Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Search Engine Optimization (SEO) covers all measures that help a website become more visible in unpaid (organic) search results. Open glossary entry → bundles all measures that help a website rank better in organic, that is unpaid, search results. It differs from paid searchSearch Engine Advertising (SEA) means paid ads in the search results, usually billed on a pay-per-click basis. Open glossary entry → advertising (SEA) and tends to work over the medium to long term.
SEO is traditionally split into three areas:
technical SEO: crawlability, indexingIndexing is the step in which a search engine processes crawled content and decides whether a URL is added to the search index. Only indexed pages can appear in search results. Open glossary entry → , load timePageSpeed refers to the loading time and responsiveness of a website. PageSpeed optimisation covers measures that improve loading time, responsiveness and visual stability. Open glossary entry → , structured dataSchema markup is code that describes a page's content in a structured way, so search engines understand it not just as text but as clearly classified information. Open glossary entry → ,on-page SEO: content matched to search intentSearch intent is the goal behind a search query: does the user want to learn something, buy something or reach a specific page? Content only ranks well if it matches this intent. Open glossary entry → , title tagThe title tag is an HTML element in the page that defines the page title. It appears in the browser tab and can be used as the clickable title in search results. Open glossary entry → , meta descriptionThe meta description is an HTML element in the page that briefly summarises the page's content. Google can display it as the description in the search result. Open glossary entry → , internal linkingInternal linking refers to links that connect pages within the same website. They control how search engines and users find and thematically classify content. Open glossary entry → ,off-page SEO: reputation and references from other websites.Modern SEO increasingly considers AI visibilityAI Visibility describes whether and how visible a brand, website or person is in AI-generated answers. It measures mention, position, description and source linking across multiple platforms and prompts. Open glossary entry → too, because the same fundamentals (accessibility, clear structure, citable contentCitability describes how well individual sections of a piece of content can be extracted, summarized and used as an answer by search engines and AI systems. Open glossary entry → ) also determine whether content appears in AI answers.