In fact, far from it. Organic clicks represent nearly half (45%) of all search engine clicks, making SEO a vital part of any digital marketing strategy.
As you head into 2024, your goal is to manage a SEO strategy that helps your company dominate the SERPs, drive more traffic, and — of course — win more sales.
Here’s a 2024 SEO checklist to help you do just that.
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2024 SEO Checklist: Daily or Weekly Tasks
Complete the following to-do items on a daily or weekly basis. These should only take a few minutes of your time every day, but that quick check-in can help you keep a close eye on your SEO performance.
Stay on top of SEO news and trends
Follow your favorite SEO and digital marketing blogs (we hope that includes us!) and subscribe to their newsletters. Spend some time every morning, or once a week, reading about the latest SEO trends and techniques. You might get some ideas you can apply to your own 2024 SEO strategy!
Update your SEO reports
At a minimum, a basic SEO report should include core KPIs like:
- Traffic
- Keyword rankings
- Video views
- Bounce rate
- Time on page
- Conversions
- Revenue
You may have other SEO metrics that are important to you. Track them on a weekly basis so you don’t fall behind. SEO tools like Google Analytics, Search Console, and your paid SEO software of choice are your friends here.
2024 SEO Checklist: Quarterly Tasks
Every quarter, complete the following SEO checklist items to identify larger SEO trends (positive or negative). Then, use those insights to adjust your 2024 SEO strategy moving forward.
Check in with your customers
If you have a CLM (customer lifecycle marketing) team, ask them to share their latest insights or survey results. If you don’t, do your own research or survey your audience. Have there been any changes in how your audience searches for products like yours? What new channels are they using? What does their customer journey look like? Have new pain points emerged that drive them toward your products or services? The only way to know the answer to these questions is through regular audience research.
Check in with your competitors
What campaigns are your competitors running? What keywords are they targeting? Are they going after any new audiences or verticals? Can you spot any changes in their content strategy? Maybe there’s a new competitor on the scene. Make time to perform competitor research on a regular basis. You may uncover some insights that can inform your own SEO strategy in 2024.
Perform a content audit
Review your site content and blog posts from a SEO perspective. For example, have any pieces of content:
- Lost or gained links?
- Lost or earned a featured snippet?
- Lost or gained traffic?
- Decreased or increased time spent on page?
We recommend reviewing these on a year-over-year and quarter-by-quarter basis to identify any downward trends and keep your content at the top of the SERPs, where it belongs!
Plan upcoming content
On a yearly basis, it may be helpful to plot out a general idea of what types of content you want to produce for the year. Every quarter, it’s time to dig into the details. This ensures you address strategic topics, have time to assign content creation to your in-house and freelance team members, and coordinate promotion with social, email, and PR teams.
Plan backlink outreach
Plan ahead for link-building, too. What content pieces can serve as the basis of link-building campaigns? Do you have target blogs, publications, or websites you want to link to your content this year? Check in on your progress every quarter.
Perform a technical SEO audit
Give your website a health checkup. Check that your sitemap is still accurate and that no new pages are missing. If you have any canonical tags or 301 redirects in place, check that they are still working properly. Also take time to review your:
- Site speed
- Web Core Vitals
- User experience
- Title tags, meta descriptions, and heading tags
- Internal links and navigation structure
- Image alt tags and loading speed
- Schema markup (also check to see if Google has released any new ones you can add to your site)
Prepare for what’s next
Check in with your strategic marketing and product development teams to learn whether they are planning any new product launches or changes in your company’s marketing strategy. Brainstorm ways you can support these changes from a SEO perspective, from developing new content to building new backlinks or press mentions. Plan ahead now, so you don’t have to play catchup later.
2024 SEO Checklist: Yearly Tasks
Finally, every year, review your SEO strategy and assess your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with a SWOT analysis. Consider it a performance review for your SEO strategy. What should you do more of, and what can you do better next time?
For help completing your checklist, consider partnering with a SEO agency like Your Marketing People. Our SEO experts are here to share even more ideas on how to supercharge your SEO in 2024, with tips tailored to your brand, industry, and goals.
