5 Important SEO Elements to Optimize on your Website
10/08/2026
SEO can definitely feel overwhelming for those who are new to the game and trying to learn the latest and greatest best practices. It seems like things are constantly changing with every Google algorithm update. At times there appears to be conflicting information. White hat, grey hat, BLACK hat!…What does it all mean?? It can be hard to cut through all the clutter and figure out what to do to get traffic to your website. To help, I've listed the 5 most important SEO elements that you need to optimize on your website:
1. Title Tags
This is the single most important on-site element in regards to optimizing for search engines.
They give the search engines insight into what the page is about (keywords used) and they also
act as a call-to-action on the search engine results page (the blue clickable text is the title
tag of that page). This is an important dual purpose that can have a huge impact on the amount
of traffic your website gets.
Google result snippet showing the homepage title tag of codementor
2. URL Structure
In terms of hierarchy, the structure of a URL should follow the structure of the website itself.
Keywords should be used when possible. And always use dashes instead of underscores when
separating words.
Example URL using keywords and dashes
3. Canonical Tags
These let the search engines know what the canonical (or “original”) version of a URL should be.
This comes into play on sites that have dynamic URLs or sites where the URL structure is such
that you can access the same page from different URLs. For example, yoursite and yoursite/html
might have the same content and look the same to users, but to search engines they are two
different URLs. To help address this issue you should include a canonical tag that indicates the
preferred original version of a URL.
What a Canonical tag looks like in the source code
4. Header Tags
Also known as H1-H6 tags, these are on-page titles that search engines use as part of their
algorithm to determine page topic and relevancy. The most weight is given to H1′s, followed by
H2′s. H3-H6 tags are not really given any weight at all. So while you can use them on your site
they won’t have an impact on your SEO. In regards to optimizing your Header tags, you want to
try to use keywords taken from the on-page content while still writing a title that is human
friendly (versus strictly for search engines).
Example of an H1 tag taken from the source code
5. Meta Descriptions
These are the snippets that can be seen below the blue clickable text on the search engine
results page. The descriptions themselves can only be seen in the source code (they are not
visible on the web page itself). They should be very short and succinct and use keywords while
still being readable for humans. Along with the Title Tags, the meta descriptions can have a big
impact in terms of click-thru rates from the search engine results page.
Google snippet showing meta description taken from codementor homepage
So there you have it. The top 5 most important on-site SEO elements that you need to make sure you optimize on your website. Aside from the canonical tag (which came into existence in 2009) all of the elements have been in use for the last 10+ years. They are the elements that have stood the test of time through many algorithm updates and I believe will continue to be important through many more.
Need help with SEO on your website? Let’s see how we can work together to get you more organic search engine traffic. Contact me today.