Google's Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) rankings are based on more than 200 ranking factors. These factors and their importance are often changed with algorithm updates.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is always changing, and there are many ranking factors that can make it hard to know what to focus on to get more organic traffic to your website.
Fortunately, there are a few key principles of SEO that mostly remain constant. In this post, I'll break down the five major components of SEO so you know where to concentrate your efforts.
1. Regular publication of excellent content
Content is the internet's lifeblood and is critical for SEO. Great content is what consumers seek, and as a result, search engines do as well.What exactly is "great content"?
It's difficult to define outstanding content since it depends on the aim of the material and its audience. However, as a general rule, great content is any material that offers the user important and relevant information.
Great content can be delivered in a variety of formats (video, blogs, graphics), as long as it is tailored to the needs of the user.
Focus on your users when creating amazing content for your website. You'll be on the right road if you make addressing their inquiries your primary focus.
Then all you have to do is make the information easy to engage with. Make sure your material is easy to read and properly structured. Include images to help clarify your material and make it easier to explore.
2. SEO on-page
The more technical parts of SEO optimization are included in on-page SEO. Making sure your website is SEO-friendly is one of the fundamental building blocks of SEO.Many website owners ignore the fundamentals of on-page SEO because they appear insignificant and time-consuming. Failure to perform the fundamentals of SEO, on the other hand, will have a negative impact on your SEO results.
A site with several "small" SEO flaws raises a huge red flag for search engines. If you want to increase your site traffic and rankings, make sure you cover the fundamentals.
To improve your website's on-page SEO, perform the following:
- Improve your title tags.
- Improve your meta descriptions.
- Improve the structure of your URLs.
- Improved website load times
- Insert image alt text
- Insert structured data markup.
- Get rid of 404s.
- Check that your website can be crawled.
- Improve the structure of your website.
3. Optimization for Mobile Devices
In 2015, Google added mobile friendliness as a ranking consideration, and in 2018, it began adopting mobile first indexing. Because of these two algorithm adjustments, your website's mobile version has a substantial influence on its search performance.To get the most out of your SEO efforts, your website must be mobile-friendly.
A mobile-friendly website has the following features:
- Responsive design is used to dynamically adapt the appearance to any screen size.
- prioritizes website load speeds so that pages load rapidly regardless of connection type (cellular data, wifi, etc.).
- To maintain visual clarity on a small screen, keep design components basic.
- uses huge font sizes to ensure that the text is legible on any screen size.
- provides facts in a clear and succinct manner.
4. Excellent User Experience
Another important part of SEO is ensuring that your website users have a fantastic experience.You must guarantee that your users like using your site if you want to establish a loyal following.
We've all had terrible interactions with websites. We seldom return to a website that is badly organized, does not answer our inquiries, or is difficult to use. Almost all users exhibit this tendency.
People seldom return to a website that is difficult to use or does not give content in an easy-to-consume fashion, for whatever reason.
If people can find and interact with the great content on your website, it can only help you grow.
This is where a positive user experience comes into play.
The user experience is divided into several aspects, ranging from page load times to site navigation to content structure. However, the major purpose of the user experience is to ensure that users of your site can locate and obtain the material they need as fast and easily as possible.
Slow load times, poorly designed information, perplexing navigation bars, and obtrusive pop-ups make your website more difficult to use and create a negative user experience. If people always have bad experiences on your site, they won't come back, and you won't be able to build a loyal user base.
5. Backlinks from Reputable Websites
Backlinks from authoritative websites are the final crucial component of SEO. Links are like "votes" for your website. The more votes you receive, the better for your website.When a site has links from other sites that search engines already think are reliable, that site's reliability goes up.
Backlinks are essential for increasing the authority of your website.
So, how do you go about constructing links?
Make "excellent content" and then spread the word about it.
When you follow tip one, "constant production of quality content," you will naturally build links to your site as people reference and share your information. This is Google's favorite and one of the most successful methods of link development.
Organic link development is the ideal approach for increasing site traffic, but it is not a substitute for outreach.
Make certain that your material is shared on various platforms. Contact site owners in your niche and offer them your material. A well-written email can help you develop links to your website.
If you invest in these five fundamental SEO factors, you will be well on your way to increasing the authority of and traffic to your website.
SEO isn't nearly as difficult as it appears. If you consistently invest in the fundamentals, you will see returns.