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Place yourself in the centre of your data		https://www.cleverlance.com/en/blog/Pages/PST-interview.aspx	Place yourself in the centre of your data	<p>In May 2022 Petr Štros gave an interview to <a href="https://www.cio.cz/clanky/postavte-se-do-stredu-svych-dat/">CIO Business World</a> telling what's in the store at Cleverlance. </p><p> <strong>Since 2019, Cleverlance has been part of a group of technology companies united under the Aricoma brand. The original plans were that you would build a large international organization, ready for expansion into foreign markets. How is this vision being fulfilled?</strong></p><p>This is a huge and key topic for us.<br>The goal of making the company a European technology supplier has not changed at all. We are standing on the threshold of great things, of which Cleverlance will be a significant part.<br><br><strong>What does building a European supplier mean to you?</strong><br><br>There are a lot of American and Asian providers on the market but really big European players are missing.<br><br><strong>Do you mean with the EU flag?</strong></p><p>No, with the European flag. We want to have the flag of Europe, but to do business worldwide, to be proud that we are from Europe. In the United States, for example, Europe is still considered a mark of quality, so why not take advantage of that? Today we are at the beginning of our European journey. There are currently around three and a half thousand of us in Aricoma, we want to grow at least threefold, only then will we be big enough to operate in the European context. For me personally, it is interesting to take part in it, to give meaning and contours to the expansion. The target customer is Europe, it is our home address, we certainly will not even resist exporting our services to other continents.<br></p><p> <strong>Why is it so important for the growth of a company to be part of a large international group?</strong></p><p>Our business is connected to digitization, which has two parts – customer and delivery. The delivery part is problematic all over the world due to the lack of people who would be able to deliver all the required services within the framework of digitization. It is no longer possible to do it with just one company from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.<br>That is why we are part of Aricoma and why we opened branches in Germany and Spain. We need to expand our options. But even there, of course, we have problems finding skilled people at a reasonable price who will fit into our company culture. And we need a lot of them.<br><br>Many of our potential customers in Europe and around the world are really large and as such expect their partners and suppliers to be large companies as well. Cleverlance, even though we are huge with a thousand employees, is not big enough for them. Big companies simply don't like small ones, so Aricoma's size, when it grows to the strength of at least ten thousand employees, will be a springboard for us to new large international customers.<br><br><strong>So you're finally delivering on the strategy </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleverlance/"><strong>Cleverlance</strong></a><strong> was founded with? That it will be a company that will primarily serve the foreign market.</strong><br><br>Those were the original assumptions. But after the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2000, we had to reorient ourselves to the Czech market. After a while Czech clients started asking us to go abroad with them on international projects. So we went beyond the borders again. We started to rebuild our positions on the German market. But nothing will ever change about the fact that the domestic market has become key for us and we'll never leave it, nor our Czech clients.<br><br><strong>Which foreign markets do you prefer?</strong><br><br>We are starting in Germany, we already have offices in Munich with salesmen and technicians, now we are trying Austria and eventually we will go to Switzerland. These countries suit us best with their mentality.<br></p><p> <strong>How does Spain, where you opened offices in April, fit into the expansion?</strong></p><p>Because we are looking for a solution to the critical talent shortage problem, and in addition to expanding our reach, we need English-speaking people. We looked around Europe and found an ideal place in Valencia that offers thousands of technically educated university students every year at a reasonable price, so it was an obvious choice for us. Let's hope it goes well. We want to have 20 people there within six months and 100 within a year, thereby starting a major expansion into Europe. Our goal is also tenders from the European Union.<br></p><p>But it is not easy to get such tenders. You have to go through a series of checks and tests, sign a framework contract with the European Union.<br><br>That's right, we've already gone through all that and we've been officially promised that we'll be one of the 8 companies that will sign such a contract with the European Commission. The contract will set barriers for the supply of services, people or technology for any European company that falls under the European Commission. The contract is for five years and the amount of money contracted is huge.<br><br>And this is also possible only because we are in <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/aricoma-group/">ARICOMA Group</a>, because one of the monitored elements was of course our size and stability, which Cleverlance alone would not be enough for, although our knowledge and capabilities are.<br><br><strong>So that contract gives you automatic access to European Commission contracts?</strong><br><br>No, it gives us the opportunity to participate in tenders for contracts from the European Commission, we will be able to apply for contracts in competition with the other seven companies that also have this framework contract. For the fact that we are actually only a Czech company in quotation marks, this is a phenomenal success.<br><br><strong>What are your expectations for the impact on </strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleverlance/"><strong>Cleverlance</strong></a><strong>?</strong></p><p>We expect our turnover to triple at least within those five years.<br>Of course, we would grow even without the contract with the European Commission, but not nearly as fast.<br></p><p> <img src="/en/blog/PublishingImages/Pages/PST-interview/Petr%20Stros-7945.jpg" alt="Petr Stros-7945.jpg" data-themekey="#" style="margin:5px;" /> <br></p><p> <strong>Cleverlance is establishing itself very much in the digital economy service. What do you think is the situation in this area?</strong><br><br>The world simply needs <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=digitization&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn:li:activity:6975061770495266817">#digitization</a> or <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=digitaltransformation&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn:li:activity:6975061770495266817">#digitaltransformation</a>, it doesn't matter what buzzword we call it. For now, as a world, we are only in the initial phase of the next act of the digital future.<br><br>Undoubtedly, we need tools to build a digital environment that allows us to acquire and use data, communicate with third parties, and then work with all that knowledge. But there are so many of them that it is simply not humanly possible to process them all. Therefore, tools are created to process them, which tell you what you should do on the basis of this data, how you should behave, what to buy, what to sell... But even with automatic data processing, you are soon overwhelmed by the reduced outputs. There's just too much.<br><br><strong>And what can be done about it?</strong></p><p>Change the approach completely. From an attitude of machines telling us what to do, you need to move to a system that offers advice on how to do better what you think is good for your business.<br><br>Therefore, you or your systems must learn to take only the one tiny particle that interests you from the processed <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/hashtag/?keywords=data&highlightedUpdateUrns=urn:li:activity:6975061770495266817">#data</a> and continue to work with it. In a week you can take another part and alternate it as needed. As a customer, you have to put yourself at the center of your data and only get what you need and want, not be overwhelmed by the volume.<br><br>Today, however, it still essentially does not work that way. When that time comes, it will be very interesting. We want to be both a data platform supplier and a user when the system recognizes the customer's feelings in advance and offers him exactly what he needs.<br></p><p> <strong>What do you mean by that feeling? Do you mean his current business need?</strong></p><p>No, needs can already be found and satisfied by today's artificial intelligence or machine learning algorithms. But recognizing those feelings will be more girlish for the AI, we are only very slowly heading down a very difficult path there. No one even knows yet how to incorporate such an ability into algorithms. First, AI has to really be AI, and then all these things can be incorporated into it. The question is also whether AI will ever really reach a state where it will be intelligent.<br></p><p> <strong>What limits it today?</strong></p><p>Mainly hardware, when there are quantum computers, we will be in a different situation. Today we are really at the beginning of this journey.</p><p>And thanks to Aricoma, we can embark on that journey and work to create the future. Because the future of the digital economy does not end with building a platform for smart intelligence. An additional layer of blockchain will be needed on top of the AI layer.<br></p><p> <strong>How does blockchain fit into this?</strong></p><p>I'm not talking about cryptocurrencies, those are completely out of the question. I am referring to pure blockchain technology, which itself offers a safe, unassailable and trustworthy space. Trust is key in business, and so will blockchain in the future. And we are gradually trying to make these technologies available to our customers in the future.<br></p><p> <strong>How are you trying?</strong></p><p>We have our own blockchain research department where we test our stuff. It's really pure research, classic blockchain science. It is still early for practical use, it will take years. But without science, the future would not come. We are a technology company, and this is exactly the field for us.<br></p><p> <strong>When we talk about artificial intelligence, the European Union wants to regulate it in a fundamental way. How do you look at it?</strong></p><p>Now, if we set some frameworks for AI behavior, it's not entirely out of the question. I think that is correct, but it depends on the size of the playing field that the EU wants to define. It's a hard nut to crack, because we can't see into the future, it's hard to build future guardrails. If the playing field is too small, we won't be very competitive, if it's too big, there won't really be any regulation and it could happen that the whole thing gets over our heads.<br></p><p> <strong>Will Skynet or the Matrix come?</strong></p><p>I don't believe that AI will take over us, but it can go over our heads. We're not going to like that anymore, so we have to have some way to stop it. Let me give you an example for drivers - if you drive aggressively, such an overpowered AI will conclude<br>that you are dangerous to the environment and will stop you at every traffic light you meet on the road. Even if you calm down and drive sensibly, he will still run a red light just out of inertia, because you were simply a risky driver. You won't like that. Therefore, it is necessary to have the rules set in advance, and I note that I am not a fan of regulations. But in this area, you can't rely on everyone to self-regulate.<br></p><p> <strong>But won't such rules limit the competitiveness of European companies?</strong></p><p>I think the whole world will follow us in this, just like for example with GDPR. Everyone feared it as the scourge of mankind, and in the end nothing really happened.<br></p><p> </p><p> <br> </p><br>
When you say analyst, it means that...		https://www.cleverlance.com/en/blog/Pages/analysts.aspx	When you say analyst, it means that...	<br><div><p>From an IT perspective, being an analyst means several different positions with various job descriptions. These includes the role of IT analyst, which is also commonly referred to as systems analyst, or business analyst, data analyst or test analyst. But what do people who hold this position actually do and what are they responsible for? Let’s have a look at the roles chronologically as they enter the IT project.</p><h3>Business analyst</h3><p>The first analytical position to join the project is the business analyst. Very simply put, business analysts are responsible for communicating with the client, with business representatives on the customer’s premises. The aim of their work is to collect the client’s needs, transform them into requirements and rank them in order of importance. Subsequently, analysts develop a solution design, i.e. de facto build the software from the user’s point of view. They record their design in the business analysis, which means creating process diagrams, Use Case models or User Stories, activity diagrams, describing user roles, drawing wireframes of screens and so on, i.e. everything that will show how the system should work from the user’s perspective. You can read what a good business analyst needs to know here.</p><h3>IT analyst</h3><p>IT analysts, also known as a systems analysts, enter the project process early or together with the business analyst. Their responsibility is to design the technical solution of the system. In their work, they communicates intensively both with the IT architect, who is responsible for designing the concept of application development, and with the business analyst, who presents to them functional requirements and a description of the solution from a business perspective. The IT analyst then designs and describes the details of the technical solution, individual system modules, data and object structures including their links, defines interfaces and models sequence diagrams, etc. The results of work performed by the IT analyst, together with the results of work performed by the business analyst then constitute the specifications according to which the developers program the required system. This is also why a standard requirement for IT analysts is that they are familiar with programming languages such as Java, .NET, SQL or XML. Knowledge of methodologies such as RUP and ITIL or the recently widespread DevOps approach to software development.</p><h3>Test analyst</h3><p>Test analysts process the test analysis. They study the inputs provided by the business and IT analyst and go through the processes and logic of the entire expected solution with them to understand how the system should work in the end. This means that they enter the project either after the business and IT analyses have been elaborated or before their completion. After familiarising themselves with analytical documents, they develop test scenarios (Test Cases), test suites (logical groupings of tests which are related in some way) and test scripts. It may also happen that during the creation of test scenarios, they come across a deficiency in the business or IT analysis. In this case, they will draw attention to this fact so that the business or IT analyst can incorporate the identified deficiency in the analysis. Test analysts also defines the necessary test data for testing of the software during the creation of test scenarios. In the end, they are able to propose a test plan, i.e. the order of testing the individual test scenarios. Sometimes they are also the ones who prepare the test data or participates in the software testing itself.</p><h3>Data analyst</h3><p>Data analysts, as the name implies, work with data. Each system contains thousands, sometimes millions, of data records from which a wealth of interesting information can be extracted for business purposes. This concerns numeric values, but also text data. Data analysts works with both primary data sources, i.e. data from the main system, and also secondary data, for example, data from systems which deal with less important, i.e. supporting processes. Analysts sort, clean and analyse the data using standard statistical tools. They create various types of reports and visualisations for business or management. They design and create relational databases, define correlations and patterns in complex datasets. The primary skills of a data analyst include database design, familiarity with data warehouses and BI platforms, SQL, data mining, and the ability to visualise the resulting data and present the results. But also knowledge of statistical techniques, mathematical knowledge and orientation in the field of finance. In fact, data analysts can join the project at any time. They can be part of the team almost from the very beginning, for example, if the project involves migration of data from the original system to the new one. Or they can get involved in the project after the system is deployed in production to extract and process the first outputs for the client’s business or management, while continuing this work and continuously preparing various reports and visualisations.</p><p>As can be seen from the description above, several analysts are involved in creation of the system design, and their work builds on that of each other. This is one of the reasons why ongoing, more or less intensive communication is important for everyone. Actually, designing new software could be described as a performance given by a symphony orchestra, with the violin accompanied by the flute or the oboe, with the occasional horn or timpani. If everybody is in tune, they create a beautiful melody, and if not, everybody has to cover their ears. In the case of software, any “wrong notes” would result in a non-functional solution which would not meet the client’s needs and, moreover, would probably not be usable.<br></p></div>
Apple thinks about the security of its users		https://www.cleverlance.com/en/blog/Pages/apple-account-deletion.aspx	Apple thinks about the security of its users	<p>Mobile apps are becoming increasingly popular among users. Thousands of them are downloaded every day from <strong>Google Play</strong> and the<strong> Apple App Store</strong>. However, not all apps are completely secure for their users and not all manage the personal data of their users correctly. The above-mentioned companies try to make sure that only apps which “play fair” with users get into their stores.<br></p><p>In order to protect the privacy of iOS app users, Apple has issued a <a href="https://developer.apple.com/support/offering-account-deletion-in-your-app" target="_blank">regulationstating</a> that: “Starting June 30, 2022, apps submitted to the App Store that support account creation must also let users initiate deletion of their account within the app.”</p><p>Originally, this guideline was supposed to apply from the end of January 2022, but the deadline was postponed by 5 months due to pressure from developers and app companies. This is due to the fact that updating apps is not always a simple procedure. Apple has clear rules for deletion of an account: </p><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px;"><p>• The process of deleting the account must be clear, intuitive and transparent, easy to find in the application (e.g. a button to take you to the user profile or account management).</p><p>• We must offer complete deletion of the entire account record, including associated personal data. Merely offering to deactivate (temporarily disable) the account is not enough. </p><p>• If users have visit the website to complete deletion of their account, we should add a direct link to the page on the website where they can complete the process. </p><p>• Users must be well informed. If the deletion request is going to take longer to complete, we need to let users know. </p><p>• If the app supports in-app purchases, we need to clearly explain to people how subsequent billing and account cancellation will take place. </p><p>• All apps must include an easily accessible link to the privacy policy in the description on App Store Connect within the app. </p><p>• Last but not least, it is necessary to comply with the applicable legal requirements for the processing and storage of the client’s personal data. And also its deletion. This includes compliance with local laws - in our case, the applicable GDPR directive.</p></blockquote><p><a href="/en" target="_blank">Cleverlance</a> in its capacity as a technology company, helps its customers address these requirements. As a supplier of mobile applications, we have successfully resolved this issue, for example in the mobile application for <a href="https://apps.apple.com/cz/app/my%c5%a1koda/id1161648654?l=cs" target="_blank">MyŠkoda</a> ŠKODA AUTO a.s. Exactly according to the GDPR directive, here customers can completely delete their account in their profile, including their personal data. However, they must first disconnect their cars, which they control via the app. </p><p>In banking, the situation is slightly different. Although users can delete their accounts and access to the mobile app, their products remain untouched in the bank. Just like their personal data which must remain in the systems because of the legitimate interest of processing personal data and fulfilling a legal obligation. Users can cancel their account in the app and in doing so stop using the app. But they remain full-fledged customers of the bank.</p><h3>What does Google say?</h3><p>And how does another giant, Google, feel about this? The rules for displaying apps in Google Play state that the app must be transparent and inform the user how it processes their personal data. They prohibit outright fraudulent or dishonest conduct. However, Google has not yet taken the step of dictating that every app, if it creates a user account, must also allow the deletion of that account. </p><p>This move by Apple will certainly improve the transparency and fairness of apps as regards their users. It is a good step in the right direction towards a more honest electronic world. </p><h3>Recommendations for developers </h3><p>For the implementation of the new account deletion functionality, I recommend scheduling a separate release after the specified date. This is to say that Apple is likely to be rigorously testing the functionality and this may lead to a delay in release of the new version. This could have a detrimental effect on other important new functionality of the app if released alongside this release. And users don’t like to wait.<br></p>
The secret life of data: web analysis as a key to the maze of the online world		https://www.cleverlance.com/en/blog/Pages/the-secret-life-of-data.aspx	The secret life of data: web analysis as a key to the maze of the online world	<p>The online world might seem like a chaotic anthill to some. It’s easy to get lost in it – that is, unless we provide a clear, predefined and intuitive path to the user. How to draft such a path and how to create a pleasant and functional place among all this chaos is the subject of web analytics and SEO, among others.<span style="color:#696158;font-size:14px;"></span></p><div><p>We have all been there. Looking for a specific product or information on a company website or application. And no matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to find it. The reaction is always the same: we get frustrated, quickly close the website and, if possible, avoid it in the future. Frustration from a website turns to dissatisfaction with the whole company. Customers then often share their poor experience with others, spreading a negative image of the company. One of the ways to avoid such moments is to perform a web analysis focusing on determining the weaknesses of the web or application. Such an analysis should automatically be included in larger budgets intended for the development of any online environment and is definitely worth the cost even for smaller projects.<br></p><p><img src="/de/blog/PublishingImages/Articles/CreateIt/secret_life3.jpg" data-themekey="#" alt="" style="margin:5px 0px;" />Nowadays many companies often approach web analytics as reporting tools to retrospectively assess the parameters, ideally to identify a growing trend that they can present at a meeting. However, web analytics have so much more to offer. The key is to correctly interpret the obtained data and statistics, test the different variants and then recommend how to properly optimize the website and its contents. Only then do web analytics become profitable for a business. <br></p><p>Another potential of web analytics lies in the interconnection of data obtained from online systems with internal data available to companies in their CRM databases (business analysis): Interconnection of these data provides a complex overview of the customers, their behavior and their relationship with company, as well as information on all their online and offline activities. In this way we can obtain a realistic depiction of the behavior and needs of all our clients. The following table indicates the main differences between web and business analysis.<span style="color:#601ed9;font-family:maisonneue-bold;"><br></span></p><p><span style="color:#601ed9;font-family:maisonneue-bold;">Seven web analytics tips for successful businesses</span><br></p><p>• Less is more. Measure and evaluate data that you actually use.</p><p>• Integrate data in one place and automate it.</p><p>• Don't trust advertising systems when evaluating your marketing.</p><p>• Don't settle for the average in data.</p><p>• Track the behaviour of certain segments of your users.</p><p>• Ask for advice.</p><p>• It’s never too late for analytics.<br></p><h2>When the customer is online-only</h2><p>The pandemic chased a lot of people into the online world but even before that, a lot of us simply preferred online shops to the brick-and-mortar ones. This is very obvious for example in the area of clients’ online zones. It is much more convenient to resolve a request over a phone than to have to go to a branch office. Especially since the opening hours are often the same as our own working hours. <br></p><p>The online environment if oftentimes the only point of contact of the customer with the company. This is why customers’ feedback and the ability to analyze their movement and reactions in the online world are absolutely crucial. In the first phase it is important to have properly configured web or mobile analytics. Do we really obtain all the necessary data? This question can be answered by a data audit - different data are required for marketing than for product managers or the Risk department. <br></p><p>The second phase focuses on data collection. If we have a CRM database, we’re looking for a lead, a link between this database and the web part. These data allow us to see the steps of individual users, their behavior, what parts of the web they pay attention to and where they get lost. <br></p><p>With the use of visualization tools, we can then turn analytical graphs into something more user friendly. The output consists of analytical dashboards that can have a different form for a manager than, e.g., for a dealer. The important thing is that both of them can work with these dashboards on a daily basis; as an online tool they are continuously updated and available at any time. This saves a lot of time (and consequently money) in comparison to classic evaluations.<br></p><p>Another advantage of analytical dashboards is the visualization of data in a single place. This then provides a starting point for the next important phase - data interpretation. During this phase it is possible to use the classic A/B testing method, where we create hypotheses and them test them out using data. An example? Our client, a leading Czech virtual operator, contemplated whether they should guide their users directly to the ordering form of the product during a marketing campaign or whether they should provide more information about the product first. We monitored which variant will result in higher sales of the given product.<br></p><p>The third part of web analytics, which is also most interesting in terms of business, is the data interpretation itself. It is important to be able to obtain information useful for one's business from the data. There are various advertising systems available on the market, as well as evaluation tools for example in Facebook Business Manager or Google Ads. Each tool uses different methodology for conversions and a different so-called attribution window. Simply put, generally configured metrics provide conclusions that may be too generalized. This is why it is always more effective to have custom-made analytics and to take advantage of other options, such as SEO. That is a set of methods whose aim is to bring as many relevant visitors to your site from an organic search.<br></p><h3>What is SEO</h3><p>A set of methods aimed at bringing as many relevant visitors as possible to a site from an organic search.</p><h3>Why is it important</h3><p>The websites that search engines place on the first page of their search results are those that they consider to be a suitable and trustworthy source of information for the given search query. SEO methods help us to build this authoritativeness.</p><h3>Who should do it</h3><p>SEO is used by every website – it is important to know how to determine which steps to start with. Work with content will be far more important for small websites that present things such as services and references for a particular business, while a huge goods comparison site will need to work with technical SEO parameters.</p><h3>The link between web analytics and SEO</h3><p>Analytics is an incredibly valuable source of information for SEO. It helps to evaluate the overall success of content, discover new link building opportunities or assess how user-friendly a site's navigation or filtering are.<br></p><p>The approach to web analytics can be turned around: a helper can be turned into a marketing tool. This trend is employed for example by growth hacking, a type of marketing typical namely for start-ups in the Western world. The goal is to obtain the biggest possible market share in a relatively short span of time and to target so-called early adopters who form the first customer base and then bring in new customers. This method is based on innovative marketing communication, testing and rapid adapting of the product to the customers. At its core lies the utilization of data from analytics and testing of hypotheses via hundreds of thousands of small A/B tests that result in continuous improvement of the design of the new product. This type of marketing is based exclusively on data about what worked the best on future clients. Giants such as Facebook, Airbnb, Dropbox and Spotify are typical examples of companies that use growth hacking.<br></p><h2>Can one survive without analytics? Yes, but...</h2><p>Of course, you can run a business without any analytics. In terms of small companies – if you have any kind of marketing, you need to know how well it works. For larger companies, analytics is an absolute must; otherwise it’s like being forced to traverse the online world blindfolded. If we can understand the behavior of our clients, we might see for example that a group of our customers have some things in common. Using personalized marketing, we can then offer them an interesting and, most importantly, relevant product. All of this leads to creating business models tailored to satisfy a target group of customers.<br></p><p>If we should characterize today’s online world, we could say it is an environment based on data, testing and hypothesis verification. That is one of the principles of how the online world works. It’s no coincidence that the biggest global companies put such a great emphasis on data. However, even small and medium-sized companies can benefit from the art of data interpretation.</p></div>
SEO for beginners: what it is and how it works		https://www.cleverlance.com/en/blog/Pages/SEO-for-beginners.aspx	SEO for beginners: what it is and how it works	<p>Search engine optimization sounds like the name of some intricate spell, but in reality it’s not rocket science. If you understand how search engines think, you’re already halfway there. Furthermore, this is a job for both creative and analytical minds.</p><h2>What is SEO?</h2><p>SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is a set of different methods, the goal of which is to bring as many relevant visitors as possible to your website from an organic search. In other words, you try to make sure that your web has the best possible position in non-advertised search.<br></p><p>For example, look at the results for “samsung galaxy s 20”. The first four links are paid ads (my regards to my PPC colleagues), and only then can you see the organic results. These are what we focus on.<img src="/de/blog/PublishingImages/Articles/CreateIt/seo1.png" data-themekey="#" alt="" style="margin:5px 0px;" /><br></p><p style="text-align:center;"><em>The search engine results page (SERP).</em><br></p><h2>Why SEO is important</h2><p>The first-page results displayed by search engines are considered a relevant and trustworthy source of information for the given search words. SEO then helps us ensure we build up to reach this position. I use the world “build”, as this takes a lot of time and effort. It requires a long-term strategy, the results of which are visible in months at the earliest. As they say, good things come to those who wait.<br></p><h2>5 reasons why you should pay attention to SEO</h2><h3>1. Organic searches are usually the biggest source of visitors<br></h3><p>Most website visitors come from these search results. Web traffic can be supported temporarily by a PPC campaign, but usually you can’t do that forever. You gradually build your organic visit rate so as not to depend on advertisements.<br></p><h3>2. Build the trustworthiness and authority of your brand</h3><p>Artificial intelligence used in search engines assesses, for example, the link profile of the website (number and quality of backlinks to your website) or content optimization, and can even verify the correctness of information on the website. If your website claims that Microsoft was founded by Steve Jobs, you could optimize your keywords with all your might and still would never reach the first positions on the results page.<br></p><h3>3. Good SEO means a better user experience</h3><p>Search engines evaluate not only the content but also the technical aspects of the website. They know if a website takes a long time to load on a phone or if the users tend to leave it immediately. The aim is to provide users with a website that are easy to navigate and contains the information they are looking for.<br></p><h3>4. Satisfy your clients’ needs</h3><p>SEO uses the term “search intent”. Search engines try to understand what the user is looking for and offers them the appropriate results. People who search for “how to tie a tie” will be shown video instructions, not e-shops. When searching for “pizza žižkov” they won’t get recipes for pizza but a map with pizzerias in Žižkov, including reviews. This is why it’s important for your content to meet the intent of the clients.<br></p><h3>5. SEO is measurable</h3><p>You might not have the same simple metrics that you do for PPC campaigns such as ROI, but with properly set goals you can monitor almost anything. It is important to be able to connect all the pieces together and determine the links between them. The most commonly monitored metrics include the development of organic traffic over time, bounce rate, position of the web in an organic search and the number of indexed webpages.<br></p><h2>How does searching work?</h2><p>The search engine is sort of like a library. It collects information, creates a catalogue and upon request provides relevant information on the given topic. It regularly sends its robots (also called bots or crawlers) to go through websites and collect information about their content. Information about websites is stored (indexed) to gradually build a knowledge base (index). When you enter the search words, the search engine tries to find the most relevant answer in its index using an algorithm.<br></p><p><img src="/de/blog/PublishingImages/Articles/CreateIt/seo2.PNG" data-themekey="#" alt="" style="margin:5px 0px;" />The search engine uses many factors to assess a website’s relevance, the list and description of which are a topic for a whole another article. SEO factors are divided into on-page and off-page.<br></p><p>On-page factors include everything that the web author can directly affect. Examples includes the content, its quality, processing, the use of keywords and most frequently searched phrases. The speed of the web is also important, as well as the url address structure and navigation, optimization for mobile searches and accessibility for robots.<br></p><p>Off-page factors then include elements that you cannot fully control and are affected by the visitors and other websites. Typically these include the number and quality of backlinks or shares of the content by users on social media.<br></p><h2>For what websites does SEO make sense?</h2><p>For every single one, no doubt about that. However, each website requires a different approach. E-shops or comparators of goods must take into consideration the technical side of SEO and regularly check the indexation and proper function of filtering. For example, they use the option to include the price of products, its availability and rating in the search results. A news portal, on the other hand, will act differently, as it depends on the accessibility and speed of the web on mobile devices. And for a cooking blog, for example, an attractive design is crucial.<br></p><p>I personally enjoy how interdisciplinary SEO is. When working in the content, I draw on my copywriting experience, while in technical SEO I use my knowledge of HTML and basic understanding of Javascript. Thanks to SEO I gradually expand my knowledge of UX, psychology, programming and business analysis. In the next article I will introduce the 10 most important SEO factors, and I’m already looking forward to seeing you on some of our future training sessions.</p>