Search engine optimization (SEO) is what makes the difference between successful websites and their low-traffic competitors. In the world where 93% of all traffic comes from a search engine, optimization is the first thing you need to take care of if you want to make your site effective in the long run.

However, a lot of webmasters are confused because Google is reported to change its search algorithm around 500 to 600 times each year. Although it sounds like a major obstacle, the truth is that the most significant ranking features remain the same. In this article, we will show you 10 powerful website optimization factors.

1. Create Quality Content
Content is the main reason why people visit websites. This basically means that you have to create and publish high-quality posts in order to boost website authority and attract more users. Content creation is a combination of skills, research, and experience because your job is to write posts that solve real-life problems. If you are not able to do it properly, we recommend you to leave it to professionals.

2. Make a Keyword Strategy
Each post requires a unique keyword strategy. After all, you know that search terms and phrases represent an essence of SEO, so it’s up to you to try and find the best keywords for your content. Of course, you can’t do it single-handedly so make sure to use keyword planning tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, or some other highly reliable platform.

3. Take Care of User Experience
User experience is another important factor that can chase away website visitors or drastically improve website authority. This feature is all about details because you have to make visitors feel comfortable when browsing your site. Therefore, you must use beautiful visuals, publish highly readable content, and make practical and useful posts. Such details will make the website more appealing and increase dwell time, which in turn gives search engines the reason to rank your pages higher. 

4. Simplify Website Structure
This tip goes hand in hand with the previous one. Namely, you need to make a functional website that is easy to use and navigate. For instance, websites like HR software is so simple that users can find everything they need with one or two clicks the most. It’s just the power of simplicity – there are no unnecessary categories and everything a user might need is available almost instantly.

5. Earn Backlinks
Backlinks are incredibly important for SEO because they prove the credibility of your site. The basic ways to earn backlinks are guest posts, quality articles, and engagement on question-and-answer websites such as Quora. Keep in mind, however, that Google and other engines prefer quality over quantity. You need to earn backlinks from high-authority sites and avoid inbound links coming from spammy and irrelevant sources.

6. Link to Relevant Websites
Backlinking is critical to the success of your SEO strategy, but you should also add links in your posts leading to other trustworthy sites. Some webmasters consider it to be a counterproductive tactic, but it’s not really like that. First of all, outbound links help you to supplement your own content. And secondly, outbound links will help you to establish connections with popular niche websites and perhaps even earn new audiences along the way.

7. Don’t Forget On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization is yet another segment of SEO that you have to take care of. While it may seem difficult at first, it is actually a simple technical process. All you need to do is optimize a few elements:

Titles: It’s the first thing users see in search results.
URLs: A simple URL allows search engine crawlers to understand your content better.
Meta descriptions: Create a short piece of text and use keywords to describe your post.
Image alt tags: Allow search engines to recognize your images.

8. Mobile-Friendliness
Do you know that almost two-thirds of users access the Internet via smartphones? It’s a clear signal that your site has to be perfectly optimized for the mobile experience. You need to use a responsive theme that suits all devices and display dimensions. Besides that, a mobile-friendly website scales images, reduces textual content, and relies on bigger fonts.

9. Improve Load Speed
Modern users expect your site to load in three seconds maximum, so you have to react and test the speed regularly. Tools like Pingdom can help you to measure page load speed from any given location, so you can understand how regular users see your website. At the same time, you can use the platform to identify weaknesses and improve website performance in no time.

10. Analyze Performance
The last advice on our list will help you to boost ranking indirectly. How come? Well, successful webmasters understand how important it is to analyze the performance of their sites and learn how to make them better. You should do the same thing – measure the results of your website and make sure to discover its pros and cons. It will give you enough material to work on and help you to gradually improve your ranking.

Conclusion
A website can never reach the fullest potential without a proper SEO strategy. You need to follow and implement the state of the art optimization techniques in order to stay competitive among thousands of similar sites.

In this article, we discussed 10 powerful website optimization factors. Have you ever paid attention to some of these features? Let us know in comments and make sure to leave a question if you need additional information – we will be glad to answer you!