Chetana’s Institute of Management & Research

Bandra (East), Mumbai

A Study Of The Use of Search Engine Optimization In

Boosting Sales.

(Industry Oriented Project)

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for

Post Graduate Diploma in Management

Academic Year: 2020-2021

Submitted By
Name: Priyanka Phadke
Roll No.: 44
PGDM Batch: 2019-2021

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 Declaration

I hereby declare that this project report titled “The study of the use of search engine
optimization in boosting sales” submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement of
Post Graduate Diploma in Management to Chetana’s Institute of Management and
Research, is my original work and not submitted for award of any degree or diploma
fellowship or for similar title or prize. References of work and related sources of
information have been duly acknowledged in the report.

The project has been carried out under the guidance of Dr. ATHAR QURESHI

I further declare that I have no objection and grant the rights to Chetana’s Institute of
Management and Research to publish any chapter/project or use it for future reference
if they deem fit.

Place : Mumbai

Date : 15-04-2021

Name : Priyanka Phadke

Class : PGDM Batch 2019-2021

Roll No. : 44

Signature : ___________

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 Certificate

This is to certify that the project titled A Study Of The Use of Search Engine
Optimization In Boosting Sales is submitted by Priyanka Phadke to Chetana’s
Institute of Management & Research in partial fulfillment of the requirement of
Master Of Management Studies, has been done under the guidance of the undersigned
during the period December 2019 to March 2020.

Date:

Place: Mumbai

Dr. Athar Qureshi Dr. Madhumita Patil

Faculty Guide I/C Director

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 Acknowledgement

It is a genuine pleasure to express my deep sense of gratitude to my mentor and guide

Dr. Athar Qureshi for the guidance that he has given throughout the project. His
dedication, keen interest and above all his overwhelming attitude to help me had been
widely responsible for completing my project work.
I thank profusely all the respondents for their kind help and co-operative nature
throughout my study period and in the end, I would like to express my sincere gratitude
towards my institute “Chetana’s Institute of Management & Research” because of
which I could get this opportunity

Priyanka Phadke
Signature of the Student

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 TABLE OF CONTENT

Page
No
Chapter 1 General Management

a) Introduction to the industry 6

b) Introduction to the company 20

2 Social Relevance

1 Corporate governance 32

2 Code of conduct 33

3 Specific CSR initiatives 34

3 Functional perspective

1 Objectives 38

2 Lit. Review 39

3 Research Methodology 40

4 Data Analysis & Findings 41

4 Conclusion & Recommendations 53

5 Annexures - Questionnaire 56

6 Bibliography 59

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 A. General Management
Introduction to the industry

Facts about the sector -

Digital Marketing Industry is one of the fastest growing industry in India. Internet
access has become main-stream and it has increased the use of mobile phones, laptops
and computers. In the year 2020, India had 700 million internet users, this amount is
expected to grow up to 900 million users by the year 2025. The growth is expected in
both urban and rural areas. Be it use of social media, searching information on google
and shopping online, India has transformed this medium into a full-fledge market. This
has resulted into digital marketing being one of the main sources of doing business and
generating revenue through internet.

The market size of digital marketing industry has grown from Rs 13,683 crore by 2019
to Rs 15,782 crore by 2020. The growth rate is expected to be 20% which will take this
industry to the market size of Rs 18,938 crore by 2021 and with a CAGR of 22.47% to
reach Rs. 23,673 crores by 2022.

Based on Statista, ad spending in the Digital Advertising industry is expected to hit

US$398,762 million in 2021, with Search Advertising accounting for the largest
segment with a market volume of US$171,641 million. The revenue produced by
digital ads in India was estimated to be about Rs 199 billion in FY2020.

By fiscal year 2024, India's digital ad revenue is expected to reach nearly Rs 540 billion,
while television and print ad revenues are expected to reach around Rs 455 billion and
Rs 276 billion, respectively. These figures clearly show that India is on its way to
becoming a digital advertising powerhouse.

Social media has the highest share of digital media spending (29%, Rs. 4,596 crore),
followed by online video (28%, Rs. 4,366 crore) and paid search (28 percent, Rs. 4,366
crore) (24%, Rs. 3,725 crore). The fastest-growing segment is online video, which grew
from 22% in 2019 to 28% in 2020.

According to a Microsoft-commissioned IDC report, digital goods and services will

account for roughly 60% of India's GDP by 2021

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Challenges & Opportunities

Growth Drivers

The digital marketing industry in India is currently booming. In a country with a rapidly
growing economy, a career in digital marketing is expected to develop at a rapid rate.
The rise of digital marketing trends has had a significant influence on marketing and
advertising. India's digital marketing industry is at its height right now, and it's still
rising. This expansion is due to a variety of reasons. The way people communicate has
changed dramatically over the years. No one ever imagined that a trustworthy offer
could be found on the internet.

The presumption was that online information is deceptive virtual information. Nobody
could hear any online advertising, let alone buy groceries, furniture, or clothing. The
plot has shifted dramatically. Anything can be done online, from ads to sales. This is
attributable to the re-establishment of faith in online communication in India. This has
been very beneficial to the marketing efforts. The information industries are driving
the revolution. Low-cost handsets are now affordable, allowing India to have
approximately 700 million internet users, presenting a fascinating market opportunity
to sell to an increasing population.

Several factors have been identified as contributing to India's digital marketing

progress. Prior to now, only the rich could afford to use the internet. The middle-class
lifestyle has shifted dramatically in recent years. In India, the vast majority of people
now have access to the internet and are looking forward to online advertisements.

In India, the vast majority of people now have access to the internet and are looking
forward to online advertisements. For both customers and advertisers, the Internet and
4G penetration revolutionized the marketing scenario. Changes in lifestyle and
standard of living were discovered to have increased the level of consumption, as well
as the quality and pattern of consumption.

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Following is the list of critical success factors for the boom of digital marketing in India

1. Need for digitalization - The rapid growth of the global economy has been
aided by digitalization. Digital markets are one of the most well-known and
well-established platforms in developing markets.
When compared to developed economies, where BTL marketing practices
dominate, organized digitalization accounts for 75–80 percent of total
marketing. “Be there where your customers are,” as the saying goes,
digitalization is allowing brands to stay where their existing customers are,
which is on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and
Instagram. Digitalization continues to expand at a rapid pace in all markets,
large and small. The Supreme Court of Kerala has ruled that the right to use the
internet is a fundamental freedom and part of the right to education for all
citizens. In 2019, there are 1.92 billion online shoppers in the world, accounting
for a quarter of the global population, with 4.39 billion Internet users and 3.48
billion social media users, up 9% year on year. By 2021, the number of online
customers is projected to reach 2.14 billion, with a 21 percent increase in the
next five years. India, the world's second most populous country, is a
developing country with 627 million Internet users, 273 million of whom are
active buyers, and a growth rate of 20% for online buyers.

2. Changing Consumer Behavior – The modern user is tech savvy, socially

empowered, knowledge aficionado, and short on time. Simultaneously,
technology is rapidly evolving and adapting to meet the demands of new
customer motivations. Consumers' desire to influence other consumers and
businesses is far greater than in previous generations. As a result, customers
expect the world to be at their fingertips whenever, how, and wherever they
want it. They don't go shopping because it's a scheduled destination or event;
they go shopping all the time. They also want an authentic shopping experience
that is tailored to their needs. ‘Generation Z' wants everything. They want to
make a difference in the world and share what they've learned along the way.
They aim to be genuine and socially responsible, and they often prioritize value
they derive over the cost. Ambition and a deep moral conscience propel them.

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 They aspire to self-sufficiency and are more articulated and educated than any
previous generation. They are curious, cognizant and picky.

3. Booming Consumerism - In recent decades, life's pleasures and status

symbolism have grown in importance, with an increase in the propensity for
Indians to set aside money for electronics and smart gadgets. Since digital
marketing is a modern medium to sell goods, it has a significant impact on the
industries like wholesale and retail.

4. Difference in the cost – The following image gives an idea about why digital
marketing is taking over traditional ways of marketing. Digital marketing is
cheap compared to traditional ways of marketing, many small businesses
cannot afford to invest huge amounts of money on traditional ways like
television broadcasting, newspaper, hoardings etc. Digital marketing is easy
and in a low cost it can give you similar reach to traditional marketing. In some
cases, if done properly then digital marketing can get more reach and attention.

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 5. Situation of pandemic – During the lockdown, people were confined to their
homes and to their screens. Because of this traffic and search volume had
increased, and those who took advantage of the low cost-per-click (CPC) rates
saw a far higher return on investment (RoI) than they had before the
coronavirus pandemic.
Tier II and Tier III cities have made the greatest contribution to the development
of the digital advertising industry. In these towns, the pandemic increased
demand for e-commerce transactions. Consumers have tended to shop from
online retailers that provide flexible delivery times while still being concerned
about their safety and health during the pandemic.
The preferences and behavior of older consumers are changing, as they tend to
use cashless digital payment methods over cash transactions. The pandemic
fueled India's digital adoption rate, as well as high digital video consumption
and the growth of regional content.

Competitive Scenario –

Digital Marketing has gained immense popularity in recent years. Whether it is a small
business or a huge company, everyone needs digital marketing and hence there is a rise
in many big competitors providing excellent digital marketing services in India.

Following are top 5 digital marketing companies in India.

1. Niswey (https://www.niswey.com)
Niswey was founded in 2011 in Delhi. This company specializes in content
marketing, web designing, SEO and other marketing services like Inbound
marketing etc.
This company is ROI driven. Their approach is prominently based on content
and analytics. This helps their customers to generate leads on website and
Increase brand awareness.

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2. Adsyndicate ( https://www.adsyndicate.in)
This company excels in 360 degree communications. They provide services like
media planning, digital marketing, brand management, events, audio visuals
and advertising. This company believes in delivering innovative services. This
is one of the best digital marketing companies in India which is serving for last
25 years. They have served over 500 companies till now.

3. Webchutney (https://webchutney.com)
Webchutney started way back in 1999 in India when hardly anyone had idea
about digital marketing. This company was started in a small house in Delhi
and now has expanded over to major cities like Mumbai and Bangalore. This
company is working with some of the big clients like Wipro, HDFC, Airtel,
P&G, Microsoft in India for last 21 years. Till date they have won 300 awards
and are ranked as the best digital marketing agency by The Economic Times.

4. iProspect India (https://www.iprospect.com/en/in) –

This company is a part of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) group. This company
was started in 1997. They have presence in all the top cities in India like
Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and New Delhi. Along with digital marketing,
they also provide services related to branding, creating brand awareness, they
also help in planning strategy for the business, hence once a company is
working with iProspect, they don’t have to worry about anything else.
This company has served more than 200 clients. They have won awards for
Best Digital Marketing Campaign – YES BANK – Khushiyon Ka Upgrade and
Best Multi-Channel Integrated Marketing Campaign – Kotak Mahindra Bank.

5. WatConsult (https://www.watconsult.com/agency) – This company believes

in providing out of the box services. They have three branches in Mumbai
Bangalore and Delhi. They are best at narrating story through art and
technology which helps in creating brand personification and brand
association They have won Awards like Youth Marketing award and best
digital campaign award.

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Government Initiatives –

Digital India is an initiative of Government of India launched by Prime Minister

Narendra Modi on 1st July 2015. This campaign’s main objective was to improve online
infrastructure and connectivity across the whole country and make India digitally
powerful so that all the government services can be made available to citizens. Through
this project Rural India can be linked to high-speed broadband networks. The
construction of safe and reliable networks, distributing digitally, and ensuring universal
digital living are the three main objectives of Digital India. As a result, the public's use
of social media handles such as Twitter and Facebook has grown over time.
Governments uses these channels to communicate with the public, and their importance
was highly realized in the time of pandemic. The general public is using them as an
important medium for learning general knowledge and alerts about Covid 19, and the
official @CovidIndiaSeva twitter handle is serving as an open forum to address their
questions. Thus this campaign has helped to make India especially rural India familiar
with digital platforms and it had changed the lives of many. As people are getting
familiar with Internet, they are getting exposed to a huge sea of information which can
be used for their self-development and growth.

Today Digital India is now attracting nearly 10 million daily active internet users per
month, the world's fastest rate of growth in the internet population.

Opportunities are now open not only in large cities, but also in small towns. The
government has already developed an application for job training services. The
government's e-marketplace has also seen a significant increase in its comparative
graphs. With small variations, all registrations have increased. People in India are

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increasingly acclimating to technology, but it will take some time for them to get
comfortable with it. The Indian Prime Minister declared that by 2020, students will
have access to more than 20 lakhs of digital resources. Furthermore, several companies
joined forces with the government to make e-India a reality during the start of Digital
India week.

In comparison to the real expenditure in the current fiscal, the government has raised
the outlay for the digital India initiative by 23% to Rs 3,958 crore for 2020-21. This is
done to give boost to sectors like electronic production, research and development,
segment manpower development, cyber security, and promotion of IT and IT-enabled
services are all areas where the industry is growing.
One of the main pillars of the Digital India Program is electronics production, and the
goal is of achieving net zero imports. The government of India is taking several
initiatives from a long time to improve electronic manufacturing in the country. The
objective is to create favorable environment for electronic and it hardware
manufacturing. Government has started giving more incentives for promotion of IT and
electrical manufacturing. It has increased the investment from 690 crores to 980 crores.
The research and development program under this sector will also get a raise of 75%.
The money will be used for R&D in electronics, Nano, and microelectronics, such as
semiconductor integrated circuit layout design register, medical electronics and health
informatics, research and start-ups, high-performance computing, such as the National
Supercomputing Mission, open source, and so on.

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Emerging Trends
The pandemic had an effect on marketing, much like anything else in the world. For
customers, virtual environments have largely replaced in-person encounters,
necessitating a re-strategy and re-planning of marketing strategies. Traditional
marketing practices became obsolete as most companies were forced to move online,
giving way to digital marketing. More and more companies will follow this practice in
the coming year because going digital is both cost-effective and profitable. Marketers
should seize this opportunity because it resonates with today's generation, which makes
up the bulk of the customer base.
Following are some recent emerging trends –
1. Important role of artificial intelligence - The way people communicate with
online content is evolving thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). It's worth
remembering Google's AI algorithm in particular. The algorithm, known as
Rank Brain, was first revealed a few years ago and plays an important role in
Google's ranking factors for search engine results pages (SERPs) results.
The primary determinant in this case is the user's experience signals. This can
range from the click-through rate to the amount of time spent on the website.
With useful, well-organized material, one must captivate and engage readers.

2. Voice search’s impact on search queries - Voice search technology has come
a long way thanks to innovations like Google Assistant, Apple's Siri, and
Amazon's Alexa. Technology has grown in popularity as it has improved. In
reality, by 2022, 55 percent of households are expected to have a smart speaker.
For optimizing voice search there is a need for making changes in the keywords,
when people use voice search, they use phrases which people use in daily
conversations and when a query is typed, the words which are used are more
formal hence now there is a need to understand common phrases which can be
used as keywords.

3. Importance of mobile-friendliness- In 2019, Google rolled out mobile-first

indexing, meaning the search engine looks primarily at the mobile version of a
website, considering this the “primary” version instead of the desktop version.

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 This change makes sense, given that nearly 73% of internet users will access
the internet solely via mobile devices by 2025.

4. EAT Principle – EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and

Trustworthiness. Based on these 3 parameters Google will rate the content
quality of a website. There are a few ways to ensure that the content is of high
quality. First understanding what kind of customers you are serving is very
important Second, perform search purpose research to aid in the mapping of the
customer journey. Third, use this data to build content that adheres to your
users' preferred format.

5. Long content for improving ranking - Long reads of 3,000 words or more
receive three times the traffic and four times the shares. They also get 3.5 times
as many backlinks as posts that are 901 to 1,200 words in length. Hence it has
become important to focus on having more quantity of content.

6. Videos for effective strategy – A video attracts users, compared to all other
type of contents videos are highly consumed by viewers hence including a video
in your website is important. The content and title of the video should be user
friendly and easy to understand.

7. Importance of image optimization - Visual image search has progressed

significantly. People used to be able to simply look at photographs. People will
be able to use photos to buy goods, get facts, and more in the future. Since
Google has long focused on proper image labelling and optimization, it's
understandable why this is part of their long-term strategy. It's critical to use
high-quality, accurate photos, customise the file name, and mark the picture file
so that it matches the content on the corresponding website. The use of alt tags
aids in the classification of photographs. Images on the web map make crawling
easier.

8. Use of related keywords - Primary keywords were once the priority of SEO
experts, but secondary keywords are now equally relevant. In the future,
semantic search and purpose optimization will become more relevant. Google

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 is no longer limited to looking at word strings. It's looking at the query context
and attempting to figure out what a user is looking for, so the more contextual
details given — through logically linked primary and secondary keywords —
the better.

9. Data and analytics have become priority - Data science allows you to better
understand your customers, imagine campaigns, and send personalised
messages. Verify which URLs are crawled, identify referral sources, check
page loading times, indexing, redirects, response errors, bounce rates, and more
with analytics. You can also use data science to pinpoint unusual traffic sources
and find pages that you don't want crawlers to index.

Road Map For Future –

In a densely populated country link India, there are always ample amount of
opportunities which are getting created for people and digital marketing industry is no
exception to that. The future of digital marketing in India is getting brighter and brighter
as the years pass by. Today from a housewife who is a baker to big corporates and
companies everyone wants to promote their products on digital medium to increase
their reach.

Let’s have a look at reasons for bright future of digital marketing –

1. Drastic changes in traditional marketing - The previous method of marketing

was limited to door-to-door sales and word-of-mouth advertising. Marketers
previously relied on physical labour to sell their goods. People nowadays,
however, expect everything to be at their fingertips. Customer satisfaction has
risen to the top of every company's priority list. The marketing for any sector
earlier was through print media or banners but now the scenario has changed
completely. Today companies are using various digital marketing platforms like
social media, google ads, campaigns, search engine optimization for marketing
of their product and services.

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2. Digital is getting more popularity all over the world - Digital marketing is
preferred by everyone in the world. And small businesses use digital marketing
to begin their operations. Every business process is simplified with this
framework. The organisation would not need to send out personnel to
physically sell the commodity in the marketplace. It provides a diverse range of
cost-effective, strong, and cutting-edge marketing mechanisms and mediums.
Digital marketing is now being used for every kind of product and service. And
they are aware that this is a tried and true medium. The digital network is used
by everyone from tech companies to hoteliers.

3. Global Reach -. Digital marketing is opening doors to global reach. One can
attract audiences from all over the world using digital networks such as
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. These social media sites have such
a broad presence that you can now communicate with almost everyone. Many
citizens in India do business with a sole focus on the United States. So, through
social media, it is likely. Many businesses in the United States like to prepare
their social media strategies with Indian Digital Marketing Agencies.

4. Popularity for digital marketing course – with increasing popularity of this

role, digital marketing has become a solid career option. Many famous institutes
and colleges in India and worldwide have started providing this course
separately or as a part of their curriculum.

5. Digitalization even in small towns - The digital economy now has metros.
However, as the scope of digital marketing expands, towns and cities are being
increasingly linked across digital channels. Many entrepreneurs are launching
in small towns, and they are using social media to hit a worldwide audience.

6. Affordability - When compared to other advertisement channels, digital

marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to sell a commodity. Gone are
the days of making an advertisement printed in the newspaper cost thousands
of dollars or lakhs of rupees. It's too easy now, thanks to new media. If you're a
real estate firm, you can use social media to advertise your new idea to
thousands of people at once. Creating a Facebook ad costs about $40 per day,
which is almost zero. The average cost per clicks ranges from $0.52 to $2.3.

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 Spending lakhs of rupees on a single advertisement vs spending just Rs. 40 per
day will yield positive results. Many companies, as well as young start-ups, are
investing heavily in digital marketing. They're looking for candidates who can
come up with digital media ideas and put them into action.

7. Growth in internet users –

All is explicitly shown in the graph above. In 2015, there were 259 million
internet users, which increased to 331 million in 2017. By 2022, it is anticipated
that the number of internet users would have doubled. This is because, with the
country's rapid economic development, people will become more reliant on the
internet in the coming years.

8. Increased Market Revenue - It is also expected that revenue produced by

digital classifieds would be five times higher than it was in 2015. The peak
income will be about $23 billion in fiscal year 2020.

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In the world of digital marketing, all sales will be doubled by 2020. To position yourself
in the driver's seat, all Indian businesses must be proficient in digital marketing in order
to serve the nation in the global marketplace. Not only companies, but even candidates
searching for a job in this sector will find lakhs of openings across the country.

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 Introduction to the company

Company Name – Cognizant

Introduction –
Cognizant is a global leader in information management, consultancy, and enterprise
process outsourcing, committed to assisting the world's most successful companies in
growing their industries. Teaneck, New Jersey is the company's headquarters (U.S.)

Cognizant represents the future of work by combining a passion for customer

satisfaction, digital creativity, broad market and business process experience, and a
multinational, inclusive workforce.

History –
In 1994, Cognizant started its journey as an in-house unit for Dun & Bradstreet
Software. This was a joint venture between Dun & Bradstreet and Satyam Computers.
Mr. Kumar Mahadeva was the CEO of the company in 1994. It started with objective
of implementing large scale IT projects with the software. In 1996, the company started
serving customers beyond Dun & Bradstreet. Several of Dun & Bradstreet's
subsidiaries, including Erisco, IMS International, Nielsen Media Research, Pilot
Software, Strategic Technologies, and DBSS, were spun off in 1996 to form Cognizant
Corporation, headquartered in Chennai, India.

DBSS was renamed Cognizant Technology Solutions, in 1997. D&B paid $3.4 million
for Satyam's 24 percent interest in DBSS. The company's headquarters were relocated
to the United States. Cognizant Corporation, the holding company, was divided into
two entities in 1998: IMS Health and Nielsen Media Research. Cognizant Technology
Solutions became a public subsidiary of IMS Health after this reorganization.
Mahadeva has agreed to steer clear of large-scale ERP implementations. Rather, he
concentrated on application administration, which accounted for 37% of Cognizant's
sales in the first quarter of 1999. In 2002, Cognizant's earnings were $229 million, and

20
it had no debt and $100 million in the bank. During the dotcom boom, the business
expanded by taking on construction contracts that larger IT companies couldn't handle.

In 2003, IMS Health sold its stock in Cognizant The company's resources portfolio
gradually grew beyond IT to include business process outsourcing (BPO) and business
consultancy. During the 2000s, Cognizant experienced rapid growth, as shown by its
ten-year presence on Fortune magazine's "100 Fastest-Growing Companies" list from
2003 to 2012.

Vision and Mission –

Cognizant's mission is to dedicate our business process and technology innovation

know-how, deep industry expertise and worldwide resources to working together with
clients to make their businesses stronger.

Purpose – Engineer modern business to improve everyday life.

Values –

Every member of Cognizant team is responsible for creating such a culture which
gives boost to exceptional outcomes.

1. Start with point of view – Apply expertise to gain trust and guide clients to
move forward.
2. Seek data and build knowledge - all my actions and decisions are backed by
facts and knowledge.
3. Always strive, never settle – Always stay one step ahead
4. Work as one – Ideas should be aligned with one goal
5. Create condition for everyone to thrive – make favorable condition for all
members
6. Do the right thing, right way – Always choose ethical way of doing things

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Milestones –

• Ranked 19 in Forbes World’s Best Employers 2020

• Ranked 194 on the Fortune 500 (May 2020)
• Ranked 533 in Forbes Global 2000 (May 2020)
• Ranked 63 in Forbes Top 100 Digital Companies for 2019
• Named in the list of Financial Times Leading Management Consultant (Jan
2019)
• Ranked 461 in Forbes America's Best Employers (April 2019)
• Named among World’s Most Admired Companies by Fortune (Jan 2020)
• Ranked 483 in Forbes The Best Employers for Diversity (Jan 2019)
• Ranked 87 in Forbes Top 100 Digital Companies (Sept 2018)

SWOT Analysis –

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Strengths –

1. Presence in multiple countries – Cognizant is a huge multi-national company

having presence in all the major cities of the world. This is Cognizant’s biggest
strength as it opens up a bigger market for the company, also increases the reach
of the company.

2. Diverse Product Portfolio – Cognizant provides a wide range of services

which allows the company to get a bigger customer base. Also this reduces the
effect of one service failure as other various services can cover it up.

3. Strong Online Presence – Cognizant has a strong social media strategy, the
which helps the company to create a good relation with customers by increasing
engagement with customers and this helps the company to get a e-positive word
of mouth

4. Reliable Service– Working with at most integrity is one of the core values of
cognizant. The company knows that its success depends upon how ethically the
business is done. It also believes in providing high quality service. This has
made Cognizant’s brand image so strong in the minds of all the stakeholders
and this also results into getting more loyal customers.

Weaknesses –

1. Weak Organizational culture – When an organization's ethos is out of sync

with its strategic/business goals, it becomes a major internal flaw. The key
strategic goal of the selected corporate organization, for example, is to
introduce creative and new technologies to the market. However, there is a risk-
averse mentality in place in the workplace, which discourages workers from
working creatively.

2. High employee attrition – Employee attrition means employee leaving the

company because of the retirement, higher opportunity or any other personal
reason. Cognizant’s employee attribution rate has increased from 6% to 10% in

23
 the year 2021 which is not a good thing for the company. When old employee
lefts and new employee gets appointed for that job, the company again spends
more resources in training that employee.

Opportunities –

1. Expansion – Cognizant has expanded its business in Asian and Middle-East

markets, this market provides good opportunity of company’s growth.
Cognizant can develop its business very well over here.

2. Integration of IT – IT has become part of almost all the sectors now. Whether
it is baking sector or oil and gas, everyone requires IT service. The pandemic
has boosted the use of IT services to a higher extend. This is a great opportunity
for the company to get more business.

3. Government Projects – Government of many under developed or developing

countries are weak when it comes to IT infrastructure but as now everyone is
moving towards digital era, they will need help. Cognizant can get such
government projects.

Threats

1. Tough Competition – There are so many strong players when it comes to IT

industry. Cognizant faces a tough competition from big IT giants like IBM,
Wipro, Infosys, HCL etc.
2. Legal Issues - The implementation of new tougher rules and the changing
regulatory systems across different countries can be problematic for cognizant.
Cognizant has to be very careful as failing to comply to such rules can cause
very costly legal actions against the company.

24
Leadership
Cognizant is always working on making a robust leadership team with hiring from
external and promoting members internationally as a way of improving growth. The
company have senior hires in Germany, the Nordics, Australia, and Asia-Pacific and
Japan. In 2020 Cognizant hired Rajesh Nambiar as chairman and managing director for
India and member of the executive committee (EC). Nambiar's appointment to the EC
is seen as a calculated move to increase emphasis on India and empower local leaders.

Let’s have a look at core leadership team at Cognizant –

1. Brian Humphries (Chief Executive Officer)

Responsible for Strategy planning, promoting
Cognizant’s client- first philosophy, maintaining long
term shareholder value.

2. Jan Siegmund (Chief Financial Officer)

He is in charge of the company's financial planning and
analysis, accounting and controllership, tax, Treasury,
and internal audit functions around the globe. In
addition, he is responsible for Corporate Development,
Investor Relations, and Enterprise Risk Management.

3. Gaurav Chand (Chief Marketing Officer)

Responsible for Cognizant's global marketing. His Main
goal is to help the company succeed by creating and
implementing a holistic marketing strategy that
encourages Cognizant's digital leadership.

25
4. Ganesh Ayyer (President, Digital Business Operations)
He serves 100+ clients through 65,000+ associates in 25+
countries in this capacity, providing business process,
automation, and platform services.

5. Rajesh Nambiar (Executive Vice President and Chairman, Cognizant India)

He strengthens ties with government departments,
chambers of commerce, universities, the media, and other
policy-making organizations.

Facilities –

Headquarters –

Cognizant’s headquarters is located in Teaneck New Jersey, United States.

Cognizant have 109 office locations

over 30 countries.

It is present in countries like China,

UK, japan, Sweden, Australia, Canada
etc.

In India Cognizant have presence in

cities like Chennai, Bangalore,
Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata,
Mangalore, Mumbai, Mysore, Noida,
Pune etc.

26
Financials –

• In the year 2020, Cognizant recorded a profit of $16.7 billion.

• Operating cash flow for fill year was of $3.3 billion and free cash flow of $2.9
billion.
• Quarterly dividend increased to $0.24 per share

Key Financial Ratios –

• The current ratio is a liquidity ratio that assesses a firm's ability to meet short-term
obligations. For the year 2020 Cognizant Technology Solutions' current ratio was
1.94.
• The debt/equity ratio is measure of a company's financial leverage calculated by
dividing its long-term debt by stockholders' equity. Cognizant Technology
Solutions debt/equity ratio = 0.06
• The return on equity ratio for year 2020 was 12.84
• Return on investment was 12.10

27
28
Social Media Presence –

Cognizant is present on all the leading social media platforms like Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn.

Instagram – Cognizant have 79,000 followers on Instagram and they have total 2420
posts.

Facebook – Cognizant is very popular on Facebook with 3,77,145 likes and followers.

Twitter – Cognizant is very active on twitter with 47.5K tweets, with 758.2K
followers.

LinkedIn – On LinkedIn Cognizant has total of 3,483,269 followers.

Cognizant has a really dynamic social media presence. The content is very unique and
engaging. Every platform has different content. On Instagram the content is bit causal,
fun related also more emphasis is given on all the employees of cognizant. Various
campaigns are done for social awareness, environmental awareness and awareness
about certain diseases. Also the stories of employees from all over the world are shared.

On Facebook and LinkedIn more formal content like articles about leadership,
interesting information about Cognizant’s new innovations or promotion of new
products or service.

29
Review of recent news articles –

• Cognizant recently Acquired ESG Mobility which is a Germany based digital

automotive engineering, R&D provider for connected autonomous electric
vehicles. This will help both the companies to provide services to the top
automotive original equipment manufacturing companies.

• Cognizant has entered into partnership with SailGp. Cognizant will work for
digital transformation, For the 257 million SailGP viewers around the world,
enhance audience perspectives, allow data visualization, and develop an
engaging fan experience.

• The Cognizant Returnship Programme is a one-of-a-kind 12-week paying

internship for young technology experts seeking to return to work following a
break. Through this Cognizant wants to expand their philosophy from
workplace to lives of people who had to take a professional break because of
things like raising a child or taking care of the family.

30
Service Portfolio –

1. Engineering Applications For Modern Business - Cognizant's application

modernization administrations assist businesses with accomplishing
adaptability for a digitally advanced world. Incorporate a blend of accelerators,
stages, and key accomplices to modernize center business applications. The
outcome: A venture that is prepared for whatever the new ordinary has available
for you.

2. Artificial Intelligence - Business challenges come in all shapes and sizes.

Tackling them requires a range of capabilities. Cognizant’s AI is structured
around three distinct capability profiles, helping you to explain, predict and
respond across the business ecosystem.

3. Core Modernization - Insightful use a profound comprehension of current

advancements, applications, foundation, security, tasks, industrial spaces, and
human-driven plan to alleviate change hazards as organizations work for what's
to come. Moreover, they imagine and convey basic and exquisite arrangements,
changing and smoothing out applications and framework at speed and scale—
all to assist organizations with conveying the guarantee of advanced business
and drive development.

4. Digital Engineering - Perceptive Soft vision plans, specialists and conveys

computerized items and encounters that drive advanced first plans of action.
They offer the most far reaching computerized designing mastery and customer
driven technique for economic development.

5. Digital Strategy - Executing a viable advanced methodology across front-,

center and administrative center IT conditions is critical to remaining pertinent.
However, the critical need to make and follow up on a computerized
methodology brings about a large group of complex issues that ventures should
figure out rapidly—or hazard falling behind. Aware assists customers with
getting techniques under way that bring together business and innovation
designs, produce development and empower upper hand.

31
 B. Social Relevance

Corporate Governance

Employees at Cognizant are committed to upholding the highest level of personal and
business behavior. An autonomous Board of Directors oversees Cognizant's senior
leadership team, which retains a clear ethical environment. Their principles and
procedures remain in line with Nasdaq's listing criteria for corporate governance
programs

Following are the corporate governance principles -

1. Ethical Standards - Clear and established values, standards are monitored and
annually affirmed by our associates.
2. Independent Board of Directors – Majority of directors are independent. So that
there will be transparency.
3. Separate Corporate Governance committee – Develops and implement policies
4. Audit Committee: Each member of Committee is an "independent" director and
one member is financial expert.
5. Black-out/Insider Trading Policy – Strong policy is created to prevent occurrence
of improper trading of stocks. It also provides trustworthiness to stakeholders.
6. Ethics and compliance helpline - Associates, employers, suppliers, and others
will privately express complaints about unethical activity to senior management
and the Board of Directors through a helpline.
7. Code of ethics - The Code is significant because it fosters trust and faith among
our customers, owners, investors, and associates, as well as supporting our
motivated "client-first" ethos.
8. Professional Guidance – To ensure effective governance practices.
9. Dedicated Internal Compliance Resources - A General Counsel, a Chief Ethics
and Compliance Officer, and a Chief Security Officer are also employed by
Cognizant. These people and their teams make sure that managers and associates
follow all corporate rules as well as external laws and regulations.

32
Code of Conduct

Code of Ethics at Cognizant –

Cognizant strongly believes in maintaining highest standards of integrity. This is

what sets the company apart in the market. Cognizant understands that the reputation
and success of the company depends upon how ethically the work is done. At
cognizant each and every person is responsible for maintaining culture of integrity.

The code of ethics is based on following principles –

1. Cognizant strivers to earn the trust of their clients or business partners. A

good relationship is always based on trust. Hence for this cognizant must
include ethical standards into the business.
2. Cognizant believes in doing the right thing right way, the company
understands that all the stakeholders depend on the commitment given by the
company.
3. Cognizant is committed to creating a safe healthy work environment
4. Cognizant knows its responsibility for safeguarding private information

Cognizant pays a lot of attention for preventing corruption.

• The company is strictly against receiving or giving bribes

• Create no facilitation fees to speed up regular government regulatory actions
until the General Counsel has authorized them in writing.
• Submit timesheets, mileage and spending accounts, accounting statements,
consumer billing, and other documents that are correct and comprehensive.
Never misinterpret or mislabel a transaction in our books and documents, or try
to get through some of our policies or controls.
• Do not hire a third party to make an unauthorized purchase on company’s behalf
or to do something that our business rules prohibit.

33
CSR Initiatives

Cognizant uses its knowledge and resources to create a healthy and sustainable
environment for people whose life, the company touches. Protecting common natural
wealth improves the quality of life for Associates, customers, and the global
population, according to Cognizant. This will result into better brand reputation in the
minds of all the stakeholders. The sustainability policy at cognizant applies to everyone
who is working with the company. Everyone is responsible for following all the norms
which come under this policy.

Cognizant is committed to –

• Managing our company in a way that complies with our global environmental,
health, and safety (EHS) standards.
• In the conduct of our activities, we adhere to all relevant environmental
compliance and regulatory obligations.
• Keeping our Associates, customers, and the world and atmosphere in which we
work healthy and clean.
• Continually looking for success in the application of environmental,
occupational health and safety standards, as well as the use of well-defined
corporate policies.
• Fostering a strong corporate culture around environmental, health, and safety
issues through good cooperation among management, staff, and other
stakeholders, as well as educating Associates on EHS principles, policies, and
procedures.
• Having a risk-based mechanism in place for identifying, classifying,
prioritizing, and controlling hazards and threats, as well as socializing this
process with Associates and/or their members, as well as other partners on EHS
issues, to ensure that it is integrated into business decisions.
• Encouraging manufacturers and subcontractors to think about the environment
and requiring adherence to Cognizant's Supplier Code of Conduct.

34
The Cognizant Foundation: Passion for Making a Difference – Cognizant India

(https://www.cognizantfoundation.org)

Cognizant Foundation is one of the channels of Cognizant's Corporate Social

Responsibility activities in India. The Foundation works to better the existence of the
retrogressive segments of society in the space of medical care, schooling, and vocation.

This foundation was registered in the year 2005 as a Charitable trust under the Indian
Companies Act. The main goal of this foundation in India is to provide help to the
underprivileged Indian population by providing financial help, arranging heath care
programs, partnering with other NGOs, government authorities.

Outreach Program –
Outreach was launched in the year 2007 when
Cognizant crossed the second billion-dollar
revenue mark and decided to celebrate this
achievement by giving back to society. This
program is focused on using a combination of
voluntary efforts from Cognizant associates and
funding from Cognizant to promote the cause of
education. As part of this program, Cognizant
adopts orphanages and educational institutions
catering to underprivileged children and helps
them raise the required infrastructure and meet
their training needs.

35
In 2008, Outreach disseminated 50,000 notebooks
to more than 5000 students in seven schools around
Chennai. Outreach chose to give the activity a
container India impression and has accumulated
assets from 7,000 partners of Cognizant. Till date,
around 15,000 students have gotten more than
100,000 journals produced using eco-
accommodating materials.

Rebuilding Communities Program –

Cognizant Foundation's Rebuilding Communities Program (RCP) was launched to

restore communities influenced by the December 2015 floods in Chennai and
encompassing regions. This program is intended to make affected communities able to
achieve maintainable advancement of the whole local area.

Under RCP, CF has taken up two recovery projects. One of which is the recovery of
networks including nine panchayats of St. Thomas Mount Block, Chennai, Tamil
Nadu. The normal number of families in these gram panchayats is 5000. The carrying
out accomplice distinguished to execute the task on the ground is the Development of
Humane Action (DHAN) Foundation.

36
Human Rights Policy –

Human rights are really important to Cognizant. Our organization ideals and adherence
to the highest level of business ethics and success in everything we do are aligned with
the fundamental concepts of human rights.

• No human trafficking - Never participate in human trafficking, which

includes, but is not limited to, illicit human migration, human trafficking, sexual
abuse, and the use of forced or child labor in any way. We are also responsible
for reporting sex trafficking to the relevant authority as soon as possible.

• Safe and healthy workplace - Within our Cognizant premises and customer
locations, we meet all relevant protection and health laws and legislation, as
well as organizational standards.

• Ethical supply chain - Human rights violations in the production chain are
unacceptable to Cognizant. Our Supplier Standards of Conduct, which are
included in every distributor contract in our supply chain, preclude and resolve
human rights violations.

• Respect freedom of association - Both of Cognizant's Associates have the

freedom to join or not join a trade union of their choice, to peacefully assemble,
and to negotiate collectively in compliance with the constitution. Associates are
supposed to treat their coworkers with the same respect.

• Fair and merit base employee selection - In accordance with local legislation,
Cognizant Associates are entitled to equal care in all facets of their jobs,
including wages and working conditions.

• Treating others with dignity - Always show respect and professional courtesy
to each other and those with whom we associate in work-related circumstances.
Discriminatory conduct, misuse of power, or threats of some sort are never
acceptable.

37
 C. Functional Perspective

Research Problem –

How Poor Search Engine Optimization Can Hamper The Growth Of

Sales

Problem Definition

Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is one of the techniques used in digital marketing to

improve the ranking of a website so that it can be visible on the first page of Google.
SEO is used to bring more visitors on a website. There are many techniques used to
make a website quality good so that more number of people will visit the website and
which in turn increase the sales of a product or service. This is very useful for small
business owners as it makes their business more visible also they don’t have to invest
a lot of money as SEO is organic. But if this is not done properly then it can affect sales
especially for an online business.

Objectives of the project –

• To understand the importance of Search Engine Optimization(SEO)

• To identify and critically analyse the impact of SEO on sales

38
Literature Review
The method of increasing the amount and consistency of traffic to a website by organic
search engine results is known as SEO. It's organic, so there's no need to pay for it.
When a user looks for something on Google, a crawler heads out and collects data for
all of the content they can find on the Internet.
The crawlers return all of the data to the search engine in order to create an index. The
index is then fed into an algorithm that attempts to align all of the data with the user's
search query and displays a list of different websites ranked in a certain order, with the
first rank having a higher chance of being clicked by the user than those ranked last.

Google’s quality ratings are based on -

• Content quality and amount

• Website info and info about the content creator
• Website reputation and content creator reputation
• User interaction with the page
• Expertise, authority, and trustworthiness

Since people conduct trillions of searches each year, often with commercial aim to learn
more about goods and services, SEO is a critical component of digital marketing.
Brands' primary source of digital traffic is often search, which is supplemented by other
marketing channels. Increased exposure and better rankings in search results than
competitors will have a significant effect on a company's bottom line.

Small business owners can use SEO to create fast, stable, and user-friendly websites
that rank higher in search engines, bringing in more skilled potential buyers and
increasing conversion rates. SEO also aids in the development of market recognition
for a company, as consumers are more likely to support a site that appears on the first
page of a search engine result.

The aim of SEO is to improve the user experience. Websites that are well-structured,
tidy, and uncluttered encourage casual visitors to linger longer, lowering bounce rates
and increasing page visits. Similarly, extremely applicable material makes users
happier when it answers their questions, solves their problems, and assists them in
finding just what they're searching for on the internet.

39
More consumers visit a company's website as a result of this. SEO is the most effective
and cost-effective approach because it attracts consumers who are genuinely involved
in a company's goods or services.

Trackable and visible effects go hand in hand with SEO. Tracking every part of a
website's success, including traffic numbers, conversion rates, and other SEO results,
would enable you to better see what your consumers need and want, as well as how and
why they act. As a result, firms have the ability to evaluate their work and adjust their
approach accordingly.

E-commerce is competitive, and learning and applying cutting-edge SEO strategies

will help a company stand out online, turn more leads into loyal clients, and increase
revenue.

Research Methodology

Research Design Descriptive

Type of Research Primary & Secondary
Approach of Research Qualitative
Sampling Frame Geography – Mumbai
Proposed Sample Size 30
No Respondents -
Sampling Deliberate Sampling
Data Collection Tools Questionnaire

40
Data Analysis and Findings
Using the above sets of questions, a survey was conducted with 30 respondents, and
from the received responses the following data analysis was conducted.

1. Age –

From the above graph we can see that majority of the respondents are from age
group of 30 to 40 years i.e. 14 people. 10 are from age group 20-30 and 5 are
from the age group of 40 to 50 and only one person is from the age group of 50 to
60 years.

2. Gender –

Gender
0

33.3%

66.7%

Male Female Preferre not to say

Out of total respondents 10 are females i.e. 33.3% and 20 are males i.e. 66.7% so
the majority of respondents are male.

41
3. Qualification –

Qualification
0

40%

60%

Post Graduate Graduate under Graduate

60% of the people i.e. 18 people are post graduate and 12 are graduate.

4. What kind of business/company you are running?

Type Of Business
20
16
15
10
10
5
5

0
Online Offline Both
Online Offline Both

From the graph it is clear that majority of respondents i.e. 16 people are
running online business, 10 are having offline business and only 5 have
presence on both the online and offline platforms.

42
5. Who is undertaking SEO activities for your business?

40%

60%

Yourself Through Agency or freelancer

40% i.e. 12 people are doing SEO with help of an agency or freelancer and
60% of people i.e. 18 people are doing SEO by themselves which is the
majority.

6. For how long are you using SEO techniques?

The lowest number of respondents i.e. 2 people were using SEO for 6 months
and we can see equal number of respondents i.e. 14 people were using SEO
for 1 to 2 years and another 14 people were using it for more than 2 years.

43
7. How much time did your SEO strategies take to show the results?

Time Taken For Results

13.30% 20%

66.70%

3 months 6 months 1-2 years

The maximum respondents which are 20 said that it took them 6 months to
show results whereas only 4 respondents voted for 1-2 years and 6 people
voted for 3 months.

8. Does the ranking of your website increase after using SEO?

From the graph we can see that 90% people i.e. 27 said yes and 10% which
are 3 people voted for maybe. No one said no.

44
9. Does the number of visits to your website increase?

Increase In Number Of Visit

30
26
25
20
15
10
4
5
0
0
Yes No Same as before SEO

Maximum number of respondents i.e. 26 people said yes the number of visits
increased. And only 4 voted for same as before SEO and no one said no.

10. Can you see a rise in conversions(Sales) after SEO?

Maximum people said yes the conversions increased after using SEO.

45
 11. If yes, then by how much percent has the sales increased?

The maximum respondents i.e. 10 people said there was increase of 30-40% in sales
and the second majority i.e. 8 people said that the sales increased from 40-50% and
only 3 people said there was less than 10% increase in the sales

12. Do you think that SEO is cost-effective?

Is SEO Cost Effective

16.70%
0

83.30%

Yes No Maybe

From the graph we can see that 83.30% of people which are 25 respondents said
yes and 16.7% i.e. 5 respondents said maybe and 0 respondents voted for no.

46
 13. Do you think that SEO is time consuming?

60% of the respondents think that SEO is time consuming whereas only 4%
have said no and 26.70% said yes but it is effective.

14. Will you continue using SEO in the future or will you shift to Paid Google
Ads?

From the above graph we can see that maximum number of respondents i.e. 20 people
said they will continue using SEO and only 1 respondent voted for No, I will shift and
9 said that they will use both.

47
 Secondary Research

Search Engine Optimization – SEO is an organic i.e. unpaid activity of improving

quality of a website which will help to increase the rank of your website resulting into
increased number of visitors on your website.

Major parts of SEO –

• Quality of traffic – The main goal of doing SEO is to attract potential

customers who are looking for products or services which your business is
selling. If someone is having a website of a farm and they are selling apple
fruits, then they don’t want people who are looking for Apple Phone.

• Quantity of traffic – Once the website starts ranking high using proper SEO
techniques then the visitors on the website starts increasing.

• Organic results – There is no cost of doing SEO. SEO is very cost effective.

From the above image we can see the difference between organic and paid.

48
How SEO works –

When someone searchers a query on any search engine like Google or Yahoo, these
search engines have bots or crawlers which go on to the different websites, checks all
the information available there, checks the quality of website, based on this indexing is
done and the ranking of the website is decided. Crawlers do all this in very small
amount of time.

Above image shows different ranking factors based on which crawlers decide the
ranking.

49
Process of SEO –

• Building SEO- friendly websites – The process of SEO stars with a good SEO-
friendly website which includes having unique content, good quality of
keywords, proper images, properly working link and relevancy.

• Related content – Content of the website is really crucial for the process of
SEO, for a good website, content should be unique, which means there should
not be any plagiarism, the content should be attractive, easy to understand and
should be related to the keywords which you are using for your website.

• Keywords search – Through keywords Google understands what your website

is all about and keywords are the words which a person searching on google is
likely to type for a search query.

• Site map – A proper site map helps in creating a hassle free user experience. A
site map is a panel on website which has links for different parts of website.
E.g. – For a website of company site map will have links for About us, Careers,
Feedbacks, FAQs etc. Through site map, all the links for different parts or pages
on website gets indexed by Google, which increasing the chance of getting
shown on google.

• On-site SEO - It is the process of optimising items on a website in order to rate

higher in search engines and get more significant traffic. On-site SEO refers to
optimising a page's content as well as its HTML source code.

• Off-site SEO – Off-site SEO is when a more popular website gives link to your
website. This is beneficial for such small websites as the traffic from popular
website get directed towards such small website. If a website is mentioned on a
highly reputed, superior website then it helps to improve perspective for that
website

50
Importance of SEO

• Social media, paid advertising and other online platforms are helpful in
increasing visibility of your website and business but majority of the traffic on
website comes through search engine
• Organic search results get more clicks compared to paid google ads, as the
visitors tend to think that organic results are more authentic. Also the visitors a
website gets through SEO have high chances of becoming customers for that
website.
• SEO can provide good long term result in short amount of investment but there
has to be consistency.

SEO and Sales -

Any company's sustainability is dependent on revenue, and in today's world, growing

sales necessitates a strong digital presence. E-commerce produced $2.3 trillion in
global revenue in 2017, with that figure projected to rise to $4.88 trillion by 2021.

It is well known that the world of E-commerce is competitive, and learning and
applying cutting-edge SEO strategies will help a company stand out online, turn more
leads into loyal buyers, and increase revenue.

How SEO produces revenue –

• Through increased traffic – One cannot sell anything if customer is not aware
about the business or not visiting the website, with SEO, visibility is increased
which indirectly helps in generating revenue. Over 50% of the traffic on internet
clicks on organic results.
• Attracting the right customers - with SEO, the traffic which visit your
website are the people whom you want to target. They are your potential
customers; they might also be your customers in the past or someone who has
engaged with your business. With such visitors there is a higher chance of
getting more conversions.
• Better user experience – Google tracks the behaviour of visitors on your
website, the bounce rate, how much time people spend on your website, based
on this also Google decides the ranking. 44% of users who visit a place that isn't

51
 user-friendly would tell at least 5 people about their bad experience. If you add
in social media and review pages to the list, you have a far larger presence.
About 2.1 million derogatory company references are introduced on social
media every day. People are more likely to believe bad comments said about
brands on social media. SEO helps to improve website experience.

• Increasing touch points – This means interaction points. On an average a

person tales 3 to 7 touch points to become your customers. Increasing these
touch points can help to bring more customers to your website.

• SEO helps to improve Ad performance – Businesses almost always steer

users back to their website when they publish an ad on another channel. They
pay with a click if the site isn't designed for user interface and conversions.
Then they've squandered a chance.

• Fixed ROI over long term - SEO would almost certainly never entirely
substitute paid ads. However, over time, it reduces the amount of money spent
on advertisements to draw potential buyers. More users are inevitably seeing a
company website as it becomes more apparent in its customers' search results.
If one ceases running advertisements in a marketing campaign, traffic also
stops. The majority of the ROI occurs when the campaign is in progress. This
is particularly true if little attempt has been made to raise brand recognition. Or
if solid customer engagement measures aren't in place. But SEO ROI is
different. It pays you for long term, it does not stop based on how much money
you have left in google business account. In long term one can stop doing ad
campaigns and just focus on SEO to get high ROI at lowest investment.

52
 Conclusion and recommendation

Conclusion –

• Search Engine Optimization is one of the important tool to boost digital

presence of a business and drive traffic to the website.
• SEO is very affordable way of increasing visitors on a website.
• Hence SEO can be done by business at a small scale or at a large scale.
• SEO is not limited to an online business, anyone having a website for their
business whether it is online or offline can use SEO.
• If done properly SEO can increase the ranking of your website, increase the
number of visits on the website of a business which results in to growth in sales.
• SEO takes time to show results but the results are more effective and SEO gives
returns for a long term.

Recommendations –

• Any business who has a website should get more knowledge about SEO and
start practising it. It will definitely be beneficial.
• The one who is using SEO needs to be persistent and should not give up easily.
SEO comes with a lot of try and error and with a lot of practice it can be done
effectively
• Before starting SEO, it is really important for a business to understand what
their business is all about, whom they are serving, what kind of customers they
want to visit their website, what is unique about their business.
• SEO helps in reducing churn rate as a business who is constantly investing in
SEO, it trying to improve customer experience, they engage with customers,
solve their queries and build a relationship with them.
• SEO is cost cutting, If SEO is done properly then a business gets revenue from
visitors on their website without paying any money on google ads or without
doing any paid social media promotions, the major cost on traditional marketing
is also saved.

53
 D. Learnings and challenges

Learnings –

During this project following are the things which I learned –

• How marketing has drastically changed over the years. The focus has
completely shifted from traditional marketing to digital marketing. How the
current pandemic has accelerated the growth of digital marketing and how it
has changed the whole scenario of doing business.

• Detail idea about digital marketing industry in India, what are the challenges
and opportunities are in the sector, who are the major players, how much is
the market share and GDP contribution of the digital marketing industry.
Different government initiatives and the future of digital marketing in India

• Knowledge about the giant multinational company Cognizant, different types

of services provided by the company, CSR activities, code of ethics, work
environment, how cognizant has become one of the leading digital companies.

• The importance of SEO, how it has become one of the popular digital
marketing techniques. How to do SEO properly. Different types of SEO and
different components of SEO. How search engine works, how to maintain a
good SEO-friendly website.

• While doing the survey, I got to interact with various big and small business
owners and got idea about how they run their business, what type of business
they are having, how different type of business requires different strategy,
their experience with SEO and how SEO has helped them also what
challenges they have faced. Got a detail idea about how in reality SEO works
and how much time it takes.

54
Challenges –

In India, compared to other developed countries, digital marketing industry is new and yet to
be developed on a bigger scale though it is growing at a really high speed. Hence there is very
less data available about the whole industry and major Indian players in the industry. Lack of
awareness was another challenge, many people are not fully aware about digital marketing,
they do not have knowledge about how to do SEO and other activities. Hence it was a difficult
task to find people who actually know how to run SEO or have knowledge about it. Also Many
businesses don’t keep track of how much revenue they are generating through digital marketing
activities.

55
 Annexures

Survey Questionnaire –

1. Age of the respondents –

a. 20-30
b. 30-40
c. 40-50
d. 50 and above

2. Gender of respondents -
a. Male
b. Female
c. Prefer not to say

3. Qualification of the respondents –

a) Post Graduate
b) Graduate
c) Under Graduate
d) Other

4. What kind of business or company are you running?

e) Online
f) Offline
g) Both

5. Who is undertaking SEO activities for your business?

a) Yourself
b) Through Agency/or a freelancer

6. For how long are you using SEO techniques?

a) 6 months
b) 1-2 years
c) more than 2 years

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7. How much time did your SEO strategies take to show the results?
a) After 3 months
b) After 6 months
c) After 1-2 years

8. Does the ranking of your website increase after using SEO?

a) Yes
b) No
c) Maybe

9. Does the number of visits to your website increase?

a) Yes
b) No
c) It was same before SEO

10. Can you see a rise in conversions(Sales) after SEO?

a) Yes
b) No

11. If yes, then by how much percent has the sales increased?
a) Less than 10%
b) 10%-20%
c) 20% - 30%
d) 30% - 40%
e) 40% - 50%
f) 50% and above

12. Do you think that SEO is cost-effective?

a) Yes
b) No
c) Maybe

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13. Do you think that SEO is time consuming?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Yes, but it is effective

14. Will you continue using SEO in the future or will you shift to Paid Google Ads?
a) Yes, I will continue
b) No, I will shift
c) I will use both

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 Bibliography

1. Https://moz.com/learn/seo/what-is-seo. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://moz.com/learn/seo/what-is-seo
2. Impact of search engine optimization as a marketing tool - Ravneet Singh
Bhandari, Ajay Bansal, 2018. (2018, March 18). SAGE Journals.
3. SEO ROI: How much revenue does SEO really produce? (2021, April 12).
Digital Marketing Blog. https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/seo-roi/
4. Why is SEO important for business? (2020, July 6). MiroMind.
5. Cognizant - https://www.cognizant.com
6. Indian digital media will grow at 20% to reach a market size of Rs 18,938
crore by 2021: Dentsu digital report 2021. (2021, February 4). Business
Insider.
7. The Economic Times of India

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