German keyword research
What your German buyers actually type — including compound nouns, formal/informal variants and Austrian/Swiss spellings. We start where your global keyword set ends.
Rank on Google.de — in fluent native German.
Technical SEO, German keyword research and locally-credible content for international brands entering Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Visibility that doesn't stop at position 1, but starts at qualified pipeline.
+340 %
avg. organic DE traffic in 6 months
150+
SEO projects delivered
CWV
Core Web Vitals green by default
12 yr
experience with German Google updates
What matters
German SEO is not "translated SEO".
German users search differently. They use long compound words, expect formal "Sie" tone, click on local brands first, and trust trust-marks (TÜV, Trusted Shops, Impressum) more than Anglo audiences. Translating your English content with DeepL gets you to position 12 — and then plateaus.
Locally-credible content
Pages written by senior German native speakers, with the right tone, the right "Sie/du" register and the references German buyers expect. No DeepL leftovers.
Technical SEO, hreflang done right
Hreflang setup that survives WordPress, Webflow or headless CMS, German Schema.org, Core Web Vitals, faceted-navigation hygiene — the boring foundations that make rankings stick.
Core Web Vitals & performance
LCP, CLS, INP green for German users on German networks. We optimise for the actual infrastructure your DACH audience hits, not what looks good on a US-east CDN.
OffPage authority in German
Editorial backlinks from German-language publishers and PR placements that German Google actually trusts. No link farms, no risky tactics.
English reporting, German results
Search Console, GA4, server logs — analysed in DACH context, reported back to you in clean English with KPIs that map to your global tree.
SEO for DACH in detail
We know the traps — and how to avoid them.
International sites entering DACH stumble in predictable ways: hreflang misconfigured, German content thin, Austrian/Swiss variants ignored, Impressum/legal pages missing, German page speed killed by US-hosted media.
We have seen these problems on dozens of international launches and know which fix moves the needle in which order — without burning what is already ranking.
hreflang DE / AT / CH set up correctly
German keyword & intent mapping
URL structure: /de/ vs ccTLD vs subdomain
Schema.org Organization, Product, FAQ, Breadcrumb in German
Impressum, Datenschutz, AGB pages live and indexable
Core Web Vitals on a German PoP / German edge
Image SEO: WebP, German alt text, lazy-load
Localised internal linking & navigation
WooCommerce / Shopify SEO for DACH
Duplicate-content hygiene EN ↔ DE
Server / CDN strategy that includes DE PoPs
Log-file analysis: what Googlebot really sees in DACH
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
The questions international marketing leaders usually ask before they engage us for German SEO.
Do we need a separate /de/ domain or subfolder for Germany?
Almost always: subfolder (yourbrand.com/de/) is the right answer. ccTLDs (yourbrand.de) are stronger but expensive to maintain in parallel; subdomains rarely win. We will recommend the right path for your specific stack and timeline.
Can we just translate our English pages with DeepL?
Technically yes — strategically no. Translated pages typically rank for the wrong keywords (English-thinking nouns) and convert poorly because the tone feels off. We start from German keyword research and write German pages from scratch where it matters.
How long until we see results in Google.de?
First wins (long-tail rankings, Featured Snippets) typically appear in 6–10 weeks. Meaningful traffic shifts on commercial keywords land in months 3–6. We will share a realistic forecast in the strategy call.
Will you work with our existing global SEO agency?
Yes — that's our usual setup. We slot in as the DACH specialists alongside your AOR, with shared tooling and aligned reporting. Your global team stays in control.
Ready to be found in German?
30 minutes. We will show you the three highest-leverage SEO moves for your brand in DACH — and tell you honestly whether you need us or not.