While SEO continues to face competition in the ever-widening world of web-based strategies, it remains a crucial and solid way in which to increase traffic and visibility for online presence. The nature of SEO has continued to change with time, becoming ever more complex with each passing year, but there are several characteristics to it that remain virtually the same. When embarking upon a SEO plan, it is important to understand what constitutes the fundamentals of the process. The overall dynamic of SEO is multi-faceted and never-ending, but three simple elements pertain to it that must be understood. We’ll talk about those three elements today in order to simplify where your focus should be when pursuing strategies to boost exposure.

Website Structure

The foundation of your SEO efforts must be considered to reside within the design and framework of the website. At the core of this is the selection of a website template that is easy for search engines to read, easy for people to read and easy for mobile devices to format. Pinging links successfully to search engines can only happen if the format of the website is friendly to these entities, as any deficiency across these three categories will lead to a dramatic reduction in visibility. In addition, the content that is included with each post or update must be legible and customized with tags, keywords and other technical attributes. This is why the selection of a website structure and design that please devices, search engines and people alike is the most crucial element of proper SEO procedure.

Links

The need for webmasters to be pinging links from their websites to others – as well as in between each page on their websites – is important, but the need for backlinks is absolutely crucial. As more people and brands find your content, more will inevitably link back to it (assuming the content is informative and valuable). This process is viewed by Google, Bing and others as one of legitimacy; if others are linking back to your site, then it must contain content that is valuable and associated with these websites. Obtaining links is important, but not at any cost: some link building strategies can actually harm your reputation with search engines, so be sure to carefully evaluate who all is linking to your website (and file a disavow petition with Google if you believe having a link on that site is hurting you).

Content

While a great website structure and plenty of links can help boost SEO credibility substantially, none of that would matter without great content! In order to please the masses, keep them clicking and keep search engines validating your existence, well-crafted content is absolutely essential. Today’s SEO involves largely assessing user behaviour, which means that great content shouldn’t just be in the form of text. Multimedia-rich solutions such as infographics, video and podcasts can also boost influence and result in some pretty good performance on social media as well. By focusing on the quality of content rather than the quantity, users and search engines alike will have the perfect trifecta on which to judge your brand’s presence.