When it comes to the reach of your own homepage, Google is the best friend of every web user. Search engine placement follows certain rules that private individuals should also observe.
You write a beautiful text, garnish it with colorful photos – and put the result online? Sure, you can. But if you have not just built your page for friends and relatives, you have to do it differently: disciplined, systematic, machine-compliant. Because there is Google on the Internet. A machine that decides what is at the top of the results list – and what is hidden somewhere on page 150. And the Google placement follows rules to which every page builder who wants to be present on the net must submit – regardless of whether company or private person.
This is SEO!
So how do you ensure that your page appears higher in the list? The magic word is SEO: Search Engine Optimization. A complicated process that employs entire legions of skilled experts – but that should also be observed by private individuals.
SEO means: The website is optimized holistically – the structure of the website as well as the texts themselves. Google leaves open how the service evaluates and weighted websites in detail – but so that the page builders are not completely in the dark, the company reveals some of more than 200 evaluation standards. These are particularly important:
– Cross-references: The more often a website is linked or recommended on other websites and social networks, the more important Google classifies it. Interesting and exclusive content, to which other sites refer by link, are trump cards.
– Comprehensibility: Google wants to know what the page is about. That means: The texts should contain meaningful headings and the right keywords. Namely terms that Google users typically enter – for example “washing machine” instead of “fully automatic washing machine”. The page title and description should also be formulated accordingly.
– Up-to-dateness: The more often and regularly new content is added, updated and supplemented, the more relevant Google classifies the page. In the event of current events, Google places relevant news at the top.
– Local proximity to the customer: If you are looking for “pizza”, for example, you will first see nearby pizza services in the Google results list – the service assumes that the user wants to order a pizza.