What is SEO and what is it good for?

SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization". You may already have heard a lot about SEO and how it works. Basically, it is a measurable, repetitive process used to send signals to search engines that your website is worth being listed in Google's index.

Google uses a complex mathematical formula called algorithm to give all web pages and search queries on Google a score to decide which web page is best placed for which query.

Since the visibility of a website and its offerings is more important than ever, large companies invest a lot of money in SEO. After all, you want to appear as high up in a Google search as possible.

Do you also want to apply SEO on your Pimcore website and benefit from improved search results? No problem, read on.

Optimize page content by keyword and keep it up to date

Basically, your website texts should be written for the customer. Offer the visitor the content he wants to read or see. Example: A medication product page is visited. It should contain information such as the suitability of the medicine, where it is sold and prices. Nobody wants to read the digital version of the package insert, which additionally is written in technical jargon.

These customer-oriented texts can now be optimized for SEO using keywords. The company defines a few keywords under which the company and the products are to be found. The two platforms keyword tool and Seobility can help you to find suitable keywords for frequently searched queries. You can also compare different keywords directly on Google Trends.

SEO Document Settings

After you have optimized the content of the website, you can make further SEO relevant settings for each Pimcore document. Open the desired document and navigate to the "SEO & Settings" tab. At the top of this tab is the "Title, Description & Metadata" section. Title and description must always be filled in, whereby HTML tags are to be regarded as optional. The title describes the page in one or a few words and the description summarizes the content of the page briefly and concisely. The title should not exceed a character length of 60 characters and the character length of the description should not pass the mark 170.

Let's take a product page as an example. This could bear the title "Products | Example Company Inc." and the description reads "Efficiency is a basic need in today's world of life and work. Our products were developed for an efficient and sustainable way of working".

Furthermore, you can define a so-called "pretty URL" in the next section. This can have an influence on the visibility of the page, especially with extremely long URLs. Our recommendation: If you have two or three subpages or more, you can consider storing a "prettier" URL for the desired page. However, this only makes sense for the most important pages, so do not apply this setting to all subpages.

Examples

Meaningful and can improve visibility.

Before: https://www.domain.com /en/company/services/digital-services/cybersecurity
After: https://www.domain.com/what-is-cybersecurity

No added value for visibility.

Before: https://www.domain.com/products/joint-sponge
After: https://www.domain.com/joint-sponge

Add Asset Metadata

Just as important as the SEO document settings are the asset metadata. To make sure you don't forget to store them, we recommend that you store them immediately after uploading a file. Open the desired asset and navigate to the "Custom Metadata" tab. For image files (e.g. JPEG, PNG, GIF, etc.) you should already see three predefined entries: "title", "alt" and "copyright".

The value for "title" is displayed as additional information for images if the mouse pointer remains over the image for a longer time. This is especially useful for images without captions.

The "alt" value or alternative text must be specified, since it can be read by screen readers, which are used by users with visual impairment or blindness, and also serves as a replacement for the image. It happens from time to time that an image cannot be loaded due to a server error or that users have completely deactivated images in the browser. In this case, the alternative text is displayed instead of the image.

Last but not least, you can use the "copyright" value to indicate the copyright of an image. This information will be added to both the "title" and the "alt" text.

If you want to publish PDF or Office documents (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.) on your website, it is recommended to enter the metadata before uploading. You can find out how to do this under the following links:

Edit PDF properties
Editing Properties of an Office File

SEO Document Editor

Now that all content is optimized and filled, it's about checking it. With the SEO Document Editor all Pimcore documents can be checked for their SEO completeness. The SEO Document Editor is located in the menu bar on the left under Marketing > Search Engine Optimization. Once opened, the complete document tree including information on "Pretty URL", title and description is displayed. Here you can quickly and easily check whether you have forgotten a page. Clicking on a document opens a small window in which you can define the title, the "pretty" URL and the description.

Redirect HTTP errors and obsolete URLs

You will also find the menu item "HTTP Errors" under Marketing > Search Engine Optimization. In the table you can see all HTTP errors of the last 7 days including error code and affected path. In addition, the number of calls and the date of the last call are listed in the table. The fewer entries in this list, the better. Many such errors can have a bad effect on the visibility of your website.

You see an old link from the previous website in the list? No problem, redirect all requests to this path to an existing website. You can create this redirection under Tools > Redirects. Further instructions on this topic can be found here.

Paths ending with ".css", ".js" or other file extensions can be safely ignored. If you don't recognize other links or don't know where they come from, please contact your website agency and ask.

The most important in brief

In summary, the following things should be noted: Keep your website content up-to-date and optimize the texts on keywords. Store correct and appropriate metadata for all documents and assets; Google detects inappropriate descriptions. Regularly check the HTTP errors and reduce the number of errors to a minimum.

Is my website now guaranteed to be number 1 on Google?

A question we keep receiving and there is a simple answer: No, but it will certainly help you to achieve better visibility. To get rank 1 on Google for many queries you need a lot of patience, knowledge and therefore a lot of money.

If you want to pursue a serious SEO strategy, we recommend that you contact a specialist.

My conclusion

Search engine optimization is an extremely broad and complex subject area. If someone tells you that he knows exactly according to which criteria Google indexes your website, you should not believe him. I even doubt that many Google employees know what and how Google searches the content. ;-)

As a technical integrator, we can help you in the technical OnPage area. If, however, you have greater ambitions in the area of SEO, we recommend that you contact an SEO agency. We will then be happy to help you with the implementation in cooperation with the SEO specialists.

Do you have a suggestion or question on this topic? Of course, we will be happy to give you an answer in the comments.