Search engine optimization – Almost everything can be optimized!

Anyone who has ever dealt with search engine optimization will quickly notice that almost everything on a website can be optimized for search engines: From the structure of the website and loading speeds to keywording and social signals. In order not to lose track of all the optimization options, they are usually divided into three aspects:

Technical optimization
Offpage optimization
Onpage optimization

We want to give you an overview of the various aspects of SEO optimization and therefore explain the individual points in this blog post.

1. Technical optimization

Technical optimization refers to aspects such as the loading speed of a website and its usability, optimization for mobile devices and server accessibility. Google evaluates these aspects and makes the ranking of a website dependent on them, among other things. But you should also optimize the technical aspects of your website for other reasons: Long loading times are real conversion killers! If you wait a long time for a website to load, you are more likely to cancel the loading process and visit another page. But let’s start with the very basic elements of technical optimization: server accessibility.

Server accessibility

In order to be ranked at all and to be accessed by both Googlebot and users, the website’s server must be accessible. For this reason, you should monitor the server of your website and make optimizations if necessary. Nothing is more depressing for users than error messages because the server is unavailable.

Loading speed

Every second of loading time reduces your conversion rate by 7%. Prevent this by ensuring that your website loads quickly. If it takes more than 3 seconds to load, 40 percent of your visitors will bounce and prefer to visit another page. There are 2 aspects that you can and should influence to improve the loading time of your website:

File size: Reduce the file size of your content, such as videos and images, to guarantee a better loading time.
Server computing power: Ensure that your server has good computing power.

SSL encryption

Insecure websites are ranked lower by Google. Therefore, use https instead of http and make your site more secure.

Mobile optimization

Overlapping content, huge images and poorly arranged text are just some of the problems your visitors may encounter if they access your website on their cell phone and it is not mobile-optimized. Nowadays, the majority of website visits are made via mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. Accommodate this user behaviour and optimize your website for mobile devices.

2. Offpage optimization

Off-page optimization includes all measures that the webmaster takes outside of their site to achieve a good ranking. These include link-building and social signals.

Social Signals

Social signals are signals from social media that point in the direction of your website. How important these signals are for the ranking of your site is controversial. Nevertheless, it is worth promoting your website on social media and getting lots of likes and comments for content on your site so that Google recognizes your website as particularly relevant.

Link building

Many high-quality backlinks from high-quality pages are still a relevant ranking factor today. Although this has lost importance compared to the past, backlinks should still be generated in any case. However, not all backlinks are the same. Google evaluates the trustworthiness and strength of the link based on various signals, such as the link text, the link position and the number of other links present. Simply posting the link to your website in any comments or entering it in link lists is therefore not recommended and can even damage your ranking in the worst case! Rather rely on trustworthy links on high-quality websites.

3. Onpage optimization

Onpage optimization is the counterpart to offpage optimization. It relates to the central content and structural aspects of the website. This includes meta descriptions as well as images and text content. Google wants to present the most relevant content to its users. It goes without saying that the content of a website is therefore viewed particularly critically by Google. You can find out which aspects you can optimize below.

Website structure

Google and other search engines can recognize whether your website is user-friendly. Your website should therefore have a good structure. Each subpage should be accessible with just a few clicks and internal links should make navigation even easier. This does not only help Google to recognize your website, but it also helps your visitors to find their way around your website. In turn, this ensures that visitors stay on your site for a long time, which Google sees as a good user signal and therefore also has a positive impact on your ranking.

Keywords

Keywords are probably the most important elements of any search engine optimization. Keywords should be present in various places on your website, as the search engine crawls a website and determines relevant keywords for this website. Suitable search queries from users may ensure that your site is displayed at the top of the Google list. Where the keywords are located is just as important as their frequency. A keyword in a headline is worth more than a keyword in a paragraph of text. It is therefore essential to write headlines that contain relevant keywords. It would go too far to list all the aspects you should consider with keywords here. If you are interested in keywords, creating keyword lists and determining relevant keywords, then take a look at our blog post “How to do SEO – Keywords”.

Meta tags

Meta tags can be found in the HTML code and explain certain properties of the website to search engines. Webmasters can thus explain to Google and other search engines in the HTML code how they should handle the website. Here is a small list of tags you should know:

Meta description tag: describes the content of a page.
Headline Tag: identifies headlines with an HTML tag.
IMG Title: determines the file name of an image.
ALT attribute: is used to add alternative texts to images and videos.
Robots tag: gives crawlers instructions on which pages should be crawled and which should not.
Canonical tag: can prevent search engines from recognizing duplicate content, which has a negative impact on the ranking.

Content

Good content generates clicks! No matter how well you have optimized all other aspects of your web presence, if you don’t publish good content, your visitors will quickly leave your site. It is therefore extremely important that you offer original and valuable content for your users. Only if users feel addressed and picked up will they stay on your site longer and perhaps even visit it more often. This in turn is a good user signal for Google. This is because clicks and the time spent on a page are also recorded by Google and used for the ranking. A good mix of images, text and other media is therefore essential if you want to achieve a good ranking. If you want to find out more about how to create high-quality and good content for your website, read our “10 tips for good copy”.

Search engine optimization is a continuous effort

As you can see, there is a lot to consider when it comes to search engine optimization. Technical optimization, on-page optimization and off-page optimization should go hand in hand and complement each other. We have only been able to give you a rough overview of the most important optimization options here. You should always keep an eye on your ranking and make changes if necessary in order to stay up-to-date.