SEO for businesses: the basics and first steps

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It means everything that helps a website appear high up for relevant searches without paying for advertising. Search engines such as Google and Bing want to give users the most helpful answer. At its core, SEO therefore means providing the best, clearest and most trustworthy answer to a question, and showing the search engine that yours is that answer.

The four areas

1. Technology: The site is fast, usable on mobile, secure (HTTPS) and can be read and indexed by search engines.
2. Content: There are pages that answer exactly the questions your customers ask, in their words.
3. Page structure (on-page): Title, description, headings, structure and internal linking make the content clear.
4. Trust: Links and mentions from other sites, reviews, and a recognisable business behind the site.

Where you should start

• Check whether your site appears in search at all, and set up Google Search Console.
• List your five most important services and create a separate, good page for each.
• Align the title and headings of each page clearly with its main topic.
• Fix technical shortcomings, above all loading time and mobile display.
• Measure after a few weeks and make improvements.

How long does it take?

First changes often show after a few weeks; reliable results usually take several months. Anyone who guarantees position 1 is promising more than an agency can deliver.

A practical example: one service, one page

Suppose a photography studio offers portraits, application photos and corporate photography. A typical mistake: all three services are on a single “Services” page. Someone searching for “application photo Stuttgart” finds a page that only partly matches. It is better to have a separate page for each service, with its own title, its own heading and its own questions and answers. The pages link to one another, and the home page leads to all of them. That way each page can be relevant to exactly one intent, as described in the guide Search intent.

What you can do yourself and where you need help

• Doable yourself: Maintaining your Google profile, writing clear text, answering customers’ questions, giving images sensible file names and alt text.
• Easier with expertise: Loading time, URL structure, structured data, redirects, indexing problems.
• Ongoing: New content, updating old pages, keeping an eye on the figures.

What you should measure

Search Console shows which searches your site appears for (impressions), how often it is clicked and at what average position. Pay less attention to individual rankings, which vary with location and device, than to the trend over several weeks. The most important metric remains a business one, however: enquiries, calls, appointments. Set up simple tracking for this, for example a question such as “How did you find us?” in your form.

Myths that waste time

• Keyword density: There is no target value you have to reach. Write naturally. See Keyword density: a myth.
• Bought links: They can breach search engine guidelines and harm your site.
• Optimise once and you are done: Search behaviour, competition and algorithms change. SEO is an ongoing task.

A simple list of priorities for the first 90 days

1. In the first month: stocktake, Search Console, technical foundations.
2. In the second month: revise or rewrite the most important service pages.
3. In the third month: supplementary guide content, Google profile, first evaluation.

Keyword research helps with the search-term side; the technical side is described in Technical SEO.

And what about AI search?

AI assistants also rely on clear, well-structured content. If you do SEO properly, you lay the foundation for this. Additional steps are described in the article on GEO.