Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Unit – 02
Prof. Vijay K S
“If it isn’t on Google
It doesn’t exist.”

- Jimmy Wales,

Google or Any search engine can change the way that you are doing the business
Search Engine?
• Search engines are searchable databases of web content.
• Search engine is a web program designed to retrieve or search for
information on the web.
• It enables users to enter specific queries or keywords and retrieves
relevant results from its index or database of web pages, documents,
images, videos, and other types of content.
• The most well-known and widely used search engine is Google, but
other popular search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, and Baidu (in
China) exist.
• “Zero Moments of Truth”
How Search Engine Works?
Search engines are complex software systems designed to retrieve and
organize information from the web and deliver relevant results to
users based on their search queries.

While the exact algorithms and processes used by search engines may
vary with Search Engines.
 How Search Engine Works?
Crawling 1

Analyzing 2

Indexing 3

Ranking 4

Displaying 5

Continuous Improvement
How Search Engine Works?
Crawling

• Looking for Content available on the web

• Search engines use automated programs called crawlers, spiders, or
bots to discover and visit web pages across the internet.
• These bots start from a list of known web pages, follow links from
those pages to new ones, and continue this process to build a
comprehensive index of web pages.

How will crawlers know which domain to visit?

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

How Search Engine Works?
Analysing 2

• Processing is where Google / Search Engine works to understand and

extract key information from crawled pages.
• Analyze and extract information from the page’s content, including
text, images, links, and other relevant data
• To do this, it has to render the page, which is where it runs the page’s
code to understand how it looks for users.
• Place it in large data centers with thousands of petabytes worth of
drives
How Search Engine Works?
Indexing 3

• Here, the search engine index the data, i.e., the classification of
pages into categories by identifying the keywords that best describe
the page and assigning the page to keywords.
• Indexing involves many concepts from linguistics, cognitive
psychology, Mathematics, and Computer science.
• Using those concepts, search engines have developed capabilities to
index media files such as video, audio, graphics, and text.
• The index allows search engines to retrieve and serve relevant results
when a user searches quickly.
How Search Engine Works?
Ranking 4

• Retrieving the pages with the highest relevance score on top of the search
results and displaying them in the browser.
• When a user enters a search query, the search engine processes the query
and matches it against the indexed pages in its database.
• The search engine's ranking algorithm then evaluates various factors to
determine the relevance and quality of each page in relation to the search
query.
• These factors may include keyword relevance, page authority, user
engagement signals, and other variables.
How Search Engine Works?
Displaying 5

• Based on the ranking algorithm's assessment, the search engine

generates a list of search results, typically displayed on a search
engine results page (SERP).

• The results are usually presented in order of perceived relevance and

quality, with the most relevant results appearing higher on the page.
How Search Engine Works?
Improvements 6

• Search engines constantly refine their algorithms and processes to

improve the quality and relevance of search results.

• They may analyze user behavior, feedback, and other data to make
adjustments, detect and penalize spammy or manipulative tactics,
and keep up with changes in web content.
How Search Engine Works?
Why do we need to study this process?
Crawling
What should be our action Plan?

Analyzing Visibility
Searchability
Expose
Indexing Optimized

The Effort is required to ensure that Our

content is optimized so that it appears
Ranking first On the search result page.

“If it isn’t on Google Displaying

It doesn’t exist.”
- Jimmy Wales,
Continuous Improvement
 SEO
Search Engine Optimization
SEO?
• Search engine Optimization is the process of influencing and
enhancing the visibility of a website or a web page to appear higher
in a search engine’s organic search results.
• AIM is to improve the ranking in the search engine results page (SERP).
• It is a process of making the website more search engine friendly,
thus getting a higher position in “Organic” or “Natural” or “Unpaid”
search results.
• This is the most credible and cost-effective way of reaching prospects.
• It enables the discovery
Why SEO is important?
• It is 24*7 salesman
• Increases Traffic
• ROI
• Brand Awareness
• Build Trust
• If you are not going to do it, you are going to be left out
Why SEO is important? Justification
• 31.7 % of the clicks go to position 1
• The first page of Google captures 71% of search traffic clicks and has
been reported to be as high as 92% in recent years.
• Think if you are not in the first top 10
Role of SEO in Digital Marketing
• Organic Search Visibility
• Increased Website Traffic
• Cost-Effective Marketing
• Improved User Experience
• Keyword Research and Targeting
• Content Optimization
• Authority and Trust Building
• Competitive Advantage
• Measurable Results and Analytics
SEO Phases Website Audit

Maintenance Content

Social Channel On-Page

Optimization Optimization

Off-Page
Optimization
Website Audit

Keyword position
Sitemap
Browser, operating system, Devices compatibility
Backlink checker
Domain authority
Keyword cloud
Speed audit
Website Audit

Keyword position
• For Important keywords, what is a website’s position in SERP?
• https://smallseotools.com/keyword-position/
Website Audit

Sitemap
• Sitemap shows the architecture of the site to search engines, such as
category and deeper pages
• This facilitates crawling and indexing by search engines.
• https://seositecheckup.com/tools/sitemap-test
Website Audit

Browser, operating system, Devices compatibility

• It is important to check if the website is compatible with different

browsers, operating systems, and screen sizes.
• It is possible that the website works fine with the crome but not on
internet explorers or vice versa.
• It should be compatible with both desktop and mobile
Website Audit

Backlink checker
• Search engines use backlinks as an indicator of the authority of the
site.
• Check out how many backlinks are coming from which domains and
what is the authority of those domains.
Website Audit

Domain authority
• This indicates the likelihood of the website coming high on Search
Engine Result Page
• https://moz.com/domain-analysis
Website Audit

Keyword cloud

• Which keyword appears more often and has a greater density on the
website?
• Are they the right keywords?
Website Audit

Speed audit

• Website loading speed is one of the important aspects of user

experience
• Good benchmark is 2 second
• Many users will close if it takes more than 3 seconds
Content

Content
• Refers to all the information contained on a webpage

• The page content will be displayed in the form of text, hyperlinks,

images, audio, animation, or videos

• Which one of the above has got an advantage?

• Text takes less space and search engines have a limited ability to
understand the images, animation, audio and videos
Content

How the content should be?

• Unique, Fresh, and Original and should add value to the target
audience
• Along with the target audience, good content attracts other websites
to link to your site
• Ensure you check the plagiarism, there are many tools available in the
market
• https://www.duplichecker.com/
Content

Robots.txt
Content
Sitemaps
Content

Robots.txt
• After having written good content, it’s important to ensure that your
content is crawled and indexed
• Robots txt file is a text file that helps to regulate the web robot
behavior and search engine indexing
• It must be stored at any website’s “root” (Location).
• In many cases, robots file with the parameter “no index” is used to
restrict crawling and indexation.
Content

Sitemaps
• A sitemap is an archive of every page on your website
• You can visualize your website as a tree – trunk, and category pages
• If this is not structured properly, crawlers will disappear as they may
not know the deeper pages exist.
• Site maps can be generated from tools in either XML or HTML format.
Content

Sitemaps – Example - https://www.iimb.ac.in/sitemap

 On-Page
Optimization
On-Page Optimization

Technical Elements HTML Tags

Meta Tags
Site Performance Domains Keywords
Enable Compressors Domain Name Memorability Heading Tags
Page Segmentation
Enable Compressors Keyword Rich Domains Anchor Tag
Microsites
Reduce Redirect Subdomains and Subfolder
Site Structure
Breadcrumbs
Schema.org
Optimize URLs

Internal Linking
On-Page Optimization Keywords

Keywords
• Word and phrases in the content that makes it possible for users to find a website
using the search engines.
• Here, the digital marker should focus on building a theme from the content.
• Themes are formed through relationships between concepts and groups of
keywords
• Closely related keyword phrases strengthen the topicality of any web page
• This approach enables the search engines properly extract entities from the web
page.
• Synonyms and related keywords will help search engines learn better about the
web page.
 On-Page Optimization Keywords
Synonyms
Keywords - and
Variants
President
House
Keyword Phrase

Example
Related Keywords
President
Government
Capital
New
Delhi
On-Page Optimization Keywords

Choice of Keywords
• Careful research must be done to choose the right keywords for optimizing the
website.
• Here more emphasis should be given to the user’s search behaviour.
• Some popular research tools that can help you to select the keywords
• Moz Keyword explorer - https://moz.com/explorer
• Google AdWords Keyword Planner - https://ads.google.com/intl/en_in/home/tools/keyword-
planner/
• Microsoft Bing Ads Intelligence - https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-
in/solutions/tools/keyword-planner
https://moz.com/explorer
On-Page Optimization Keywords

Long-Tail and Short Tail Keywords

• Website is made up of short-tail and long-tail keyword searches
• Short-tail keywords are very few, each with millions of monthly search
volumes.
• The short-term keywords are typically generic and category keywords.
• Most keywords are long-tail, which is longer phrases.
• The long-term keywords have only a few hundred of monthly volume
On-Page Optimization Keywords

Long-Tail and Short Tail Keywords

What do you interpret with this?

Long-tail keywords are a specific brand or product-

related queries.

They lead to more conversion but less traffic, as

few people would search for them

Short-tail will result in high traffic, but conversions

will be low as user queries are generic

Competition will be more intense for short-tail

keywords
On-Page Optimization Keywords

Long-Tail and Short-Tail Keywords - Takeway

• Market leader will target short-tail keywords, whereas the entrant will
focus on the long-tail keywords
• SEO strategy should evolve from the long-tail keywords to short-tail
keywords
Long Tail and
Short Tail
Keywords
On-Page Optimization Keywords

Keyword Density
• Keyword density refers to the percentage of times a keyword or keyphrase
appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on that page.
• It is often used as a metric to gauge a keyword's relevance and importance within
a web page's content.
 On-Page Optimization Keywords

Keyword Funnel Mindset Keyword Concept

Initial Stage of
Buying Process Awareness I want some
cool pants
Pants, Pants Styles
Short Tailed, competition and
less conversion

Interest What Styles

are Available?
Skinny, Baggy, Shade

Research Phrases including

Desire Which is the right

style for me?
term above + Qualifiers
like: Compare, Best,
Features, Reviews, Popular
“Action” term:
Action Found the Ones I
like now where
brand+Style+Buy, Store,
purchase, Subscribe, best
to buy?
price
Strategy of a Market leader and the new entrant ?
On-Page Optimization Keywords

Page Segmentation
Header

Keywords and Phrases in

important
And primary sections may
carry more weight than text
Main Body Content
Sidebars

Sidebars
in less important areas.

Footer
Keyword Research
• A search engine is an information retrieval system built around the queries
that a user inputs to find the answer or relevant information to their search
queries
• Primary objective of all search engines is to connect a user with the best
answer to their query and the best website page so that a user is satisfied
• Good keyword research is the foundation for SEO, connecting the business
with its customers.
• Keyword research identifies and analyzes the keywords or search terms
users enter into search engines when looking for information, products, or
services. It is fundamental in search engine optimization (SEO) and content
marketing.
What makes your SEO more Effective
• Page Speed – Every second delay is going to reduce 7% reduction in
conversion (According to Hubspot)
• Mobile user experience
• Topical Content (Deapth of the content)
• URL Length (URL should be short and to the point)
• Content Length
• Backlinks
• Brand Power and user signals
New Things in SEO
• User Experience
• What the User Gets
• Solution to my problem
• User intent is important
• User oriented Content creation
On-Page Optimization Keywords

Synonyms
Websites in 2023
• Site Speed
• Update once a month
• Shorter content
• Omini-Channel
• Traffic everywhere