There are over 200 SEO elements in our algorithm, but you don’t have to memorize them or know them all.

In this text you will find the most relevant items and how to optimize each variable in a practical and fast way.

If you read the entire guide and apply most of the tips, your traffic will grow exponentially.

What factors affect SEO?

When placing your company website, personal brand, or entrepreneurship on Google’s front page, it’s important to know what search engines analyze to rank you.

If you know what your teacher cares about, you can post better answers.

Likewise, knowing deeply what Google’s algorithms all about allow you to strategize fully complying with each guideline.

The exact formulas and methodologies used by the world’s most relevant search engines constitute confidential information that no one can access.

However , there is some consensus in the SEO industry that there are about 200 or so ranking factors .

The best article on this topic was written in English by Brian Dean and has since been translated from several sites on the Internet.

However, the intent of the text you are reading is not to describe each positioning element in detail one by one, however, but rather to describe clearly and concisely what is most important to you and what you can do to optimize each element. their. .

Throughout this article, you will find items that may not be part of our algorithms, but are highly correlated with websites that perform well in search engines.

By following these practices, you will be successful on the Yes or Yes Internet.

The main elements of SEO 

Below, as taught by teachers Cyrus Shepard , Rand Fishkin , and Brian Dean , with our own experience and best market practices, the most important positioning factors to conquer Google’s front page about it.

The variables are divided into five large areas.

• Page elements and content quality.
• domain authority element.
• Link elements (links) and off-pages.
• Factors and technical aspects on the page.
• Site elements, user experience and design.

It can affect some things directly (internal SEO factors) and indirectly affect others (external SEO factors).

At the end of each point you will find practical tips that you can apply to your website and improve your location.

Page SEO elements and content quality

At Google, the most important thing is that your content answers your questions and solves your problems.

Doing so in a unique style gets you part of the way.

What SEO factors affect content quality?

Respond to actual query ( keyword )

Although Google’s algorithms have advanced a lot over the past decade, the use of keywords in text is still very important.

There is no point in writing very good content if no one is going to find it.

Not only do you need to create compelling, useful, and valuable work, but you also need to incorporate phrases that your audience queries from Google in your articles.

In a very comprehensive study , Brian Dean found that most content ranked on the front page had the correct keywords to rank in the title tag.

Satisfy user intent

It’s not enough just to write text that includes the keywords you want to position yourself with.

In addition to this, you need to ensure that the content meets the intent of the user .

What does this mean?

What is SEO ? :

If someone searches the internet for “democracy justice,” the person behind that question is most likely a student trying to complete an assignment.

Your goal is to know .

So, if you want to solve the problem for them, or if you want to create an article that ranks high on Google for that kind of search, you should explain the concept in a structured way as much as possible, add the perspectives of several prominent scholars, and focus on the topic. You should recommend a book about it.

creativity

How do you differentiate yourself from all that competition? What doesn’t anyone else have? Why should Google put you first?

To go where no one has gone, you have to do what no one else has done.

Leadership

Depending on the query type and subject, Google will usually reward you for recent text.

Also, search engines like content creators to constantly update their articles.

This is because a California company knows that much of the information shared on the Internet may expire at some point.

So, make sure your content is up-to-date so you don’t serve outdated content to your users.

Author Reputation: Professionalism, Authority and Trust (EAT)

As we’ll see later , the algorithm not only evaluates the product, it also analyzes the brand behind it.

This means that it is not only important to have good content, but also someone with experience and authority on the subject.

Using images and videos

Operationally, the best format for Google to position itself is text ( search engines cannot accurately read what’s inside an image or video).

However, adding audiovisual material to your content can improve the user experience and thus increase your average ranking on the results page.

Depth

If the whole topic is covered, the user does not need to return to the Google results page for further investigation.

Also, since the article will hit multiple vertices of the topic, the content is laid out in tens (or hundreds) of words, as every subtitle ranks itself .

If you cover the topic in depth, you’ll get high traffic without the need to generate new text as often as this information is likely to be valuable for a long time.

Brian Dean determined that this type of text was far more important than other texts. He also found that websites that retain users longer tend to rank higher than websites that don’t attract visitors’ attention.

Increasing the hold time by 3 seconds will give you a place on the results page.

On the other hand, Neil Patel , in his Extensive Guide to Google’s Algorithms, said that before the Panda update , shallow content ranked very well. Today, the opposite happens.

Forget writing simple articles with the intention of positioning yourself.

Additional content quality

In its guidelines, Google points out that it’s important that the central text of a page accompanies useful information to users, instead of annoying consumers, for example, with advertisements that are not relevant to their interests.

Use of semantic content

What words or phrases relate to the main topic of the article?

If the text is about laptops, it’s normal for users and Google to expect terms like this:

• Model.
• processor.
• lamb.
• HDD.
• screen.

Semantic content is what Google relies on to know when, for example, an article about “Madrid” is about the city and when it’s about the soccer team.

Some advanced SEO concepts to keep in mind:

1.- TF*IDF : A formula used by Google to determine the relevance of content based on a user’s query.

TF stands for term frequency and indicates how often a word is repeated in a document.

IDF stands for Inverse Document Frequency and indicates how common a word is in Google search results.

How does this translate into practice?

E.g:

The term “RAM”, the word ‘RAM’ is much less common than ‘memory’.

So, if Google had to decide between a text with only the word memory and a text with only the word RAM, it would most likely decide on the latter.

2.- LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation or Dirichlet Latent Assignment) : A model that helps Google contextualize content and know when to present it to the user.

Search engines are increasingly specialized in identifying what we are really looking for.

E.g:

Rand Fishkin is very similar to the “The Stones” query.

When someone makes that search, Google knows that the content it needs to rank isn’t text with the terms ruby ​​or emerald, but content that contains words like Mick Jagger or Keith Richards.

They know because search engines have found that “Stones” has more to do with rock bands than rock types.

So, even if you mention the term “stone” 5,000 times in ruby ​​and emerald text, when people type that term into the search box, Google will show you the band first.

3.- Co-Occurrence : This measure determines which terms usually appear together.

Continuing from the previous example, Google knows that ‘The Stones’ is the band because the phrase appears multiple times next to ‘Mick Jagger’, ‘rock’ or ‘concert’.

Readability

Not only the content (what you want to convey), but also the form (how you deliver it) is important.

Your efforts will be futile if what you write is not understood by your target audience.

Really right

Google has been concerned in recent years about not ranking websites that are misleading.

Search engines care about whether what is stated in the content is true so that users do not make mistakes when making decisions in life.

For this reason, Google states in the ” Quality Assessor Guidelines ” that pages that provide inaccurate information may be marked as low quality and may be penalized.

Click-through rate (CTR)

What’s the use of being displayed on Google’s front page if no one clicks on your content?

Click-through rate is the percentage of clicks a section of your website receives in relation to the number of times it was viewed on a Google results page.

I don’t know if that’s a ranking factor, but having a good CTR will get more people to engage with your article, which correlates with better ranking.

Domain Authority SEO Elements

Google, above all else, evaluates your reputation on the Internet.

Searchers are interested in what the WHO says, not just what it says.

Just like in real life, you need to build a solid reputation to get more attention on the web.

If you have a good reputation, you can sleep peacefully because the respect you have earned will work for you.

What SEO Factors Affect Domain Permissions?

General Affairs

You can’t just hit Google overnight and claim that you’re a respected brand in the industry.

Even when you’ve been working on a topic for years in the offline world, you’ve got to work hard to build that reputation on the world’s most important search engines.

Make your website a center of knowledge, a learning space, and a useful place.

Then we have to wait for the rumors to spread.

In this way, many visits will be reduced and other companies will refer you on their website.

Personalization

Based on your previous behavior in search engines and your current needs, Google will select (customize) the results that are best for you.

If you’ve visited a website before and have been there for a long time, it’s very likely that the algorithm will lift you up when you refer to something related to what that portal has to offer.

Personalization is also related to location, for example.

If you write a query to buy something for dinner, Google will give you the restaurant closest to you (and available for delivery) in the results.

Simply put: based on who you are and where you are, what you did before, and what you want to do now, search engines will return what they find most useful at the moment.

Authority on the subject

It’s not the same thing ESPN writes about medicine as it is about sports.

In the first case, despite the fact that we’re talking about a very authoritative press, ESPN isn’t going to do so well with Google, because it’s covering a topic that isn’t an approved voice.

Search engines know what you are doing and how much experience you have with the matter.

Search volume by brand name

ESPN is synonymous with sports.

CNN is synonymous with news.

 

YouTube is synonymous with watching videos online.

Work on making your company name relevant to a specific topic in your mind.

That way, when people want to search for that topic, they’re typing your company name directly into the search engine.

For example: Our goal is to put Pencil Speech on Google when people want to know about SEO .

Domain age

Google reported that domain age is not a direct ranking factor.

However, having an older website correlates with better search engine rankings.

Reputation (link) doesn’t happen overnight, so spending a few years in the market will help you get a more positive reference in the industry.

Google also takes into account the date the site was first archived in its algorithm.

Business and site reputation

Search engines pay a lot of attention to the comments (reviews) people leave on your website or My Business account.

I also mentioned that Google knows very well what each company’s customer service is like in the real world.

So, pay attention not only to how you look online, but also what you do offline.

Movement / Engagement in Social Networks

Hopefully on social media your company will feel its impact in a positive way.

Your brand will reach more people, the number of users talking about your products and services will increase and your content will have a greater reach.

As GaryVee posted on Crush It , social media is kind of word of mouth, but it’s more of a steroid.

If you’re worried about doing things right and nurturing a community with your content, people will use the platform to talk to you and your benefits.

Links and off-page SEO elements

A vote of trust is required to gain fame and respect. You need an approved voice from the industry in which you do business to ensure that you are proficient at what you do.

To measure this, Google checks the link.

If many companies, educational institutions, and government agencies claim that your content is great and that you link to your website, search engines have no other option than giving you such approval and rewarding you for a better position on the results page. There is no.

What SEO Factors Affect Links?

Link quality and quantity

The more reputable sites that link to your website, the better.

Now the quality of those links can depend on the following factors:

Authority: Links from the New York Times are not the same as those from Pedrito Perez.

Location: Links on the homepage are not the same as links on the very difficult to access section of the website.

Anchor text: Putting a link in a phrase that describes your benefits (eg, “Best Clothing Store”) is different from putting a link in a simple “here”.

Authenticity: Google has a mechanism in place to verify that the link you obtain is from some sort of commercial exchange, or that you obtained the link simply because your content is so good.

Pages with many incoming links rank higher than pages with few links. In fact , Brian Dean states that Google’s #1 results average 3.8x more backlinks than #2 – #10 positions.

Link trust

In SEO 15 years ago, many people created hundreds of websites to create links to the portals they wanted to place.

This is where the word farm comes from.

Of course, this was considered bad practice and Google began to punish those responsible.

So, make sure that the links you get are authentic, genuine and up to the standards of search engines.

Don’t pay to put a link to your website on someone else’s portal.

Link relevance

If you’re writing about medicine, you’ll want a website that links to your portal from your doctor or health center (clinic, hospital, outpatient clinic).

Remember, to be an authoritative voice in your field, you must be approved in your field.

Internal links to reputable websites

Not only the links you receive, but also the links you provide are important.

​​​We reward you for citing trusted sources of information and mentioning approved voices in your content.

speed of receiving links

If one of your texts has recently received many links, Google can infer that that content is currently relevant.

So we reward you with a better position on the results page.

This is related to the freshness factor mentioned above .

SEO elements on the page and technical aspects

Although highly intelligent, Google is still a robot.

For this reason, there are several technical elements (some more complex than others) that must be dealt with in order for the algorithm to understand what to do with your website.

What Factors Affect Technical SEO ?

Use of related words, phrases and topics

Despite improving their algorithms over the years, Google still works like a machine.

Search engines are robots that work by sending spiders to record all content posted on the web.

When those spiders get to your site, you want to make sure they understand what they are doing.

So keywords are still important.

Crawl and accessible by search engines

If you deny spider access to your website, entering keywords will not work.

Your robots.txt file allows Google to decide what to put in your library and what not to include.

Make sure you don’t block anything you want to rank.

Also consider the following:

Google can only read and understand content in text format.

For this reason , we explain in Technical SEO: How to let Google know about your page. , you must ensure that all information you wish to locate is indicated in writing .

Structured data

In addition to what is recorded on our webpages, we may report additional information to Google to help us improve your website’s ranking in search engines.
This means, for example, that you can flag the content as a recipe or a book.

From the text on technical SEO : How to tell Google about your page? Google explains this in detail.

“Google Search puts a lot of effort into understanding the content of a page. You can help by including structured data on your page to give Google clear clues about what it means. Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying content. For example, a recipe page shows ingredients, cooking time and temperature, calories, etc.” ( source )

“Rich results may include design elements, images, and other interactive features that can make your site stand out more in search results. By using structured data on pages to provide specific information about your content, Google interprets the data and We can improve the way rich results are displayed in searches.” ( source )

However , in the study by Brian Dean we mentioned , Backlinko states that this is not the ranking factor itself.

Security Certificates (HTTPS)

If you see HTTPS at the beginning of your website’s URL, it means you have an SSL certificate.

This certificate is as described in our article on how to create an SEO website. , a kind of shield that protects the portal data on the server and protects the site from possible attacks.

Having an SSL certificate tells Google that your site is trusted and that you are who you are (authentication).

hreflang tag for internationalization

If you want your site’s content to be country- and language-specific, you need to tag your site with special tags so that the portal knows when to display each type of information.

Google has this to say about it :

“If you have multiple versions of a page in different languages, or a page that targets a specific region, please let me know. This allows Google Search to display the most appropriate version of the page based on the user’s language or region.”

Friendly URLs

Your URL says a lot about you because it indicates how tidy your home is.

They can help you:

-Optimize the user experience (you know which page the user will click on).

– Makes Google’s job easier (search engines will know what that section of the site is).

-Improve the position on the results page (although it is a minor but a positioning element).

– Increase the value of page links displayed on other websites (Google is very interested in what a URL says to determine the quality of those links).

Having shorter URLs correlates with better search engine rankings.

Robot

Just as you want Google to be able to crawl most of your website, sometimes you want the search engine not to archive certain pages, because they are not relevant.

This can happen with pages:

-Administrative.
-For premium users or company staff.
-With private information.
-Of little value.
-With duplicate content.

Sitemap

A sitemap is a blueprint of your website. By creating it, you make it easier for Google to crawl your site . If your portal were an apartment, the search engine would already know where the bathrooms are, where the bedrooms are and where the living room is.

server location

Like the hreflang tag, the location of your server will allow you to gain more visibility in the territory where it is hosted.

Site SEO Elements, User Experience and Design

It is true that Google is a robot, but we cannot forget that it serves to satisfy human needs.

And humans want to feel good, to enjoy themselves, and to know that they are being cared for.

Therefore, managing the user experience is a key aspect for a truly successful SEO effort.

What SEO Factors Affect Design?

Adaptability to multiple devices

Your website should look great on the screen of PCs, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, and any other device that can connect to the Internet.

Appearance of the site (layout and design)

As people in marketing, our mission is not to accomplish, but to delight.

Brands that make a difference beyond offering a product or service (Apple, Starbucks, Nike) make the market fall in love.

Page structure (text and articles)

As we always say , on the Internet, users scan, not read.

So how you present the information is just as important as the information itself.

Site architecture

Primarily, your site should be very intuitive. Don’t make the user think.

They have to guess how to perform each task within the website and, in a simple way, predict where the information they are looking for is located.

Pagination

If you have multiple pages of the same content (article or product section), it’s important to clearly indicate this to search engines

Speed

Your website can be beautiful and functional, but if it doesn’t load quickly, you inevitably lose visitors who can convert to customers.

According to Kissmetrics , a 1 second delay in load time reduces conversion rates by 7%.

On mobile, on the other hand, reducing the load time by just one second can increase your conversion rate by 27%.

However, as Brian Dean claims , a faster website doesn’t necessarily mean a higher ranking .

So when it comes to positioning yourself, it’s not a success factor, it’s a case of providing a good user experience.