Search Engine Optimisation

What is Search Engine?

• Search engine is an online tool, that searches for result in its database
based on search query ( KEYWORD ) submitted by the user.
OR
• Search engine is an internet program that is designed to carry out
web search, which means to search world wide web in systematic
way for a particular information specified by the user.
Top Search Engine :-

• Google
• Bing
• Yahoo
• Baidu
• DuckDuckgo
• Yandex
How Search Engine Works?
Search Engine Works in 4 Steps Which are as Follows:-

1. Crawling
2. Indexing
3. Ranking
4. Serving

Search engines are answer machines, They exist to discover, understand, and
organize the internet's content in order to offer the most relevant results to
the questions searchers are asking.
 Step 1 – Crawling
• To appear in Search Engine Result Pages, your content first need to be
visible to search engine, If your site can’t be found, there is no way
your content will ever show up in Search Engine Result Pages.
• Crawling:- It is the process by which search engine discover content
on the web.
• How Crawling is done by Search Engine? – Search Engine uses a
program which can be referred as Crawlers/ spiders / bots ( each
search engine has its own ), These crawlers discover the content,
Content may vary, it could be a webpage, an image, video, Pdf, Ppt,
etc., But they are only discovered by URL/Links.
 Step 1 – Crawling
• As a search engine’s crawler moves through your site it will also
detect and record any links it finds on these pages and add them to a
list that will be crawled later. This is how new content is discovered.
• A search engine navigates the web by downloading web pages
and following links on these pages to discover new pages that
have been made available.
 Step 2- Indexing
• After the process of crawling, Search Engine adds or store the content
in an organised manner or in an organised database.
• The information gathered by crawlers is organized and stored into an
index, a massive database that organizes (indexes) all of the
discovered content that has been interpreted as containing valuable
search results. It isn’t enough to simply get a page crawled for
indexing; the information on the page must be valuable enough to be
added to the index. The content must be accurate and up to date,
have quality, topical authority, and be original. After a crawler finds a
page, the search engine analyzes the page’s content. If the content is
found to be valuable, comparative, and competitive, the search
engine will add the page to the index.
 Step 3 - Ranking
• Crawling And Indexing are the two steps which are done before user
has generated an query on search engine.
• When someone perform a search, search engine looks for highly
relevant content in their index and then orders that content to solve
the searcher’s query.
• Ordering of the search results on order to solve searcher’s query by
the most relevant content is known as Ranking.
• Once a query ( Keyword ) is entered into a search box, search engines
will check for pages within their index that are a closest match; a
score will be assigned to these pages based on an algorithm
consisting of hundreds of different ranking signals.
 Google Ranking Factors
• Location
• Domain Age
• Website Loading Speed
• Use of Keywords
• Google Algorithm Updates
• User Experience
• Secure Website
• Content Quality
 Step 4 – Serving
• After the process of crawling, indexing, ranking search engine shows
us the result of a search query or serve us with most relevant content
for a search query.
• SERP ( search engine result pages )- These are the pages showed to a
user in response to user search query.
• Results on these pages are normally ranked by relevance to the query.
• SERP consist of sponsored results, organic listings/result, rich features
or rich snippet, and knowledge panels ( google ).
 Keyword
• When a user enter a query in search engine, those query or phrases
or words usually refer as a keyword.
• Basically these are search terms used by visitors in popular search
engine to find desired webpage.
• Search Terms = Keywords
• Query = Keywords
• The Keywords are the phrases in your web content that make it
possible for people to find your content via search engines.
 Why Keywords are Important ?
• They are used by search engine to determine the relevancy of your
content.
• Used to drive traffic to your site.
• keywords in your web content that make it possible for people to find
your site via search engines.
 Types of Keywords :-
• Short Tail Keyword also known as Broad Keywords :-
These are the general phrases which are less than 3 words,
for example :- “Digital Marketing” , “Pizza Delivery” , “Online Shoes”
These are standard keywords
Search Volume of such keywords are very high
Competition of these types of keywords are also very high.
Low Conversion Rate
Very Broad Search Intent
 Types of Keywords :-
• Long Tail Keywords :-
These keywords are more than 3 words and more specific than short tail or
broad keywords.
For Eg.- “Digital Marketing Institute in Delhi” , “Men’s shoes for Running”.
Not standard keywords, they are specific to content.
Low Search Volume
Low Competition
High Conversion rate
Specific search intent
 How To do Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process of finding keywords that you want to
rank for in search engines. It’s about understanding what potential
customers are searching for and how. It also involves analyzing and
comparing keywords to find the best opportunities.
• Brainstorm
• Define Your Goals .
• What keywords competitors rank for .
• By using keyword Research Tools.
• Study that particular Topic/ Niche.
 Why Keyword Research is Important?
• It is a practice to search common term or phrases which are driving
traffic to result pages.
• A great deal of keyword research involves taking the time to
understand your audience and the questions they are asking, then
finding ways to answer those questions in your content, using a mix
of keywords and phrases.
 What is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)?
SEO is the process or skillset or an art or science of maximizing the
number of visitors to particular website by ensuring that site appears
high on search engine result pages.

OR

In simple words SEO is the process to rank your website in top positions
of search results.
 How SEO Work?
• In simple terms, SEO works by demonstrating to search engines that
your content is the best result for the topic or search query.
• Search engine focus to show best and relevant results to their users,
And SEO is way of telling search engine that your content suits best
for the search term or phrases.
• In SEO, we have to understand and cater search engine algorithms, to
drive targeted and organic traffic.
 Types of SEO :-
• White Hat
• Black Hat
• Grey Hat (90% White Hat and 10% Black Hat)
 Difference between White & Black hat SEO
• White Hat SEO refers to the
optimisation techniques which
completely follows the search
engine rules.
• Relevant content.
• Unique and relevant page titles.
• Website will not get banned
either penalized and results last
long time.
• In Black Hat SEO, rules of search
engine are manipulated and are
not followed to improve the
ranking of the content
• Duplicate content.
• Invisible text and stuffed
keywords.
• Website will get banned
eventually and will get
penalized.
 Grey Hat SEO
• Mixture of Black hat and White hat SEO.
• 90:10 ratio ( white hat : black hat ).
• It is basically making use of white hat techniques up to a level where
it is just about to become a black hat SEO technique.
 On Page SEO -
• Meta Tags ( Title, Description, Heading ( h1….h6 )
• URL Structure / Permalink / Page Name
• Internal link
• External links
• Anchor text
• Alt tags
• Content optimisation
• Robots Txt
• Canonical tag
• XML sitemap
• Social media buttons integration and social sharing
• Breadcrumb
• Keyword Density
 On Page SEO -
• Keyword prominence
• Google Analytics set up
• Google search console
• Keyword Proximity and keyword Cannibalisation
• Broken Link
• Duplicate content check
• Page error- 301, 302, 403, and 404
• Custom 404 webpage
 Meta Tags
• Title :-
- It defines title of each webpage.
- Length of meta title should be between 65-70 characters.
- Meta Title appears in search engine result page.
- Most Important keyword are placed in meta title.
- Title should focus on keywords of that particular page.

• Description
- It’s a small description or content of page or we can say it’s small summary of webpage content.
- Length of meta description should be 150-160 characters.
- Important and competitive keywords should be placed in meta description.
- Meta description also appears in SERP along with meta title.
 Meta Tags
• Headings ( H1…..H6 )
- <h1>Heading 1</h1>
<h2>Heading 2</h2>
<h3>Heading 3</h3>
<h4>Heading 4</h4>
<h5>Heading 5</h5>
<h6>Heading 6</h6>
- Used for structuring the content of webpages, Headings and subheading are used to design the
content and use keywords in heading
- H1 heading is only used once and it is the title or headline of that particular page
- H1 is the most important and H6 is the least important
- Important keywords must be place in headings
- H tags enhance readability and visibility
- Heading from 1 to 6 forms a hierarchy, if we jump from 1 to 4 directly, heading structure will
break and its not good for SEO.
 URL Structure / Page Naming / Permalink
• URL(uniform resource locator)- address of given resource on web
• URL structure :- Should be easy to read
Avoid use of any special character
( _ ) underscore must no be used
• The permalink is the full URL you see – and use – for any given post,
page or other pieces of content on your site. It is a permanent link.
 Internal link and External link
• Internal Link :- these are the links which goes from one page to
another page in same domain or we can say that internal links are the
links that we have within a website.
• Internal links are important to engage audience or user within a
website
• They are most commonly used for navigation within website
• Search engine get to know the depth of content within your own
website.
 Internal and External link
• External Links :- These are the links which goes from one page to
another page in different domain or we can say that external links are
the links that use to link to other website and similarly how other
website link to your content.
• Adding external links to high quality website make a good impact in
eye of search engine
• Search engine forms a trust in your website and this trust helps to get
higher position in search engine result pages.
 Anchor Text
• It refers to the clickable text or words or phrases used to link a one
webpage to another.
• Mostly in blue colour, you can see such type of text, when clicked land
to another webpage of same domain or different domain
• Anchor text can have any colour, but they are visible ( maybe Bold or
underlined )
 Alt tags
• It is the name which is given to the image.
• Alt tag describe the images, what are they and what all are they
about.
• Keyword in used for naming the image, search engine can only read
that text or not that image.
• All the images uploaded in website must be optimised, and must be
compressed.
• Image must be in .jpg, .png format .
• Used to drive traffic from image search results
 Content Optimization
• Content plays a very crucial role in ranking of any website, must be
well written to reach the largest possible audience.
• Content should be unique and updated
• Content should be user friendly, must be created match the user
requirement, if user doesn’t engage with your content then it is of no
use.
• Keywords must be used. 4% in 1000 words rule must be follow.
• Meta tags, headings, alt tags, anchor text, visual representation of
content must be there.
 Robots.txt
• Its act as a door to crawlers, it tells the crawlers how to and what to
crawl on their website.
• It tells the crawlers what and what not to crawl on particular website.
• A robots.txt file is a set of instructions for bots. This file is included in
the source files of most websites.
• Didm.in/robots.txt or amazon.in/robots.txt - robots file can be
viewed by adding /robots.txt at end of the URL.
 Canonical tag
• Canonical issues arises when website with similar content is accessed by different URL’s (
Duplicate Content issue )
• For E.g. :- didm.in OR
www.didm.in OR
http://didm.in OR
https://didm.in OR
https://www.didm.in
All the content of website is same but can be accessed by different url.
• Therefore, canonical tag is way of telling search engine that specific URL represents the
master copy of page also,
• Canonical tag tells search engine which version of a URL you want to appear in search
engine result pages
• <link rel=“canonical” href=“https://example.com/sample-page/” />
 XML Sitemap
• XML stands for extensible mark-up language.
• XML sitemap consists of all URL’s of a particular website.
• XML sitemap is a file which will have all the information of each
URL of a website.
• Used by google to crawl the website more intelligently
 Social media buttons integration and social
sharing
• Adding social media buttons and social sharing is a plus point for the
authority of a website
• Its always a good idea to showcase your social media business pages
or accounts
• By integrating social media, you can increase your likes, share,
subscribers etc..
• People will be able to share your content on social media which will
give you a better and more engagement.
• How the people engage with your content is also good ranking factor.
 Breadcrumb
• Its nothing but the trail or navigation that allows visitor to keep a track of
their location within hierarchy of a website
• They improve crawlability and also create a better UX
• There are three types of Breadcrumb which are :- hierarchy based,
attributes based, history based.
• Hierarchy based:- most common type of breadcrumb, tells where are they
in site structure and how they can go back. For E.g.- Home > Training >
Dwarka
• Attributes based :- most used by ecommerce websites, it shows the user
about attributes within the website. For E.g.- Home > Shoes > Hiking > men
• History Based :- shows user a history of their navigation within website. For
E.g. Home > about us > article 1 > article 2 > current page.
 Keyword Density, Keyword prominence
Keyword Proximity and keyword Cannibalisation
• Keyword Density- it tells us about that how many time a particular word or key
phrase or keyword appears in a webpage compared to the total number of words
in a webpage.
• As SEO is concerned, keyword density can tell us about the or can be used to
determine whether web page is relevant to a specific keyword or key phrase.
• Keyword Prominence- it is the prominent placement of keywords in web page
content. ( start of a sentence or paragraph, page header, introduction, meta tags
etc )
• Keyword proximity:- Distance between the search term’s individual keywords
• Keyword Cannibalisation:- It is the targeting of same keyword on multiple pages
of the website, search engine get confuse and affect your ranking, each page
should be focused on one primary keyword.
 Google Analytics and search console set up
• Google Analytics :- Google Analytics is analytics service offered by
Google that tracks and reports website traffic, it also helps in
understanding your website visitors or customers.
• Google webmaster ( now search console )- It is the service offered by
google that allows webmaster to check crawling, indexing status and
optimize visibility of their websites.
 Page error

• 301: Web page Moved permanently

• 302: Web page Temporary redirect
• 403: Web page forbidden (unauthorized response)
• 404: Web page file not found (broken links)
• 500 Error series:- Mostly server Issues.