The higher the visibility of a website, the higher the probability that an Internet user will find this website in a Google search.
Who for example at Google Buy house Munich or Rent an apartment or Buy plot is almost always found on websites such as immobilienscout24.de or immonet.de bump. These have a huge visibility for these searches.
The websites of smaller local brokers, on the other hand, are much less visible. And other suppliers can only be found at the very back, on page 17 of the search results or something like this.
If you are not sufficiently visible, you practically do not exist in your market on the Internet and are missing out on an important source of new customers – regardless of whether you are active in B-to-C or B-to-B.
Increase the Googe visibility is therefore one of the most important goals in website optimization.
How visible is your website?
A very simple, quick test to assess the visibility of a website you can do yourself: Simply enter the presumably most important search terms of a website into the Google search box, supplemented by the relevant location if services are offered locally.
So for example Coach Stuttgart or Bathroom renovation Berlin or SAP Consulting or CNC turned parts.
The further ahead a website is on Google, the higher its visibility for this keyword.
Because visibility is an important parameter, there are also software tools that determine the visibility value without having to query all the important search terms themselves.
The value determined with these tools is called the visibility index.
The visibility index as a benchmark
One of the most important key figures for the visibility of a website is the Sistrix visibility index. An alternative is the XOVI Online Value Index.
To determine these values for the visibility index, search queries are performed regularly. At Sistrix for one million search terms, at XOVI it is 500.000 keywords.
This records how often a website appears in the list of results for searchers’ queries. From this a numerical value is calculated.
While this metric can be interesting for large websites, it is of little use for the vast majority of operators of "normal" business websites with rather specific target groups…
Because you can have a pretty bad visibility index – as most do – and still successfully win customers with your website. This is because search terms that are important for niche websites, for example, are very unlikely to be queried at all in the visibility index.
My own website, for example, only has a Sistrix visibility index of around 0.2 and an XOVI OVI of just under 6 – and yet I gain more customers with my websites than I need to. For comparison, there are websites that have a Sistrix visibility index of well over 2.000 have, Amazon.de for example.
In absolute terms, a very low visibility index is not very meaningful, but it is always interesting in comparison to the values of competitors.
By the way, you can determine your visibility index here for free: https://app.sistrix.com/en/visibility-index
A visibility index says nothing about visitor numbers
You can have a great visibility index and still few visitors come to your websites. And vice versa.
A visibility index should therefore not be seen as a measure of visitor numbers.
Basically, the usefulness of a visibility index for most entrepreneurs is rather limited.
It allows a rough classification of a site within a market and helps to identify and evaluate changes over time.
What other tools provide information about the visibility of a website?
When I want to know deeper details about the visibility of a website, I like to look into Google Analytics and the Google Search Console.
I do not get an index value displayed there. On the basis of Access numbers but I can determine if the visibility of my website is increasing or decreasing.
Big advantage of the access numbers compared to a visibility index: It is a real value, real visitors are measured on a website.
About Search analysis it is possible to track which search terms bring visitors to the site. In addition, the bounce rate gives an indication of whether search terms may not be as relevant as you thought they would be. Or whether the content on the website is not good enough.
If, according to the Google Search Console search analysis, your own results show up in the search results list but are hardly clicked (low CTR), you should look at the title and description of the search result and optimize them so that they are more likely to fit the searcher’s needs.
The adjusting screws for better visibility of your website
More exciting than the absolute value of visibility is basically the question: how can I improve the visibility of my website?
The bad news: no one can know quite exactly what influences the ranking and thus the visibility of their own website. Google keeps the evaluation factors to itself and changes them from time to time.
However, there are a few factors that are so fundamental that they should always be considered.
Visibility always relates to the right keywords
We have already seen that the assessment of the visibility of web pages is sensibly always based on the search terms with which the potential customers search for the services.
If you are a lawyer, you don’t care if your website has a miserable visibility for the search term "gourmet restaurant".
This means that if you want to improve the visibility of your website, you first need to know what terms your target audience is using to search for your services.
So improving visibility on the Internet starts with a keyword analysis and targeting your website to the right keywords. Very classic onpage SEO.
Normally, this means that one sub-page of the website is specifically targeted at a relevant search term or a combination of search terms. This search term must then appear a few times in the text of the web page, it should appear in the<h1>-Headline should be included, in the URL, in an image caption and the<alt>-text, as well as in<title>- and in the<description>-Tag. In addition, care should be taken to supplement the search term with some semantically related terms.
Another important factor for the visibility of your website are external links. Ideally, these are set without your intervention because the content on your website is so compelling.
If not, you can also help a little with the link setting. For example, via guest posts on other websites.
What you should never do, however, is buy links. Google does not like this and penalizes link purchases where they can be proven. And this happens more often than you think.
By the way, technical aspects such as the loading time of a page or the suitability for mobile devices are also important for visibility.
Provide the best content for your keywords
Google has become quite good at recognizing how precisely a search result fits the needs of the searcher. The most sustainable way to the top of the results lists is therefore: Offer the best search result with your website.
You need content that is more helpful and/or entertaining than that of your competitors. Your website has to be the gold standard for a certain search term, then it will also work with visibility.
At the same time, do not forget: Good visibility is nothing for eternity. If you want to keep your visibility high in the long run or even increase it further, you have to publish new content on your own website regularly.
The plan is to keep visitors on your website for as long as possible and to get them to interact with you.
To do this, offer the best user experience in addition to the best content. This means, among other things, that your website is visually attractive and invites people to stay. The navigation should be clear and unambiguous, I have to find my way around immediately.
You can also buy better visibility
If you are short of time and want to optimize the visibility of your website very quickly – preferably immediately – use Google Ads.
This is how you buy your way to the top of the search results list and can achieve enormous visibility in a very short time.
Of course, the costs can be enormous. However, with cleverly selected keywords and intelligently constructed landing pages, a Google Ads campaign can certainly pay off.
Get more visibility online now?
I help you to become more visible online: Send an email or call me – +49 40 22 86 75 40. The initial consultation is free.
Who writes here?
My name is Michael Bondzio, I am a concept developer, copywriter and marketing consultant. From my more than 25 years of working for national and international brands and companies of all sizes, I have a lot of experience that I share in this blog.
Since 2004 I have been advising self-employed people as well as management and executives of small and medium-sized companies on automated new customer acquisition via the Internet.
Increase online visibility?
You want to increase the visibility of your website? I design the necessary measures for you and implement them with my network – the initial consultation is free of charge. Call me – +49 40 22 86 75 40 – or send an e-mail.