SEO – Search Engine Optimization
“I'll have to google that quickly.” Who doesn't know and use this phrase? With a market share of over 90%, Google is the most widely used search engine in the world. Other search engines such as Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo! or Ecosia come much later. However, the function and mechanisms of the search engines are similar for all providers.
When a query is made with specific keywords, they search the internet and display the results to users in order of relevance. This relevance can be influenced by so-called search engine optimisation of web content.
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But what exactly is search engine optimisation (SEO)? What is it all about and how can content be optimised? In this article, we provide a brief overview.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimisation, or SEO for short, refers to everything that helps a website to rank better on search engines such as Google. This means that the website is displayed as high up as possible in the results for a search query on a specific topic. For example, if you enter a keyword on Google, the paid advertisements are listed at the top, followed by the pages classified by Google as the most relevant websites on the topic in question. How relevant a page is depends on various factors. These need to be optimised in SEO.
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In contrast to SEA (Search Engine Advertising), which refers to paid advertising measures to increase visibility, SEO refers to organic optimisation.
How does SEO work?
How well a specific website ranks, i.e. how high it appears in the list of search results, depends on various factors. During the so-called crawling process, search engines comb through websites on the internet, classify them by topic and rate them according to their relevance.
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For a website to perform well in crawling, it is important that it is well structured and provides clear content. Factors such as the loading speed of a website, the use of keywords, meta tags and backlinks contribute to the relevance of the page.
Which factors are relevant?
In search engine optimisation, a distinction is made between on-page SEO and off-page SEO. Onpage SEO refers to the optimisation of everything that is located directly on the website. This includes content, structure, design, user experience, keywords and meta tags. Offpage SEO includes measures that influence the relevance of a website from the outside. For example, backlinks or links from social media to a specific website.
In addition to content adjustments, the technical optimisation of the website is also important. This includes, for example, optimising the URL, improving the performance of the website and increasing the loading speed, avoiding duplicate content or eliminating 404 error messages.
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SEO is a big topic with many factors, content-related and technical aspects. The mechanisms of search engines and their criteria are constantly evolving. We therefore recommend that you commission an agency such as deeds. for professional SEO. They have the relevant experience, know-how, software and tools.
Yes, that was a lot of information. So that your head doesn't spin, we'll give you a short checklist here.
These are the most important elements when it comes to SEO:
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Structure: Your website should be clearly structured and visually appealing so that it optimally picks up users on their customer journey. This applies to both the desktop and mobile version of your site.
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Content: The content should be informative, relevant and useful. Be careful not to duplicate content, otherwise your own pages will compete with each other.
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Keywords: The keywords provide information about the specific topic of the page. Search engines use keywords to categorise your website during crawling. Therefore, make sure to use the right keywords for the topic shown on the website in the most prominent places possible (e.g. in the title, subtitle, lead).
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Meta tags: These are not visible to the visitors of a website, they are located in the source code and help with the indexing of a website, i.e. so that the search engines (correctly) perceive the website during crawling. Accordingly, it is important to include the right keywords in meta descriptions, meta tags, title tags, etc.
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Loading speed: The loading speed (pagespeed) of a website not only has a significant impact on the user experience, it is also an important factor in terms of SEO.
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Backlinks: A backlink is a link from an external website to your own website. For search engines, high-quality backlinks are a sign that a website is in demand and offers added value to other users.
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Do you have questions about SEO, or would you like to optimise your website? We can support you! ​
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