1. SEO Basics
SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, refers to the optimization of websites and their content for search engines like Google and Bing. In order to drive more traffic to a website without having to advertise, the website must rank high in search results. So, if you're looking for a keyword related to the website, your own website should appear at the top of the search results. In order to achieve this, SEO Basics must strategically place the right content and keywords so that the Google and Co. automated crawlers will consider the page as being particularly relevant to the keywords you want.Table of Contents
- Introduction to search engine optimization
- The SEO Basics - Care must be taken
- The way Google works
- What is the goal of Google?
- This is how search engines rate websites
- indexing
- ranking factors
- Measurable results
- Others say that about us
Introduction to search engine optimization
The field of search engine optimization is a very extensive topic for which specialists from the fields of technology, marketing, link building and content are needed. Decision-makers and team leaders can not assume the areas and tasks of these specialists, but rather develop the strategy to build, delegate and control effective and efficient structures.But that too requires a certain amount of know-how and experience. This guide will help you to get a feel for how search engines work and search engine optimization, to make the necessary decisions, build teams, and ultimately lead successful SEO projects.
Before you get concrete suggestions for individual areas in SEO, the Basics section provides the basis for understanding search engines and search engine optimization.
The SEO Basics - Care must be taken
Unlike in the past, it is no longer enough to mention the relevant keywords as often as possible on the website and to distribute backlinks of any quality on the Internet. The analysis of search engines pays attention to many more factors, including:- Ease of use of the website
- average session duration
- logical construction of the bases
- Quality and relevance of the content
- high-quality backlinks
- good internal linking
- Optimization for mobile devices
- loading speed
The way Google works
To optimize a website for search engines, you should first understand how Google and Co. basically work. In doing so, I limit myself to the essential aspects, because not all the details do you really need to know in order to make decisions or to use them as a background in discussions. The practical details can be left to SEO managers or specialized staff in the agencies or in your company. Nevertheless, a few basics are also important to you, because only who understands how a search engine works, SEO can be efficient and above all successful in the long run. Google regularly changes its algorithm, but always keeps track of the same goals you should consider when optimizing. The following chapters will give you the basics of Google's goals and how it works.What is the goal of Google?
"Observe how he acts, look at his motives and examine what he finds his peace. How could a human hide something else? "This is a quote from Confucius. Translated to Google, it could read: "Watch Google act, look at Google's motives, and see what Google is making money from. Then how could Google hide anything from you? "Google always wants to provide its users with the best possible search results. Every action Google takes is shaped by this motive, whether it's paid or organic. Because as soon as the users are no longer satisfied with the search results and switch to other search engines, Google will also lose advertising revenue.
Conversely, this means that your site must be one of the best or most relevant sites on the topic. The site must meet the needs of users and provide exactly what they were looking for. Google's algorithm changes are aimed only at the one goal of finding better and better websites for users.
This is how search engines rate websites
The algorithms of search engines examine the website or the content by machine and assign them topics, relevance and quality. So it's important to give these automatic crawlers the best possible picture. Before optimization, the target group and thus the relevant keywords have to be determined. Who should visit the website? Who has the greatest chance of performing the desired interaction, such as a purchase or a registration?After determining the target audience, online SEO tools can be used to quickly find the relevant keywords. Some tools search entire websites for SEO quality, including metadata that the end user does not see, but the crawler does.
Search engines not only rate how often people visit a page they see in search results, but also how long users stay there and how they interact with the page. It is important to provide the user with the content he was looking for. If users return to the search engine after a few seconds or minutes or close the window, this will damage the page rank of the website. So it also belongs to the SEO Basics to provide a good user experience. Websites and content with which is interacted get a better rating and thus a higher position.
When linking to websites and content such as videos or images from high-quality sources, their rank in search engines increases. Backlinks from dubious or irrelevant sources are in the best case not significant and can even harm in the worst case. Guest contributions are a great way to get links to your own content.
Indexing
Search engines use crawlers/bots to search the websites on the Internet. Possibilities of indexing a website are, for example, placing a link (from another page already in the Google index) - so Google will be aware of your website and index it automatically, or even an entry in the Google Webmaster Tools. There, you register your website practically with Google and can, for example, add a sitemap.The first step for good rankings is therefore to ensure the indexability of the website. The following helps to support indexability through Google:
- No or little use of Flash or Java
- Error-free HTML code (can be checked at http://validator.w3.org/ )
- Using a Robots.txt (to tell search engines which pages they are allowed to read)
- Use of a Sitemap (XML and HTML), which is integrated with the Webmaster Tools
- Use of speaking URLs
- No session IDs
- and much more. - further information in the following chapters
ranking factors
The ranking factors of Google have not been published yet and are constantly evolving. There are several hundred algorithm updates per year, according to Matt Cutts. All statements about ranking factors and their weighting can therefore only be guesses. Essentially, the ranking factors are important to understand how Google works. However, some factors are not relevant to the optimization of a page. For example, the search queries play after the company name, which is caused by the name recognition of a company, also play a role in Google and increase the confidence in the site. In reality, an SEO manager or an SEO department will hardly commission a TV campaign for SEO purposes. That would be more the responsibility of the marketing department.Every website, every industry and every competitive environment is different. Therefore, do not stiffen up on individual ranking factors. In different areas - eg per product category - test different measures and measure the results. These empirical values are essential for SEO.
The most important ranking factors summarized in a nutshell:
domain
- Top-level domain (should be country specific, for Germany the ".de" ending is, therefore, the best)
- In the optimal case, the keyword is used in the domain (still works)
- Age of the domain (the older the domain, the more trustworthy it is - please note that this is not just about the age of the domain but also whether the owner and the topic has remained the same for years, so if you have recently been 8 years old bought old domain and there start a new project then the trust of Google in the domain is less than if your project is operated for 8 years under the domain)
- The website should be easy and fully crawlable by Google (no Java, no Flash, "clean" code, etc.)
- Loading times of the website should be a maximum of 2 seconds (including images, CSS, etc.) and the response time of the server
- Website availability / up-time (downtime) - Make sure your website is always accessible
- IP address should be in the respective destination country
- Frames should not be used
- A robots.txt should be present and set correctly (eg no important page areas should be blocked by a robots.txt )
- Use of speaking URLs eg www.soliver.de/damenmode/tshirts/model-xy-rot.html
- Session IDs should be avoided (eg domain.de/? XTCsid = 39d273f88ade1f4b41f83841b9bac880)
- Provide a Sitemap.html and Sitemap.xml for Google
- Set up the Google Webmaster Tools and solve the problems issued there eg 404 errors
- Amount of content (the more content, the better)
- Specific or topic-relevant content
- Unique content
- Quality of content
- Content around the topic (LSO / LSA)
- Breadcrumb navigation (for user orientation and internal linking)
- The use of pictures, videos and PDFs makes sense (the more advanced content, the better)
- Use of custom meta tags
- Use of headings (H1, H2) which ideally contain keywords
- General number of links
- Structure of relevant links
- Establishment of trust links (links from old and strong sides, eg DMOZ, Wikipedia)
- As balanced as possible the links to different domains and IPs
- Naturalness of link structure (ratio of keyword links and brand links, ratio of homepage and subpage links)
- Social Media Recommendations (eg Likes, Shares, Retweets)
- As high as possible link building, for example, from pages that rank for your keywords
- No spam links from inferior pages
- Traffic (the more, the better)
- High search volume after the fire means Trust for Google
- Bounce rate as low as possible
- Dwell time as high as possible
Measurable results
For your own success with the SEO Basics, it is essential to record key figures and to be able to observe their changes. A suitable tool is, for example, Google Analytics. So it can be determined exactly which optimizations have brought which improvements in visitor numbers and conversions. Reliable tracking can tell marketers which pages visitors use in a row, which links they click, and how long they stay on which parts of a single page.Overall, the SEO Basics are all about making a website better. If the website is fast, clear, and inviting, provides valuable and relevant information, and the entire site's infrastructure is clean and unambiguous, it will most likely be able to achieve a good ranking.
