SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, has evolved rapidly over the years as a response to the constantly changing criteria search engines use to determine the quality of websites — and therefore their rank on search engine results pages. In the past, search engines like Google used to consider keywords meta tags as part of their overall method for judging websites. But because this method became exploited and abused by people trying to get non-relevant sites ranked for highly sought-after keywords, Google began disregarding it altogether.
So what is the state of SEO today? A new infographic lays out the basics in a format most of us may remember from our high school years: a Periodic Table of Elements.
At first glance, what’s noteworthy is that the number of “OFF THE PAGE” factors clearly outnumbers the number of “ON THE PAGE” factors. But as the infographic shows, it’s how these factors work together that really has the biggest impact on search engines. Having fresh content and relevant keywords on your site is important, but making sure that content gets shared socially needs to be a part of your holistic SEO strategy as well.
Do you find any SEO “elements” on this inforgraphic surprising or noteworthy? How will you focus on these elements with your own online marketing efforts going forward? Let us know in a comment!