Have you ever heard of SEO? But what's behind it is a closed book for you? Of course, you will then find it difficult to decide whether you should invest time and money in this mysterious SEO!
Let's unravel the mystery of why SEO is important. We'll explain exactly what search engine optimisation is and why it's worth the investment!
What is SEO anyway?
The word SEO is English and means "Search Engine Optimisation". The German word Suchmaschinenoptimierung means the same thing. It refers to targeted measures to improve the ranking of your own homepage in search engines. The aim is to reach people who search Google & Bing for topics related to your business. After all, these are potential customers who are interested in your products or services. In order to reach this desired target group, your homepage must appear at the top of search engines. Because: Statistics show that most users only click on the first three to a maximum of 10 hits at the top.
For you, this means that the higher your own website is found with the desired search terms in search engines, the more website visitors and potential customers you will reach with your offer. However, the top positions are highly coveted and many competitors are fighting for them. This is one reason why SEO is important: Your competitors sometimes invest a lot of expertise and money to defend their pole position. It is therefore extremely difficult to keep up with the competition without targeted SEO measures.
Keywords - why are keywords relevant for search engines?
For search engines to rank your website well, one important requirement must be met: Google & Bing must understand what your website is about. This is the only way search engines can decide at lightning speed whether a user's search query matches your website content. It is therefore advisable to control this process yourself by placing targeted keywords on your website. Keywords help search engines to understand your site - they function as a kind of guide through your texts. If search engines understand the content better, your website will be displayed more accurately. This is one reason why SEO is important.
Detailed keyword research is therefore the basis for all SEO measures. Because you need to know exactly what search queries your potential target group is making. And every single word and every single letter is important here. Specialised SEO tools can be used to display all existing search queries - including information on how often they are searched for. The so-called "KD value" is also decisive here = KD is the abbreviation for Keyword Difficulty. In SEO tools, you will see a scale from green (easy) to red (difficult), which shows you how high the competition for this keyword is.
Example from the SEO tool Semrush:
It is ideal if you use keywords with a relatively high search volume and low KD value on your website. This increases the likelihood of reaching a sufficient number of searchers in the niche that suits you.
Checklist - What SEO measures are there?
Keyword research is the starting point for correctly indexing your texts, meta texts, URLs and internal links. However, the aim is that you continue to create reader-friendly content. This is the only way to achieve the desired effect of ensuring that website visitors feel comfortable on your site and stay for a long time. Ultimately, people are your customers, not machines. So be careful not to "over-optimise" and make your content feel artificial. Because the naturalness of a text also has a positive effect on your ranking.
A series of additional technical measures must be carried out in the background of the site to ensure that the functionality of your homepage meets the expectations of search engines. This is because Google & Bing favour modern, technically flawless websites and avoid displaying outdated or faulty websites in the hit list.
A complete package of SEO measures includes:
- keyword-optimised and reader-friendly website texts that match the search queries of your target group
- an optimised information structure (menu navigation) including keyword-optimised URLs that guide search engines through the site in a targeted manner
- technical SEO: because search engines rate the functionality, user-friendliness and security of the site as Ranking factor
- Link building - targeted placement of internal and external links that emphasise the credibility of your site to search engines
- Through image SEO you support the findability and indexing of your site in search engines and support the general readability of your continuous texts (increasing the general visit time leads to an upgrading of the site)
Take the test!
There are free tools that you can use to check the position of your homepage for a desired keyword:
Ranking Check
There are also a number of tools that you can use to search for suitable keywords:
AnswerThePublic
Ubersuggest
Semrush
There are also tools that you can use to assess the technical performance of your site and the general SEO score:
PageSpeed Insights
Now that you understand why SEO is important, we may have piqued your interest in delving deeper into the topic. Click here for an initial analysis of your website.
