This document provides a comprehensive overview of search engine optimization (SEO), explaining its components such as on-page and off-page optimization, keyword usage, and link building strategies. It highlights the importance of understanding search engine algorithms for achieving better website visibility and traffic, discussing concepts like domain authority, click-through rates, and canonicalization. Additionally, it emphasizes the role of social media influencers in enhancing marketing efforts and the significance of adapting strategies based on keyword demand and user intent.

1. Rohit Agarwal ( IMM, Delhi )
SEARCH
ENGINE
OPTIMIZATION
Understanding theengines

3. WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE
OPTIMIZATION?
It is theprocessofgettingtraffic fromthe“free,” “organic,”
“editorial”or“natural”searchresultsonsearch engines.
Asuccessfulsearchengineoptimizationcampaignwillhave, as
partoftheimprovements,carefullyselect,relevant, keywords
whichtheon-pageoptimizationwillbedesignedto make
prominentforsearchenginealgorithms.Searchengine
optimizationis brokendownintotwobasicareas:on-page, and
off-pageoptimization.On-pageoptimizationrefers to website
elementswhichcompriseawebpage,suchasHTML code,
textualcontent,andimages.Off-pageoptimization refers,
predominantly,tobacklinks(links pointingtothesite whichis
being optimized, from other relevantwebsites).

4. Market
Share
of
search
engine

5. ORGANIC VS. PAID SEARCH
Organicsearchis basedonunpaid,
naturalrankingsdeterminedby
searchenginealgorithms,andcan
beoptimized withvarious
SEOpractices.Incontrast,paid
searchallowsyoutopaytohave your
websitedisplayedonthe search
engineresults pagewhensomeone
typesinspecifickeywords or
phrases.Thefeeyoupayis basedon
eitherclicks orviewsof yourads.
Astrongmarketingstrategyuses
bothsearchengineoptimizationand
paid search to get foundonline.

6. 10%of clicks

7. HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK
1.CRAWLING& IDEXING
The journeyofa query startsbefore youevertype a search,
with crawling andindexing the webof trillionsofdocuments.
Withoutlinks,the
enginesmightnever
find thispage
The linkstructureof the webserves to
bind all of the pagestogether.
Links allowthesearchengines'automated
robots,called"crawlers"or"spiders,"toreach
themanybillionsofinterconnecteddocuments
onthe web.
Oncetheenginesfindthesepages,they decipher
thecodefromthemandstoreselected piecesin
massivedatabases,toberecalledlater when
needed fora search query.

8. 2. PROVIDING ANSWERS
Howdosearchenginesdeterminerelevance
andpopularity?
Toasearchengine,relevancemeansmorethanfindingapagewiththe
rightwords.Intheearlydaysoftheweb,searchengines didn’tgo
muchfurtherthanthissimplisticstep,andsearchresults were of
limitedvalue.
Popularityandrelevancearen’tdeterminedmanually.Instead,the
enginesemploymathematicalequations(algorithms)tosortthe
wheatfromthechaff(relevance),andthentorankthewheatin
order of quality(popularity).
Thesealgorithmsoftencomprisehundredsofvariables.Inthe
search marketing field, werefer to themas“ranking factors.”

10. MANY DOMAINS VS. ONE DOMAIN
VS.
Oneofthemostdifficult
choicesSEOprofessionalsface
is whethertooperateunder one
umbrellawebsiteorunder
multipledomains.Evenif you
operateinmultiplecountries
thereisn’taclearansweron
splittingupintolocalTLDs (top-
leveldomainslike.nl,.de, and
.cn) versusworking under
a singlegeneric TLD(like .com,
.net,and .org).

11. DOMAIN AUTHORITY
DomainAuthorityis ascore(ona100-point
scale)developedbyMozthatpredictshowwell
awebsitewillrankonsearchengines. Use
DomainAuthoritywhencomparingonesiteto
anotherortrackingthe“strength”of your
website overtime.

12. PAGERANK
PageRank(PR) is aqualitymetricinventedby
Google's owners LarryPage andSergey Brin.
The values 0 to 10determine
a page's importance, reliabilityandauthority on
the webaccording toGoogle.

13. CTR – CLICK THROUGH RATES
No.ofpeoplewhoviewyour
link
•AhighCTRis agoodindicationthatusersfindyour
adshelpfulandrelevant.It alsocontributestoyour
keyword'sexpectedCTR(a componentofQuality
Score),whichcan affectyour costsandad position.
•OnecanuseCTRtogaugewhichadsandkeywords are
successfulforyouandwhichneedto be improved.
Themoreyourkeywordsandadsrelatetoeachother and
to your business, the more likely a user is to click on
your adaftersearching onyour keywordphrase.

14. Instant Answers
News Results
Real Time Results
Local Results
Image Results

15. BUILDING ACCESSIBLE SITES

16. CRAWLABILITY/LINK ARCHITECTURE
Wedefinecrawlabilityastheabilityforsearch
enginerobotstocrawlandindexthepagesona
WEbsite. If thelinks onyoursite are formatted
inawaythatis notsearch-engine friendly,then
yoursite's crawlabilitywouldbeconsidered
extremelypoor.
It is verydifficult toachievegoodsearch
enginerankingsif youhavepoorcrawlability
becauseyouwillessentiallybeeliminatingthe
abilitytobenefitfrominternaloff-pageSEO. In
general,formattinglinks tobetext-or image-
basedshouldbethegoal.Youshould avoidusing
unspiderableJavaScriptorFlash links asyour
navigation.

17. DUPLICATE CONTENT
Duplicatecontentis contentthat
appearsontheInternetinmore
thanoneplace(URL). Whenthere
aremultiplepiecesofidentical
contentontheInternet,it is
difficult forsearchenginesto
decidewhichversionis more
relevanttoagivensearchquery. To
providethebestsearch
experience,searchengineswill
rarelyshowmultipleduplicate
piecesofcontentandthus,are
forcedtochoosewhichversionis
mostlikelytobetheoriginal—or
best.

18. CANONICALIZATION
Canonicalizationcanbeachallengingconceptto understand
(andhardtopronounce:"ca-non-ick-cull-eye- zay-shun"),
butit's essentialtocreatinganoptimized website.The
fundamentalproblemsthatcanonicalization canfix stem
frommultipleusesforasinglepieceof writing–aparagraph
or,moreoften,anentirepageof content–thatappearsin
multiplelocationsononewebsite or on multiplewebsites.
Forsearchengines,thispresentsaconundrum:Which
version of thiscontent should they showtosearchers?
Toprovidethebestuserexperience,searchengineswill
rarelyshowmultiple,duplicatepiecesofcontentandthus,
areforcedtochoosewhichversionis mostlikelytobethe
original(or best)

19. Tagsare generally used to classifycontent in a waythatis
usefulforthereaderandeasyforthesearchengineto understand
whichpotentiallymakesthemveryimportantforseo andusability.
• Improve the visibilityof your website
• Increase traffic
• Boost your brandsrevenue
• Oneofthemostimportantaspectofonpage
seo

20. TITLE TAG
• Thetitletagis oneofthestrongestrelevancy
signalsforasearchengine.Thetagitself is
meanttogivetheaccuratedescriptionofthe
pagescontent.Searchenginesuseit to display
the maintitleof a search result.
• Ideally,thekeywordshouldbeplacedatthe
startofthetitletag.Pagesoptimizedthis way
willrankbetterthanthosewithkeyword closer
to the title’stagend.

22. META TAGS
Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a
page's content; the meta tags don't appear on
the page itself, but only in the page's code.
Weallknowtagsfromblogculture,andmeta
tagsaremoreorless thesamething,little
contentdescriptorsthathelptellsearch
engines whata webpage is about.

23. Step 1 Adjust the title in the source
The first phrase you will see and will click on in the search engines is the title. Make sure your title is
effective and attractive.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>All our wooden furniture is water proof.</title>
</head>
<body>
This is a test text

24. Step 2 Adding keywords - keyword meta tag example
Add maximal 20 keywords and separate them from each other by a comma en aspace.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>All our wooden furniture is water proof.</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="wood, furniture, garden, garden-table, etc.">
</head>
<body>
This is a test text
</body>
</html>

25. Step 3 Adding a relevant description - meta description tag
The description are the phrases that will appear under every title in Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines. The search engines show the description you add to
your meta tags so it's important to make a relevant description for every single page on your website.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>All our wooden furniture is water proof.</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="wood, furniture, garden, garden-table, etc.">
<meta name="description" content="Official dealer of wooden garden furniture.">
</head>
<body>
This is a test text
</body>
</html>

26. Step 4 Provide relevant information
Without a doubt a good website has to provide good information. If writing relevant text is not your thing, you should hire a writer to help you make your
text relevant and easy toread.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>All our wooden furniture is water proof.</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="wood, furniture, garden, garden-table, etc.">
<meta name="description" content="Official dealer of wooden gardenfurniture.">
</head>
<body>
Visit our showroom on weekdays from 9 to 5...
</body>
</html>

27. H1 TAGHeadertags,astheirnamesuggests,areusedtodifferentiate
theheadingsandsub-headingsofapagefromtherest ofthe
content.
• Thesetagsare
alsoknownto
webmastersas
headingtagsor
simplyheader
tags.
• Themost
important
headingtagis
the h1tag.

28. CANONICAL TAG
Sometimes,havingtwoURLswith similar
contentis unavoidable.Oneof theways
frompreventingthisfrom becominga
duplicatecontentissueis byusinga
canonicaltagonyoursite. This tagdoes
onesimplething,it tellsGooglethatone
urlis equivalentofanother, clearly
statingthatinspiteoftwopages having
thesamecontent,theyarein fact one.

29. GOOGLE ADWORDS TOOL
Its Google'sonlineadvertisingplatformthatcanhelpyoudrive
interestedpeoplewhoaresearchingonGoogleforspecific
information, product or serviceto your website.
• AdWords is for advertisers.
• AdSense is for publishers.

32. BENIFITS
• Nominimum budget
• Extremely targeted
• Highlyflexible-startandstop
at will
• Can bemeasured/monitored

33. QUERY DESERVES FRESHNESS
A mathematical modelthat triesto determine when userswantnew information andwhen they don’t.
The QDF algorithm was invented byAmit Singhal,senior VP andgoogle fellow,whofirst talked aboutit
in 2007.QDFhas beena ranking factorever since.
Thequerydeservesfreshnessalgorithmis Google'sresponsetothefactthat
usersarelookingfor“Fresh”content.QDFrelatestohow“hot”or newsworthy
certaintypesofqueriesare.Searchenginewillrankhigherfor the queriesthat
deservesocalled freshness.

34. QDF
QDF
NormalResults

35. FRIENDLY URLS
• AfriendlyURLis awebaddressthatis easytoreadandincludeswordsthatdescribethecontentof the
webpage. Thistype of URL can befriendly in twoways:
• It can helpvisitorsrememberthe web address.
•It canhelpdescribethepagetosearchengines.User-FriendlyURLs.
Example:
A companymay usethe URL ‘www.[company].com/support/”forthe support sectionoftheir website.
Thisis much easierto rememberthana long convoluted URL, like
www.[company].com/section/support/deid
www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/african-elephants
Single domain
Shallowfolderstructure
with relevantwords
Keywordsinpagename,
separated byhyphen

36. UNFRIENDLY URLS
UNFRIENDLY URLS ARE DIFFICULT TO TYPE ,DONOT PROMOTEUSABILITYANDCAN POTENTIALLY POSE A SECURITY
RISK.
Xyz3.nationalgeographic.com/a/?q=31z&mg=vv7z&sd=8
Unnecessary
Subdomain
DynamicURLsdon’tperformas
wellasstaticandengines
recommendagainstmorethantwo
parameters
Nokeywords in the URLstring

37. LINK BUILDING STRATEGIES
Linkbuildingis themost
important(andchallenging)
SEOskill. Actually,it’s a
culminationofseveral
differentskills; oneneedsto
mastercontentcreation,
sales,programming,
psychology,andgoodold
fashionedmarketingif you
wantotherpeopleto
consistentlylinkto your site.

39. #1- Manual Link Submissions/Requests

40. #2 - Competitive Link Research/Acquisition

41. #3 - Linksvia Embedded Content

42. #4 - Linkbait &Viral Campaigns

43. #5 - Partnerships, Exchanges &Trades

44. The Keyword Demand Landscape

45. • Whenit comestoon-pageSEO,keywordsarethebiggestfactorindeterminingyourSEOsuccess or
failure.
• Short tail keywords are3 words orless.
• Examples include: “athleticapparel,”
• “DVDplayer,”
• “engagementring.”
• Shorttailkeywordsarealsoknownas“head”terms. Theymaybethefirst thingyouthinkofwhen you
are decidingwheretogotoeat(“Chinese food,” “pizza delivery”), whattodo(“dance clubs,” “roller
coaster park”), or whereto worship (“synagogue,” “Catholicchurch”)

46. LONGTAIL KEYWORDS
• Longtailkeywordshoweverarealittle
different.Thesekeywordsaremorethan3
words.Theyaredefinitelyalotmore
targetedandnotasbroad.Youmaynotbring
inasmuchsearchtraffic fromlong tail
keywordsbutthetraffic youdobringin is the
kind youare lookingfor.
• Examples of long tailkeywordsinclude:
• “summer women’sathletic apparel,”
• “super Blu Ray HDDVDcomboplayer,”or
• “white diamondengagementring.”
• Longtailkeywordsareobviouslyalotmore
specificthanshorttailkeywords;asa
marketerthisactuallycanworkverymuchin
yourfavour

48. So if this is notafight that youare evenableto have, why
would youwantto try?
If youhaveahugebodyofcontent,averyspecificbut
generalitem,orstrongbrandanddomainauthoritythen
maybethe short tailkeywords will still work for you.
Howeverif youarelookingforhigherconversionrate,
lowercost,lowercompetition,andvolumethatis
specificallyafterwhatit is thatyouareselling,thelong
tailkeyword gameis onethat youshould be in.

49. The Long Tailof KeywordDemand

51. KEYWORD RESEARCH PROCESS
Identifying seed
keywords
Blowingseed
keywords
Removing
duplicatesand
consolidating
Weedingout
junk keywords
Tagging generic
keywords
Categorizing
intent driven
keywords
Applying filters

52. •• IIDDEENNTTIIFFIICCAATTIIOONNOOFFSSEEEEDDKKEEYYWWOORRDDSS::
• Afterhavingadeepstudyofthewebsiteforwhichthekeywordresearchhasto be
performedasapartofSearchEngineOptimization,theSeedKeywordsor the
GenericKeywordsthataremostrelatedtothecorrespondingwebsitemust be
identified.The numberofseedkeywords mayvarydepending onthe range of
servicesthewebsiteprovides.It is essentialthatidentifiedseedkeywordscover all
the servicesof thatwebsite.
• BLLOOWWIINNGOF TTHHESSEEEDKKEEYYWWOORRDDSS::
• Oncetheseedkeywordsareidentified,usingtoolslikeGoogleAdwordsKeyword
researchtool,theymustbeexpandedsuchthateachseedkeywordproduces around
800 additionalkeywords.Sothetotalnumberofkeywordsthusproduced will be
around 800 times the numberof seed keywordsidentified.

53. • CONSOLIDATING THE KEYWORDS:
• Aftertheindividualseedkeywordsareblown,thekeywordsthusproducedfor
eachseedmustbeconsolidatedforeasyaccess.Thenthealltheduplicate
keywordsoutoftheconsolidatedsheetmustbedeleted.Thefinalconsolidated
sheet must contain norepetitivekeywords.
• WEEDINGOUTJUNK KEYWORDS:
• Thetaskafterconsolidatingthekeywordsandremovingtheduplicatesis to
identifyandremovethejunkkeywords.Junkkeywordsarethewordsthatare not
at allrelated to the servicesofferedbythe corresponding website.

54. • TAGGINGTHEGENERIC KEYWORDS:
• Theselectionofkeywordsafterperformingabovemethodswouldcontainalotof
categories.Outofthose,thekeywordsthatarerelatedtogenericcategorymust be
identifiedandtagged.Thiswouldleavetheotherkeywordstobecategorized
specifically.
• CATEGORIZING INTENTDRIVEN KEYWORDS:
• Aftercategorizingthegenerickeywords,theremainingkeywordsmustbecategorized
basedontheintentofthesearch.Infact,theintentandthecategory oftheservicethe
websiteprovidesmustbecorrelatedandthenthecategorymust bespecified.

55. • APPLYING FILTERS:
• Onceallthekeywordsarecategorized,thefiltersmustbe
appliedtothelist. Filteringofthelist is madebasingonthe
following fundamentalparameters.
Demand Competition
Objectives
Keyword
Effectiveness
Index

56. SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS
Usingsocialmediainfluencersinyourmarketingis thepracticeofbuildingrelationshipswith the
peoplewhocanbuildrelationshipsforyou.Whetheraninfluencer'saudienceis smallor large,an
influencercanreachconsumersviatheirblogsandsocialnetworksthatyourbrand may not be
able to.

57. WHAT IS INFLUENCE?
Influence is defined by the aspects
which provide individuals with the
powertopersuadeotherswithin their
social sphere.
The foundational attributes
influence potential are
which
reach,
resonance andrelevance.
Marketers should be aware of these as
they are common criteria used by
influencer identificationtools.

58. • Theabilitytoreachanaudiencethatis
relevant to yourbrand.Reach
• Engagingwithcontentbyanaudiencethatis
relevant to yourbrand.Resonance
• Creatingcontentthatis relevanttoyourbrand
or a topic that is imperative to yourbrand.Relevance

59. EXAMPLE
Eachofthesequalitiesis requiredinorderforanindividualtobeconsideredaninfluencerforyour
brand.Forexample,acelebritywithahugeaudiencethatretweetseverythingyoupostdoesn’t
becomeaninfluencerunlesstheyactuallystarttalkingaboutyourbrand.Furthermore,notall
influencersare influentialon alltopics,there are specialistsandexperts to look out foron social
media.

60. HOW TO IDENTIFY A POTENTIAL
INFLUENCER?
• This is anessential processbeforeyouproactivelyengageanyinfluencers:identify them!Youcan do
this using data from Twitter bysetting upa report for a keyword/collection of keywords which will
showyouusersdegree of relevance to any giventopic.
• Afterrelevanceit’s goodtolookatresonance,whichwilltellyouwhethertheircontentis shared and
howmuch.It alsoallowsyoutoanalyzethequalityoftheirfollowernetworktoestablish whether the
audience is appropriate to your brand.
• Selectingaudiencequalitywillinfluenceyourreachandthisdependsonyourbrandaims.If youhave
a niche topic then influencerswith a smaller following is fine.
• Finally,analyze brand advocacy byexamining whether possible influencersare talkingonly about
your brand or aboutyour competitors aswell

61. What does the future of
search engine optimization
have in store forus?

62. THE FOUR PILLARS OF THE FUTURE OF SEO
1.RankBrain
AlthoughRankBrainis thethirdmostsignificantrankingfactorinthe
Googlealgorithm, it is perhaps the most misunderstood one.
2. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
InFebruary2016,Googleintegratedresults fromits Accelerated
MobilePages project into its search results inthe
form of a “Top Stories” carousel in mobileresults. Six months later,
Googlestarted
displayinglinkstoAMPpagesinthemainorganicsearchresults.
Today,Googlehas150millionindexedAMPdocumentsinits index,
and,
encouragedbymainstreamadoptionoutsidethepublishingindustry has
just announcedthat users searching from mobile devices will be
directedtotherelevantAMPpagesevenif anequivalentapppage
exists.

64. 3. The Knowledge Graph& rich answers
Google’sKnowledgeGraph,whichit launchedin2012,is its slowbut
sureattemptto“organizetheworld’sinformationandmakeit
universallyaccessible,”inlinewiththeirmission.Inanutshell,it’s
Google’s attempt atscraping— sorry, replicating— Wikipedia
The KnowledgeGraph is aknowledgebaseused
byGoogleto enhance its search engine’s search results
with semantic-search information gathered from awide
variety ofsources.
4. Real-time, integrated penaltyfilters
Google announced that they have finally updated Penguin (after what
seemedlikeanever-endingwaitofalmosttwoyears), notingthatit is
forthe last time.
That’sbecausePenguinis nowareal-timesignalprocessedwithin
Google’ssearchalgorithm— dataonyourpagesis refreshedevery
time Googlere-crawlsandre-indexes them.

65. CONCLUSION
Itis clearthatGooglewillfocusonmachinelearning,understandingofsemantics,connectionsandpatternsanduser
experience in thefuture.
SEOatthemomentis verycloselytiedtocontentmarketing.WhileGooglecaninterpretcontentandderiveits relevanceto search
querieswithaveryhighdegreeofsuccess,it is constantlyfocusedonmakingrefinementstoimprovehowtimely, contextualand
usefulthiscontentis tothesearcher.TheKnowledgeGraph,richanswers,RankBrainandAMPallservethis purpose, while
integratedpenaltiesmaintain the qualityof results.
PratikDholakiyais theCo-Founder& VPMarketingofE2M,adigitalmarketingagencyandMoveoApps,amobileappsdevelopment
company.Hehasover8 yearsofexperienceindigitalmarketingandhasservedmorethan500 customersintodifferentverticals.Asa passionate
marketer,heregularlyshareshisthoughtsandknowledgeonhigh-endpublicationslikeSearchEngineJournal,Entrepreneur Magazine,Search
EngineWatch,Moz,FastCompany,HuffingtonPostandmanymore.Hehasbeenrecommendedasa‘mustfollow’SEO expertbySearchEngine
WatchandhasbeennamedoneofthetopcontentmarketinginfluencersbyOnalyticatwoyearsinarow.He's passionate aboutfitness,
entrepreneurship, startups andall things digitalmarketing.