What is SEO?
SEO stands for “search engine optimization”. SEO encompasses all measures aimed at improving a website’s visibility in the results of search engines such as Google, Bing, and others, making it an important part of online marketing.
The goal of SEO is to make a website easier to find and visit. Your website’s ranking plays an important role in attracting new customers. The higher a website appears in the search results, the greater the chance that people who are interested will visit it, find out more and maybe even buy something.
How does SEO work?
Search engines evaluate a number of different factors to determine a website’s position in search results. The order is determined by complex algorithms that are being continuously developed.
These factors can be roughly divided into three different categories, which are explained in more detail below.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO includes all measures aimed at providing comprehensible, meaningful and well-structured content.
Search engines check for the following criteria, amongst others:
- Are meta tags (title, description, H1) included?
- Is the website structured hierarchically (H1, H2, H3...)?
- Does the page have internal links and do they all still work?
- Are the images appropriately sized and do they have alternative descriptions?
- Is the content readable and meaningful? Are there duplicates?
- Which keywords are used in the content and how often?
Off-page SEO
With off-page SEO, search engines control where and how a website is mentioned on other pages or platforms. The main focus is whether any external websites link to your own website, and if so, how many (= backlinks). The more backlinks there are to your pages, the more popular your website comes across – provided that the links appear genuine.
Technical SEO
In technical SEO, search engines consider the following criteria:
- How fast does the website load?
- Is the page responsive, i.e. optimized to be displayed on mobile devices?
- Is the website easy to crawl (be read by search engines)?
- Are files such as robots.txt and a sitemap available?
- Is the connection encrypted via HTTPS?
Where can I get help with SEO on my website?
To improve the ranking of your website in the search results, you can use Hostpoint’s “rankingCoach” service. rankingCoach analyzes your website, suggests measures for each page and shows you how to implement them step by step. You can find more information about rankingCoach on our website.
For support requests please use this form instead.
