing individual web pages or blog articles. Consider crafting quality content around the right keywords, including title tags and meta descriptions, using the right header tags, using clean URLS, optimizing images, etc.
- Off-Page SEO: This is everything that might influence the ranking of your page more externally. Social signals (like strong social media pages) and brand authority play a part here, as does having an effective backlinking strategy.
- Technical SEO: When it comes to technical SEO, you have to look at the setup of your website, your host, and your server to make sure your site is running optimally. Aspects of technical SEO include your site speed, how mobile-friendly your site is, and how good the setup of your sitemaps is.
It’s important to target all three of these SEO basics in order to set up an effective SEO strategy.
The above is all pretty standard. So what’s changed over the last few years?
If you’ve paid any attention to talk in the Googleverse over the 2023–2024 period, you’ll know that Google has rolled out a series of algorithm changes that have created absolute havoc in the SEO world.
The so-called ‘Helpful Content Update’ comes with its own set of guidelines, and is largely as a result of Google fighting against spam and AI, prioritizing content that’s actually geared towards helping people.
Looking at Google’s actual guidelines is the best way forward with this, but I can give you some tips on what to focus on.
- Emphasize the user: Creating cheap content with AI is certainly one way to go, but it’s not the best way forward if you actually put your reader first. Ensure your content is highly informative and engaging, and that it answers search intent well. This also means that creating the same content as everyone else won’t be as effective, so you’ll have to spend more time diving into keyword research and identifying great topics to write about.
- Avoid clickbait: Spam and spammy tactics are highly penalized by Google, so it’s time to remove all misleading and clickbaity titles, if you ever went down that route.
- Build authority and expertise: Google wants to push content it can trust, which means that people and brands with authority and known expertise are more likely to dominate the market.
Of course, it’s also helpful to continuously keep your site fresh and active by publishing new helpful content and updating older content.
But how do you know what content to publish?
That’s where keyword research comes in.
Luckily, keyword research is still important for SEO, even though the landscape may be changing slightly.
Here are a few of my top tips:
- – As always, it’s important to understand user intent when coming up with your keyword strategy. People using the internet may be looking for informational content, they may be looking for a certain website, or they may want to make a purchase. Ask yourself how you can fulfill these needs through the content on your website.
- – Use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz to gather keyword ideas, search volume, and traffic potential. You can even use powerhouse tools like Ahrefs for advanced competitor analysis, helping you identify content gaps and more opportunities.
- – Long-tail keywords have always been important, but these are becoming even more so with the rise of voice search optimization. It’s worth focusing on keywords that are more conversational in nature as users start asking search engines more direct questions.
- – Focus on local and niche keywords. You really want to hone in on what makes you and your content unique, so try to offer content that’s different to everything else that’s out there.
- – ChatGPT is great for some initial brainstorming. By inputting the correct prompts, you can quickly gather a list of keyword ideas, questions your ideal customer might be asking, current engineering trends or topics, etc. Then, you can use these ideas to go do some more in depth keyword research and validation.
As always, it’s really important to focus on your ideal customer.
If, for example, you’re targeting men aged 65+, you probably won’t need to pay that much attention to long-tail keywords that are more conversational in tone since your target audience is unlikely to be using voice search in this way just yet.
However, if you’re targeting younger generations, particularly Gen Z and Gen Alpha, it’s very important to keep up to date with the latest in technology to make sure your keyword research practices match user trends.
Focusing on the right keyword strategy and the right audience will help align your content with your ideal customer, helping your traffic soar and ensuring you get the most from your SEO strategy in 2024.
The Google helpful content update is a 2023 – 2024 algorithm change that has drastically changed how websites rank in the SERPs.
The update prioritizes helpful content that’s created with people in mind. You can view Google’s helpful Content Update here.
Absolutely. The helpful content update has significantly affected SEO strategies, and marketers need to double-down on their efforts to create high-quality, informative content that helps users, written from the point of view of someone with authority and expertise.
It also means that any black hat SEO techniques like buying backlinks or relying on clickbait need to be a thing of the past.
Ask yourself one important question: Do I (or does my content) actually answer the search intent? That is, if someone types a question or a search phrase into the Google search bar, will my content answer their question or fulfill their needs?
If the answer is yes, then your content is definitely user-focused.
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