A well-built site is no longer enough to rank on Google. In 2024, the anti-spam updates from March and the restrictions on FAQ rich results have reshuffled the deck. The following ten tips target the concrete levers that truly affect your ranking this year, from technical crawling to editorial quality.
1. Clean the crawl budget by removing zombie pages
Your site likely contains dozens of pages that receive neither traffic nor internal links. These pages dilute the crawl budget, which is the number of pages Googlebot visits during each crawl.
Identify them in Google Search Console: filter pages with zero clicks over six months. Remove them or redirect them to relevant content. You will discover several SEO tips on Le Petit Webmaster that detail this cleaning method step by step.
Fewer useless pages mean a more efficient crawl and faster indexing of your strategic content.
2. Group keywords by intent rather than by volume
Have you ever noticed that two very similar phrases yield completely different Google results? “Buy running shoes” and “running shoes comparison” do not meet the same expectation. The first is transactional, the second informational.
Build your keyword groups around these intents. One page per intent, not one page per keyword. This approach avoids cannibalization, where two of your pages compete for the same query.
3. Write title tags that provoke clicks
The title tag remains the first element a user reads in search results. A title that is too generic (“Our services”) or too long (truncated after about sixty characters) penalizes your click-through rate.
Place the main keyword at the beginning of the title, then add a concrete benefit or a differentiating qualifier. For example: “Attic Insulation – Free quote in 48 hours” works better than a simple “Insulation – Martin Company”.
4. Structure content with consistent Hn markup
Google reads the hierarchy of your headings to understand the topic of a page. One H1 per page, followed by H2s, then H3s under each H2. No level jumps (an H3 directly after an H1).
This markup also helps your readers. A user scanning your page decides in seconds whether to stay or leave. Clear subheadings allow them to find the information they are looking for effortlessly.
5. Produce original content in light of the 2024 anti-spam policy
The March 2024 anti-spam update has broadened the definition of content produced at scale. Google now targets pages created en masse to manipulate rankings, whether the work is done by humans, automated tools, or both.
In practical terms, publishing fifty AI-generated articles with minor variations exposes your site to manual action. The solution: produce less, but with real added value. A dense article that precisely answers a question is worth more than ten rephrased texts.
6. Improve loading speed on mobile
The majority of web traffic comes from mobile. A page that takes more than three seconds to load loses a significant portion of its visitors before they even read a word.
Three quick actions yield immediate results:
- Convert your images to WebP format, which is lighter than traditional JPEG, without visible quality loss
- Enable Gzip or Brotli compression on the server side to reduce the weight of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files
- Defer the loading of non-critical scripts with the “defer” attribute to free up the initial rendering
7. Build internal linking through thematic clusters
Internal linking distributes popularity among your pages. Instead of linking randomly, organize your content into clusters: a pillar page (complete guide) linked to several satellite pages (sub-topics).
Each internal link should use a descriptive anchor that indicates the topic of the target page. “Click here” conveys no information to Google. “Complete guide to internal linking” conveys a lot.
8. Acquire backlinks through citable content
Backlinks remain a major ranking factor. The most sustainable strategy is to create content that other sites want to cite: an original study, a detailed technical comparison, an infographic with concrete data.
Be cautious of the May 2024 policy on site reputation abuse. Google penalizes third-party pages published without editorial oversight from the host publisher, solely to leverage its ranking signals. Publishing a sponsored article on a large site with no real connection to its editorial line becomes risky.
9. Abandon FAQ markup as a lever for rich display
Since August 2023, Google has restricted FAQ rich results to authoritative government and health sites. Investing time in FAQ Schema markup in hopes of achieving extended display in results no longer yields measurable returns for the vast majority of sites.
Structured data remains useful for other types of rich results (recipes, reviews, events, products). Focus your markup efforts on these formats still supported by Google.
10. Avoid shortcuts with expired domains
Buying an expired domain to benefit from its past authority has long been a common tactic. The policy announced in March 2024 specifically targets this practice: reusing an expired domain to publish low-value content relying on the reputation of the old site can trigger a penalty.
If you buy a domain, make sure to rebuild a site consistent with the original theme, with quality editorial content. Otherwise, the authority signal accumulated by the previous owner will turn against you.
Natural SEO in 2024 relies on solid technical fundamentals and sincere editorial production. Shortcuts, whether it be mass-generated content, misappropriated expired domains, or outdated FAQ markup, are now identified and penalized by Google. It is better to concentrate your resources on a few well-optimized pages than to spread your efforts on short-lived tactics.
