There are literally hundreds of factors that can influence your search engine rankings for various key terms, most of which are closely guarded secrets of the search engine companies. Still, using a variety of methods, SEO practitioners and researchers have managed to hone in on a number of specific elements which, if managed properly, enable webmasters to improve their search engine rankings. 12 of those elements include:

1. Quality and location of keywords
2. Originality of content
3. Index readability and ease of site navigation
4. Use of alt-text for images
5. Quality of page title tags
6. User satisfaction (measured by engagement metrics related to time spent on a page or website, link placement, and sharing)
7. Presence and trustworthiness of inbound links
8. Quality and trustworthiness of outbound links (“link neighborhoods”)
9. Security of a site (http vs https)
10. Page load speed
11. Mobile friendliness
12. Ratio of content to advertisements

To find out more about these elements, download the 25-page E-book just published by LawLytics: SEO Basics for Lawyers. Download it for free today.