Search Engine Optimisation

SEO is the practice of optimising a website to improve its visibility and ranking in search engine
results pages (SERPs). In other words, SEO is the process of improving the quality and quantity
of traffic to a website or web page from a search engine.

SEO is crucial for improving your website’s online presence, driving more traffic, and ultimately
achieving your business goals.

● Optimisation is the act of changing an existing process in order to increase the

occurrence of favourable outcomes and decrease the occurrence of undesirable
outcomes.

SEO is the heart of digital marketing.

SEO primarily focuses on unpaid traffic, also known as organic traffic, rather than paid or
direct traffic.

Here's a breakdown of the different types of website traffic:

● Organic Traffic: This refers to visitors who come to your website through search
engines.
● Paid Traffic: This traffic comes from paid advertising campaigns, such as pay-per-click
(PPC) ads or social media ads.
● Direct Traffic: This traffic comes from users who directly enter your website URL into
their browser address bar or click on a saved bookmark. They already know that your
website exists.

Google Ranking Factors

● Quality Content
● Keywords
● Backlinks
● Page Speed
● Social Media Popularity
● Mobile Friendliness
● Crawlability
● HTTPS

Types of SEO
SEO mainly divided in 4
 1. On page SEO, aka onsite SEO
2. Off page SEO, aka off site SEO
3. Local SEO
4. Technical SEO

On page SEO
On-page SEO refers to all the optimisation techniques you can implement on your website to
improve its search engine ranking for relevant keywords.

On-page SEO focuses on optimising the content and structure of your website's webpages.

This includes optimising title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, image alt text, content quality
and relevance, internal linking structure, and website speed.

On page SEO mainly focuses on Keywords

Elements of On page SEO

● Content relevance: Your content should be informative, valuable, and address the
user's needs related to the topic.

● Title heading: Use relevant heading and subheadings. Use Heading Tags (H1, H2, H3,
etc.) These are HTML tags that structure your content into sections and subsections. H1
is the main heading, while H2, H3, etc., represent subheadings. They should be
well-organised, use relevant keywords, and provide a clear hierarchy of information.

● Keyword density: also called keyword frequency — is the number of times a specific
keyword appears on a webpage compared to the total word count.

● Related keyword or Semantic keyword: These are words and phrases related to your
target keyword.

● Meta tag: Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a page's content.

Meta tag consists of SEO title (This is the clickable headline (ideally under 60
characters) displayed in search engine results pages) and meta description (This is a
brief snippet (around 155-160 characters) displayed in SERPs below the SEO title.

● OG tag (open graph meta tag): These are meta tags specifically designed for social
media sharing. They provide information like the title, description, and image associated
with your webpage when it's shared on social media platforms.
 ● Alt tag or Alternative text: This is a brief description of an image on your webpage that
displays when the image cannot be loaded or for visually impaired users using screen
readers.

● Permalink: The permalink is the full URL (Uniform Resource Locator) you see – and use
– for any given post, page, or other pieces of content on your site.

It's a permanent link, hence the name permalink. It could include your domain name plus
what's called a slug, the piece of the URL that comes after the domain name.

● Sitemap: This is a file that lists all the important pages on your website.
Purpose of sitemap is to help search engines find your new and updated pages more
efficiently.

● Regular content update: Keeping your website content fresh and updated with new
information demonstrates its ongoing relevance and value.

Keywords
A keyword is a word or phrase that users type into search engines to find information.

Types of Keywords
● Short tail keywords aka head keywords, are combinations of 1 or 2 words.

● Long tail keyword: They typically consist of three or more words and are considerably
more specific.
● Customer Defining Keywords: These are keywords that help define or categorise the
type of customers a business is targeting. They often include demographic or
psychographic information about the customer. Example: "working moms," "college
students," "fitness enthusiasts."
● Product defining keywords: These are keywords that describe the specific products or
services offered by a business. They provide details about what the product is or does.
Example: "wireless noise-cancelling headphones," "organic skincare products," "electric
toothbrushes."

● LSI keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing) are terms or phrases that are semantically
related to your main topic or primary keyword. Eg. Car - engine, gear box, side mirrors
etc

What is keyword intent?

Keyword intent, also known as search intent, is what searchers want to achieve after they
conduct a specific search.

For example, when someone searches “buy orchid seeds,” the intent behind that search is
probably to make a purchase.

But someone searching for “orchid seeds” might not want to make a purchase. It’s possible that
they just want to learn more about orchid seeds.

Types of Keywords based on Intent

Informational: Searchers want to find information: Meaning: When people search for
information or answers to their questions.

Example: Searching for "how to tie a tie" or "symptoms of the flu."

Navigational: Searchers want to find a specific site or page: Meaning: When people want to go
to a specific website or webpage.

Example: Typing in "Facebook" to go directly to the Facebook website.

Commercial: Searchers want to investigate brands, products, or services: Meaning: When

people are researching brands, products, or services but aren't necessarily ready to buy yet.

Example: Searching for "best laptops 2024" or "reviews of iPhone 15."

Transactional: Searchers want to complete an action (e.g., make a purchase): Meaning: When
people are ready to take action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service.

Example: Searching for "buy Nike Air Max shoes" or "subscribe to Netflix."

Differences between long tail and short tail keywords

Short tail Long tail

● Search volume is high ● Search volume is low

● Competition high ● Competition low

● Conversion rate is high ● Conversion rate is low

● Cost is high ● Cost is low

● Difficult to rank ● Easy to rank

A high conversion rate for a keyword means that many people who click on that keyword end
up doing what you want them to do, like buying a product or signing up for a newsletter. It shows
that the keyword is very effective at attracting the right kind of visitors.

Short-tail keywords can indirectly help rank long-tail keywords.

Keyword Density
Keyword density, also called keyword frequency, is the number of times a specific keyword
appears on a webpage compared to the total word count.

Keyword Distribution
Keyword distribution is the process of assigning keywords to specific pages on your website.

Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is a black-hat SEO tactic that involves unnaturally forcing a large number of
keywords into your website's content in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings.

Seed Keyword
Seed keywords are short phrases that are most relevant to your topic.

● Internal links and External links

Internal Links: These are links within your website that connect one webpage to another
webpage on your domain.

External links, aka outbound links, are links that point from your website to a webpage on a
different domain (another website).

Robots.txt
Robots.txt is a text file used on websites to communicate with search engine crawlers (also
known as web robots).

It provides instructions on which pages or folders on the website the crawlers can access and
which ones they should avoid.

Robots.txt is a technical SEO tool used to manage how search engines interact with your site
as a whole.
Using the asterisk (*) after "User-agent:" in robots.txt does invite all search engine robots
(crawlers) to your site.

To open this: website URL/robots.txt.

If you’re specifying a user-agent rule for a search engine crawler, specifically for Google:
User-agent: Googlebot
This rule targets the Googlebot crawler specifically.

If you want to block crawling of a specific page for all search engines, you can add the following
line to your website's robots.txt file:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/

How do customise robots.txt?

➡️ ➡️ ➡️ ➡️
Dashboard Yoast SEO Tools File Editor Click on ‘Create robots.txt’
Now you can customise the file and save changes.

Sitemap
What are XML sitemaps?
An XML sitemap is a file that lists a website's essential pages, making sure Google or any
search engine can find and crawl them all.

To find the sitemap of your website: domain/sitemap.xml.

How to remove ‘couldn’t fetch’ status sitemap?

The status message may indicate Google has yet to fetch your sitemap. Alternatively, it could
mean Google cannot fetch your sitemap because of an error in the sitemap.

➡️ ➡️ ➡️go to more
➡️
Google Search Console Sitemaps Click on submitted sitemap (couldn’t fetch)
option on the right side (3 dots) remove sitemap

If it fails to fetch status, resubmit after two days.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor, maintain,
and troubleshoot your site's presence in Google Search results.

1. Learn how google crawls, index and ranks

2. Fix errors
3. Submit updated content
4. Monitor search performance

➡️Paste website URL in URL prefix➡️Next➡️Copy the HTML tag.

Step 1
Open GSC

Step 2

➡️ ➡️ ➡️ ➡️Insert Header and Footers (WP Headers

➡️
Website Dashboard Plugins Add new plugin
and Footers) Install and Activate.

➡️ ➡️ ➡️WP Headers and Footers➡️Paste the HTML code in the

Step 3

➡️
Website Dashboard Settings
Header section Save changes.

➡️ ➡️Verify➡️Go to property➡️Start.
Step 4
GSC HTML tag

Bing Webmasters
Bing Webmaster Tools (Bing WMT) is a free Microsoft service that allows webmasters to add
their sites to the Bing crawler so they show up in the search engine.

Webmaster Tools is to the Bing search engine, what Google Search Console is to Google.

Bing webmaster tools ➡️Get started➡️Continue with Google➡️Import from GSC➡️Import

➡️ ➡️Inspect
Sitemap in Bing

➡️
URL Inspection Copy and paste your website URL
Request Indexing Submit

Off Page SEO

Off-page SEO, also known as off-site SEO, refers to a variety of tactics you can employ outside
your website to improve its search engine ranking and organic traffic.

Off-page SEO mainly focuses on backlinks.

Backlinks
Backlinks are also known as Inbound links or Incoming links.
A backlink is actually a link from another website to your website. It’s like someone
recommending our site to others.

OR

A link from another website that points to your website.

Dofollow backlinks

● Pass on "link juice," which helps improve your website's authority and ranking in search
results.

Nofollow backlinks

● Do not directly impact SEO or pass on link juice.

● Indicated by a "rel=nofollow" attribute in the code.

While nofollow links might not directly boost SEO, they still offer value:

● Can drive traffic to your website

● Increase brand awareness

Backlink Building Techniques

● Blog Submission: Submit your content to a relevant and high quality blog, so that you
can build backlinks to your website.

● Article Submission
Key points for writing articles
1. Make sure the article contains relevant and sufficient information.
2. The average length of an article is 500-700 words.
3. Add the main keyword in the title. It will help the web crawlers identify the topic of your
title.
4. Make the article more attractive by adding bullets, numbering, and subheadings.
5. Article should be keyword rich, not keyword stuffing.

● QnA Submission
1. Identify relevant platforms, like Quora or industry forums.
2. Provide high-quality answers.
3. Include a relevant link back to your website.
 ● Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking involves sharing website links on platforms
like Reddit and Digg. It helps in backlink building by increasing.

● Directory Submission: Directory submission is an SEO technique where you submit

your website's URL and details to online directories. This helps improve your site's
visibility, build backlinks, and potentially drive more traffic to your site

Mozbar
A free SEO Chrome extension.
It shows you the page authority (PA), domain authority (DA), and spam score (SS) for any
given domain or SERP.
In the Mozbar Pro version, you can also find “brand authority.".

● PA - Predict how well a specific page will rank on search engines.

● DA- is an indicator of a website's overall ranking power, according to Moz.
● SS - In SEO, "spam score" means how likely a website is to be seen as spam by search
engines.

rel=“nofollow”

Local SEO
Local SEO is the process of optimising your online presence to increase local traffic, visibility,
and brand awareness.

Common local SEO tasks include:

● Optimizing your Google Business Profile

● Finding local keywords
● Creating locally relevant content

Google Business Profile

Formerly called Google My Business, it is a free tool that allows you to influence how your
business appears on Google Search.
Local Listing

Local listing, or local citation, is an online mention of the name, address, phone number, or
website address of a local business. For example: Just Dial

Technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to anything you do that makes your site easier for search engines to
crawl, index, and understand. This helps search engines rank your website more
effectively in search results.

SSL Certificate
An SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate is a digital file located on a website's server
that verifies the website's identity and enables a secure encrypted connection between
your browser and the server. This encryption protects any data exchanged, like login
details or credit card information, from being intercepted by hackers.

or

An SSL certificate is like a digital bodyguard for your data. It verifies a website's
identity and scrambles information you send, keeping it safe from hackers.

You can usually tell if a website is secure by looking for a padlock icon in the address bar
and "HTTPS" instead of "HTTP" at the beginning of the web address.

Response Codes
Response codes are numerical codes returned by web servers to indicate the status of a user's
request. They provide essential information about what happened to the request and guide the
user through the next steps.

2xx Status Code:

Success! Got what you requested, all good. (This is the happy outcome you want for your
website visitors.)
3xx Redirection:

These codes indicate that the requested resource has been moved to a new location. The
browser will automatically redirect the user to the new location. Some important
redirection codes include:

● 301: Moved Permanently

Server-side redirect that permanently redirects users from one URL to another.

When should I use 301 redirects?

301 should be used when you've permanently removed or deleted a page from the site’s
architecture but still want to preserve its traffic, rankings, and links.

● 302 - Found (Moved Temporarily)

The server responds with a 302 error message when the requested resource has been
temporarily moved to a different URL.

This is like a general note saying, "We moved! But you can still use the old address for a
little while."

● 303 - See Other

The HTTP status code "303 - See Other" indicates that the requested resource can be
found under a different URL.

Essentially, it's a redirection response. When a client makes a request, the server may
respond with this status code along with a different URL where the requested resource
can be found.

This is often used in scenarios where the requested resource has been temporarily
moved to a different location. The client should follow the redirection to the new URL to
access the desired resource.

● 307 - Temporary Redirect

This is a more specific note saying, "We moved temporarily! Please use the new address
and keep doing whatever you were doing there.

A redirect is a way to forward a person from a URL that may be temporarily or

permanently inaccessible to another, relevant URL.

or
A redirect is a method of setting up a connection between an old, potentially no longer
existing URL and its active counterpart.

The primary purpose of using redirects is to provide a good user experience. Instead of
landing on a no longer existing page, a person is automatically redirected to another asset
on the topic, allowing them to continue their research.

4xx Client Error:

These codes indicate that there was an error with the request itself. Some common client
error codes include:

● 404 Not Found: This code indicates that the requested resource could not be
found on the server.
● 401 Unauthorised: This code indicates that the user is not authorised to access the
requested resource. This may happen if the resource is protected by a password or if the
user does not have the necessary permissions.

5xx Server Error:

These codes indicate that there was an error with the server itself. Some common server
error codes include:

● 500 Internal Server Error: This code indicates that there was an unexpected error on
the server.
● 503 Service Unavailable: This response code means that the server is currently not
ready to handle the request. This is a common occurrence when the server is down for
maintenance or is overloaded.
● 508 Resource Limit Reached: This error that users and admins have to deal with
(and probably the more common one) is the resource limit reached message.

Or

● 508 Loop Detected: This means that the server has detected an infinite loop while
processing the request. This error indicates that the server is stuck in a loop and cannot
complete the request, often due to a misconfiguration or error in the request handling
process.
Canonical Tag
A canonical tag, also known as a canonical link or "rel canonical," is a tag in the source code of
a page that indicates to search engines that a master copy of the page exists. Canonical tags
are used in SEO to help search engines index the correct URL and avoid duplicate content.

Example of a canonical tag:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/preferred-page" />

Canonicalization
Canonicalization refers to the process of choosing a single, preferred version of a web page
from a set of duplicates or similar ones. Search engines like Google use this process to avoid
confusion and improve the quality of their search results.

Mobile Friendly Test

Lighthouse Extension
A free automated tool for gaining valuable insights into your web pages’ performance and
overall performance.

Page Speed Test

PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed Insights (PSI) reports on the user experience of a page on both mobile and desktop
devices and provides suggestions on how that page may be improved.

Plagiarism Test and Content Update

Duplichecker
Plagiarism Checker, offered by DupliChecker, is a completely free and accurate online tool to
check plagiarism.

SEO Auditing Tools and Techniques

Screaming Frog
The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a fast and advanced SEO site audit tool.

SEOptimer
SEOptimer is a tool that provides various features to assist with improving a website's SEO
performance. It offers a full website audit.
Ahrefs
Backlink Overview Checker

Competitor Link Analysis

Similarweb
Estimate the amount of traffic different websites get. It allows you to see competitors' top traffic
sources.