SEO Challenges and Trends in 2024

• Algorithm Changes: Search engines, like Google, are always updating how they decide what’s relevant. They care about things like user experience, so make sure your site is fast, easy to use, and has diverse, high-quality content. The algorithm changes require you to optimize your site for speed, usability, content quality, and diversity.
• Cookie Changes: Browsers are phasing out third-party cookies for privacy reasons. This means you might lose some insights about users. Targeting ads and measuring their effectiveness might get trickier.
• AI Impact: Machine learning and artificial intelligence are making search engines smarter. They focus on understanding what users want. So, your content should not just have keywords but also match what users are looking for.
• Voice and Visual Search: People are using their voices or images to search. This means you should optimize your site for how people naturally speak, use structured data, and include media.

Types of Backlinks

Inbound Links (Backlinks):

• Links from external websites to your site
• Act as endorsements, influencing authority and search engine rankings.
• Higher quality leads to improved search engine results.

Outbound Links (External Links):

• Links from your site to other external websites
• Provide added value by directing visitors to relevant resources.
• Build connections, enhance content credibility, and signal content reliability.

Internal Links:

• Links connect different pages within your own website.
• Improves user experience, navigation, and site structure.
• Aids search engine efficiency by distributing authority and reducing bounce rates.

Should We Build Backlinks in 2024 or Not?

How Backlinks Can Help You with SEO in 2024

Optimizing for different search mediums:

• Backlinks enhance compatibility with voice and visual search.
• They improve natural language, structured data, and rich media capabilities.
• By securing backlinks from relevant sites, your site performs better in diverse search methods.

Focusing on user intent:

• Backlinks offer insights into user behavior and preferences.
• They help understand different user intents (informational, navigational, transactional, and commercial).
• By obtaining backlinks from sites catering to varied intents, you can align your content with user needs effectively.

Creating dynamic, evergreen content:

• Backlinks provide sources and inspiration for evergreen content.
• They enable access to ideas and information for creating timely and relevant content.
• Distributing and promoting evergreen content through backlinks helps maintain consistent, long-term traffic and engagement.

Best Practices and Tips for Earning and Giving Backlinks

• Implement Topic Clusters and Pillar Pages: Utilize a content strategy that organizes related topics into clusters linked to a central pillar page. This comprehensive structure enhances your chances of ranking for various keywords, making your content more link-worthy.
• Research and Target Relevant Keywords: Identify and target relevant keywords to improve your site's visibility and traffic. By aligning your content with user intent, you increase the likelihood of attracting links from other sites interested in the same keywords.
• Create High-Quality, Original Content: Develop content that adds value, solves problems, and stands out. High-quality and original content not only satisfies users but also attracts links from other sites seeking valuable and unique information.
• Collaborate with Influencers and Authoritative Sites: Partner with influencers and authoritative websites to leverage their credibility and audience. This collaboration broadens your reach, enhances credibility, and increases the likelihood of receiving backlinks from sites influenced by these partnerships.
• Utilize Various Ad Formats: Ads aren't just revenue generators; they can also be backlink tools. Employ diverse ad formats, like display ads, video ads, native ads, and sponsored posts, to showcase your content and attract links from sites interested in your offerings.

How Backlinks Affect SEO: Experts’ Views Over Time

• According to John Mueller, Google’s Senior Search Analyst and Team Lead of Google’s Search Relations Team, the total number of backlinks a website has doesn’t matter at all to the search algorithm. He said that one good link from a relevant website can be more impactful than millions of low-quality links. He also said that Google tries to understand the context and the content of the website, and the total number of links is irrelevant.
• According to Gary Illyes, an analyst on the Google Search Team, backlinks are important, but people overestimate their importance. He said that he doesn’t agree that backlinks are among the top three ranking factors and that it is possible to rank without links. He also said that backlinks as a signal have a lot less significant impact compared to when Google Search first started out and that Google has hundreds of robust ranking signals to rank the most relevant and useful results.
• According to Kaspar Szymanski, a former member of the Google Search Quality team and a co-founder of SearchBrothers, backlinks are still a crucial factor in determining a website’s ranking on search. He said that backlinks help Google understand the authority and popularity of a website and that they also drive traffic, referrals, and conversions to the site. He also said that backlinks need to be high-quality, relevant, and strategic and that they need to be updated and refreshed regularly to maintain their freshness and accuracy.
• According to Duy Nguyen, a current member of Google’s Search Quality team, backlinks have a less significant impact on ranking on Google. He said that Google has developed algorithms that can identify and penalize websites that engage in backlink spamming and that Google also uses AI and machine learning to evaluate the quality and relevance of backlinks more accurately. He also said that Google does not care how content is created, whether by AI, humans, or both, as long as it provides value and correct information to the users.

Conclusion