Session 21 MG 583 E-Marketing Elective

1. E-Marketing
Elective
Fall 2010
Muhammad Talha Salam, Asst. Professor
talha.salam@nu.edu.pk
Access it online: www.slideshare.net/talhasalam
> Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 6
> Developing SEO Strategy 6
> Different hats of SEO 4
Class Presentation | Session 21 | 26 Oct 2010
Search Engine Marketing
Ref: CHAP 4 Online Marketing Inside Out by SitePoint
CHAP 5 & 6 Textbook on E-Marketing by Quirk Biz

2. Access it online: www.slideshare.net/talhasalam
Search Engine Optimization
Ref: Chap 5, Quirk
Understand PageRank
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast
link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value.
In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page
A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or
links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote.
Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and
help to make other pages “important.”
This is same concept as of Academic citations. More votes (citations) from
quality sources means higher authority
E-Marketing 2

3. Access it online: www.slideshare.net/talhasalam
Search Engine Optimization
Ref: Chap 5, Quirk
Search Engines working
• They look for signals of:
– Relevance
– Importance
– Popularity
– Trust
– Authority
• Main areas of focus in SEO:
– A search engine friendly web site structure
– A well researched list of key phrases
– Content optimized to target those key phrases
– Link popularity
E-Marketing 3

4. Access it online: www.slideshare.net/talhasalam
Search Engine Optimization
Ref: Chap 5, Quirk
A search engine friendly web site structure
• Two key considerations:
– Technical challenges that prevent the search engine spider from
accessing content
– A competitive marketing environment where everyone wants to
rank highly
E-Marketing 4

5. Access it online: www.slideshare.net/talhasalam
Search Engine Optimization
Ref: Chap 5, Quirk
A well researched list of key phrases
• Using generic or specific list of keywords
• Website for car ACs:
– Which keywords to use
– Cars, Airconditioners, Car ACs (?)
• Key considerations in process:
– Search Volume (for selected keywords)
– Competition (how many other sites are competing for it)
– Propensity (how likely is the user going to convert for that keyword)
– Value per conversion (how much spent by users converting from keywords)
• How to research keywords
– Brainstorm
– Survey prospective customers
– Keyword research tools
E-Marketing 5

6. Access it online: www.slideshare.net/talhasalam
Search Engine Optimization
Ref: Chap 5, Quirk
Content optimized to target those key phrases:
Some examples of what techniques can be used
• Title tag
use key phrases in title of the site
• H1 header tag
User key phrase in header and other H tags
• Bold
Use ‘strong’ command for keywords
• Alt tag for an image
Helps define image for a spider
• URL Rewrite
Rewriting a complex long URL in Search Engine Friendly format helps search engine determine relevancy
• Meta description
Use keywords in meta description
• Meta tags
Use them in meta tags
• Link Anchor text
Link anchor text (displayed text for a link to another page). Has to be done carefully as it is reviewed in pagerank
• Domain name
IF POSSIBLE: use in domain name also
E-Marketing 6

7. Access it online: www.slideshare.net/talhasalam
Search Engine Optimization
Ref: Chap 5, Quirk
Link popularity
• Links are signals of trust
• Used extensively in search engine ranking
• Search Engines can be ‘instructed’ to not follow links and thus not
include them in scoring of your website (HTML tags)
• How to get more links
– Writing valuable content
– Creating and placing tools and documents of use to others
– Games
– Web PR
– Software & widgets
E-Marketing 7

8. Access it online: www.slideshare.net/talhasalam
Different Hats of SEO
Ref: Chap 4, Sitepoint
SEO has become more of an art than a science
Over the period of time, SEO techniques have evolved and are now
categorized as:
White Hat techniques
Black Hat techniques
White Hat techniques
• Ethical practices, using common sense, stipulated rules
• For instance:
– Creating quality content
– Building legitimate links
– Developing a solid keyword strategy
– Maximizing spider friendliness
– Building page rank over time
E-Marketing 8

9. Access it online: www.slideshare.net/talhasalam
Different Hats of SEO
Ref: Chap 4, Sitepoint
Black Hat techniques
• Unethical practices to increase search engine ranks, or improve results
• Three key techniques:
– Cloaking
a technique of showing different content than what a user sees to a search
engine in order to receive more favorable - but undeserving -search hits
– Hidden Links
Text that bots will read but humans wont.
Examples:
White text on white background
Set font size to “0”
Use CSS to hide text
Text placed behind an image
– Commenting on blogs
Giving comments in blogs with your URLs irrelevant to the blog or site
Why blogs? Because they appear in search results otherwise
E-Marketing 9

10. E-Marketing
Elective
Fall 2010
Muhammad Talha Salam, Asst. Professor
talha.salam@nu.edu.pk
Access it online: www.slideshare.net/talhasalam
> Developing SEO Strategy
> PPC part of SEM
> Search Engine Marketing: Overall process
> Cases in Search Engine Marketing
Discussion on Mid-I
Class Presentation | Session 22 | 29 Oct 2010
Search Engine Marketing
Ref: CHAP 4 Online Marketing Inside Out by SitePoint
CHAP 5 & 6 Textbook on E-Marketing by Quirk Biz