SEO Best Practices for 2024: What Actually Moves the Needle

Technical Foundations

• Clean sitemaps, correct status codes, and zero broken links.
• Canonicalization for duplicates; use hreflang for internationalization.
• Core Web Vitals: pass LCP, CLS, and INP on key templates.
• Structured data on key entities (articles, products, organization).

On-Page and IA

• Flat, logical information architecture; descriptive, human-readable URLs.
• Title tags that mirror searcher language and intent.
• Header hierarchy that tells a story; scannable sections and summaries.
• Internal links that create topic clusters and distribute PageRank.

Content That Wins

Publish content that demonstrates first-hand experience and provides unique value—benchmarks, field notes, teardown analyses, calculators, and templates. Keep content fresh by revisiting top URLs quarterly.

Authority Building

Earn links by shipping link-worthy assets and telling the right audiences about them. Partnerships, digital PR, and community-led initiatives outperform cold spam and paid schemes.

Measurement and Governance

Track funnel metrics, not just rankings. Implement a content governance process: briefs, editorial standards, compliance checks, and post-publication updates.