The main purpose of SEO is to design your website with accessibility in mind. Search engines must be able to accurately discern what your website is about before they can classify it in search engine results, which is where SEO comes into the picture. This then allows users to locate your brand on the web and interact with your products, services and content in the way you have intended. Unfortunately, there are a seemingly endless number of elements that go into SEO, making it a confusing process for many who simply want to increase their presence and reach an interested audience. What elements of SEO are the most important when it comes to reaching your target audience? We will discuss these elements below so that you can focus on what is most important when beginning any SEO strategy.

Your Content

It goes without saying that a site devoid of content isn’t really a site at all. Therefore, the quality and quantity of your content plays perhaps the biggest role in whether or not your website will make it to the top of select SERPs. In most cases, your website should have a consistent theme when pinging links in an attempt to be as relevant as possible; Google and several other search engines do not look upon multi-category websites as kindly as they once did. It also helps to incorporate various forms of multimedia into your content – whether that be videos, presentations, images or other files. As you establish a solid foundation built upon content, search engines will categorize your content more adequately.

Your Site’s Overall Experience

As users flock to your site, what do they find and how easy is it for them to use it? In many cases, a budding website may find itself neglected by search engines if it has a poor design or is otherwise hard to navigate. This leads to higher bounce rates, which search engines take into account and use as one way of determining the quality of the website. In order to avoid any penalties associated with these elements, you must strive to have the best aesthetic elements in place, a well-developed navigation system and proper security measures in place to reassure your visitors.

Your Keywords

Search engines have evolved quite a bit since just a few years ago, making the use of keywords a more delicate concept. In the past, keyword stuffing was a quick and easy SEO tactic that resulted in fast results for those who took advantage of it, but search engines now can identify in most cases when this tactic is being used. Your site will be penalized for this strategy, but there are plenty of ways to incorporate relevant keywords without overdoing it. An organic keyword approach – one that sprinkles your target SERPs throughout titles, headings and the body of your content – will ensure that you attain the results you wish, without the unnecessary downgrading of your website in search results.

Conclusion

While pinging links and building social circles is important to SEO, you can gain the most immediate benefit by ensuring that your website is user friendly, that your content is detailed and thorough, and that your keyword strategies do not become excessive.