No invention has changed the lives of all of humanity in the last three decades as much as the Internet. Today we use it practically around the clock and in every imaginable area. We are looking for products, companies, people or information. Especially for companies or public figures, a strong presence on the web is a basic requirement for awareness, success and profitability. With the increasing number of users, however, the competition is also increasing, especially for the “best places” in the result algorithms of the search engines. Around 3.5 billion search queries are made every day at the industry leader Google and the selection of the most popular search terms has long since become part of pop culture. So if you want to achieve the greatest possible visibility with your web presence, you can turn a few adjustment screws in on-page and off-page optimization.
Sweep your own front door first: the right onpage optimization
content and usability
Before site operators look around for advertising opportunities outside of their domain and make large investments for e.g. B. Make backlinks, the potential of your own website should first be exploited as best as possible. Since search engines are constantly optimizing their algorithms and increasingly relying on authenticity and quality, the content is the most important factor. Only those who really have something valuable or useful to offer users in terms of content will generate page visits, customer discussions and sales in the long term. Formats such as advice texts, instructions, comparative analyses, infographics or commented diagrams and charts with a length of 500-1000 words are particularly suitable and convey added value at first glance. This impression should be confirmed by grammatical correctness, credible information and visual and stylistic creativity and “captivate” the readership. Of course, the layout and architecture of the website as a whole should also be user-friendly: an appealing design and the perfect placement of links and buttons for further navigation within the site are the decisive aspects here.
Backlinking AND social media: is it really twice as good?
Make the SERP an eye-catcher
The next step is to optimize the SERP, i.e. the appearance of the search results of your own website in the well-known search engines. This essentially consists of three components, namely the title, the meta description and the URL. It should be designed individually for each individual landing page within your own domain in order to generate the greatest possible traffic. Although Google uses over 200 factors for the ranking of websites in the search algorithm, which are also changed and refined thousands of times a year, there are still a few basic rules for optimizing the SERP. What first catches the eye of users is the title, highlighted in color and font size. This is limited to around 40-50 characters or 500-524 pixels and should therefore be short, concise and meaningful. The placement of a keyword or a phrase can be emphasized again by capitalization or the use of special characters. Ideally, one or more keywords can also be found in the URL and the meta description. Here the user will find a brief summary of the content of the page and a call-to-action. This should ultimately confirm the first impression and the interest of the reader so that he actually clicks on the search result. Good SEO agencies offer extensive service and further information and are happy to advise you in German-speaking countries in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The optimization must also be technically in-depth In addition to the obvious adjustments, websites must also meet certain criteria on the technical side in order to receive a good ranking. So-called crawlers read and inspect websites with regard to various categories in order to ultimately classify the site qualitatively. Various optimizations can therefore be made in the source code of the page, such as the heading structure H1 to H6, image descriptions and alternative texts or the creation of DoFollow and NoFollow links. The general amount of data, the file size of images and graphics and the associated loading time of the page also play a major role in a positive assessment by the bots, but also for a pleasant user experience.
Many roads lead to Rome: link building
Backlinks as a networking tool
In addition to some of the factors already described, it is above all backlinks, i.e. “back references” to your own website, that decide whether Google gives you a good or bad rating. Since the enormous increase in digital data traffic means that there is also a lot of “junk” and spam floating around on the net, Google has made some updates to the ranking algorithm in order to filter better here. This means that it is not necessarily the sheer number of backlinks that is decisive for a good classification, but that the quality of the references must be right. For the so-called backlink profiles, there are therefore some indicators that make the profile appear high-quality and thus enable a better position in the ranking.
An important prerequisite for a high-quality backlink is the quality of the page that switches the link. Similar to the analogue world, who is talking about someone is decisive for a good reputation. So if you place your own backlinks on pages with credible content, high reach and a strong community, their good reputation will most likely rub off on your own page and throw off significant LinkJuice. Examples of highly valued backlink sources include recognized and popular brands, influential bloggers and influencers, or editorial websites. In addition to their credibility, such sites score particularly well with being up-to-date, as they always pick up on the latest trends, literally playing the first fiddle in the concert of search queries. However, it is important that the backlink source also has a high degree of content-related correspondence with your own content, since the linking can otherwise be classified as spam and thus pull your own ranking down again. A high level of agreement, especially with the keywords, is crucial. In addition to such so-called content links, an excellent backlink profile is also characterized by the right mix of forum links. As the name suggests, the links are placed in forums, blogs or Q&A portals. The linking can be designed in different ways, either the backlink is placed directly in the text of a post as a hyperlink or embedded in the signature of forum users. A less popular and less effective option is to place links in forum profiles, as these are seldom knowingly and intentionally accessed. An important factor can also be that the post or signature itself is SEO-optimized, for example the anchor text contains the key keyword or phrase. Just as with content links, it also applies to forum links that high-quality sources with a high level of content consistency are essential for a positive ranking.
Backlinking AND social media: is it really twice as good?
While experts can’t say for sure if a strong social media presence actually has a positive impact on SEO ranking, the co-existence of a strong domain and a clear social media strategy can definitely be profitable. Own profiles or placed ads on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other platforms are in any case a technically very low-threshold way to place your own content and thus increase the reach. Another advantage that social media offers is the possibility of interacting with the audience and therefore potential partners and customers. Reactions to comments, likes and shares ensure visibility and, in the best case, direct business contacts are established, to which you can, for example, make your own snippets available for further distribution in order to actually generate relevant backlinks.
We hope that this article has given you a little insight into the world of “SEO” and that it has encouraged you to take a close look at your website.
