Complete guide to SEO in 2024

The SEO represents a constant challenge, subject to the continuous changes of search engines, and we as Web Agency Milan we know it well.

In fact, search engines are progressively evolving in response to changes in users' search habits and new technologies in the digital world.

The recent launch, for example, represents a turning point in the optimization and monitoring of search results, integrating a wider range of content and requiring an adaptation of strategies to more fully meet the intentions of Internet users.

In other words, search results will no longer be limited to just web pages, but will also include other types of content, such as text snippets, direct answers, images, and video. There will thus be a more organic evaluation of a website's visibility, which will analyze every aspect of it in detail.

To maintain a truly effective online presence, periodic updating of SEO strategies and rules will therefore be necessary. This will ensure that you avoid penalties from search engines and make the most of the new opportunities that SGE could offer in terms of visibility. Staying constantly updated on the latest trends thus becomes essential to having a site that manages to rank, obtain adequate traffic, and a good .

In this article we will analyze the crucial factors for developing SEO strategies that consider these innovations, to be truly competitive in the 2024 digital market.

As a Web Agency in Milan, we explain what to do to achieve better SEO positioning in 2024

With over, there's not much need to wonder why SEO positioning is so important.

Google dominates online search, evaluating the relevance of results thanks to sophisticated algorithms that understand context and search intent. It is not just content that determines positioning, but also other factors or, as we call them in the typical jargon of a digital agency, "rules".

If you are reading this article, it is very likely that you have a website or want to open one, with the goal of achieving a good ranking.

Well, let's start by saying that if you don't consider all these "rules", you jeopardize the visibility of your platform, compromising its ability to receive visits and convert. Not positioning yourself adequately, in other words, can be synonymous with the failure of your business.

What are the factors that determine your website's ranking in 2024?

As a Milan-based Web Agency that has been operating for several years in the field SEO , we well know that in the past it was considered sufficient to "spread" a few keywords here and there to aim for a good ranking, even on the first page.

Today the scenario is decidedly different, and a broader range of skills is required to evaluate all the factors that contribute to ranking.

Here they are:

• Keyword relevance : selecting the right keywords for your target audience and using specific techniques to identify them.
• Technical SEO Optimization : improve site speed, ensure mobile device compatibility, adopt the HTTPS protocol to make the site secure in the eyes of users as well, create an XML Sitemap, and use the Robots.txt file.
• User Experience (UX) : user engagement has a direct impact on positioning.
• On-Page Optimization : optimize titles, headings (H2, H3, H4, etc.), meta-tags, URL structure, content quality, and ensure a match between search queries and content.
• Off-Page SEO : develop Link Building to increase site authority.
• Local SEO : implement specific strategies to optimize positioning in localized searches, including the management of Google My Business and presence in local directories.

This therefore involves multiple activities, which suggest that most interventions can be included in main categories, which we will now analyze.

The 3 macro areas of SEO

To position your website, you must therefore identify three main macro areas, within which the main optimization actions you are required to consider are concentrated:

On-Page SEO : it focuses on content and optimizations made directly on the website pages.

While Off-Page SEO : it mainly involves the management of external links, known as backlinks, aimed at improving brand reputation and site authority.

Technical SEO : it focuses on optimizing the website architecture and its technical components, operations that often require the support of expert consultants for code auditing and correction. Some of its aspects are also covered by On-Page SEO, so the two fields can overlap. When talking about speeding up a page, this is an operation that is both Technical SEO and On-Page SEO. However, Technical SEO also involves actions that affect the entire site, not just a single page.

Let's analyze these 3 areas in detail.

Technical SEO

To allow your website to be indexed, you must grant Google's crawler access to pages, files, and folders. Furthermore, it is necessary to make the results easily usable for the search engine, providing information clearly according to a specific markup.

Furthermore, having a fast platform that is perfectly visible on mobile devices improves consideration by the search engine.

Robots.txt and Sitemap

The Robots.txt file is a "simple" text document that regulates crawler behavior on your website. It must be placed in the root of the domain and contain instructions for accessing or excluding areas of the site using directives such as "User-agent" and "Disallow". For example, "Disallow: /sectionX/" prevents crawlers from accessing that specific section of your platform. Robots.txt directives therefore allow you to indicate which areas of the site should or should not be inspected by search engines, offering targeted control over indexing.

The Sitemap, on the other hand, is a file that lists all the URLs of your site useful for navigation. It can be in XML or txt format and is read by crawlers to ensure complete indexing coverage. The Sitemap improves it, because it facilitates the understanding of your website's structure, allowing search engines to discover all your pages more easily. Furthermore, it reduces initial indexing times and simplifies internal navigation.

As a Milan-based Web Agency, it has often happened to us to see even well-built sites that do not have a Sitemap. Because of this, they have compromised better crawling and ranking.

Schema Markup to enrich search results

Markup schema, based on the JSON-LD language, enriches search results by adding extra information through "rich snippets". These are nothing more than fragments of additional content, going beyond the URL and title, appearing in the results of engines like Google.

Through Schema Markup, it is possible to include various types of elements, including images and descriptions for objects or products, opening hours and location for local businesses, reviews, prices and availability for offers or reviews, as well as author, date and thumbnail for blog articles.

This practice improves SEO rankings because it makes search results more informative and attractive, displaying this information directly in the SERPs.

Site Speed and User Experience

User experience is crucial for your site's SEO optimization, with particular emphasis on page loading speed , whose positive influence on positioning is increasingly evident.

If your site is slow, struggles to load, and has poor navigation, it will be penalized by Google and your visitors.

Ensuring an optimal user experience is another decisive ranking criterion, and an excellent UX even on mobile devices can make the difference between your website and your competitors'.

Let's analyze more closely what factors determine User Experience and that you must consider a priority: we are talking about Core Web Vitals.

Core Web Vitals: what they are and why they are important

Core Web Vitals represent additional fundamental parameters introduced by Google to evaluate the user experience on your web pages.

The top three are:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) : measures the time needed to load the main content of the page. It should be optimized within 2.5 seconds.
• First Input Delay (FID) : identifies delays in response to user inputs and interactions. It should be less than 100 milliseconds.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) : quantifies layout shifts or element positioning changes during loading. The ideal value is 0.

Starting from March 2024, an additional metric has been included in the Core Web Vitals: Interaction to Next Paint (INP) .
INP goes beyond simply measuring the first interaction, considering all of them and reporting the slowest one for the entire duration of the page.

Unlike First Input Delay, which measures only the initial delay, INP measures the entire period from the start of the interaction until the browser is able to render the next frame.

This approach makes INP a more comprehensive measure of user-perceived responsiveness than FID.

What actions can you take to improve all these parameters?

• Optimize the size and number of HTTP requests.
• Reduce the size of CSS, JS, and HTML.
• Compress images.
• Implement lazy loading and prefetching.
• More efficiently manage reflow/relayout with JavaScript.
• Enable compression, caching, and HTTP/2 usage.
• Constantly monitor these parameters using tools such as e.

Through the screen of PageSpeed Insight for example, we can detect the critical issues of a large portal like Repubblica.it, which are particularly evident on mobile devices.

We see that all metrics show values that are decidedly insufficient to offer optimal navigation that makes content more usable.

On-Page SEO Optimization to improve organic positioning on search engines in 2024

On-Page SEO optimization consists of making improvements directly to the individual web pages of your site.

These improvements include:

• Optimization of titles (title tag) to include keywords and describe the content.
• Optimization of image Alt attributes.
• Correct use of headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to better structure textual parts and create a hierarchy of information.
• Optimization of Meta Descriptions to attract user clicks on Google SERP snippets.
• Content optimization through the use of relevant keywords
• Internal organization of pages, including URL management, internal navigation, and loading speed.
• HTML/CSS code validation to improve user experience and indexing.

how Web Agency in Milan specializing in SEO , we deal with numerous clients every day, who ask us which of these activities are the most important.

We can say that all of them are relevant, and that only by considering them all is it possible to obtain the best results. In our work as consultants, in fact, it is the organic vision that allows us to consider every aspect and obtain measurable effects, demonstrating the actual increase in a brand's online visibility.

Organic search engine positioning: how to choose the best keywords to establish yourself on Google in 2024

Careful keyword selection is essential for the site's structure and categorization, including menus, content, and category, product, and service pages. It is important to distinguish between the specific search intents for each section of your platform, which will guide the creation of menus, submenus, breadcrumbs, and calls to action.

The keyword research process involves identifying various types of search intents, from the most informational to the most strictly commercial. It is essential to conduct an in-depth analysis using tools like Google Keyword Planner , SeoZoom or Semrush (we will see them better shortly, they are widely used by Web Agencies in Milan and beyond), to identify the most relevant keywords for your sector.

With the term "relevant", we include both high search volume terms and long-tail keywords (the so-called longtail), to attract more qualified traffic for your business.

Let's look at the Keyword Planner screen in the example, which suggests relevant keywords related to "baby shoes" and "baby clothing".

On-Page SEO: creation of original and valuable content

The creation of high-quality content , meaning they are relevant to your users, is essential for positioning success.

Google rewards sites that offer value with informative and relevant texts, maintaining its preference for human ones despite the advent of Generative AI .

What is meant exactly by "quality content"? A text that must include coherent keywords and not at random, well-organized, with accurate information expressed in an engaging way. In this way, the time spent on the site will increase, lowering the bounce rate: a metric that indicates the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page, without interacting further.

Furthermore, your texts must not include duplicate parts: this is one of the most common causes of penalties from Google.

If you have an e-commerce, take care to write original descriptions for your products, without copying them from other platforms.

Off-Page SEO: Backlinks

Off-Page SEO refers to all activities outside the website, such as link building and social media presence, aimed at improving the site's ranking in search engine results.

The Role of Backlinks

In the search engine positioning strategy, Link Building plays a key role. This activity focuses on achieving Backlinks high-quality from authoritative and relevant sites in your sector.

In other words, it won't bring you major advantages if your site sells awnings and receives a link from a site that deals with cosmetics, even if the latter is authoritative.

An effective Link Building approach therefore aims to receive relevant backlinks and carefully monitor the associated anchor text, which must maintain adequate consistency in relation to the context in which it is placed.

Social Media Marketing and SEO Positioning

The social media they have an indirect impact on SEO optimization, but still a very important one. Activities such as sharing your site's content and interacting with the public can increase the visibility and relevance of your platform, indirectly influencing its ranking.

Even though engagement signals like likes and shares are not directly correlated with ranking, they can in fact be interpreted by search engines as signals of your site's authority and popularity, helping to increase its traffic and visibility.

An active presence on social media, therefore, can generate greater engagement, communicate brand characteristics and naturally lead to receiving good backlinks.

All this contributes to improving overall SEO optimization.

Aids for SEO optimization in 2024: the 3 best tools to use

The use of monitoring and analysis tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console is essential to optimize your SEO strategy, monitor it constantly, and adapt it over time.

These tools, in fact, provide detailed, real-time information on your website's performance in search engines and on user experience.

For a more in-depth analysis of keywords and competitors, you can count on specialized tools like Semrush, SEOZoom, and Ahrefs, which are used by many Web Agencies in Milan.

Semrush

offers a wide range of features, including searching for the most relevant keywords for your industry and analyzing the strategies adopted by your competitors.

The platform allows you to conduct in-depth keyword research thanks to tools like the Keyword Magic Tool and Keyword Manager, making it easier to identify and organize the ones relevant to your target audience. In addition, it offers a vast backlink database and tools to manage your Link Building strategy.

It also provides technical SEO support, helping to identify and resolve issues through the Site Audit tool and improving the visibility of individual pages with the On-Page SEO Checker. For businesses interested in local visibility, Semrush offers tools for managing listings, reviews, and monitoring local keyword rankings. There are also market analysis features and specific keyword research tools for advertising to optimize their conversions.

Ahrefs

is a powerful online marketing tool that offers various functionalities to improve a website's online visibility.

Among its main features, the evaluation of the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to the site stands out, as well as the comparison between the latter and those of direct competitors.

In addition to these features, Ahrefs offers tools for content analysis, for identifying influencers and relevant websites in order to develop a digital public relations strategy, and for analyzing competitors' SEO strategies in order to identify opportunities for improvement.

It also allows you to monitor mentions of your site and brand online, identify new content ideas, and get detailed data on website traffic and social media performance.

SEOZoom

SEOZoom is an all-Italian platform that provides a wide range of features to improve the performance and visibility of websites on search engines. These tools include in-depth keyword analysis, competitor monitoring, site audits, backlink analysis, and much more.

SEOZoom is aimed at industry professionals, marketing agencies and website owners who want to boost their web business, obtaining measurable results in the shortest possible time. The platform stands out for its ability to provide accurate and up-to-date data, allowing users to make informed decisions and develop effective strategies to improve search engine rankings.

The interface is particularly straightforward and intuitive, making SEOZoom an excellent tool even for those who are beginners in SEO.

In our comprehensive 2024 SEO guide, we examined every crucial aspect to consider, highlighting the ever-evolving nature of Search Engine Optimization. As we mentioned at the beginning, phenomena such as the introduction of generative AI into search engines will require constant strategy refinement and careful analysis of every aspect mentioned.

To do this in the best possible way and guarantee visibility for your site in 2024, consider collaborating with a reliable and competent partner to optimize time and costs. SHM Studio, a Milan-based Web Agency with years of experience under its belt, can provide the support you are looking for. With a team of highly qualified experts, we offer customized solutions to meet the specific needs of each client, delivering tangible and lasting results. If you have any questions about this guide, or want a free consultation to improve your website's visibility and optimize your SEO strategy in 2024, do not hesitate to contact us today. We are here to help you successfully achieve your online goals.