SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is one of those buzzwords that everyone uses, but few truly comprehend. This is partially due to the fact that SEO is always changing and the information you learn today may not be as useful tomorrow. It’s important to always be researching the latest trends in the field in order to make sure your efforts are up to date. Here are a few new elements to SEO that you may not be aware of, but that can help your bottom line.

 

1. Click Through Rate -With behavior factors becoming a larger and larger factor, your CTR will be one of the things that determine how your website is ranked — so choosing to revise your titles and descriptions one more time could pay off in even more ways than they may have previously

 

2. Engagement – Do the searchers find what they are looking for on your page, or do they go back to click other search results? Do the searchers stay on your page, proceed to other pages, or bounce in just a few seconds? The level at which users engage with your content is likely to influence your rankings.

 

3. Information – You must have information that fills gaps in searchers’ knowledge.With the purpose of delivering a satisfying search experience, If the search engine protocols look at search results that people eventually land on when they search a certain keyword to identify what those searches have in common. For example, the presence of certain words could predict more successful searches. Watching users searching for “New York”, a search engine could conclude that a page about New York that doesn’t mention New York City or Long Island is not offering the information searchers are looking for (and hence should not rank very high).

4. Shares, links, and loyalty incentives per visit – Though social signals aren’t officially a ranking factor (while backlinks are), data shows that pages with lots of social activity and few links outperform those with more links and fewer shares — even for insanely competitive keywords.

However, it’s not just the bare numbers that count – a search engine may also be looking at how social activity grows over time, and whether or not social engagement results in loyalty and return visits.

 

5. Fulfilling the searcher’s task (not just their search) – Search engines want those searching to complete their tasks quickly, so it’s quite possible that the ranking results will differ depending on the intent of the user (for instance, purchase) that the search engine associates with a particular search.

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