Your website is your flagship. But are you also found on the Internet when people search for your products, services and offers? Websites must constantly evolve through new content and offer sustainable added value, so that they are ranked well in the results of the most widely used search engine Google. In its search results, Google tries to create a real image of relevant hits for its users. It is therefore worthwhile to be broadly positioned when it comes to search engine marketing and to keep an eye on various aspects. Here we give you some tips on what you should look out for in your online offers and your website.
Keyword research for on-page optimization
The Search Engine Result Page (short: SERP) lists the search engine results. Organic search results refer to results other than advertisements. To ensure that your products are well placed here, you should make sure that your product information and accompanying texts have sufficient text to increase your search engine relevance.
In order to store suitable keywords, you can often use free tools for keyword research such as the KWFinder, Google Trends, Google AdWords, w-Fragen-Tool or SEO Quake. A look at the product texts of your competitors is also usually worthwhile. Especially HTML should be given keywords, e.g. in the alt attributes. Your URLs and meta data also need to be filled keyword optimized.
Also consider the server-critical files of your website such as the Sitemap.xml (which lists the content), the robots.txt (which welcomes the crawlers) and the .htaccess (which serves to clarify the www), for example to only display relevant content here and to keep loading times as short as possible (more info).
By the way, as the administrator of your website, you can also integrate so-called heat maps, scrollmaps or confetti maps, which show you where most users on your website are, where they click and how far they scroll down.
Systematic link building for off-page optimization
Offpage optimization includes systematic link building, for example by setting your own URL in web catalogs, through entries in press portals or search engines.
Also guest contributions, comments or the participation in Blogparaden promote your visibility, if you set on the other Websites a left to your own on-line operational readiness level. Of course, there are also widespread offers on the web where service providers sell you backlinks. Here it should be noted that Google punishes purchased backlinks.
Backlinks are divided into “Do-Follow” and “No-Follow”. No-follow backlinks are links that attribute authority to the linked source, but not trust flows. Most websites set links to other websites that are not thematically relevant to “no-follow”.
Social media share buttons can also generate virality. With various tools, clicks on these share buttons can be tracked and traced. You can also strengthen the reach of your website through social media postings of your website content. It is important that these social media postings are always shared “publicly”.
Analysis and advertising systems from Google – Analytics, AdWords, AdSense
If one thinks about search engine marketing, the offers of the most used search engine Google are naturally obvious. Google Analytics is used for monitoring and data analysis of your website.
You can use Google AdWords to place and check advertisements. Google AdSense is a counterpart to Google AdWords and also belongs to the field of search engine advertising (SEA). Here, website operators can earn money by integrating external ads. AdSense shows among other things advertising from several advertising networks.
These three offers resemble each other by a respective triple structure. Google Analytics’ triple structure is “account, property, data view,” Google Adwords “campaigns, ad groups, ads,” and Google AdSense “URL channels, custom channels, ad units.
Unlike AdWords or Analytics, the AdSense display network does not necessarily have to adhere to the triple structure. AdSense requires you to create a new account, while AdWords and Analytics allow you to work through your Google+ profile.
Perhaps the most important search engine marketing tool is Google Analytics, because it allows you to create different target types for your search engine marketing, such as visit duration, an event such as a conversion, or a landing page. With Analytics and AdWords you can also design so-called A/B-Tests and check whether certain variants of your website or advertisement help to increase visibility or sales success.
It should be noted that Google often starts out with a simple HTML/CSS website without an integrated content management system such as WordPress or Typo 3. If you are working with a CMS, this could lead to small difficulties when linking to Google tools.
Pay attention to data protection compliance
According to the Federal Data Protection Act, websites must comply with German data protection regulations if they are located on a German server. If you want to use Google Analytics in Germany, an order data processing contract must be concluded with Google, the IP addresses of visitors must be anonymised and the data protection details must be adapted, e.g. by means of an opt-out cookie.
It is also important to take data protection into account when using so-called tracking methods, which inform you about the online usage behaviour of your customers. Here, too, there are various methods, such as cookie tracking, pixel tracking or session tracking.
Do you have questions about how you can optimise your website for search engines and make offers such as your trade fair presence more visible? WUM Design also has a lot of experience in the online sector and will be happy to advise you on search engine marketing.
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