Website Optimization
Website optimization includes tools and strategies to improve a website's performance and increase the number of visitors, the conversion rate, and the revenue of a page. This is done either by internal staff or external SEO specialists who first analyze the existing website and then make improvement suggestions for website optimization.
Why is website optimization important?
In 2020, worldwide e-commerce sales rose to approximately 4.8 trillion dollars. This means that a significant portion of customers now shop online – and the number is growing every year. Not least, the corona pandemic has contributed to the increase in online shopping. Therefore, it is all the more important to have an optimized website that attracts customers and encourages them to buy.
But not only in the area of shopping is an optimized site important. Because more and more people are also getting their information, news, and more on the web. Even for local commerce, optimization has its benefits, as around 78% of mobile searches with local relevance lead to an offline purchase. More and more agencies, software companies, or B2B companies are also dependent on optimizing their website.
What optimization areas exist?
Anyone who has a website generally wants it to be found by as many people as possible during their search. For this to happen, it is important that the site meets the requirements of search engines like Google. Google, in turn, ranks pages higher that are optimally designed for searchers. There are various areas that can be optimized in this regard. These areas have specific benchmarks, or ideal standards, with which one's own results are compared:
Loading speed of a page: less than 1 second loading time for the most important part of a website
Mobile user-friendliness: The page should be oriented towards "mobile first"
Backlinks & Domain Rating: more backlinks than the top competitors and high domain rating
Content: Evaluation of the keywords and text content
Conversion rate: Benchmarks depend on the respective industry
No one has to master and optimize all areas at once, fortunately. Typically, each employee will work on their area – the content managers will revise the texts, SEO managers will take care of the technical on-page optimization, and the developers will take care of the loading speed and user experience.
What measures can be taken for website optimization?
To achieve the optimization of your own site, you can take various measures. There are many levers you can operate to optimize a page – here we limit ourselves to the most important measures that serve optimization.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization ensures that pages land as far forward as possible in the organic search results. The good thing is that no advertising budget is needed for this, unlike Google Ads. This is also known as Google optimization, since nowadays over 90% of internet users use Google as a search engine. Google uses various ranking factors, which Google, of course, does not reveal all of. However, the most important signals, which are certain to be relevant, are listed in this article. Google optimization is a dynamic field that requires constant adjustments.
The field of SEO is broad. Therefore, we limit ourselves to a summary of the SEO measures that can be taken.
On-page optimization
This includes all strategies that are visible on the page itself. This includes
Content optimization using relevant keywords, added value of the text content, and of course unique content.
Optimization of images with alt text and metadata
Internal linking
Structured HTML tags
Speaking URL with matching keyword
Optimization of loading times
Off-page optimization
This includes strategies that influence the ranking of a site on other websites. These primarily include
Valuable backlinks from other sites
Social signals, such as sharing on social media.
Aside from that, there are sub-disciplines of search engine optimization that we briefly touch on:
Mobile SEO: in this area, it's about optimizing a website for mobile use
Content optimization: here texts, images, or videos are optimized
Image SEO: here one deals with the optimization of a site's images
Conversion Optimization: In this area, it involves improving conversions or leads, for which measures are employed.
Shopping cart optimization: This is about improving payment processes
Local SEO: This is about optimizing content so that it appears in local search results.
Improvement of loading time
People don't like to wait until a page is fully loaded; they often leave if it takes too long. We all know this from ourselves. Therefore, an important goal of website optimization is to reduce loading times. Sometimes it's issues like images that are too large on the page that slow down the loading time. Suitable image formats and accessibility are also important factors for loading speed.
Optimization of the mobile experience
Google has long since switched to mobile-first indexing. This means that websites optimized for mobile use rank higher. Optimization includes, among other things, switching the design to responsive, which means that the display of a page adapts to the size of the device being used. One should definitely test their site, which is possible in the device toolbar of the Google developer tools. It is important to ensure that all elements are easy to read even on small screens, that the webpage loads quickly, and that it is easy to navigate.
Inhalt einzigartig
Words have an effect. This applies to the website as well! They have a significant impact on how potential customers perceive a provider's products and, on the other hand, influence Google ranking. Techniques such as the distribution of key keywords, storytelling, text structure, and good readability (for real people, not Google) are important for crafting engaging texts that are appreciated by people and eventually rise in Google ranking.
A/B and multivariate tests
An A/B test is a wonderful way to get to the bottom of problems. For example, if the conversion rate goes down and employees believe that the wording is to blame, you can create alternatives and pit them against each other. If the CR increases with the changed texts, it's clear where the problem lies.
But that also works in any other area. This way, different social media banners can be tested to see which ones are more likely to be clicked. Simultaneously testing multiple potential solutions to a problem can greatly help optimize the website.
Optimization of the User Experience
The best website and the greatest texts are of no use if the user experience is poor. This means that users should, for example, be able to navigate the menu easily, there should not be too many steps to place an order, and the operation should be intuitive. This ensures that visitors keep coming back.
Which tools are suitable for website optimization?
There are a variety of tools on the market that help to check and optimize your own website. We introduce a few of them:
Google Analytics: Traffic, user behavior
Google Search Console: Click-through rate, clicks, rankings, faulty URLs, indexing issues
Google Pagespeed Insights: Analysis of page loading speed
Sistrix: Visibility and Rankings
com: User Experience, faulty metadata, gaps in internal linking
XOVI: WDF/IDF, URL Analysis, Page Speed Monitoring, Backlink Analysis
Of course, there are many other tools. Over time, you find out which ones are particularly useful and how best to combine the tools.