Cdmp-10 m4 SEO Study Notes

SEO (SEARCH ENGINE
OPTIMIZATION)
Study Notes
SEO (SEARCH ENGINE

OPTIMIZATION)
Study Notes
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Copyright © 2023 digitalmarketinginstitute.com 1

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
LESSON 1: SEO FUNDAMENTALS ............................................................................................... 5
FUNDAMENTALS OF SEO .................................................................................................................................... 6
What is SEO? .................................................................................................................................................. 6
Marketing on search engines ......................................................................................................................... 7
The SEO experience ....................................................................................................................................... 7
HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK ........................................................................................................................... 8
Elements of a successful SEO strategy ........................................................................................................... 8
How search engines work .............................................................................................................................. 9
Google Search .............................................................................................................................................. 10
Google ranking factors ................................................................................................................................. 11
SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE (SERP) ............................................................................................................ 12
What is a SERP?............................................................................................................................................ 12
Organic results ............................................................................................................................................. 12
LESSON 2: IMPLEMENTING SEO KEYWORD RESEARCH ........................................................... 14
SEO AND KEYWORDS........................................................................................................................................ 15
What is a keyword?...................................................................................................................................... 15
TYPES OF KEYWORDS ....................................................................................................................................... 15
What is keyword research? ......................................................................................................................... 15
Types of keywords ....................................................................................................................................... 16
Features of different keywords.................................................................................................................... 16
HOW TO CONDUCT KEYWORD RESEARCH ....................................................................................................... 17
Keyword research steps ............................................................................................................................... 17
LESSON 3: OPTIMIZING ORGANIC SEARCH RANKING .............................................................. 22
TECHNICAL OPTIMIZATION .............................................................................................................................. 23
What is technical optimization? .................................................................................................................. 23

Using Google Search Console to diagnose technical issues ......................................................................... 23
PAGE EXPERIENCE RANKING SIGNAL ............................................................................................................... 24
The Page Experience signal .......................................................................................................................... 24
ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION ................................................................................................................................. 24
What is on-page optimization? .................................................................................................................... 24
Using your keyword research ...................................................................................................................... 25
On-page optimization tools ......................................................................................................................... 25
On-page optimization categories ................................................................................................................. 25
Pre-click on-page optimization .................................................................................................................... 25
Post-click on-page optimization ................................................................................................................... 27
Optimizing your website .............................................................................................................................. 29
OFF-PAGE OPTIMIZATION ................................................................................................................................ 29
What is off-page optimization? ................................................................................................................... 29
Off-page optimization tools ......................................................................................................................... 29
Backlinks ...................................................................................................................................................... 29
PageRank ..................................................................................................................................................... 30
The role of social media links ....................................................................................................................... 31
LESSON 4: SEO TOOLS AND THE IMPACT OF AI ON SEO.......................................................... 33
FREE SEO TOOLS ............................................................................................................................................... 34
Free Google tools ......................................................................................................................................... 34
Ahrefs tools .................................................................................................................................................. 34
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) TOOLS FOR SEO ................................................................................................ 35
Use cases ...................................................................................................................................................... 35
PAID SEO TOOLS ............................................................................................................................................... 36
Do you need paid SEO tools? ....................................................................................................................... 36
Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush ........................................................................................................................... 36
Screaming Frog ............................................................................................................................................ 37

Cost of SEO ................................................................................................................................................... 37
LESSON 5: MEASURING SEO PERFORMANCE .......................................................................... 39
KEY SEO METRICS ............................................................................................................................................. 40
Why track keyword rankings? ...................................................................................................................... 40
Why track organic traffic? ............................................................................................................................ 40
Why track conversions? ............................................................................................................................... 41
SEO MEASUREMENT ........................................................................................................................................ 41
How to measure SEO by tracking keywords ................................................................................................ 41
Paid keyword tracking tools ......................................................................................................................... 42
How to measure SEO by tracking organic traffic ......................................................................................... 42
How to measure SEO by tracking conversions ............................................................................................. 43
Measuring SEO in practice ........................................................................................................................... 43

LESSON 1: SEO
FUNDAMENTALS

FUNDAMENTALS OF SEO
What is SEO?
Let’s start with a basic question: What exactly is SEO. The term ‘SEO’ stands for ‘search engine optimization’.
Put simply, it involves optimizing your website to that it can be found by search engines and rank highly on the
results page.
What does this mean in practice? SEO is the process of getting free traffic from search results on search
engines, specifically through organic and natural search. So, you can think of SEO as a strategic approach to
your website content to help your website show up on search engine results pages (SERPs) when people are
looking for specific topics. Ideally, when people are looking for something, the search engine finds your
website!
Let’s think about how you can achieve this. Fundamentally, SEO first involves anticipating and researching the
type of content topics that your audience is looking for. Then you can create and fill your website with these
content topics. If everything goes according to plan, when they search online, you are likely to show up.
Furthermore, you can adapt existing content by including additional keywords in the content that already
exists on your website. This is important to remember: you don’t need to create new content every time.
Instead, you can optimize your existing content. In fact, optimizing your content, also known as on-page
optimization, is an efficient way of driving valuable organic search traffic because the content creation piece is
already done. It just needs to be optimized for visibility on search engines.
However, SEO includes more than just content creation and on-page optimization. It also involves making sure
that your website is technically optimized to be search engine friendly.
In addition, it's important to encourage links from other websites pointing back to your own site. These
external website links, known as backlinks, are a crucial aspect of off-page optimization and significantly
impact your chances of achieving a high ranking in organic search results.
Good SEO
Of course, in order for SEO strategy to work, you have to implement it properly. Good SEO involves thinking
about the consumer decision-making process from the audience’s perspective, Basically, consumers are using
search engines as a tool to find information. They are searching for answers. You could think of it as if they’re
asking their search engine questions. And the answers are the website results that the search engine returns.
So good SEO involves two steps:
Anticipating the questions that your audience is likely to ask

Creating the content that will answer those questions
To understand the mindset of your customer, ask yourself questions like:
What does my target customer need to see, read or do to help them take action?
What are they looking for to help them decide?

By understanding the topics your audience searches for, when you create optimized content, and feature it on
your website, you increase the chances of your site appearing in search engine results.
They have asked the search engine a question, and your website content is listed in the results as a possible
answer. To be the answer to someone’s question is a powerful interaction with potential customers! That's
why SEO is a powerful tool for connecting with customers during their decision-making or research phase. It
enables you to align their needs and interests with what your business has to offer. To do this, you have to
research and write your content in a strategic way.
Marketing on search engines
When it comes to marketing on search engines, you can also pay for clicks and traffic when your website
shows up in the search results. This is known as paid search (or pay per click, or PPC). It can complement your
search strategy when both PPC and SEO are run together as part of a wider digital marketing strategy.
While SEO and paid search are different from each other, they do share some similarities:
Both require keyword research, so you can build your content around key terms that users are
searching for.
Both require relevant landing pages. You can use the same landing pages to target SEO and paid
search.
Both result in search engine traffic that comes to your website and increases awareness of your brand
and, hopefully, eventually leads to conversions (such as sales).
Let’s look at an example of this practice. Not so long ago, I worked with a tech start-up that had developed a
brand-new and highly innovative project management tool. They initially targeted highly competitive
keywords such as ‘project management tool’ and ‘best team collaboration software’ for their SEO efforts, but
they found it difficult to gain any traction.
Since their website was new, I suggested they shift their strategy slightly. It was recommended they initially
focus their efforts on PPC ads using these popular keywords. This approach would yield quicker results since
these high-demand keywords were too competitive for their current SEO level.
While building their SEO reputation, they also started writing blog posts. These articles didn’t directly compete
with the high-demand keywords. Instead, they focused on related, less competitive topics such as ‘Best project
management tools for small businesses’ and ‘How to choose a project management tool’.
By adopting this dual strategy, the start-up began to see progress in both SEO and PPC efforts, rather than
struggling in silence! A common mistake that both small and larger businesses often make is to focus solely on
either SEO or PPC, especially when starting out. However, a more balanced approach, targeting achievable
keywords based on the current state of the business, can often be more beneficial.
The SEO experience
When developing your SEO strategy, it’s useful to bear some key principles in mind:
Traffic from search engines is ‘free’. You’re not paying for the clicks. However, it does require
resources and a time investment to research and produce the content for your website.
Results take time, so be patient. It could take weeks or months, or even years, to see the fruits of your
efforts.
Return on investment is harder to measure, but it does often improve over time.

Remember that 70–80% of searchers click on SEO results.
HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK
Elements of a successful SEO strategy
The three main elements for a successful SEO strategy are:
Technical optimization
On-page optimization
Off-page optimization
Let’s look at each of these three elements in a bit more detail now.
Technical optimization is all about the functionality of your website. It’s important that there are no broken
pages or broken links. Also, your site should load quickly.
Basically, technical optimization boils down to this question: “Does your website work well?”
Search engines are not going to show broken sites or really slow sites in their search results. So the first thing
to ensure as part of your SEO strategy is that your site functions at to acceptable level across all devices (such
as mobile, desktop, and so on).
On-page optimization is the process of ensuring the content is both relevant and provides a great user
experience. This involves including the types of keywords that your audience is searching for within your
content, and then formatting that content to SEO best practices.
This can be done through a content management system (or CMS). A CMS is the piece of software used to
manage a website. It’s the website’s backend, where we can add, upload, or modify the content of a website
(such as the words, images, and videos). A CMS can be used to create optimized page titles and descriptions
for SEO purposes.
A CMS will usually have a user-friendly interface and, in some cases, drag-and-drop functionality for text boxes
and images, so you can easily design your own page layouts. Common examples include WordPress, Wix,
Drupal, Joomla, Magento, Shopify, and Expression Engine.
The third element of SEO is off-page optimization. This is the process of enhancing a website’s search engine
rankings by attracting and building links (sometimes known as backlinks) from other websites to your content.
When you create quality content, other website owners will link to your website content by putting a clickable
link to your site on their site. Bear in mind that if you don’t have quality content on a well-functioning site,
you’re unlikely to get many backlinks. No one will link to low-quality content on a poorly functioning website!
This is why it’s so important to get these two pieces (content and functionality) right before trying to build
backlinks.

Another way to think of backlinks is as a voting system. Having a lot of quality websites that link to your
website indicates that you must have quality content on your site. This helps build the website’s reputation
from Google’s perspective. So you can think of each quality backlink is like as vote in your favor. As a result,
you can appear higher in the search results when people search online.
How search engines work
SEO is an iterative process that starts with keyword research and a business strategy. Once your strategy has
been clearly defined, then you can begin to think about the best actions to take on your website. Think about
how you can optimize the functionality, content, and formatting to increase your ranking and drive valuable
traffic.
Note: Search engines rely on algorithms to find web pages and decide which ones to show in the search results
when people look online.
Search engines use a three-step process to return results:
1. Crawling: Discovering a website’s themes and topics

2. Indexing: Registering the page in a search engine’s database and linking it to certain topics that
people search for
3. Ranking: Sorting the position of search results based on the search parameters and themes
associated in the search engine database
We’ll now examine each of these steps in more detail.
Crawling
The first step is crawling. Search engines send out ‘web crawlers’ to find new pages and record information
about them. They read your web pages from top to bottom to understand what they are about.
The crawlers discover new pages by following the links on pages they already know about. For the pages they
have previously visited, crawlers are periodically sent back to check whether the content has changed.
Note: Sometimes, websites instruct search engines not to crawl certain web pages, and these pages are left
out of the index. This is done to control which content appears in search results and to maintain privacy or
exclusivity for certain web pages.
Indexing
The next step is indexing. If a web page’s content adheres to SEO best practices and the content is considered
valuable by a search engine, the web page will be saved in the search engine’s database (also known as the
index). Search engines aren’t that picky about which pages are saved in the index, but it helps if your web
pages offer unique, valuable, and helpful content.
In some cases, however, a search engine might not put a web page in its index. Common reasons for this
include:
The page renders poorly from a mobile device.

The page contains duplicate content or content copied from other content.
The page is deemed to be low value or spammy.
The page is unavailable. Perhaps it didn’t load or couldn’t be crawled.

There were few or no links to the page.
Ranking
The final step is ranking. For any given keyword, search engines sort, or rank, the results so that it can give the
searcher the most useful and relevant results at the top of the search engine results page (or SERP). A web
page must be crawled and indexed in order to be ranked.
There are over two hundred rankings signals that search engines use, including:
Whether the keyword or a synonym was mentioned on the page and within the Title tag
Whether the web page loads quickly and is mobile-friendly
Whether the web page and website are considered reputable in relation to the topic being searched
Google Search
Google Search uses a blend of smart technology and human judgment to deliver the best results. In addition to
using complex algorithms, Google employs people to review and ensure the quality of search results.
This process helps provide the most relevant and useful information to users worldwide. Here are some key
points to bear in mind about Google Search:
Google’s evaluation process is meticulous, with potential changes being thoroughly reviewed by
experienced engineers, search analysts, legal, and privacy experts.
Google conducted over 700,000 experiments in 2021, which led to more than 4,000 improvements to
Search.
Live traffic experiments are crucial to understanding how real users interact with new features before
a full-scale launch. This helps Google to measure the potential impact of these new features.
Search Quality Raters, employed by Google, assess the quality of search results. These raters follow
specific guidelines to evaluate the expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness, and many of factors.
Side-by-side experiments help Google compare two sets of Search results, one with a proposed
change and one without, providing valuable feedback on the proposed adjustments.
While the feedback from human reviewers doesn’t directly enhance the specific results they evaluate, it plays
a vital role in improving Google’s algorithms. By combining human insights with algorithmic efficiency, Google
ensures that the search results become increasingly relevant and useful. This all helps to maintain the quality
and reliability of Google Search.
Spam
Google fights spam relentlessly, so that it can keep its search results trustworthy. It uses technology and
human teams to halt deceptive behavior and maintain a safe and useful search experience.
Understanding how Google tackles spam will help you ensure that your content doesn’t risk falling foul of the
search engine. Here are some key points to remember:
Google’s guidelines identify spammy behavior such as hidden text, keyword spamming, and buying
links. Needless to say, these are practices that you should avoid!
Google found 40 billion spammy pages daily in 2020 alone. This gives you an idea of the scale of its
efforts.
Automated systems detect most spam, much like an effective email spam filter.

A dedicated team manually tackles any spam that slips through, ensuring comprehensive coverage.
Google informs webmasters of spam issues through Google Search Console, with over 180 million
messages sent in 2018.
Google’s fight against spam relies mostly on automated efficiency first, and then human oversight as a final
layer of coverage. This two-step approach ensures reliable and, for the most part, spam-free search results.
Hummingbird
Google’s main algorithm is called Hummingbird, and it decides how to order and rank the search engine
results. In other words, it decides what position your web pages appear for certain keyword searches.
RankBrain
As in most other areas of digital marketing, artificial intelligence (AI) has begun to have an impact on SEO
strategies. Google has a machine-learning search engine sub-algorithm called RankBrain.
So how does AI apply to SEO then? If Hummingbird sees a word or phrase that it isn’t familiar with in a search
query, it uses RankBrain and AI to better understand that query. This starts by Google converting keywords
into known topics and concepts, meaning it can provide better search engine results – even when queries are
unusual.
Rather than attempting to be the best keyword optimized result, RankBrain rewards websites that provide
user satisfaction and return the result that the user expects. And this has implications for digital marketers.
Although Google states that you cannot optimize directly for RankBrain, you can enhance how RankBrain
perceives your web pages by optimizing your content to be more relevant and align with the search intent of
target keywords.
To assess the effectiveness of your pages, compare them with the competition in the search engine results
pages (SERPs). You must maintain objectivity by putting yourself in the searcher’s shoes and considering how
well your pages will assist them in finding what they need, rather than solely focusing on what you want to sell
them.
When your pages align with the search intent of your target keywords, it will increase dwell time. Dwell time
refers to the duration users spend on your web pages after clicking through from search results.
It’s important to note that Google introduces new algorithms and updates regularly, some of which are more
advanced, such as BERT and MUM.
Google ranking factors
Google considers over 200 ranking factors when determining search rankings. In a rare disclosure of its top-
ranking factors in 2016, Google stated that its top three factors are as follows:
Links: Also known as backlinks, these are links from other websites to your website. They are like
votes in your favor from other websites. The goal is to get more links from quality sites.
Content: Search engines are a tool that people use to find content on websites, so you must ensure
that you write quality content to be featured in good positions on the SERP when people search.
RankBrain: As you just saw, Google’s machine-learning search engine sub-algorithm rewards sites
that provide good user satisfaction with higher rankings.

If we updated the 2016 reveal for today, content and links would likely remain top ranking factors, while User
Experience (or UX) could be added in place of RankBrain. Google employs AI algorithms such as RankBrain,
BERT, and MUM to understand search intent and deliver relevant content.
So, if you have a website with high-quality content and plenty of backlinks that provides a rich user experience,
you’re more likely to rank in the SERP.
SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE (SERP)
What is a SERP?
When users search on Google, they see a search engine results page (or SERP), showing paid and organic
results. The paid results are usually at the top, particularly for transactional keywords, and are marked as ads
Organic results make up a significant portion of the remaining SERP and may also feature concise answers to
user questions through Featured Snippets. Additionally, a Knowledge Graph can be present, visually
summarizing information relevant to the search topic.
Organic results
For now, let’s focus on the organic results on the SERP. What do people see in the organic results?
At its simplest, organic results consist of the following:
URL: URL is short for uniform resource locator, and it is simply the web address for the website. URLs
are always unique, so search engines use them when filing and retrieving pages from their index.
Title tag: Title tags are the blue link text that you can click on to visit a page.
Meta description tag: Meta description tags contain the short snippet of text summarizing what a
page is about. It sits below the title tag.
For certain queries, Google goes a step further in enhancing its search results with the following features:
Rich snippets: Rich snippets help make your listings more visual and stand out. Examples include
product reviews or event information.
Sitelinks: Sitelinks are extra results below a search result. They most often shown for navigational
queries as they help a user quicker navigate your site.
Featured snippets: Featured snippets are concise pieces of information that appear at the top of
search results, providing direct answers to user queries.

NOTES

LESSON 2: IMPLEMENTING
SEO KEYWORD RESEARCH

SEO AND KEYWORDS
What is a keyword?
A keyword, also known as a search query, is a word or phrase that a user enters into a search engine to
accomplish a task –for example, to find out information. As a digital marketer, your goal is to create content
based on the keywords that people are searching for. Then, when they search using those keywords, your site
is likely to show up in the search results.
Why people search
In order to better understand keywords, think about why people search in the first place. People are
motivated to search for different reasons. So, when optimizing your content for search engines, it’s important
to always consider what people are looking for, and why. This inspiration can then guide you to improve
existing content or create new content.
Keywords can be categorized according to the motivation behind them. For example:
Navigational keywords are used to find specific websites or web pages, often associated with a brand
or company.
Informational keywords indicate a user's intent to seek information or knowledge on a particular
topic.
Commercial keywords are used to compare and evaluate options when deciding whether to
purchase.
Transactional keywords are used when you’ve decided to buy something or sign up for a service.
TYPES OF KEYWORDS
What is keyword research?
In order to pick the best keywords, you need to first do your research! Keyword research is the process of
discovering the keywords used by potential customers to find you and research products. You can then use the
outputs of your keyword research to guide your content creation.
Crucially, keyword research provides metrics to help you decide what topics you could consider for your
website. Most keyword research tools will provide you with the numbers of people who look for these
keywords each month. Then you can decide to create content around keywords that are likely to drive good
levels of traffic to your website. Furthermore, these tools will also show you how difficult or easy it is to rank
for these keywords. For example, there may be a lot of competition for these topics because lots of other
highly authoritative websites have this content already.
By using these metrics to prioritize your keywords, you can decide which keywords and topics you want to go
ahead and write about.
Note: Many tools that offer keyword difficulty assessments require payment. However, Ahrefs provides a
stripped-down version of its paid tool to check this for free.

Benefits of keyword research
Keyword research can help you to:
Get the right kind of visitors to your site.

Identify keywords that can drive good traffic levels.
Identify content gaps on your website.
Guide content creation.
Prioritize keywords based on metrics.
Types of keywords
Short-tail keywords
In general, keywords can be categorized as:
Short-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords
Short-tail keywords, sometimes known as head terms, are typically one or two words. They are usually the
most well-known keywords in an industry.
Examples of short tail keyword include:
Skiing
Ski holidays
Snowboard
Long-tail keywords
The other type of keyword is long-tail keywords. These are much more specific and less obvious; often they
are three or more words long. Many long-tail keywords resemble full sentences. In fact, some are often simply
phrased as questions that they want answers to.
So, including long-tail keywords, phrases, and sentences from your keyword research into your content is a
great way to drive specific traffic to your website. This enables you to write your content in such a way that
you can present your product or service as the solution to the searcher’s question.
Examples of long tail keyword include:
‘best skiing resorts in Colorado’ (40 searches per month US)

‘family ski vacations on a budget’ (80 searches per month US)
‘is it easier to ski or snowboard for adults’ (100 searches per month US)
Features of different keywords
Difference between short-tail and long-tail keywords
Let’s now consider the main difference between short-tail and long-tail keywords. Even though individual
short-tail keywords have high search volumes, collectively, approximately 70% of all search traffic comes from
long-tail keywords.

Why do you think this is the case? It’s because searchers tend to be more detailed with their searches, as
they’re looking for specific results. With that in mind, with very new websites it’s sometimes better to focus on
long-tail keywords when doing keyword research to decide on the types of content to create. In general,
though, using a mix of both long and short keywords is best practice.
Features of short-tail keywords
Short-tail keywords have a number of features:
They’re usually harder to rank.

They can be harder to convert (because they’re more general).
They should be easier to research.
As we mentioned, they have a higher individual keyword search volume, but lower collective keyword
search volume.
They require less in-depth (and a smaller amount of) content.
Features of long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords also have several distinct features:
They’re usually easier to rank.

They can be easier to convert.
They might be harder to research.
Although they have a lower individual keyword search volume, they have a higher collective keyword
search volume.
They require more in-depth (and a larger amount of) content.
Long-tail keywords for SEO are valuable because they tend to be very specific to the needs of the searchers.
They contain many words and, in some cases, they might be a user directly asking Google a question. You can
then provide the answer to that question with your content. For example, “when is the best time to visit
Croatia?”
Note: When you use the free Ahrefs keyword tool, you'll need to omit the question mark, but it reveals that
this query receives 150 searches per month from the US.
If your business and SEO research uncover the types of problems that your customers are trying to solve, then
you can create the content to guide them towards your business as the solution.
HOW TO CONDUCT KEYWORD RESEARCH
Keyword research steps
Before creating content, you must conduct keyword research. This usually involves four steps:
1. Pick a topic to research.

2. Brainstorm keywords around that topic.
3. Review keyword suitability, value, and difficulty from the metrics available in the keyword research
tools.
4. Prioritize keywords and finalize your list.

Step 1: Pick a topic to research
A topic could be for:
A product or service (transactional keywords)

A source of information (informational keywords)
A comparison or a review (commercial keywords)
Around a brand or person (navigational keywords)
Here are some best practices for picking a topic.
Do:
Focus on one topic at a time.

Think of the needs of your customers.
Think of topics closely aligned to your objectives.
Avoid:
Being too generic

Researching your whole website at one time
At this point, it’s beneficial to align your topic with a URL of a page that either already exists on your site or is a
page you’d need to create. This process allows you to assess whether the keywords fit well with the page and
are likely to meet the user intent of the query. Of course, this is something that search engines highly
prioritize.
Tip: Keep in mind that you can conduct research on topics where you already have existing content. If you
prefer to start with your top-performing pages, you can review the Performance report in Google Search
Console. In the report, navigate to the Pages tab and sort the pages based on the number of clicks they have
received.
Step 2: Brainstorm keywords around that topic
Once you have selected your topic, you can start to brainstorm your keywords on it. Use your understanding of
your customers’ needs, your product, and your industry to brainstorm ideas to do keyword research on.
Here are some best practices to bear in mind when doing this:
Do:
Think of closely related keywords.

Think synonyms.
Include plural and singular keywords.
Aim for quantity, rather than quality, at this stage (10+ where possible).
Avoid:
Straying off topic

Trying only to find perfect match keywords
Stopping at two or three keywords

Here are some useful strategies and tools to help you brainstorm for keywords:
Search engine suggestions and related searches

Google Keyword Planner
Google Search Console
Ubersuggest and Ahrefs’ free keyword tool
Paid tools, such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz
Note: When researching a topic with existing content, use the Performance report in Google Search Console to
filter the URL you want to optimize and review its current ranking keywords.
Step 3: Review keyword suitability, value, and difficulty from the metrics available in the keyword
research tools
Having chosen your initial list of keywords, you can then review the keywords to find which ones are most
suitable. This involves reviewing keyword data from the metrics available in the keyword research tools.
To do this, you should:
Get the keyword search volumes.

Get the keyword difficulty scores.
Get the keyword rankings from your existing content.
Additionally, you’ll want to examine how well the content of the page that you’re planning to optimize fulfils
the user or search intent of the keywords on your list.
For example, if you have a keyword like ‘best hiking boots’ and plan to optimize it within the topic of ‘hiking
boots’ on a product page, you may find, upon reviewing search engine results pages, that it would be better
suited as a standalone blog post. In such cases, you can remove ‘best hiking boots’ from the keywords related
to ‘hiking boots’ and consider creating a separate topic specifically focused on ‘best hiking boots’.
Step 4: Prioritize keywords by editing your list
You now should have a better idea of the suitability of the various keywords in your list. Your next step is to
prioritize the keywords by editing your list.
To do this:
Remove the keywords that you think are irrelevant to your business.
Remove keywords with little or no search volume (unless you think they can make a significant
business impact).
In the context of keyword research, the emphasis is on grouping keywords by priority. This means identifying
which keywords should be focused on before reaching the on-page SEO or copywriting stage.
When conducting keyword research, it's important to consider the following factors:
Search volume: It is generally more desirable to target keywords with higher search volumes as they
indicate greater potential traffic and audience reach.
Keyword difficulty: It is preferable to choose keywords with lower difficulty scores, as they are easier
to rank for and compete against other websites targeting the same keywords.

Keyword ranking: Aim for lower position numbers when analyzing keyword rankings. The lower the
position, the higher your website appears in search results, so these should be easier to see more
meaningful progress. For new pages, you won’t have keyword ranking data, and that’s fine.
Now, it’s time to prioritize. To do this, you should aim to identify:
One keyword for the most important keyword you want to rank for. This is known as the P1 keyword.
Two keywords for the next most crucial keywords you want to rank for. These are your P2 keywords.
The remaining valuable keywords become P3 keywords. If the topic is small, aim for at least three P3
keywords. However, for larger topics, there can be a dozen or more P3 keywords.

NOTES

LESSON 3: OPTIMIZING
ORGANIC SEARCH RANKING

TECHNICAL OPTIMIZATION
What is technical optimization?
The three core SEO strategies are:
We’ll now deep dive into technical optimization. First of all, what is it? Technical optimization involves
improving the overall functionality and load times of your site across various devices. To achieve this, you may
have to get help from a web developer or someone technical because many changes require code tweaks
within the website.
There are lots of great tools that can help diagnose technical issues with your website. These include:
Google Search Console

Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
Using Google Search Console to diagnose technical issues
You can use Google Search Console to diagnose many technical issues. It’s a free service offered by Google
that helps you monitor and maintain your site’s presence in Google Search results. You can set up Google
Search Console and link it to your website.
To do this, you can use different verification options, which are outlined in the tool. These include:
Putting some HTML on your home page

Verifying DNS settings on your domain
Using your Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager
Note: Bing has a similar Webmaster Tools offering.
When you have access to Search Console, you will periodically be alerted to issues around broken 404 pages,
page speed, mobile usability, spam issues, and user experience issues. You can then fix these issues to improve
technical SEO.
These alerts are sent automatically by Google. You don’t need to do anything except decide to fix or ignore the
issue. Bear in mind that it’s not always feasible to fix every technical SEO problem that Google notices.
However, you should be mindful of the most important issues such as broken pages, spam issues, or major
mobile usability issues and try to fix these.
The XML sitemap
You can also submit your XML sitemap to Google Search Console. This is a list of all of the pages on your site
and contains basic information such as last modified dates and the numbers of images on the page. When you
update your website, this will automatically update your XML sitemap. Then, when Google reads the sitemap
and notices changes, it may go back and re-crawl your site for new content.

In essence, you’re connecting a summary of your website updates to Google. This can then be used as a way of
alerting Google to any changes you made so it can stay up to date with your new content.
PAGE EXPERIENCE RANKING SIGNAL
The Page Experience signal
In May 2020, Google announced a new Page Experience signal that ‘measures aspects of how users perceive
the experience of interacting with a web page’.
It was rolled out in 2021 and includes:
Core Web Vitals: These are a set of three specific factors that Google considers important for a web
page’s overall user experience. To pass the overall Core Web Vitals assessment, a web page needs to
meet the criteria for each of these three tests:
o Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which measures page loading performance by marking the
point in the page load timeline when the page’s main content has likely loaded.
o First Input Delay (FID), which gauges interactivity by timing how long it takes the browser to
respond when a user first interacts with a page, such as clicking a link or a button.
o Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which measures visual stability by tracking how much
unexpected movement occurs in the web page’s content.
Mobile-Friendly: The page must be optimized for mobile viewing. You can check whether your page is
mobile-friendly using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool or Google Search Console.
Safe Browsing: The page shouldn’t contain malicious (for example, malware) or deceptive (for
example, phishing) content.
HTTPS: The page should be served over HTTPS, which is a secure version of HTTP.
No Intrusive Interstitials: This means that the content on the page should be easily accessible to the
user and not hidden or blocked by pop-up elements or ads.
Google emphasizes that although page experience matters, the quality of the content is even more crucial. A
page can still rank well if it has high-quality content, even if its page experience isn’t perfect. In reality, there’s
some confusion about whether page experience is considered a ranking factor or a signal. It’s probably best to
think of it as a signal that contributes to broader ranking factors.
ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION
What is on-page optimization?
The second element of an SEO strategy is on-page optimization. This is the process of ensuring the content on
your website is relevant, includes phrases and topics from your keyword research, and is formatted to SEO
best practices while still providing a great user experience. In other words, although you should optimize your
content for search engines, the content should still read naturally to the user.
Note: You can format your page content to SEO best practices using your Content Management System (CMS)
so a non-technical person should be able to look after your on-page optimization.

Using your keyword research
Your aim now is to turn keyword research into content and make sure your content is relevant. You can use
your refined keyword list and prioritized keywords as a guide to write a piece of search-engine-optimized
content for your website.
We prioritize keywords because certain on-page elements, such as title tags, have limited space to include
them. Therefore, we focus on the most important keywords that accurately represent the content.
On the other hand, the body text offers more flexibility, allowing us to incorporate all the keywords we want
to rank for. This provides an opportunity to optimize the content comprehensively and ensure a broader
coverage of relevant keywords.
We’ll cover every on-page element in detail shortly.
On-page optimization tools
Tools that can be used for on-page optimization include:
SEO Site Checkup

MozBar
SEOptimer
On-page optimization categories
On-page optimization can be divided into two categories:
Pre-click
Post-click
Pre-click on-page optimization
For pre-click on-page optimization, you need to examine these three key elements:
Title tags
Meta description tags
URLs
Title tags
Why is the Title tag important?
It’s a heavy-weight (or significant) on-page SEO signal. In fact, the Title tag is the single most
important place to include keywords!
Getting the Title tag right has a direct impact in higher rankings.
It’s the first thing that a searcher sees. After all, it’s the blue clickable link at the top of the search
result.

How can you optimize your Title tags?
Length
The maximum length is 600 pixels. This usually translates to 60 characters for desktop and mobile, but this
limit does vary from time to time. You can use the SERP preview tool to test the length of your title.
Keywords
Keywords are arguably the most important part of the Title tag to get right! Include your primary (P1) and
secondary (P2) keywords in the title, but do so in a readable, compelling sentence.
The old format for the title was: Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword - Brand Name
The problem with this format is that it’s not very compelling and, although it can still rank well, it may not get
a particularly good clickthrough rate.
Preferred format: Represent primary and secondary keywords in a readable, compelling sentence.
For instance, for the topic ‘home workouts’, suppose the following keywords have been prepared for you:
P1: Home Workout

P2: Home Workout routines, indoor exercises
P3: Exercise without equipment, full body home workouts, home workout exercises
A well-crafted Title tag could be:
Home Workout Routines: Equipment-Free Indoor Exercises
Here, the primary (P1) keyword is placed at the beginning, and the secondary (P2) keywords are well-
represented. The tertiary (P3) keywords are also subtly included, albeit not in the exact phrasing (which is fine
for lower-priority keywords).
Meta description tags
Why is the Meta Description tag important?
It is a medium weight on-page SEO signal, although it doesn’t have a direct impact on higher rankings.
It plays a big role in enticing the user to clickthrough to your listing.
If the searched term (or synonym of it) is mentioned in the Meta Description tag, it gets bolded –
which encourages clickthroughs.
Here is an example of a meta description that continues from the previous example:
Get fit with our easy-to-follow home workout routines. No need for a gym membership, equipment or the hassle
of rush hour madness.
How can you optimize your Meta Description tags?
Length
The maximum length is 156 characters, though this may vary. Use the SERP Preview tool to test the length.

The most important thing, however, is to ensure that your text is descriptive and engaging. Try to make your
listing stand out from the crowd. Does the page contain any unique selling points? Describe the page in a
natural language and enticing enough to encourage clickthroughs.
Keywords
Keywords are not so important in descriptions as they don’t help with rankings here. However, the primary
keyword does get bolded when searched for, so this helps with clickthroughs. Nonetheless, limit your
keyword usage in the description, and make sure you don’t stuff keywords into it.
Note: Occasionally, Google will write its own Meta Description tag if it’s left blank or deemed not relevant
enough.
URLs
Why is the URL important?
It’s a light-weight on-page SEO signal.

It’s seen in the search results, so it can attract clickthroughs when relevant.
Search engines index and retrieve pages based on the URL.
Over time, a page will build up trust and authority which is assigned to its URL.
Changing a URL without redirecting appropriately can lose trust. Because of this it’s best not to
change a URL if the relevancy gain is only small
How can you optimize your URLs?
Here are some best practices for crafting your URL:
Include the main keyword or a close variation of it.

Keep it short and concise.
The URL can be around 70 characters before truncation.
Use the SERP Preview tool to test the length of your URL.
Set URLs right at the beginning, and stick to conventions.
o Use dashes “-” instead of underscores “_” to separate words.
o Use lowercase characters.
By default, URLs are often generated from the main heading of the page. This can be good as a
default (but this often make them too long and repetitive, so need changing)
Post-click on-page optimization
Having looked at pre-click on-page optimization, we can now turn our attention to post-click on-page
optimization.
Here are the three key element that you need to pay attention to:
Headings
Main body copy
Images

Headings
Why is the heading important?
It’s one of the first things a user notices, so it needs to be relevant to them.
Users scan a page’s headlines before deciding whether to read the whole page.
It’s a medium-weight on-page SEO signal, and adds relevancy to the page.
There are six header tags (H1 through to H6) which are used to outline the hierarchy of content.
H1
Your main heading should be within an H1 tag and should closely relate to your primary keyword.
If the page is transactional, it might match your primary keyword exactly or be a slight variation. However, for
informational content, such as a blog post, the keyword can be incorporated into a more natural, less precise
full sentence.
H2
Subheadings, usually in H2 tags, can include your secondary or even tertiary keywords when relevant.
However, remember the importance of making your subheadings meaningful and informative first; being
keyword-rich is a secondary priority.
H3 to H6
H3to- H6 tags aren’t used as often in body copy, but work in the same hierarchal sub-heading way.
Main body copy
Why is the main body copy important?
It’s a heavy-weight on-page SEO signal, and adds relevancy to the page.
The main content is where the user is ultimately satisfied or not. It tells them whether they’ve found
what they’re looking for. So search engines pay close attention to it.
The position of the body copy on the page can also be a determining factor in search engine ranking.
Incorporating keywords isn’t an exact science! However, as a rough guide, you might introduce your primary
keyword early and repeat it about twice every 500 words. Secondary keywords could be mentioned once
every 500 words, and tertiary keywords once every 1,000 words.
Bear in mind that tertiary keywords often closely resemble primary and secondary ones, so they may be well
represented without needing to use them exactly. Sometimes, incorporating secondary or tertiary keywords
such as ‘recycled plastic sheets UK’ may feel a bit awkward. In such cases, it’s acceptable to break up the
keyword. For example, ‘recycled plastic sheets’ could be mentioned in close proximity to ‘UK’ within a
sentence or paragraph.
Images
Why are images important?

They’re a light-weight on-page SEO signal, and add relevancy to the page.
When using images, consider giving the image a description in the alt text and a filename.
Tip: Search engines scan the alt text for images, providing a good opportunity to include additional keywords
on your web page. But bear in mind that alt text is primarily for visually impaired people using screen readers,
so it always needs to be useful for them first, rather than being stuffed with keywords!
Optimizing your website
To wrap up this topic, here’s a simple list of website sections in relation to on-page optimization, ranked in
order of importance:
1. Title tag and body text

2. Heading tag and Meta Description tag
3. URLs and images
OFF-PAGE OPTIMIZATION
What is off-page optimization?
The first two elements of your SEO strategy are technical optimization and on-page optimization. The third
element is off-page optimization.
This is the process of building backlinks to your site, and it has historically been the most influential factor for
search engine rankings because it helps build the website’s reputation. After all, the more quality backlinks
you attract, the more reputable your website becomes!
While it’s debatable whether it’s still the most important SEO ranking factor, it undoubtedly remains one of
them. So it’s worth making the effort to improve your off-page optimization. You may not be able to directly
force external websites to link to your site, but you can influence them by creating great content and/or
contacting them directly and asking for a link.
Off-page optimization tools
You can use several tools for off-page optimization, including:
Moz
Ahrefs
Majestic SEO
Ahrefs provide a free backlink-checking tool that you can use to see what backlinks you have on your own site
and what backlinks your competitors have. Then you can consider what content they have created that has
attracted these links. If you believe you can create superior content, you could utilize the Skyscraper
Technique. This involves reaching out to the sites that have linked to your competitors and encouraging them
to link to your more comprehensive or higher-quality content.
Backlinks
Let’s now look at backlinks in a bit more detail. To start, what exactly is a backlink?

A backlink is a hyperlink from one web page to another website. When a website receives a link from an
external website (backlink), some reputation is passed to it. It acts like one web page is voting for another web
page, saying that page is credible.
Google has a sub-algorithm called PageRank, which calculates how much reputation is passed. The text within
the backlink is called anchor text and some relevancy from the text is passed. A credible page with valuable
content can earn dozens, hundreds and even thousands of backlinks.
Acquiring backlinks
To increase your website’s chances of acquiring backlinks, you can reach out to peer websites or websites that
share a similar type of content to yours. PR and getting involved on social media can help increase backlinks to
your website. Creating content and content clusters that naturally attract links from other sources is another
strong method to receiving backlink traffic.
PageRank
We’ve mentioned PageRank a few times now, so let’s pause to consider it more deeply. PageRank is Google’s
sub-algorithm that calculates how much reputation is passed between web pages. When a web page receives
a regular link (also known as a dofollow link) from an external website (backlink), some reputation is passed to
it. It acts like one web page is voting that the page it links to is credible.
It's important to note that purchasing backlinks with the purpose of boosting PageRank goes against Google's
guidelines and can result in a penalty from search engines.
Measuring PageRank
You can use SEO tools to measure the PageRank of a URL. Moz and Ahrefs are popular SEO tool providers who
supply metrics that mimic how PageRank may be calculated and estimate a value of how reputable a page and
domain is.
Moz’s Link Explorer
Page Authority (PA) is a score developed by Moz that predicts how well a specific page will rank on search
engine result pages (SERPs). Its scores range from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater
ability to rank.
Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will
rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). Its score ranges from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding
to a greater ability to rank.
Ahrefs
URL Rating (UR) measures the strength of a target URL’s backlink profile and the likelihood that the URL will
rank high in Google. UR is measured on a logarithmic scale from 1 to 100, with the latter being the strongest.
Domain Rating (DR) shows the strength of a given website’s overall backlink profile. DR is measured on a
logarithmic scale from 1 to 100, with the latter being the strongest.

The role of social media links
Social media can also play an important role in acquiring reputation. Links within social media are known as
social signals. They are different to backlinks because they tend not to pass reputation or PageRank. This is
largely due these links often being nofollowed, meaning search engines do not follow them to attribute
authority or influence rankings.
However, social links do lead to more people viewing your content. And this increases the chances that
someone will link to you from their website in the form of a backlink!

NOTES

LESSON 4: SEO TOOLS AND
THE IMPACT OF AI ON SEO

FREE SEO TOOLS
Free Google tools
Google offers several free tools that greatly help your SEO strategy:
Google Search Console: This tool provides detailed reports about your website’s visibility on Google.
It helps to identify issues with your site, provides insights into how Google crawls and indexes your
pages, shows search queries that drive traffic to your site, and provides additional valuable
information.
Google Analytics: This is a comprehensive analytics tool that can help you understand how people
use your website. It provides information about the number of visitors, their behavior, the duration of
their stay, how engaged they are, and so on.
Google Keyword Planner: Part of Google Ads, this tool can help you discover new keywords and get
search volumes to see how they might perform. Keep in mind, if you’re not a Google Ads customer,
the search volumes given are broad ranges, not precise. However, the Keywords Everywhere tool, a
Chrome extension, can provide more accurate search volumes for a reasonable fee.
Google Trends: This tool allows you to see the latest trends, data, and visualizations from Google. It
can be a useful tool for identifying trending topics or terms related to your industry. Even though it
doesn’t give specific keyword search volumes, you can compare keywords to see which one is more
popular. This can be particularly handy if you only have access to broad search volume ranges from
the Keyword Planner.
Google PageSpeed Insights: This tool evaluates the performance of your web pages and provides
suggestions on how to improve them. It’s particularly useful for optimizing page speed and Core Web
Vitals.
Google My Business: A free tool that allows businesses to manage their online presence across
Google, including Search and Maps. By verifying and editing your business information, you can help
customers find your business and particularly useful for local businesses.
Ahrefs tools
While there are hundreds of other free SEO tools, each with their own merits, we’re going to focus on five
from Ahrefs.
Webmaster Tools
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is a free tool that offers insights into your website’s performance. It provides
backlink data, keyword rankings, and technical SEO health checks. Using it, you can identify and address SEO
problems and explore opportunities to boost your site’s organic search performance.
Pro tip: This free SEO audit tool operates only with sites verified through Google Search Console. So, it likely
won’t be useful for researching the competition, but it’s excellent for identifying potential issues on your site
or revealing opportunities, such as trending keywords.
Free Keyword Generator
Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator is a tool for finding SEO keywords. It suggests keywords, estimates their
search volume, and shows their competition level. The tool also provides related queries and questions for
content inspiration. It’s tailored for specific country results.

The free version of this tool offers a more limited and literal interpretation of your input compared to the paid
version (so less keyword ideas). While it requires additional legwork for generating ideas, it provides valuable
search volumes for your keywords.
Additionally, while the free version of Google Keyword Planner is excellent for generating keyword ideas, it’s
not so accurate at providing search volumes. Therefore, when used together with Ahrefs free Keyword
Generator, they form an effective, cost-free solution for keyword research and analysis.
Pro tip: Include plural and singular searches for a keyword separately.
Website Traffic Checker
Ahrefs’ Website Traffic Checker estimates a site’s monthly organic traffic. It lists top keywords attracting
visitors, aiding competitor analysis, SEO strategy understanding, and discovering new keyword opportunities.
To quickly locate pages on a competitor’s website, consider using Google’s site command.
Pro tip: This tool reveals the top five keywords for a specific URL, not just for a domain. So, don’t limit yourself
to the homepage of a rival’s site. Try adding specific pages from their site to get more than five results.
Free Backlink Checker
Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker provides a quick glance at a site’s backlink profile. It shows the top 100 backlinks,
along with the website’s Domain Rating (DR) and URL Rating (UR). Although limited, it’s useful for spot checks
and swift analyses.
Pro tip: Compare your homepage’s overall backlink performance, including Domain Rating, Backlinks, and
Linking Websites, with your competitors’ homepages. This comparison will give you a snapshot of how your
site measures up from an off-page SEO perspective.
Free Rank Checker
Ahrefs’ Free Rank Checker will reveal where your website ranks on Google for a specific keyword and from a
range of countries.
Pro tip: While researching keywords, check your website’s current ranking for each keyword. If you’re already
on the first page or close to it, so within the top ten results, this suggests careful on-page optimization on your
website could quickly bring significant improvements.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) TOOLS FOR SEO
Use cases
ChatGPT, unveiled in late 2022, has caught the public's attention. Its potential to simplify work, particularly in
digital marketing, is widely popular. This artificial intelligence (AI) tool stands out by delivering in-depth data,
crafting engaging content which you can create from your keyword research, and providing innovative
solutions to challenging SEO problems. For instance, it can help uncover the reasons behind a drop in organic
traffic after a website migration.
The impact of ChatGPT is clear in Bing's decision to embed it into its search platform. Meanwhile, Google has
launched its own AI Chatbot, Bard, highlighting the growing trend and rivalry in AI-based digital solutions.

ChatGPT and Bing
Here are some key points about ChatGPT, and how it has been incorporated into Bing:
ChatGPT is an AI chatbot created by OpenAI.

GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer.
It uses machine learning to produce (or generate) human-like text.
The tool offers valuable insights, creates content, and gives suggestions.
It has multiple applications. For example, it can assist digital marketers in enhancing their copywriting
skills.
Bing has incorporated ChatGPT into its search results for a more engaging and informative user
experience.
Bard and Google
Here are some key points about Google’s Bard chatbot.
Bard, like ChatGPT, employs advanced AI technology for a range of applications.

Many users find Bard less useful than ChatGPT, leading to a broader userbase for ChatGPT. This might
be because Google tends to be more cautious with information.
Generative AI
Bing and Google have started integrating AI into search engine results pages. Google refers to this as ‘Search
Generative Experience’, a term that generally encompasses generative AI.
For now, generative AI is still experimental in both Google and Bing. Depending on its acceptance, it could
become much more prevalent, especially for information-focused searches.
In summary, AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard can certainly save you time, whether it’s brainstorming ideas
or proofreading your copy. While they can be really useful on many digital marketing tasks, generative AI is
poised to create additional competition in the SERPs, in addition to the regular SEO results.
PAID SEO TOOLS
Do you need paid SEO tools?
With so many excellent free tools available, do you really need paid SEO software?
When it comes to paid SEO software, the short answer is that it’s not necessary to make good progress in SEO.
If budget is a concern, you could opt to subscribe to a premium tool for just one month, to carry out tasks
such as keyword research, on-page optimization, and competitor research.
What is the best all in one SEO tools? There are several paid tools that will help you with your SEO project,
including keyword research tools, link building tools, website audit tools, and rank tracking tools. It’s
important to understand which tools are most relevant to your website’s needs.
Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush
Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush are the three most common all-in-one premium SEO tool providers. Historically,
Moz has been aimed more towards the beginner-intermediate market, while Ahrefs and SEMrush are

targeted towards the intermediate or advanced market. Ahrefs is more focused on SEO, while SEMrush has a
broader range of features to help with other marketing activities.
Here are some of key features that are included in all three tools:
Keyword tracking: You enter a list of keywords that you would like your site to rank for and they will
be tracked over time, so you can see ranking improvements or drops.
Technical audit: The tools crawl your website and report technical issues that might make it harder
for search engines to find or understand the content on your website properly.
Keyword research: You can enter a keyword and get ideas around similar-meaning keywords that you
may wish to target and rank for.
Competitor research: The tools report which keywords a competitor ranks for and what backlinks
they have.
Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush offer some freemium features. For example, you can get a limited number of
backlinks or keywords reported for a website for free. Ahrefs is very generous with the free features in its
Webmaster Tools offering.
Typically, these tools all can crawl sites very quickly and pinpoint site errors that need to be fixed. Ahrefs and
SEMrush are particularly useful because, once they crawl a site, they award sites an overall score that will act
as an initial benchmark. They also outline the errors and warn of potential SEO weaknesses. As you go through
and carry out the fixes that these tools highlight, the overall site scores improve.
Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is another premium tool, but rather than an all-in-one SEO tool that runs in the cloud, it’s
specifically for technical SEO and runs as software on your computer. Its SEO spider tool will crawl 500 URLs
for free and the paid version removes limits in addition to its other advanced features.
Cost of SEO
A common concern from marketers and business owners is the perceived high cost of SEO. Many believe that
premium tools, which can exceed $100 per month, are essential for achieving successful SEO results.
However, the reality is that there’s an array of free tools, such as those provided by Google and Ahrefs, which
are more than sufficient for those starting out in SEO and even for making significant SEO progress.
These tools offer invaluable data that can be used for keyword research, backlink checking, site auditing, and
so forth. So, rather than seeing cost as a barrier, it’s useful to understand how to best leverage these free
resources effectively first.
Moreover, it’s important to remember that most premium tools offer flexible plans. They don’t tie you down
to an annual subscription, which means you can dip in and out, purchasing a month’s access here and there as
and when you need more extensive data or features.

NOTES

LESSON 5: MEASURING SEO
PERFORMANCE

KEY SEO METRICS
When it comes to SEO, there are three key areas that you need to constantly measure:
Keyword rankings: Once you’ve researched and decided on a list of target keywords for your pages,
you’ll want to track their performance in key search engines, such as Google and Bing. Monitoring
where these keywords rank can provide crucial insights into your SEO effectiveness.
Organic traffic: One of the main goals of SEO is to increase the number of visitors to your site via the
search engine’s ‘free’ results. This is often referred to as ‘organic traffic’. Understanding how many
visitors you’re attracting organically helps measure the success of your SEO strategies.
Conversions: Simply put, you need to know how many organic visitors turn into leads and sales.
Tracking these conversions is crucial for understanding the true value of your SEO efforts.
Why track keyword rankings?
Why is tracking keyword rankings so important?
In the constantly changing field of SEO, some experts are now suggesting that monitoring keywords may not
be essential. Instead, they argue that focusing on tracking organic traffic and conversions is sufficient. This
shift might be attributed to Google now focusing less on individual keywords and more on topic levels that
meet the same search intent.
Despite this trend, monitoring keywords is still valuable, particularly in the early stages of your SEO journey.
Here’s why:
Progress indicators: Keyword rankings act as progress indicators. During the initial stages of SEO,
obtaining a first-page ranking on Google may be challenging. Organic traffic or conversions may be
minimal. However, keyword rankings can serve as the first signs of success. Seeing your position
improve from page five to three, for instance, is both motivating and signals you’re on the right track!
On-page optimization validation: Changes to your page elements, such as title tags, headings, or
body text, should ideally lead to improved keyword rankings. If this happens, it means your on-page
optimization strategies are effective and should be continued.
Diagnosis of organic traffic drops: Organic traffic can sometimes drop due to issues with certain
keywords. Regular keyword tracking can quickly identify these problems, allowing you to resolve
them faster.
In short, better keywords ranking typically leads to a rise in traffic and conversions!
Why track organic traffic?
Why is important to track organic traffic?
In the world of SEO, tracking organic traffic is crucial! It’s like monitoring footfall in a physical store – without
customers visiting your shop (or, in this case, your website), sales will inevitably fall short.
Here are some reasons why measuring organic traffic is so important:
Historical comparison: Organic traffic data allows you to compare current performance against past
results, be it the previous month or a year-on-year period. By doing so, you can verify if your SEO

efforts are driving progress. Also, where relevant, it can help build a business case to invest more in
SEO.
Content performance analysis: Dividing your website into sections, such as blog content or product
collections, enables you to better compare the performance of different content types. You can
identify which parts of your site attract the most traffic, informing whether to capitalize on strong
areas or work on weak ones.
Identifying opportunities: Organic traffic data can highlight potential opportunities. For instance, if a
blog post unexpectedly attracts significant traffic, it could indicate a trending topic that you could
further exploit.
Why track conversions?
Next, let’s consider conversions. Why is tracking conversions important?
Conversions are the ultimate objective of most digital marketing strategies! They play a key role in driving
business growth.
Here’s why tracking conversions is paramount:
Measure the micro and macro: Conversion tracking isn’t limited to sales (macro) alone. It can also
cover ‘micro-conversions’ such as PDF downloads, contact inquiries, or newsletter sign ups. Even if
you don’t run an ecommerce site, tracking these micro-conversions can offer valuable insights at a
broader level of success.
ROI calculation: Sales conversions are the heart of ROI (return on investment) calculation. By tracking
conversions, you can evaluate the profitability of your SEO efforts and compare it against other
marketing channels. This process is key for budget allocation and justifying SEO investments to
stakeholders.
Goal setting and benchmarking: Conversion tracking is vital for setting tangible objectives and
evaluating performance against those benchmarks. By monitoring conversion rates, you can set
realistic targets and work towards improving them. It gives a tangible metric to strive for and
measures the success of your SEO strategies over time.
SEO MEASUREMENT
How to measure SEO by tracking keywords
When it comes to monitoring keyword rankings, you have two options:
Passive tracking
Proactive tracking
Passive keyword tracking
Passive tracking, which relies on tools such as Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools. It provides
insights into your keyword rankings free of charge, and much of the heavy lifting is done for you.
In the Performance section of the Search Console, for example, you’ll find a list of queries or keywords that
generate clicks and impressions for your site. To see your ranking position, make sure to tick the Average
position box. This will show a column revealing where your keywords rank.

Bear in mind that the position displayed is a global ranking. For SEO purposes, it’s typically best to focus on
the primary country where you want to rank. To hone the ranking positions down to a specific country, click
New, then select Country, and pick the desired country, such as the United States.
However, this approach has a few drawbacks. First, you can’t control the specific keywords that Google
reports. Some keywords may be relevant, while others may not be. Moreover, not all of your targeted
keywords may be included in the reported data. Plus, Search Console only provides data for the past 16
months, which limits your ability to compare rankings over a more extended time period.
Proactive keyword tracking
Proactive keyword tracking, on the other hand, lets you track specific keywords. It typically comes at a cost
and requires a subscription. However, the benefit is that it allows you to fully control the keywords you want
to track, aligning them with your complete SEO keyword list.
Proactive keyword tracking comes with several additional benefits:
Track keywords on demand or at scheduled times during the day or week.

Monitor keywords over the long term, enabling you to analyze trends for as long as you subscribe to
the tool.
Compare your keyword rankings to those of your competitors, so you can see whether you’re
catching up or they’re pulling away.
Paid keyword tracking tools
If you’re considering paid keyword tracking tools, you have several options.
If you already have an all-in-one SEO tool such as SEMrush, Moz, Ahrefs, or SE Ranking, you’re
already set!
If your budget doesn’t stretch to an all-in-one SEO tool, you might prefer a specialist keyword ranking
tool (which tends to be cheaper than all-in-one SEO tools), such as RankTrackr, Wincher, or
AccuRanker.
Alternatively, you could use Whatsmyserp.com to check 10 free keywords per day. However, while
it’s free, it’s not always as reliable.
While keywords are typically tracked daily, it’s not always wise to fall into the habit of reviewing them daily
yourself. Occasionally, you might see sudden spikes or drops that last for a day or two. A more balanced
approach would be to review your keyword performance weekly or monthly instead.
How to measure SEO by tracking organic traffic
To track organic traffic, you’ll need a web analytics program. Usually, this means deciding which one to use
first, and then adding its JavaScript tracking code into the source code of your web pages.
The most commonly used web analytics software, which is also free, is Google Analytics, often referred to as
GA. The current version is GA4.
Here are the steps to find your organic traffic:
1. Log in to Google Analytics: Open GA4 for the property you wish to monitor.
2. Navigate to the ‘Reports’ section: In the interface, click on Reports in the left-hand menu.

3. Click the Traffic Acquisition sub-menu.
From there, you’ll be able to see totals for ‘Organic Search’, which is synonymous with organic traffic,
meaning the ‘free’ traffic coming from search engines. You’ll be able to compare it to other traffic sources and
often you’ll find it’s the top contributor of traffic.
Once you’ve linked Search Console to GA4, you can also click on the Acquisition Overview and navigate to the
Google Organic Search reports in GA4. These are displayed as widgets in the Overview section and give you
some basic metrics from the search console in the GA4 interface.
You’ll see the total number of organic search users and sessions for the time period selected. The time period
typically defaults to the last 28 days, and you can see this in the top right of the window.
When tracking organic traffic, it’s common to review it on a monthly or quarterly basis. Using the date picker,
it’s also straightforward to compare the monthly or quarterly period against the preceding period or year-on-
year.
Naturally, over time, you’ll be aiming for your organic traffic to grow and meet or exceed your organic traffic
goals.
How to measure SEO by tracking conversions
When it comes to tracking conversions, you can also use Google Analytics or your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce,
and so on) if it provides channel data.
First, you need to decide what constitutes a conversion. Here’s Google’s a commonly used definition of a
conversion:
A conversion is any user action that’s valuable to your business; for example, a user purchasing from your store,
filling out a lead form or subscribing to your newsletter are examples of common conversions.
If you run an ecommerce website, you’ll probably want to track sales, so you’ll need to add ecommerce events
to your website or app. Depending on your content management system and/or shopping cart platform, this
can be a bit more complicated to set up than regular Google Analytics tracking and is sometimes done through
Google Tag Manager.
It’s also good practice, whether you’re an ecommerce site or not, to track micro-events, such as newsletter
sign-ups, website enquiries, and PDF downloads. These can all be done by converting events into conversions.
An increase in micro-conversions often correlates with an increase in sales, which are typically your macro-
conversions.
Depending on your business, you might want to monitor sales on a weekly or monthly basis.
Measuring SEO in practice
Let’s now look at an example of measuring SEO in practice.
As an SEO consultant, I recently worked with a major ecommerce client who noticed a sizable 25% dip in its
organic traffic in the second quarter. Fortunately, because it was diligent in routinely checking its organic
traffic data through Google Analytics and Google Search Console, it picked up on this drop quickly.

In response to the detected decline, I was called in to conduct an in-depth SEO audit to identify the root cause.
Together with the client's team, we completed a thorough review process, systematically examining the
various factors that could potentially impact organic traffic.
The process led us to the Page Indexing Report in Google Search Console. Interestingly, we noticed a
substantial decrease in indexed pages that corresponded with the timeline of the drop in traffic.
As we dug deeper, we discovered a significant number of sub-category pages had been accidentally deleted.
Armed with this insight from the audit, we quickly restored the deleted sub-category pages, ensuring the
content and URLs remained the same.
Over a few weeks, as the restored pages were re-indexed and started ranking again, the site gradually
recovered in its organic traffic. Eventually, we were able to regain the lost ground and return to the prior
traffic levels.
This scenario underscores the importance of regular monitoring of key SEO metrics and acting promptly when
drops are noticed.
Common engagement metrics in GA4 include:
Events
Views
Users
View per user
Average engagement time
Engagement rate
While you’ll typically import Google Ads data into Google Analytics, as previously you should also import
Google Analytics conversions and e-commerce data directly into Google Ads to align your goal tracking
between interfaces.
In Google Analytics, you can create advanced audience segments to be shared with Google Ads and YouTube in
the audience section of the admin area.

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SEO (SEARCH ENGINE

SEO (SEARCH ENGINE

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Copyright © 2023 digitalmarketinginstitute.com 1

FUNDAMENTALS OF SEO .................................................................................................................................... 6

What is SEO? .................................................................................................................................................. 6

Marketing on search engines ......................................................................................................................... 7

The SEO experience ....................................................................................................................................... 7

HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK ........................................................................................................................... 8

Elements of a successful SEO strategy ........................................................................................................... 8

How search engines work .............................................................................................................................. 9

Google Search .............................................................................................................................................. 10

Google ranking factors ................................................................................................................................. 11

SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE (SERP) ............................................................................................................ 12

Organic results ............................................................................................................................................. 12

LESSON 2: IMPLEMENTING SEO KEYWORD RESEARCH ........................................................... 14

SEO AND KEYWORDS........................................................................................................................................ 15

TYPES OF KEYWORDS ....................................................................................................................................... 15

What is keyword research? ......................................................................................................................... 15

Types of keywords ....................................................................................................................................... 16

Features of different keywords.................................................................................................................... 16

HOW TO CONDUCT KEYWORD RESEARCH ....................................................................................................... 17

Keyword research steps ............................................................................................................................... 17

LESSON 3: OPTIMIZING ORGANIC SEARCH RANKING .............................................................. 22

TECHNICAL OPTIMIZATION .............................................................................................................................. 23

What is technical optimization? .................................................................................................................. 23

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Copyright © 2023 digitalmarketinginstitute.com 2

PAGE EXPERIENCE RANKING SIGNAL ............................................................................................................... 24

The Page Experience signal .......................................................................................................................... 24

ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION ................................................................................................................................. 24

What is on-page optimization? .................................................................................................................... 24

Using your keyword research ...................................................................................................................... 25

On-page optimization tools ......................................................................................................................... 25

On-page optimization categories ................................................................................................................. 25

Pre-click on-page optimization .................................................................................................................... 25

Post-click on-page optimization ................................................................................................................... 27

Optimizing your website .............................................................................................................................. 29

OFF-PAGE OPTIMIZATION ................................................................................................................................ 29

What is off-page optimization? ................................................................................................................... 29

Off-page optimization tools ......................................................................................................................... 29

The role of social media links ....................................................................................................................... 31

LESSON 4: SEO TOOLS AND THE IMPACT OF AI ON SEO.......................................................... 33

FREE SEO TOOLS ............................................................................................................................................... 34

Free Google tools ......................................................................................................................................... 34

Ahrefs tools .................................................................................................................................................. 34

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) TOOLS FOR SEO ................................................................................................ 35

Use cases ...................................................................................................................................................... 35

PAID SEO TOOLS ............................................................................................................................................... 36

Do you need paid SEO tools? ....................................................................................................................... 36

Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush ........................................................................................................................... 36

Screaming Frog ............................................................................................................................................ 37

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Copyright © 2023 digitalmarketinginstitute.com 3

LESSON 5: MEASURING SEO PERFORMANCE .......................................................................... 39

KEY SEO METRICS ............................................................................................................................................. 40

Why track keyword rankings? ...................................................................................................................... 40

Why track organic traffic? ............................................................................................................................ 40

Why track conversions? ............................................................................................................................... 41

SEO MEASUREMENT ........................................................................................................................................ 41

How to measure SEO by tracking keywords ................................................................................................ 41

Paid keyword tracking tools ......................................................................................................................... 42

How to measure SEO by tracking organic traffic ......................................................................................... 42

How to measure SEO by tracking conversions ............................................................................................. 43

Measuring SEO in practice ........................................................................................................................... 43

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Copyright © 2023 digitalmarketinginstitute.com 4

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Copyright © 2023 digitalmarketinginstitute.com 5