– what do you need to know?
The population of Germany is 83.6 million. Nearly 93% of Germans have access to and actively use the Internet. Interestingly, the number of smartphones reaches 110 million, which means that every third German has two phones! The statistical Otto Normalverbraucher (the German equivalent John Smith) spends almost 4.5 hours a day on the net!
Year after year, users in this country increasingly prefer browsing the internet via mobile devices rather than via computers. In 2019, 11% more people used the “small” screen for this than the year before. On the other hand, the classic desktop continued to lose popularity, falling by 4.4%. It is also worth noting the definite decline of users surfing the web using tablets, which reached as much as -31%.
The most popular devices used by Germans:
When it comes to operating systems on mobile devices, as in Poland, most users use Android (70%) and iOS (29% of traffic). The most popular applications used by more than half of Germans include WhatsApp (as much as 79%), YouTube (77%) and Facebook (64%).
Germans pay attention to order, design and quality. These qualities are also reflected in the SEO itself, and in particular in unique, comprehensive and question-answering content. The website itself should also have a clear template so interested parties can navigate it easily. Our neighbours most often buy electronics, clothes, toys and things they need to develop their passions online. You can read more about this in the section “E-commerce market in Germany” below.
83,6 million
Germany’s population
93 %
of the population has access to the Internet
77 million
million Internet users
94 %
of users use Google
In Germany, as in most countries, the most popular search engine is Google (94%). Showing this statistic on the basis of the most frequently used devices, it looks as follows:
In relation to optimisation of our website, it is also worth knowing which search engines are used by Germans.
Here, as you can see, Google leads (48.4%), although Safari (22.1%) and Firefox (11.9%), popular on iPhones, also have a noticeable share.
As for the other search engines and their market share, Bing (5.34%), Ecosia (1.12%), DuckDuckGo (0.9%) and Yahoo (0.72%) represent such a low scale of use that, especially in the first stages of operations, they are not a necessary part of an SEO strategy.
Germany is the 5th biggest e-commerce market in the world! Actually, this sentence should answer all questions and satisfy all doubts related to the idea of establishing and developing a market in a country which is a giant of electronic sales. The annual turnover of e-commerce reaches an exorbitant amount, i.e. more than 100 billion euro. No one needs to be convinced that there is a lot to fight for. Equally importantly, according to statistics about 66 million Germans buy online! Each of them spends on average EUR 1,424 per annum in this way.
The growth rate of e-commerce in Germany in 2019 was 11%. This is less than the global segment average (13%), but it is not a bad statistic. On the contrary, it can be said that Germany is already a mature and more established market than in the case of developing countries.
How do Germans pay for their online purchases? Mostly through bank transfers.
We already know that Germans like to shop online, now let’s take a look at what they buy most often.
Which shops and shopping platforms are used by our western neighbours?
(annual turnover in 2019 in brackets)
The English-speaking Amazon has for years held the leading position in terms of online sales in Germany. It has almost three times the turnover of the second in the ranking, the local Otto.de. However, these two players together account for almost half of the e-commerce turnover in Germany. The online equivalents of brick-and-mortar shops (such as Media Markt, Lidl and Saturn) are also gaining ground on the market. The “cake” is such a big and tasty titbit that it is definitely worth trying to grab even a small part of it.
It is not necessary, but advisable, that our website has a national domain, in this case ”.de”. As part of SEO activities and “hreflang” parameters in the code of the website, you can give Google robots clues as to what language the website is in and on what market it should be displayed. On the other hand, it is worth taking care of its credibility, which in the eyes of the client will be enhanced by the German extension. When planning to enter several foreign markets, you can also consider European or global domains such as “.eu” or “.com”. Then, when creating subsequent language versions, extend them by individual countries, i.e. mypage.eu/de, mypage.eu/es, mypage.eu/fr, etc.
The German market is certainly interesting and affluent. Importantly, our neighbours are already accustomed to on-line shopping and using commercial platforms. This, with a well-developed strategy and gradual development of the service area, provides a solid basis for the successful implementation of the expansion of our business. Germany, as we all know, is Poland’s neighbour which is also an advantage in terms of logistics and order delivery.
15% of German buyers do so using foreign offers. This means that the German consumer does not choose only domestic products. They attach great importance to the appearance and above all to quality, which in the end can tip the scales and convince the user to choose our product range.
The benefits of SEO in Germany:
Expanding your business area is certainly a challenge, but also an opportunity. An additional market means the direct opportunity to acquire new customers, and further increase the scope of sales and ultimately profits. If your product delivers the quality they are looking for, you can expand your customer base for years to come. It is also a good idea to make such a move before your competitors do, in order to build your position in advance and become a leader in a new area. Continuous growth, expansion of your offerings, and expansion of your business are all benefits that allow you to let your imagination run wild. But it’s not that far off, in the end it all depends on ourselves.
When it comes to link building for the German market, it relies in particular on gathering quality links from thematic websites. Importantly, it is the high quality, not the sheer quantity of links that counts.
Links to publications prepared by journalists or press releases themselves are among the most popular ways of acquiring links in Germany. Editors are quite happy to link to source material. The text itself, however, must first and foremost carry value and verified information. The same applies to link placement with business partners. If the cooperation proceeds as planned and is satisfactory for both sides, Germans often place links to their business partners on their websites. One of the most important and valuable forms of link acquisition is sponsored articles. In Germany, they are not sneaked in as part of the regular content, unlike in Poland. Their quality is also at a high level and they often contain professionally prepared text based on expert studies and sources and thus form an important part of the respective website.
Other forms of link acquisition in Germany:
The most comprehensive service
SEO360® ensures the most comprehensive service among other similar on the market, such as SEO or SXO, which has been confirmed by research.
Guaranteed sales increase
The service provides a guarantee of the final effect, an increase traffic and revenue / leads.
Hybrid settlements based on success fee
Once 100% of the original target is achieved, any results above are based on a success fee.
Guaranteed link maintenance
We do not remove acquired links even after the end of cooperation.
We work all over Europe
Under one contract, we can carry out our work for all European countries with the support of a network of quality partners.
Individual strategy
We prepare a comprehensive, extensive strategy in which we examine the real needs of consumers (customer insights) before starting any actions.
SEO360®
SXO
regular SEO
Strategy
It is the starting point for SEO360® actions, individually priced and created on the basis of the customer’s needs and expectations included earlier in the brief filled in by the customer. As part of our conceptual work, we establish the KPIs necessary for successful implementation of further stages of the project, in particular analysis, content marketing plan and estimations, which are the components of the strategy.
Analysis
In this step, we carry out all the activities verifying the current state of the selected website in terms of SEO and its potential in a given country when compared to the competition. At the same time, we analyse the full user path based on the customer journey. The result of the analysis is a large amount of data that can be used to implement further SEO360® steps.
Content Marketing Plan
Individually prepared for the industry represented by the Client and for the given markets where SEO360® activities will be conducted. It includes a scenario concerning the type of created content and the way of its distribution in order to reach the consumers with it precisely and to be one step ahead of the competition. Content Creators guarantee the successful implementation of this plan.
Estimations
An extremely valuable and final component of the strategy, where we estimate individual values related to the visibility of the website in the most popular search engine of a given country, taking into account the increase in traffic and, more importantly, the increase in conversions over a specified period of time.
Technical SEO
When starting proper SEO activities, one of the necessary steps to achieve final success is technical SEO, also called technical analysis or technical optimisation for SEO, i.e. the part of optimisation that does not concern content. It consists of all activities that affect the architecture and code of a website in such a way as to make it as friendly as possible to the most stringent search engine requirements and, at the same time, to stay one step ahead of the competition.
Content optimisation
Part of optimising a website for SEO, in addition to technical SEO, is content optimisation. Valuable content for the user is one of the key elements that will help to achieve high search engine visibility as well as increase conversions and thus revenue.
UX + CRO
As part of the SEO360® service, we provide analysis and optimisation of User Experience metrics with a particular focus on heuristic experiments and A/B testing as well as Conversion Rate Optimisation. In this way, we analyse consumer activity at each stage of their purchase process, increasing sales effectiveness.
Link Building
We conduct link building using the highest quality permanent links acquired from external sources or services, from reliable publishers with a guarantee of their maintenance even after the end of cooperation. As part of this process, we take care of the correct link profile, which brings end benefits.
Ongoing Data Analysis
In SEO360®, through advanced tools supervised by the Client Success Manager, we constantly measure the progress related to the evaluation of conducted activities, and on their basis, our customers have access to extensive reports 24/7.
Increase in traffic and revenue
The ultimate value of SEO360® is the increase in brand awareness, traffic, conversions and revenue generated from the service, which is significantly higher than in the case of ‘regular SEO’ and above all, it is long-lasting.
Data source:
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Absolutely. Keep in mind that keywords typed into the search engine will definitely be in German, so in order for a user to find our site, it is necessary to have a German language version. This is actually the first significant step towards proper SEO optimisation of the website. It would be difficult to position it for phrases that are not on our website at all. Moreover, to make the potential customer feel comfortable, the content and descriptions should be available in their native language.
This question will be answered by our in-depth analysis of the market potential and your offer, on the basis of which we will prepare an appropriate strategy, including a keyword catalogue. It will probably contain mostly German phrases, which are translations of the names of products or services offered. Some of them may have their own unique phrases, characteristic for a given nationality or region. Of course, in addition to competitive, strategic keywords, we will also build the general visibility of the website for industry-specific queries from the service sector of your business.
The most important thing for this type of activities is SEO knowledge. If this is supplemented by our German partners’ knowledge of the domestic market and quality content, the most important elements are guaranteed. Our experience in implementing successful projects on the German market is the best proof of our competence. Also important are the fees for the conducted activities, which are calculated in Polish zloty, while in Germany they usually amount to a similar rate, but calculated in euros.
Yes. Among our partners we have German Content Creators, with whom we have achieved very good positioning results on the German market. It should be remembered that this type of action should be carried out in two ways: on the one hand, the relevant content should be placed on the website itself, and on the other hand, within the framework of linking articles (Content Marketing) on external portals or entries (Buzz Marketing) on forums and thematic blogs. As far as the handling of queries in German is concerned, it is good to have a person in the company who is able to provide the customer with concrete answers to basic questions.