Techcetera: SEO Edition

AKA Covid Edition. I'm a bit under the weather as they say, so instead of hunting down the newest features other have, I figured a deep dive into SEO was in order.

As we head to 2024 we've had a lot of updates. I think everyone would agree that AI is a big disrupter. For SEOs it's been even more so because content went from $100 for a well written blog post to pennies for a rough draft. Today I'm dusting off my SEO director hat and going to cover SEO in a bit more depth, and help you plan for the turbulent 2024.

Here's 3 big keys to winning in SEO for 2024.

Customers come first

Google has said for years that if you write quality content that is all that's needed to be "rank worthy." Like all massive lies, there's some truth to that. When it comes to your content strategy you can either chase fad of the moment (massive AI content output and obtuse adjacent content concepts) or you can write well written content for you customers that the email team, the ppc team and others can all use as well.

Sure get AI help to write it and crank out production, but you don't need 100 pieces of content to get your share of organic traffic.

Oh and when you write this content, learn to use semantic headings, lists and other content elements that make the page easier to read for humans and Google alike.

I'm not saying not to do keyword research or optimize pages. I'm saying it's all part of the strategy, so that when Google shifts (and it will) you've got content your proud of that you just need to tweak to the current flavor of the month for big G.

Resources:

• Quick Refresher on Semantic HTML
• Writing For Customers

Learn Google's Schema

Bad pun, sorry. I don't want to burst anyone's bubble but Google can't read. For the past 20 years google digests a page of content and looks at keyword density and HTML headings (and links) to determine what a page is about. This is why it doesn't matter if you're a first generation GPT or Shakespeare himself, no search engine is using AI to read your content (yet).

As an SEO it's my job to make sure you get qualified traffic not necessarily follow Google's rules, but in this case they go hand in hand. A little bit of schema can tell Google what the page is about. In some testing it even shows that Google tends to be on the lazier side and prefer schema over actual content.

Here's a great primer case study (it's a bit older) that should give you enough ammunition's to get your PMs (or clients) to back this effort. (Case Study)

Back In The _SSR

Sorry, the best I got for a something clever is a Beatles song.

There's nothing more frustrating for SEO people than to sit on a team and have everyone excited about the newest Nextjs release yet no one on the dev team knows HTML or how indexation works. True, Google's documentation says it can read Javascript and it can, but the chances are very low that it will.

Do you want to risk your sites traffic going down simply because you bought into the latest faster, better hype?

VS

Enter SSR (Server Side Rendered). It's not important for you to know too much about this concept except if you're doing a javascript site, you need to have the SSR version. The SSR version is for Google and it's all HTML.

Real talk. I've seen site crushed by this move and others not even notice. If you have a very high domain authority with a lot of traffic and a lot of javascript content, then chances are good you'll be ok if you're moving. If not, then take heed.

To use an analogy, Google "can" eat broccoli (JS) but it prefers donuts (HTML) or as we mentioned delicate pastries (Schema).

Here's a great resource on Server Side Rendering written by Dan Taylor.