7 key elements for better SEO rankings in 2024
When it comes to cracking the SEO code, there’s a lot that goes into it.
Search engine optimization (SEO) consists of more than 200 elements that specify the ranking of your site on a search engine.
It is convenient to pay attention to all these elements, but the small majority most likely will provide you with some results—especially if you are just starting on how to build your site. This post will include the few most imperative SEO elements.
Essential SEO elements: A quick overview of SEO
According to one Australian SEO agency, SEO elements can be categorized in two main types: on-page SEO and off page SEO.
On-page SEO is a type of SEO that deals with elements within your website that you can control.
Off-page SEO is a type of SEO containing factors outside your website that you cannot control directly.
Let’s explore these categories deep and cover the most influential elements in each of them.
On-page SEO elements
Content quality
Google’s primary goal is to provide quality content that is helpful and relevant to users. Here are some tips—techniques to avoid: Duplicate content; automatically generated content; keyword stuffing; doorway pages—and here are some hints from Google:
Crawlability and indexability
For the content to rank and be searchable on Google, in fact, it must first be indexable. Actually, Google bots have to find your content, then include it in Google’s index. To make it walk in the park for the Google bots to crawl and index your site:
- Use a sitemap where you tell Google some of the most important pages on your site
- Get some internal links so Google can find your content
- Check your robots.txt file to make sure it’s guiding the crawlers well
Keyword research
Keywords are still important to show the search engines what your content is all about. You do not have to stuff keywords; just craft your target keyword into the title tag, H1 heading, meta description, and generally throughout the content.
Whatever you do, you try to include it towards the very beginning of the text, and it should produce good UX.
Understanding search intent
According to SEO Company Singapore, understanding the search intent behind keywords is vital. Keywords can show either informational intent (wanting to know information), navigational intent (finding a specific page), or transactional intent (wanting to make a purchase). To determine search intent, examine the top results for a keyword to understand what users expect to find.
E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness)
Evidence of E-A-T should be demonstrated, particularly for YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) pages as these could potentially affect a human being’s health, finances, or happiness.
Here’s how to build E-A-T:
Expertise: Make sure the content is written by experts.
Experience: Make sure you’ve got proven experience on the topic that you’re writing about. First-hand experience goes a long way to building trust and credibility.
Authoritativeness: Establish a strong reputation through links and shares from reputable sources.
Trustworthiness: Be trustworthy through good reviews, proper information, and secure practice on the website.
Off-page SEO elements
Backlinks
Backlinks from other websites tell Google that your content is valuable. Try to have huge numbers of good backlinks from authority websites. You can improve your backlink profile by creating relevant content that others would like to link to; you can do outreach to the authors who are worth linking with and ask them for a guest posting offer.
Avoid spam techniques like buying links or link drop comments. You can track backlinks weekly to be on the safe side using tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or SEMrush.
Social signals
According to most SEO consultants, social media shares are not a direct factor for increasing rankings. But what the hey, it certainly does help in an indirect manner. Social shares bridge across communities and bring web traffic to your site. With it, you’ll tend to have more attention and, in turn, more backlinks.
Some steps to take to receive more social shares include:
- Sharing your content on the social media handles your business has.
- Setting up a strong rechargeable social media.
- Adding social share buttons to your webpage.
- Writing about trending topics relevant to your business.
- Writing catchy headlines.
