Digital Marketing and

Search Engine Optimization

Strategies for Online Success

Instructor: Muhammad Yousaf

Email: [email protected]
Agenda
 Introduction
 What is SEO
 Types of SEO
 How Search Engine Works
 Google Algorithm Updates
 SEO Research and Analysis
 Keyword Research and Analysis
 Competitors' Website Analysis
 SWOT Analysis of a Website
 How to Choose Best Keywords
 Tools Available for Keyword Research
What is SEO
 SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a process designed to
optimize a website for search engines. It helps websites achieve a higher
ranking in search engine results when people search for keywords related to
their products and services. So, it is a practice of increasing the quantity and
quality of traffic to a website through organic search engine results. See the
following image to understand the basic activities involved in the SEO.
Types of SEO
 There are two types of SEO
 White Hat SEO
 Black Hat SEO
How Search Engine Works

The work of the search engine is divided into three stages,

i.e., crawling, indexing, and retrieval.
1. Crawling
This is the first step in which a search engine uses web
crawlers to find out the webpages on the World Wide Web. A
web crawler is a program used by Google to make an index. It
is designed for crawling, which is a process in which the
crawler browses the web and stores the information about
the webpages visited by it in the form of an index.
2. Indexing
In this stage, the copies of webpages made by the crawler
during crawling are returned to the search engine and stored
in a data centre. Using these copies, the crawler creates the
index of the search engine. Each of the webpages that you
see on search engine listings is crawled and added to the
index by the web crawler. Your website should be in the index
only then it will appear in the search engine pages.
How Search Engine Works
3. Retrieval
This is the final stage in which the search engine
provides the most useful and relevant answers in a
particular order in response to a search query
submitted by the user. Search engines use
algorithms to improve the search results so that
only genuine information could reach the users,
e.g., PageRank is a popular algorithm used by
search engines. It shifts through the pages recorded
in the index and shows those webpages on the first
page of the results that it thinks are the best.
Difference between Search Engine and Portal
Search Engine
The Search engine is a program which is designed
to enable the users to browse information or
content on World Wide Web. It helps retrieve the
desired information in minimum time. It allows you
to input specific keywords or phrases and retrieves
a list of items matching those keywords and
phrases. Thus, it does not provide information
straight away; it just retrieves pages which are
related to keywords or other search terms. Some of
the popular search engines are Google, Bing, and
Yahoo! Search.
Portal
Portal is a private location on the internet which
acts as a point of access to the information
available on the World Wide Web. A portal is
accessed through a unique URL, unique username
and password, i.e. apart from URL, personal login is
required to see the content on a portal. Some of
the popular portals are facebook.com, gmail.com
Google Algorithm Updates

In the beginning, in the 90's, search engines were not as effective as it is today; it was
mainly focused on keyword matching and backlinks. So, it was quite easy for the low-
quality websites to rank higher by targeting their exact keywords with lots of backlinks.
To solve this problem, Google introduced an algorithm to filter the results so that it could
clean the web. Since then, Google is continuously updating its algorithm to maintain and
improve the efficiency of its search engine.
Some of the major Google updates, which helped it filter sites more precisely and clean
the web effectively are given below:
2019 Updates:
 BERT Update:
In October 2019, this update, Google upgraded its algorithm and hardware to understand
BERT natural language processing (NLP) model. BERT allows Google to better interpret and
understand languages searches and thus improve search results.
 Site Diversity Update:
It was introduced in June 2019 to improve situations where sites had more than two
organic listings.
Keyword Research and Analysis

Keyword research is crucial for SEO success. It helps you find the right keywords
to rank higher and connect with your audience. Failing to use the right keywords
can keep your site from the top search results.
How to find the suitable keyword.?
 Before using the keyword research tools you need to understand your product
or service and the target audience. If you know your product or service in a
better way you can create better keywords.
 The next step is to access the value of the keyword. To access the value of
your keyword you can follow the steps described below:
1. Few questions: Ask yourself a few questions such as is the keyword relevant
to your content? Will the visitors get the right information with this keyword? Will
this traffic increase revenue? If the answer to these questions is yes then the
keyword is full of value.
Keyword Research and Analysis
2. Search the given keywords in major search engines: In this step, you will
get to know about the other websites which already rank for your keyword. It
will deepend your understanding about the competition and tell you how hard or
easy it will be to rank for the given keyword or phrase.
3. Buy sample campaign: You can buy sample campaign at Google Adwords, Bing
Adcenter, etc. You will get test traffic which you can direct to your webpages and
see how many of them click and how much time they spend on your pages. It will
tell you either you need to change your keyword or you can continue with that
keyword.
Competitors' Website Analysis

 Analysis of competitors' website is an important

part of SEO search and analysis. By analyzing
competitors' websites you can get ideas to
improve your own web marketing strategies.
 There are various competitor-analysis tools
designed to compare the search friendliness of a
website against the websites of its competitors.
These tools are based on various SEO metrics and
are quite easy to use, i.e. some tools require you
to enter your webpage URL, the competitor URL
and the targeted keyword and the tool will tell
you how well you are ranked against your
competitors for that keyword.
Few important steps to analyze competitors' website

1. Find out your SEO competitors

Generally, the sites which are in your niche or rank well for your keywords are your competitors.
The other simple way to find out your competitors is to search your keywords with Google and
look for the sites that pop high in search result page.
2. Visit competitors' site
After you have made a list of your competitors the next step is to visit their sites. There are many
things to be noticed in their sites like the quality and quantity of content, keywords or phrases,
type of website (dynamic or static), etc. This analysis will tell you how professional your
competitors' sites are and how much efforts you need to put into your site to surpass them.
3. Check competitors' backlinks
In this step, you will examine the backlinks of your competitors. You need to find their number,
origin and anchor text, etc. If there are backlinks from some popular sites you can contact their
webmasters to get backlinks from them. Some of the popular tools for backlink analysis
are Backlink Anchor Text Analysis and Backlink Summary.
4. Analyze competitors' presence on Social Media
Social Medias are extensively used to increase traffic on a site. Visit some of the popular social
bookmarking sites to see the posts of your competitors; check the quality and popularity of their
posts. Twitter and Facebook are two popular social networking sites where you can check if your
competitors are active or not.
SWOT Analysis of a Website
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. These are
the four factors used by organizations to evaluate their business and viability as
an enterprise. In a similar way, these factors can be used to evaluate the current
and future growth of a website.
How to Choose Best Keywords

 Keywords are the words or phrases used by people in search engines to find
the desired information. Relevant keyword and phrases help increase
profitable traffic to your website.
 So, keep the following points in mind if you are looking for best keywords and
phrases.
1. Long-tail keywords: It usually refers to 3 to 5 words phrases. Such keywords
are considered ideal for SEO as people in purchase stage of buying cycle tend
to use longer phrases to search products or services. The long phrases are also
found to be less competitive than shorter keywords and help you attract
targeted t
2. Latent semantic indexing: It is also known as LSI. In this method, we
incorporate related terms along with main key phrases, e.g. if a page contains
information about cars then search engine tends to see related terms like
models, makes, car parts, etc. So, if the search engine finds more semantic
words on your page they will assume you more relevant and authentic traffic.
How to Choose Best Keywords
3. Recent trends: If you want to create popular keywords then keep an eye on
recent trends. You will get to know what is popular on search engines and if
you find any trending search query related to your niche then you can
effectively news jack it to increase traffic to your site.
4. Location based keywords: You can add country, state or city name to your
main keyword to stand out from the crowd. It will help you achieve higher
ranking in local search results.
5. Identify competitors' keyword: You can use some of the popular keywords of
your competitors to pull some of their traffic to your site. You can take the
help of online services such as Keyword Spy to identify their keywords.
Tools Available for Keyword Research

 Keywords are one of the most important aspects of

SEO and for relevant and useful keywords a precise
keyword research is required.
 Keyword research provides you meaningful keywords
that enable your webpages to rank higher in search
results. Thus, it can be considered the base of SEO is
keyword research.
There are a number of tools available for keyword
research. Some of the popular tools are described below:

1. Google Keyword Planner

It is one of the most used keyword research tools. It is a free tool which is
integrated with Google Adwords. This tool requires you to create an Adwords
account before you start using the tool. It gives you an idea about the competition
level for each keyword and offers you filters and match types to find out profitable
keywords.
Tools Available for Keyword Research
2. Google Trends
It is also a free tool of Google which is designed to compare the traffic for a set of
keywords. It allows you to enter multiple keywords, search history and category and use
filter by location. You just enter the data and it will display how high a particular keyword
ranks along with the reason for its popularity like press coverage, social media, etc.
3. SEMRUSH
It is designed to offer more than just keyword search. In this tool, you don't need to enter
seed keywords like other tools, i.e. you just need to add your and competitor's URL, the
tool will provide you all the keywords that are ranking for competitor's site. You can
identify the keywords that you are not targeting. In the paid section of search you can find
out the keywords your competitors are planning to bid on; you can use these keywords for
your organic benefit.
4. Keyword Spy
It is an SEO optimization tool designed for keyword research. As the name suggests, it
allows you to spy on competitors' keywords, to create targeted campaigns and to see their
rank based on geographical location. Its free version offers several features; Domain spy
tool is one of them which allows you to type the domain into the search box and provide
you the data such as on what keywords a site spends most, how much a site is spending in
paid search and who are the competitors, etc.
Tools Available for Keyword Research
5. Keyword Discovery
It is one of the best keyword tools. It collects data from more than 200 search engines including
the popular ones like Google and Yahoo. It provides regional or country specific databases,
industry related keyword lists, online shopping keywords lists, etc. The tool also features various
research options like filters, misspellings, keyword permutations, trends, etc.
6. Keyword Tool.io
It is a basic keyword research tool which can be useful if you are looking for long-tail keyword
suggestions for your keywords. It is also a free tool; its basic version can be used even without
creating an account. The basic version uses Google Autocomplete to create a list of related long-
tail keywords. But, it does not provide information about search volume and cost-per-click for
this information you have to upgrade to Keyword Tool Pro.
7. WordTracker
The tool helps you find best keywords related to your search keywords and also shows how much
traffic a keyword gets. It is generally used by small organizations. It helps them to research
keywords, develop a planned SEO platform and build new links.
8. Moz's Keyword Difficulty Tool
The tool is designed by Moz. It helps analyze the competitiveness of a keyword. When you enter
a keyword, it shows the top ten ranking for that keyword. Then, it assigns a difficulty score for
the keyword based on the webpages that are ranking for this word. It also allows you to export
data into a CSV for deep analysis.