This document provides an overview of search engine optimization (SEO) fundamentals and techniques. It defines SEO as optimizing a website's visibility in organic search results. It explains how search engines like Google work by crawling the web, indexing pages, and using over 200 ranking factors to determine a page's relevance and authority. The document outlines important Google algorithm updates and discusses on-page SEO techniques like optimizing content and internal linking as well as off-page techniques like building high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites on related topics. It provides guidelines for an effective link building strategy in a natural, non-spammy way.

1. SEO FUNDAMENTALS
15OFF PAGE TECHNIQUES
Vaishali, Digital Marketing
Consultant

2. ABOUT EXEGY…
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3. What is
SEO?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimising a
website’s visibility on the organic search engine results pages (SERPs)
for a target set of keywords/keyphrases.
The higher the position (SERP) of a webpage on the organic search
results pages, the more “visible” the page will be.

4. How Do Search Engines
Work?
Algorithm:
• calculate how worthy a page is to
a relevant search query(Keyword)
• Google uses over 200 ranking
factors
• Ranking factors are used to
calculate the authority of a
website, and PageRank (based on
a scale of 0 – 10)
• Google assigns PageRank to every
webpage it crawls. When another
website links to your website,
some of its PageRank is passed on
to you (if DOFOLLOW)
• The more sites linking to you, the
Ranking-
• When a search query is
entered, a search engine
digs into its index for
pages matching the
user’s search query, then
sorts and displays the
most relevant results to
the user.
• Pages are displayed are
calculated by search
engine algorithms
• In order to rank highly on
the search engines, your
site needs to score higher
than all the other sites
that are eligible to show
up for a relevant search
query.
Crawling - Search
engines use bots or
“spiders” to crawl
billions of pages across
the web by following
links they find from
Indexing- Search
engines then store the
information it collects
into its index.

5. Google CEO Sundar Pichai Had To Explain To
US Congress Why Googling 'Idiot' Shows
Donald TrumpSearch for the term “idiot” on Google and several photographs of President Donald Trump will
appear high in the image results.
WHY????

6. Sundar Pichai ..Explained!!
This is accidental/intentional (These are claims, politics) – but the logic here is a very well known
strategy called “Google bombing.” According to The Guardian – US news it was a deliberate
campaign to manipulate Google’s algorithm.

7. How Algorithm works to interpret such results!!
Green Day’s song American Idiot was heavily used during the protests at Trump’s U.K. visit. But
then, users of the Reddit forum site apparently started upvoting a post that contained Trump’s
photo alongside the word. There has been also post and imaged which are linked to word
“IDIOT” either in headings, ahref tags, anchor tags etc.
Mostly this involved people upvoting a post containing a photo of him and the word “idiot”
on Reddit. These sudden post, votings and sharing tell Google that the post’s page is popular
and therefore probably relevant to people searching for “idiot.” and LATER On… Of course, every
time an article such as the Guardian’s, any news, videos about these result and image appears, it
reinforces the trend which is still going on.
This is a phenomenon known as Google bombing, and it’s a
function of the simple fact that Google’s search algorithms
take popularity as a major indicator of relevance. And it’s
“So it’s not some little man sitting behind the curtain figuring out what we’re going to
show to the user”

8. GOOGLE MAJOR ALGORITHM UPDATES:
PANDA, PENGUIN, HUMMINGBIRD
• Panda (2011):
Lower the rankings of low-quality sites.
• Penguin (2012)
Decrease rankings of sites that engage in black-hat SEO.
• Hummingbird (2013)
Relevancy and knowledge graph update (Semantic search).
• Phantom (2013)
Exact match anchor text
• Pigeon (2014)
Google shook the local SEO world with an update that dramatically
altered some local results and modified how they handle and
interpret location cues.
• Mobile Speed Update (2018)
Making page speed a ranking factor for mobile results
Read Moz.com for more
details on the Google
algorithm change history.

9. SEO– ON PAGE SEO, AND OFF
PAGE SEO
Internal SEO – On Page
• Internally, what is your website
about?
If you don’t even know what your site
is about, it’s very likely search
engines won’t as well.
• Is your site’s theme unique in any
way?
Search engines love unique content
and will reward high quality content.
On the other hand, duplicate or
scraped content will not do well on
the SRPs.
• Are your content themes properly
organized and well interlinked?
External SEO – Off Page
• Have you made the effort to
communicate with other
webmasters in your related niche?
Community , Forums, Q and A,
Commenting, Social platforms,
Wikipedia
• Are the chances of them linking to
your site high?
Content is interesting, share-worthy,
and of high quality
• Do you have a lot of other sites
linking to your site, increasing your
popularity?
Web 2.0, Outreach, Content Curation,

10. THUMB RULE FOR ME
Search engines were built by humans, for humans. Focus
your site on delivering a great user experience and you
can rest assure that your site will do well on the search
engines.
Deliverables:
Trust – Participation- Thoughtful inputs
User Experience – Navigation and Website Structure
Quality Content – Well Researched, Tried and Tested

11. FUNDAMENTAL OFF-PAGE SEO
CONCEPTS
What is a backlink?
A backlink is an inbound or incoming link (hyperlink) to a particular website, referenced from
another website. Search engines rely on links to crawl the web and evaluate the authority and
relevance of millions of websites.
What is an anchor text?
An anchor text is the text you click on that takes you to a referenced url. (This sentence is an
anchor text).
Anchor texts should be mix of target and non-target keywords, brand mentions, synonyms of
target keywords, non-related words, etc. NOT ALL EXACT MATCH.
A link profile with majority of inbound links that have exact-match anchor texts looks very
unnatural, and search engines will devalue these inbound links or even de-index the site.

12. FUNDAMENTAL OFF-PAGE SEO
CONCEPTS
Anatomy of a Strong Backlink
• High domain authority
• High PageRank
• High TrustRank
• Relevant co-citations
• Relevant page title
• Relevant content topic
• Target keywords in anchor text
• Placed in main content area
• Age of page
• Age of backlink
• Dofollow link

13. HOW TO GET HIGH DOMAIN
AUTHORITY WEBSITE
All inbound links pointing to a website’s
main domain (www.example.com) as
well as its internal pages contribute to
the domain authority.

14. WHAT IS PAGE RANK AND IT’S
MECHANISM
• Inbound links pointing specifically to
an internal page of a particular
website contributes to the PageRank
of the specific page.
• If page of say PageRank 6 has two
outgoing links, the outgoing
PageRank is diluted into half
(PageRank 3 each).
• Rest value remains equal (i.e.
Relevant page title, equal number of
backlinks, etc.)
Conclusion:
• Site with a higher PageRank will rank
above the site with a lower PageRank.

15. WHAT IS TRUST RANK AND IT’S
MECHANISM • A link directly from a very trusted site such as
Entrepreneur.com will increase your site’s TrustRank
tremendously.
• But, if you are unable to get back link from main
website approach second, tier third tier and fourth
tier websites.
Entrepreneur.com => Financesite.com =>
Bizservices.com => Yourfinancialsite.com
100% TrustRank => 50% TrustRank => 25% TrustRank
=> 12.5% TrustRank
Conclusion:
• Sites that receive a lot of quality relevant inbound
links are more trusted than sites that receive lots of
inbound links from low-quality, spammy sites.

16. WHAT IS CO-CITATION AND IT’S
MECHANISM
• If you are getting inbound links from an external
page (Page A) and it is linking to Page B and Page C
which are both relevant to your site’s content topic,
this is a strong signal to search engines that your
site is relevant to that particular topic.

17. OTHER EFFECTIVE BACKLINKS
CRITERIA
• Relevant Page Title – An inbound link should come from the page of relevant title.
• Relevant Content Topic - An inbound link from a page with relevant content topic to your
site will increase your relevancy score.
• Target Keywords in Anchor Text – Anchor text backlinks should be a good mix of different
types of text – exact match, LSI, broad match, synonyms, brand, not related etc.
Here are a few examples of the different types of anchor texts a property/real estate
website should have a good mix of:
Exact match – “Properties for sale”
Broad match – “List of properties for sale” or “Properties for sale in Hyderabad”
Synonyms and related search terms – “Private property for sale”, Flats for sale, plots for sale
LSI – 3 BHK property for sale
Brand mentions – “Aparna Properties”
Non-related – “visit this page” or “click here”

18. OTHER EFFECTIVE BACKLINKS
CRITERIA (CONT..)
• Link should be placed in body of the content – side bar, author bio, footer links hold value
than link within the body of the content
• Age of Page- the older the page, the more trustworthy it is (provided it is frequently
updated).
• Age of Backlink– Similarly, the older the backlink, the more TrustRank it gets.
• Dofollow Link- Dofollow links are regular links without the rel=“nofollow” attribute in the
HTML code and they allow PageRank or Link Juice to be passed on to the linked page.

19. DO FOLLOW VS NO FOLLOW
Do–Follow Links - allows PageRank to be passed on
Example of a regular dofollow link
<a href=“http://example.com/”>anchor text</a>
No-Follow Links- doesn’t allow PageRank to be passed on
Example of a nofollow
<a href=“http://example.com/” rel=“nofollow”>anchor text</a>
CHECK:
• We won’t get any PageRank from a no-follow link, the main reason to include no-follow
links in your link profile is that search engines are able to crawl a no-follow link and read
its anchor text.
• You’d still be awarded points for relevancy.
• Not to mention a link profile with thousands of dofollow inbound links and without a
single nofollow backlink looks a little fishy.

20. LINK BUILDING PRACTICES

21. LINK BUILDING PRACTISES
Links are still very important to Google. In fact, it’s almost impossible for Google to
determine the value of any web page if there are no links pointing to it — no matter how
useful, fresh, or in-depth the page content might be.
1. Laying out your internal pages
• Interlinking your pages using phrase keywords more, anchor text and Brand name.
• Don’t just throw links at a page. Instead, lay out the pages so that each link will pass SEO
juice to other interconnected pages.
• None of your internal pages should stand alone.
• Ideally, pages addressing the same or related topics should be linked together in order to
provide a rich experience for the users.
2. Broken link building – Lots of links that you see on authority blogs are actually dead. As
hosting expires, sites are messed up during file transfer or migration or typing mistakes
happen and links are bound to break. They lead to 404 error pages
https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/

22. LINK BUILDING PRACTICES
(CONT..)
3. Create and distribute compelling infographics
4. Local Citation/Business directories
5. Video Submission
6. Web 2.0 submission
7. Guest Blogs
8. Press release submissions
9. Bookmarking
10. Social Channels
11. Blog Networks
12. Communities (Participation)
13. Blog Commenting
14. Create your questions
15. New Content

23. IN A NUTSHELL…
• Basically you want to acquire as many backlinks from other sites that are
closely related to the topic of your site and your site’s internal pages.
• You also want a diverse and natural-looking link profile
• Links from different types of sites (blogs, news sites, .edu & .gov sites,
forums, directories, social media, etc…) with natural linking patterns,
and a good mix of dofollow and nofollow links. (No heavily keyword-
optimized anchor texts!)
• Do be careful however not to violate any of Google’s Content Quality
Guidelines or participate in link schemes (A.k.a. Black-hat SEO)
• Don’t Just signup and put up links – you will be framed as Spammer and
blocked
• Involve and create more profiles for yourself than links.
• Participate in the platform
• Don’t over – optimize your blog.