The nature of SEO is a complex phenomenon that can confuse even the most experienced marketers and content creators. Brands that wish to have successful online presences sooner or later will need to consider how SEO can affect traffic on search engines, social media and beyond. Many different individual tasks comprise SEO, but beginners shouldn’t feel overwhelmed that they do not yet understand all of the variables. In the beginning, it is crucial that brands grasp a few simple concepts that relate to how SEO can impact search rankings and traffic, but thankfully, these concepts are pretty simple. Below, we’ve put together three important concepts that you must understand quickly in order to lay the foundation for future SEO success.

Content Quality Matters

Above all else, SEO is a task in which quality content is promoted and subsequently categorized by user behaviour with it. Search engines will be pinging your website for signals as to whether the content quality is good or bad – this in large part will determine where in search you rank. In general, it is advised that writers and content creators generate content that is informative, entertaining or engaging, and above all else, relevant to the audiences they are targeting. While search engines do not have the ability to judge content to the same degree as people, search engines can and do judge your content based on how others interact with it. Do not attempt to sloppily throw together content with the goal being success – write for your audiences, do it well, and you will have conquered the single most important concept of SEO.

Building Links Matter

While there are plenty of opinions and perspectives out there about how effective link building remains from the perspective of SEO, the truth is that link building still provides valuable contributions to rankings and a boost in traffic from other sites. While not as easy to earn them nor as effective with search engines as they once were, earning back links from other sites to your own is a basic component of boosting traffic outside of search engines (and building a reputation within them). Since search engines assess the relationship of websites to one another based on links, the more high-ranking websites in a given niche that you can earn links with, the more authority search engines will see when pinging your website.

The User Has the Final Say

At the end of the day, how each visitor to your site feels about it determines in large part what search engines see. We already addressed this angle with content, but it applies to all elements – navigation, design, ease of use, and content. In essence, the user experience on the website is measured through a variety of metrics that search engines collect, telling them whether the visitor found the site to be relevant based on its ranking in search, whether the site can be easily indexed (based on internal links), and even how accessible it is on mobile devices. While you may not hear any complaints or compliments about your brand’s website from visitors, be aware that their sentiments are picked up by search engines in how they choose to interact with it.