The Internet is Constantly Evolving, What About Your Website?
Hard to believe: The Internet already exists in the form we know it today, since 1991 and at the latest with the introduction of the first graphic-capable web browsers in 1993, websites became visually appealing. If you look at a page on the Internet today, of course this has little in common with the beginnings in the 90s, but one thing has remained — a website is still a site on which a company can present itself with its respective core competencies and provide added value and information to the visitor.
Since its creation, however, both the technology and the presentation of websites have evolved, thanks to ever-advancing technology, and nowadays require constant development and optimization. This further development of websites does not only include the visual presentation and technical optimization as well as the installation of updates, but to a very large extent above all the search engine optimization (SEO), so that a website can be found.
Maintaining the basics is key
A website can quickly become a source of errors and a failure if some things are not taken into account. If the base is not maintained, traffic and leads are missing. What you should pay attention to in order to have a healthy basis and how to optimize it with simple steps of search engine optimization, it is explained below.
8 SEO Basics to optimize your website
1. Optimize your meta-tags
Meta-tags include the title and the meta-description. Both appear in the search results as your SERP snippet. If the snippet does not convince the user, they do not click and do not land on your website. A lot of wasted potential if the title and description are not maintained. Both should describe the target page and contain the keyword. Make sure not to exceed the maximum character length.
2. Page load time
A high page load time is unsatisfactory for the user. Just do the test: How long do you wait until a website has loaded? Both on mobile and desktop, a website should therefore load all the necessary information as quickly as possible.
3. Mobile optimization
Mobile optimization has long been mandatory. At the latest since the conversion to the mobile index, Google prefers mobile pages. No wonder as more than half of the users are now on mobile devices. Most frequently the Responsive Design is used, i.e. a web page whose screen adapts itself depending upon terminal equipment. So when setting up a Responsive Design, test it on as many different end devices as possible.
4. Site architecture
How the site is structured will easily determine how users can find information on your website. If you anchor important pages too deep, they will not be found by the user and the crawler. The page architecture and the URL structure go hand in hand. Your URL structure should correspond to the site architecture and be as flat as possible. Do you still not stop at the sixth directory? Then you should take a closer look at the structure of your pages again.
5. Image optimization
An often underestimated tool is the optimization of your images. In order to be positioned as far forward in the picture ranking as possible, it needs a few simple steps: the file name should also be meaningful and briefly describe the image; to shorten the page loading time compress images and use formats like JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, and WebP.
6. Structured data
Your website lives from the content you create. Google now delivers some content directly in the SERPs such as dates, locations, ratings or FAQs. This requires structured data. With the help of schema.org markups, certain page elements can be marked so that the search engine can interpret them better. This way Google knows that an author is an author and not just a word what is written on your website. Only with this method Google is able to display knowledge graphs or direct answers in the search results.
7. Quality content
Technology, technology, technology — if the general conditions are not right, good content on the site will not help you. But the same applies the other way round. If the technical framework is right, you also have to deliver quality content. The prerequisite for this is a keyword research with which you determine which focus keywords are relevant for your website and which content you should deliver.
8. Links
Both links from external pages and links within your website help the visitor of your website to recognize relevant content. Internal links create a kind of parallel navigation on the pages and also enable the crawler to recognize content and connections. External links from the outside and from your site are considered recommendations, so always think twice about which links are actually valuable for your user.
