DiM – ISE

Marketing Strategies for Digital World

• Digital media is not replacing mainstream broadcast media – it is supporting and

complementing it, providing a greater all-round experience
• A brand needs to be where its target customers already are
• The key to maximise the effectiveness of each digital medium is to replicate and respect the
way people are using it.
• For example, Facebook is used when people are relaxing So do not use it as a serious selling
space.
• Any brand must have ruthless clarity about the defined roles for each medium
• 'Liquid content' as a term refers to web content that is highly shared - where the desire for
sharing is driven by (and how they help support each other)
• For 2012 Olympic game, Nike ran a campaign called #Findthegreatness. Nike generated over
16,000 mentions on twitter and added 166,000 new Facebook fans (double the level
achieved by Adidas).

ROI for Digital Strategies

Return on Investment (ROI) for digital strategies measures how effectively digital initiatives—such as
online marketing, social media campaigns, or digital transformation efforts—generate value relative
to the costs involved. It helps businesses evaluate the success of their digital efforts in monetary
terms.

To calculate ROI for digital strategies:

1. Determine the investment cost: This includes expenses like digital tools, marketing,
personnel, software, and infrastructure.
2. Measure the gain from the investment: This can include increased revenue, cost savings, or
customer engagement improvements due to digital efforts.
3. Calculate ROI

Factors influencing ROI for digital strategies:

• Traffic and conversions: How much web traffic and leads turn into paying customers.
• Customer acquisition costs: How much it costs to attract each new customer.
• Engagement metrics: Social media interactions, email open rates, or website activity.
• Customer retention: Digital strategies that foster loyalty and repeat business.
• Operational efficiency: The impact of automation, AI, or digital tools on reducing costs.

When assessing ROI, qualitative benefits like brand awareness, customer satisfaction, or long-term
engagement can also add value but may be harder to quantify directly.

Capturing Customers with Online Marketing Techniques

Web 2.0 Interactive Techniques:

• Web 2.0 is the term used to describe a variety of web sites and applications that allow
anyone to create and share online information or material they have created.
 • A key element of the technology is that it allows people to create, share, collaborate &
communicate. Web 2.0 differs from other types of websites as it does not require any web
design or publishing skills to participate, making it easy for people to create and publish or
communicate their work to the world.
• The nature of this technology makes it an easy and popular way to communicate information
to either a select group of people or to a much wider audience.

Podcasts:
• Podcasts are easy to record, edit, and publish.
• They are easy to download or stream, and even easier to listen to.
• You can even embed them on a website or send them directly to your subscribers.
• Since they are in an audio format, you do not need a fancy recording studio or at stunning
location to record in.
• The basic tools you need in order to get started are a microphone, recording/editing
software, and a hosting service to store your files.
• The most important thing to remember with podcasting is to be consistent.
• Consistency in your podcasting style, tone, and frequency can make or break your entire
podcasting campaign.

Video and Vlogs:

• Youtube success story

• Vlogs: Personal video journals, called vlogs, differ from other types of video: They are
updated regularly, posted like blogs, often distributed through RSS feeds, and may contain
additional text data.
• Like blogs, they generally include personal reflections and experiences.
• Movie, sports, entertainment, and music sites are obvious candidates for videos: Post
trailers, teasers, concert samples, or game excerpts.
• You can also use videos for product updates, industry news, or helpful, do-it-yourself, training
clips.
• Post your video on multiple sites to generate links from new prospects, and to add value to
your inbound link campaign. Whether you create your own videos or recruit responses, pay
attention to the demographics of the sites on which you post.
• List all locations of your video clips in directories and search engines. Google allows users to
play YouTube videos directly from search results, and posts thumbnails of video from other
sites within natural search.
• Many companies now run contests, inviting users to post video that promotes their product
or service.
• Concentrate on video quality and appearance

For marketers, the trick is to tap into the video audience in one of four ways:
• Advertising on various sites.
• Posting your own vlog as an ongoing video saga, perhaps one that is quirky enough to be
part of a viral marketing campaign.
• Creating your own videos for product demonstrations, training, support, or promotion and
posting them online and on your own site.
• Tapping into the creative potential of your target audience by getting them to post videos
about your company or products, perhaps as part of a contest.

Video considerations
1. View some videos and vlogs to get ideas from other businesses.
2. Decide whether you want to create your own videos or whether you want others to participate
interactively with consumer-generated video content.
3. Assess your target market to decide where you want to post your videos.
4. Decide who will produce your videos and how much it will cost.
5. Before you commit to production, review your ROI projections to ensure that the effort will be
worthwhile.

Webcasts, Web Conferences, and Webinars:

• Web conferences work best with small group presentations that are data or document
driven. They support two-way interaction, such as in an online focus group or a presentation
near the close of the sales cycle.
• Conferences generally involve some combination of two-way audio teleconferencing, live
desktop-based whiteboards, PowerPoint presentations, and instant messaging or chat
software.
• Webinars are the most-complex format, mixing and matching such multimedia components
as a one-way audio conference, video, PowerPoint or whiteboard presentations, live polls or
surveys, and one-way instant messaging for participants to submit questions.
• Designed to reach a large number of participants over a widespread geographic region,
Webinars generally require a sequence of activities to be successful: promotion, registration,
confirmation e-mails, reminder e-mails, thank-you messages, and feedback surveys.
• Consider these as premium branding and lead generation opportunities.

Mobile Devices: (literally ChatGPT)

• Mobile-Optimized Websites: Responsive design and fast loading are crucial for good user
experience on smartphones.
• Mobile Apps: Custom apps provide personalized experiences and boost engagement with
push notifications and in-app purchases.
• SMS/MMS Marketing: Directly reach customers with promotional messages and multimedia
content, offering personalized offers.
• Push Notifications: Engage users with timely updates, promotions, and rich notifications that
include images or videos.
• Location-Based Marketing: Use geofencing and beacons to send targeted offers based on
real-time location.
• Mobile-Friendly Emails: Design emails with short, clear messaging and touch-friendly buttons
for mobile users.
• Mobile Payment Solutions: Simplify purchases with mobile wallets and in-app payment
options to reduce cart abandonment.
• Mobile Video Marketing: Use short-form videos and vertical formats for platforms like TikTok
and Instagram to capture attention.
• Voice Search Optimization: Optimize for voice search and local SEO to capture users using
mobile voice assistants.
• QR Codes: Enable easy access to content or promotions by scanning QR codes.
• Social media Mobile Marketing: Leverage mobile-first platforms like Instagram and TikTok
with shoppable posts and influencer collaborations.
 • Mobile Analytics: Track user behavior across mobile devices and refine strategies with cross-
device data.

Understanding Laws in Digital Marketing

Legal considerations in digital and social media marketing:

As with all legislation, laws are created in order to provide a framework of control and regulations
that aim to protect individuals and businesses.

Adhering to laws governing online content and media is challenging for marketers and
businesses since:

• Digital media are relatively new and innovation occurs on different platforms from the likes
of Meta, Google and TikTok which may require new legislation.

• Global distribution and access of online content means that businesses are subject to laws in
different countries where their content and services are accessed.

• Laws develop at different rates in different countries, so marketers need to ensure they are
compliant with every local jurisdiction they trade in.

• Digital media and services aren’t covered by a single type of law, they may be subject to
advertising laws, trading laws, data protection laws, disability and discrimination laws,
intellectual property laws and others.

• If laws aren’t in place for new media, brands may need to define their own ethical
approach in line with their brand values

Social media and the law

Navigating the legal landscape in social media marketing is particularly difficult due to the unique
characteristics of these platforms.

Beyond general marketing/content laws, marketers must also consider guidelines established by
social media platforms, it's not uncommon to be held to standards on:

• Transparency

• Accuracy

• Fairness in advertising

• Anti-cyberbullying/harassment

Following these standards on social media is particularly critical right now due to the widespread
influence so many of these platforms have on users. These guidelines ensure you can maintain trust
and credibility with your audiences, as well as avoiding legal liabilities.

6 categories for ensuring compliance with digital/social media laws:

1. Data protection and privacy law

2. Disability and discrimination law

3. Brand and trademark protection

4. Intellectual property rights

 5. Contract and distance-selling law

6. Online advertising law

Digital Marketing Channels

PPC:

Formal definition of PPC: The revenue model adopted by search engines whereby the advertiser pays
only when a user clicks on an ad. PPC has its own four-stage iterative process:

1. Set your goals. Before beginning and investing in your PPC journey, you first need to learn about
the benefits PPC can bring to your business. With this knowledge you can then define exactly what
your goals will be and how to align KPIs with them.

2. Set up your account. In this stage you will be guided step-by-step through every element involved
in setting up your very own Google AdWords account, from creating PPC campaigns to assigning
budgets—you will learn it all!

3. Manage your campaigns. This stage details what happens after your campaigns have been
launched and how best to manage them. The finer details of the AdWords interface will also be
explored to help you discover the variety of options you can implement to yield a higher return on
investment (ROI).

4. Analyze your results. The final stage in the PPC process is all about measuring your success
through KPIs, tools, and reports. By using this data you will be able to better optimize your
campaigns for the next iteration, while considering the relevant data protection and privacy issues
associated with PPC.

PPC Platforms:

• Google Ads: The largest PPC platform, it displays ads on Google's search results pages and
across its Display Network.
• Microsoft Ads (Bing Ads): Ads appear on Bing, Yahoo, and partner networks.
• Facebook Ads: PPC ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, offering a highly targeted
audience.
• Instagram Ads: Part of Facebook Ads, allowing businesses to run PPC campaigns focused on
Instagram's visual platform.
• LinkedIn Ads: Ideal for B2B marketing, this platform targets professionals based on their
industry, job title, etc.
• Twitter Ads: Twitter's PPC campaigns allow targeting by interests, hashtags, and user
behaviours.
• YouTube Ads: Google Ads can also be used for video-based PPC campaigns on YouTube.
• Amazon Advertising: Allows businesses to advertise products directly on Amazon's
marketplace.
• Pinterest Ads: PPC campaigns that target users based on their interests and interactions on
Pinterest.
• TikTok Ads: PPC options on TikTok to engage users with video content.

Key Elements of PPC Marketing:

 1. Keywords: Advertisers bid on specific keywords that potential customers might search for.
The goal is to have ads appear when these keywords are used.
2. Ad Auction: PPC platforms like Google Ads or Bing Ads use an auction system. When a search
matches the advertiser's keyword, the system holds an auction where factors like bid amount
and ad quality determine which ads are shown.
3. Cost-per-click (CPC): Advertisers set a maximum bid amount they’re willing to pay per click.
The actual CPC may be lower, depending on the auction outcome.
4. Quality Score: Platforms like Google rank ads based on relevance, click-through rate, landing
page quality, and other factors. A higher quality score can reduce CPC and improve ad
positioning.
5. Ad Copy and Creative: Writing compelling ad copy, designing eye-catching visuals, or creating
effective videos can boost the chances of getting clicks. This includes clear calls-to-action
(CTA) to entice users.
6. Landing Page Optimization: Once a user clicks on the ad, they’re directed to a landing page. A
well-optimized landing page should align with the ad's intent, provide value, and encourage
conversions (purchases, sign-ups, etc.).
7. Targeting: PPC platforms allow advertisers to target audiences based on demographics,
location, interests, behavior, devices, and more. This ensures ads reach the most relevant
audience.
8. Conversion Tracking: Measuring performance is crucial. Conversion tracking helps determine
whether clicks lead to valuable actions like purchases, sign-ups, or downloads.
Google AdWords Keyword Planner:

This is a tool built into the Google AdWords platform. Under the Tools section, you'll find Keyword
Planner. The research and analytical functionalities are endless! After you've entered a particular
keyword or search term and chosen the location you're targeting, click on Get Ideas. The Keyword
Planner will return a report detailing the top listings containing that keyword or search term, plus
other suggested keywords. In the listing you will notice two tabs, one for ad group ideas and another
for keyword ideas. At this stage of the process focus on the latter. The ad group ideas tab concerns
PPC ad campaigns and right now we're focusing on how to use this tool for organic optimization.

Google AdSense:

Google AdSense provides a way for publishers to earn money from their online content. AdSense
works by matching ads to your site based on your content and visitors. The ads are created and paid
for by advertisers who want to promote their products. Since these advertisers pay different prices
for different ads, the amount you earn will vary.

1. You make your ad spaces available 2. The highest paying ads appear on your site 3. You get paid

Steps to Get Started with AdSense: (literally ChatGPT)

1. Sign Up: Website owners or YouTube creators apply to join the AdSense program through the
Google AdSense website.

2. Ad Code Integration: Once approved, publishers receive a snippet of code that they place on
their site, enabling Google to display ads.

3. Ad Customization: Publishers can choose from a range of ad formats and placements to suit
their website’s layout and audience preferences.
 4. Monitoring and Optimization: Publishers can track the performance of their ads (e.g., clicks,
earnings, impressions) through their AdSense dashboard. This data helps with optimizing
placements, ad types, and improving revenue.

Video Marketing:

Key Elements of Video Marketing:

1. Types of Videos:
o Product Demos: Showcasing how a product works.
o Explainer Videos: Explaining complex topics or features in a simplified manner.
o Customer Testimonials: Featuring satisfied customers to build trust.
o Behind-the-Scenes (BTS): Giving audiences an inside look at your company.
o Educational Content: Offering tutorials, tips, or industry insights.
o Live Streams: Real-time engagement with the audience through Q&A sessions,
product launches, or events.
o Storytelling: Using narrative videos to emotionally connect with viewers.

2. Platforms for Video Marketing:

o YouTube: The second-largest search engine in the world and the top platform for
video content.
o Instagram and Facebook: Both offer stories, reels, and IGTV/Facebook Watch for
short and long-form video content.
o TikTok: Popular for its short, engaging, and viral videos.
o LinkedIn: Best for B2B video content and professional audiences.
o Vimeo: A high-quality platform often used by creatives and professionals.
3. SEO and Optimization: Videos can be optimized for search engines by using the right titles,
descriptions, and keywords. YouTube SEO, for example, involves optimizing for YouTube’s
search algorithm so your videos rank higher in search results.
4. Calls-to-Action (CTAs): Include clear CTAs at the end or within the video to encourage viewers
to take action—whether it's subscribing to a channel, visiting a website, or making a
purchase.
5. Analytics and Tracking: Platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook offer analytics to
track the performance of video content. You can measure views, watch time, click-through
rates, engagement, and conversions to optimize future videos.

Benefits of Video Marketing:

• Engagement: Video content is more engaging and helps capture attention better than text or
images.
• Storytelling: Videos allow brands to tell compelling stories that resonate emotionally with
audiences.
• Increased Conversion Rates: Adding videos to landing pages or emails can increase
conversions and engagement.
• Mobile-Friendly: As more users consume content on mobile, video is particularly well-suited
for this format.
• Shareability: Videos are easy to share, making them great for increasing organic reach and
going viral.

Video Cast:
A videocast (or video podcast) is a form of content that combines the elements of traditional
podcasts with video. It's essentially a podcast that is recorded and distributed in a video format,
often available on platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, or dedicated podcast directories.
Key Aspects of Videocasts:
1. Content Format:
o Discussion-Based: Most videocasts feature interviews, panel discussions, or solo
commentary on specific topics.
o Live or Recorded: Videocasts can be streamed live or pre-recorded and edited before
publishing.
o Visual Elements: Unlike traditional audio podcasts, videocasts include a visual
component, which may feature the host, guests, or complementary visuals like
infographics, charts, or product demos.
2. Distribution Channels:
o YouTube: One of the most popular platforms for videocasts, as it supports long-form
content and is easily accessible.
o Podcasting Platforms: Some platforms (like Apple Podcasts and Spotify) are starting
to support video-based podcasts.
o Social media: Short clips or highlights of videocasts can be shared on platforms like
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to promote the full episode.
o Company Websites: Many businesses and creators embed videocasts on their
websites to drive traffic and increase engagement.
3. Creation Tools:
o Recording Equipment: A good quality camera, microphone, and lighting setup are
key to producing high-quality videocasts.
o Editing Software: Programs like Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, or simpler tools
like iMovie can be used to edit and polish the content before publishing.
o Streaming Platforms: Tools like StreamYard, Zoom, or OBS Studio are often used to
stream live videocasts.
4. Hybrid Approach: Many content creators release both a videocast and an audio-only podcast
version. This allows them to cater to different audience preferences—those who prefer
watching videos and those who prefer listening to podcasts on the go.

Benefits of Videocasts:
• Visual Engagement: The addition of video allows for more interaction with the audience,
showcasing non-verbal communication, product demonstrations, or visual storytelling.
• Multi-Platform Reach: Videocasts can be distributed across both video and audio platforms,
increasing visibility and audience reach.
• Building a Personal Connection: Seeing hosts or guests on video helps build a stronger
personal connection with the audience compared to just audio.
• Content Repurposing: Videocasts can be broken into smaller clips, shared as standalone
pieces on social media, or repurposed for other marketing channels.

Challenges of Videocasts:
• Higher Production Costs: Producing a videocast can be more expensive than a traditional
podcast, requiring quality video equipment, editing software, and more time for post-
production.
• Technical Expertise: Requires some technical knowledge in video editing, lighting, and audio
setup for a professional appearance.
• Longer Production Time: Editing a videocast takes more time compared to an audio podcast
due to video elements.

Email Marketing:

• Causes behind using E-mail Marketing

 • Branding with signature blocks
• Letting autoresponders do the work
• Speeding response time with packaged blurbs

E-mailing like a pro

• From line
• Subject line
• Message Text
• Signature block

Group e-mail

1. Group e-mail is useful for such things as:

• Notifying registrants in a course, conference, program, or other event
• Communicating with dealers, distributors, or franchisees
• Sending routine service reminders or product recalls
• Reminding customers of appointments or item pickups
• Distributing information to journalists
• Communicating with committees, board members, or employees
• Announcing availability of products on back order

2. Dealing with spamming

Rolling out Email Newsletters: As an e-mail marketer, you must find the people who want your
special offers, hot gossip, or the latest news delivered to their electronic doorstep; get them to sign
up for your distribution service; and then encourage them to follow through with a click to your site.

Improving the efficacy of your newsletter

• Bounce rate
• Open rate
• Unsubscribe rate
• Click-through rate
• A/B testing

Mobile Marketing:

A set of practices that enables organizations to communicate with and engage with their audiences
in an interactive and relevant manner through and with any mobile device or network.
SEO

SEO can be defined as an aggregate of all the work necessary to produce a high volume of referral
hits from search engines, web directories, and other websites, with the ultimate goal of making the
website popular.

SEO involves internal and external website analysis, including link building, proper website
architecture and development, competitor analysis, keyword research, content development, and
many other tasks.

SEO is partly about building appropriate content and partly about getting people to link to you.

SEO gets the visitor to the door. It is up to your site’s content to welcome and retain that visitor.

Optimizing just for search engines may not be enough. Social media websites along with social
bookmarking should be considered as well.

Search engine marketing (SEM) and SEO

• SEM is carried out through PPC (pay-per-click)

• PPC advertising is much easier to implement and can achieve immediate results.
• Marketers will often ignore (or confuse) SEO in favor of (PPC) SEM.
• But by doing so they are ignoring great opportunities.
• SEO is about as close to free as you can get.
• It takes work, and work costs money, particularly if you hire a consultant. But have any
advertising bills coming in

SEO Process

Phases:

• Research
• Planning and strategy
• Implementation
• monitoring
• (re)assessment
• Maintenance

Research Phase:
First phase of SEO process

Types:

• business research: Analysis of business in relation to its online presence.

• competitor analysis: Learn about all the players in your business area.
• Current state assessment: Tasked is increasing the visibility of an existing site. Dig deep into
the site, dissecting it from all angles.
• keyword research: Keyword research is the activity of identifying and targeting specific
keywords with the goal of creating relevant search engine referrals.

Output: The document should contain all of your findings, including the business research,
competitor analysis, current state assessment, and keyword research.

The Planning and Strategy Phase:

• handling content: Your content strategy needs to address all aspects of content: creation,
modification, dissemination, and archival.
• link building: you must have solid inbound links. Content with no links can go only so far.
Include planning regarding whether you are going after: Social media sites, news, press
releases, blog comments, (paid or free) directory submissions etc.
• social media and SEM:
o Social media strategy: important extension of the overall linkbuilding strategy.
o SEM: Using PPC in parallel with SEO can be helpful, especially if the site in question is
brand new.
• technical strategies:
o URL rewriting
o Avoid content duplication
o Error messaging
o Linking structure
o It also includes many decisions like: What browsers will need to be supported, do
any hosting considerations need to be taken into account?

Output: The output is the SEO plan.

Implementation Phase:

Output: The output of the implementation phase can be several artifacts detailing any new technical
knowledge gained, problems encountered, and lessons learned.

Monitoring Phase:
 • web spider activities
• referral sites
• search engine rankings
• Website traffic
• conversions
• hacker intrusions

Output: sets of data, typically organized in monthly report summaries.

Assessment Phase:

• The assessment phase uses the output of the monitoring phase as well as a series of
checklists. This phase is also referred to as the checkpoint phase
• SEO checkpoints can be defined on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or yearly basis. At the
very least, quarterly assessments are required.

Output: recommendation artifact. At times, this could be a call to action for further research or a call
to action for further minor tweaks.

Maintenance Phase:

The maintenance phase takes care of problems (minor and major) found in the (re)assessment
phase.

Output: The output of the maintenance phase is a confirmation of all the SEO work performed, in
addition to any problems encountered and any lessons learned.

SEO Benefits:

• Search engine results page (SERP) real estate

• historical trust factor
• lower cost of ownership.

SEO Challenges:

• Competition
• No guarantees
• Ranking fluctuations
• time factors
• organization structure

SEO vs PPC:

SEO vs SEM:
On-Page Optimization

Keyword Planning:

Your SEO keywords are the key words and phrases in your web content that make it possible for
people to find your site via search engines.

Implementing SEO keywords will help your site rank above your competitors

1) Getting started with a brainstorm list

2) Selecting and Using a Keyword Research Tool

3) Refining your list using suggested keyword phrases from an analysis tool

4) Verifying keyword phrase relevance

5) Looking at search volume to determine consumer demand

6) Analysing the competitive space to make sure you and the searcher think the keywords mean the
same things, and to decide if the space is too competitive

Off-Page Optimization

Determining Top Competitors:

• Understanding the competition should be a key component of planning your SEO strategy.
• Assess competitors’ competence at SEO:
• Are their websites fully indexed by Google and Yahoo!?
 • Do their product and category pages have keyword-rich page titles (title tags) that
are unique to each page?
• Do their product and category pages have reasonably high PageRank scores?
• Is anchor text across the site, particularly in the navigation, keyword-rich?
• Are the websites getting penalized?
• Are they spamming the search engines with “doorway pages”?
• Uncover Competitors secrets
• What keywords are they targeting?
• Who’s linking to their home page, or to their top-selling product pages and category
pages?
• If it is a database-driven site, what technology tricks are they using to get search
engine spiders such as Googlebot to cope with the site being dynamic?
• What effect will their future SEO initiatives have on their site traffic?
• How does the current state of their sites’ SEO compare with those of years past?

Accessing Historical Progress:

• Measuring the results of SEO changes can be challenging because

• many moving parts and
• months can elapse between when changes are made to a site and when results are
seen in search rankings and traffic.
• Maintain a Timeline of Site Changes
• Keeping a log of changes to your site is absolutely recommended. If you’re not keeping a
• Establish cause and effect, such as:
• If search traffic spikes or plummets
• When gradual traffic changes begin
• To track and report SEO progress
• Types of Site Changes That Can Affect SEO
• Adding content areas/features/options to the site
• Changing the domain of the site.
• Modifying URL structures.
• Implementing a new CMS.
• Establishing new partnerships that either send links or require them.
• Types of Site Changes That Can Affect SEO
• Acquiring new links to pages on the site other than the home page.
• Making changes to navigation/menu systems
• Implementing redirects either to or from the site.
• Marketing activities that may drive upticks in usage/traffic and the source

Website Backlinks:
Off page optimization refers to all the measures that can be taken outside of the actual website in
order to improve its position in search rankings.

• Link Building
• Basically, by building external links to your website, you are trying to gather as many ‘votes’
as you can, so that you can bypass your competitors and rank higher.
 • The most popular ways were:
• Blog Directories – something like yellow pages but each entry had a link pointing to a
website.
• Forum Signatures – Many people were commenting on forums for the sole purpose
of getting a link back to their website

• The most popular ways were:

• Blog Directories – something like yellow pages but each entry had a link pointing to a
website.
• Forum Signatures – Many people were commenting on forums for the sole purpose
of getting a link back to their website
• Comment link – The same concept as forum signatures where you would comment
on some other website or blog in order to get a link back.
• Article Directories – By publishing your articles in article directories you could get a
link back to your website.

• The most popular ways were:

• Shared Content Directories – Websites like hubpages and infobarrel allowed you to
publish content and in return you could add a couple of links pointing to your
websites.
• Link exchange schemes – Instead of trying to publish content you could get in touch
with other webmasters and exchange links.
• Social Media:
• Social media is part of ‘off-site SEO’ and if you think about it, it’s also a form of link
building.
• It should be noted that almost all of the links you get from social media sites are
“nofollow” but this does not mean that they do not have any value.
• Social Bookmarking
• Social bookmarking is not as popular as it used to be in the past but it is still a good
way to get traffic to your website.

Meta Tag: Description:

• Description is meta tag that you add at the top of the web page, inside the <head>tag.
• The Description meta tag provides a brief summary of the webpage and its content.
• Search crawlers use this tag to get information about the page content and display it in the
search results.
• Unlike with the Title tag, you can use a greater number of characters to describe your
website.
• Make sure to use optimized keywords that represent the website content.
• Here is the format of a <meta> description tag: <meta name="description"
content="Optimized Description with Important Keywords. This text can be a short
paragraph. Use important page copy keywords in this description.“>

Meta Tag: Keyword:

• The Keyword meta tag includes individual keywords separated by commas.

• Search engine crawlers use the Keyword meta tag information to index the website and
display it in the search results.
 • The keywords should be descriptive and optimized to ensure that the search engine displays
the website when users search for these specific keywords.
• <meta name="keywords" content="Keyword1, Keyword2, Keyword3">
• It's very important that you add the keywords you want your site to be found under in your
KEYWORD tag.
• If a search engine spider finds the same words on your website and in your meta tags, these
words will be ranked higher in the search index.
• Don't add too many words, the most search engines will only index the first 20 words. Make
sure that you put the 10 most important keywords first.
• Limit your number of keywords to around 2 to 5 percent of your content. Overloading your
web page with keywords is considered stuffing, and it may negatively affect your Google
rank.
• Some search engines overlook the Keyword tag, but it is still useful in others.

Meta Tag: Author:

• The Author meta tag includes information about the web page’s creator, or webmaster, as
well as contact information, an e-mail, and the company name.
• Some people use separate tag ‘contact’ to give contact details.
• It is not important as description, tile or keyword tag.
• <meta name="author" content="text"> Ex:<meta name="author" content="John Smith">
• Contact tag: <meta name="contact“ content="email@address">
• Copyright tag: <meta name="copyright" content="name of owner">

Meta tag: Country

• <META NAME="geo.position" CONTENT="latitude; longitude">
<META NAME="geo.placename" CONTENT="Place Name">
<META NAME="geo.region" CONTENT="Country Subdivision Code">
• <META NAME="geo.position" CONTENT="49.2;-123.4">
<META NAME="geo.placename" CONTENT="London">
<META NAME="geo.region" CONTENT="CA-ON">
• Geo tags are generally used if your website/business is location specific.
• A restaurant would be a good example of this as it has a physical location relevant to the
services it is offering.
• The tag Placed on each page of the website, these let the search engines know where you’re
based and could help improve your search engine rankings for local related search terms.

Meta tag: Robots:

• It explains to a spider of a search engine you only want it to index just the first page of your
website or that it is allowed to index the whole website.
• You use a specific HTML meta tag the so called the meta robots tag.
• <meta name="robots" content="selection">
• <meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
• The spider will now index your whole website.
• The spider will not only index the first web-page of your website but also follow outbound
links
• <meta name="robots" content="index, nofollow">
• The spider will now only look at this page and stops there.
 • <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">
The spider will not look at this page but will crawl through the rest of the pages on your
website.
• <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
• The spider will not look at this page and will NOT crawl through the rest of your web-pages.
• <!-- Tells Yahoo! to not use Yahoo! Directory description: <meta name="robots"
content="noydir" />
• <!-- Tells search engines to not use ODP (Open Directory Project.) description: <meta
name="robots" content="noodp" />
• <!-- Tells search engines to not use either of the two directories: <meta name="robots"
content="noodp,noydir" />
• <meta name="googlebot" content="noodp">
• <!-- Note: Only Yahoo! uses Yahoo! Directory -->
• <meta name="slurp" CONTENT="noydir">
• <meta name="msnbot" CONTENT="noodp">

Meta Tag: Redirections:

• <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="value">

• Ex: www.yourevent.com/2011registration.html
• www.yourevent.com/2012registration.html
• Whenever page number 1 isn't active anymore you replace it with a new page adding the
text 2011 closed, but register yourself now for 2012. Now you add a refresh tag so your
visitor will be redirected immediately to the next page.
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10; ,URL=/2012registration.html">

"10" is the number of seconds it takes to go from the redirection page to the new page.
• Told the page to refresh after 30 sec: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30">

Heading Tag:

• The H(x) tags in HTML (H1, H2, H3, etc.) are designed to indicate a headline hierarchy in a
document.
• Thus, an H1 tag might be considered the headline of the page as a whole, whereas H2 tags
would serve as subheadings, H3s as tertiary-level headlines, and so forth.
• Search engines recognize the copy in your header tags as more important than the rest.

• This starts with your h1 and works its way down in importance to the h2, h3 and so on.

• The h1 tag should contain your targeted keywords, ones that closely relate to the page title
and are relevant to your content.

• The h2 tag is a subheading and should contain similar keywords to your h1 tag.

• Your h3 is then a subheading for your h2 and so on.

• Think of them as a hierarchy based on importance, the above being more important than
the below.
• Keep in mind that it’s also very import that your header tags are readable and grammatically
correct.
• Stuffing your h1, h2 and h3 with keywords is not going to help your cause.
 • If anything, Google will recognize this and assume you are trying to manipulate them.

Anchor Text:
• Anchor text is the visible characters and words that hyperlinks display when linking to
another document or location on the web.
• Search engines use external anchor text (text other pages use to link to your site) as a
reflection of how other people view your page - and by extension, what your pages may be
about. While website owners typically can't control how other sites link to theirs, “you can
make sure that anchor text you use within your own site is useful, descriptive, and relevant.”

Types of anchor text

• Exact-match: Anchor text is "exact match" if it includes a keyword that mirrors the page that
is being linked to. For example: 'link building' linking to a page about link building.
• Partial-match: Anchor text that includes a variation of the keyword on the linked-to page.
For example: 'link building strategies' linking to a page about link building.
• Branded: A brand name used as anchor text. For example: 'Moz' linking to an article on the
Moz Blog.
• Naked link: A URL that is used as an anchor 'www.moz.com' is a naked link anchor.
• Generic: A generic word or phrase that is used as the anchor. "Click here" is a common
generic anchor.
• Images: Whenever an image is linked, Google will use the text contained in the image's alt
attribute as the anchor text.

SEO-friendly anchor text is:

• Succinct
• Relevant to the linked-to page
• Low keyword density (not overly keyword-heavy)
• Not generic

Link Title:

• link TITLE is supposed to provide additional / advisory information about the link(expand on
the meaning of the link).
• The anchor text is supposed to “name” the link, while the title text provides information
about where the link will send the user. (especially with “click here” and “more” anchor
text).
• <a href=”/ann-smarty/” title=”Author’s biography”>Ann Smarty</a> OR <a href=”/ann-
smarty/” title=”More posts by Ann Smarty”>Ann Smarty</a>
• title attribute carries no weight on search engines (per my experience and based on other
SEO’s opinion).
• Link TITLE attribute for usability: in most browsers it will pop up when you hover over the
link.
• use it for your users, not search engines (this approach always pays back);
• don’t duplicate it with link text (this hurts usability: for example some blind users will hear
the same text twice);
• don’t put too much weight on the title attributes as not all screen readers may render it
(make sure either surrounding text or anchor text explains the link at least the first time you
use it).
Robot.txt:

• Using robots.txt is the original way to tell crawlers what not to crawl.
• This method is particularly helpful when you do not want search engines to crawl certain
portions or all portions of your website.
• The robots.txt file is composed of a set of directives preceded by specific user-agent heading
lines signifying the start of directives for a particular crawler.

The following is an example robots.txt file that instructs three different crawlers:

1 User-agent: *
2 Disallow: /
3 Allow: /blog/
4 Allow: /news/
5 Allow: /private
6
7 User-agent: msnbot
8 Disallow:
9
10 User-agent: googlebot
11 Disallow: /cgi-bin/

• If Yahoo!’s Slurp paid a visit to this site, it would honor the first five lines of robots.txt— as it
does not have its own custom entry within this robots.txt file.
• This example has several interesting scenarios. For instance, what would Slurp do if it had
the following URLs to process?
• http://mydomain.com/blog
• http://mydomain.com/blog/
• Which URL would it crawl? The answer would be the second URL, as it fully matches the
Allow directive on line 3 of the preceding code. The trailing slash signifies a directory,
whereas the absence of the trailing slash signifies a file.

Robot.txt directives:

The allow directive:

• Tells web crawlers that the specified resources can be crawled.

• When multiple directives are applicable to the same URL, the longest expression takes
precedence.
o 1 User-agent: *
o 2 Disallow: /private/
o 3 Allow: /private/abc/

The disallow directive:

• original directive created.

 • It signified the webmaster’s desire to prohibit web crawler(s) from crawling specified
directories or files.
• Its basic format is:
o Disallow: /directory/
o Disallow: /file.ext

• Consider the following code fragment:

o 1 User-agent: *
o 2 Disallow:
• In this case, all documents would be allowed for crawling.
• Another example:
o 1 User-agent: *
o 2 Disallow: /
• In this case, everything would be disallowed for crawling.
• The forward slash (Disallow) argument signifies the web root of your site.

The wildcard directives:

• Two wildcards are used in robots.txt: $ and *.

• Use the dollar sign wildcard ($) when you need to match everything from the end of the
URL.
• Use the star wildcard character (*) to match zero or more characters in a sequence.

The Sitemap location directive:

• The Sitemap location directive simply tells the crawler where your Sitemap can be found.
• Here is an example of the robots.txt file utilizing the Sitemap directive:

• The location of the Sitemap directive is not mandated. It can be anywhere within the
robots.txt file.

Understanding Sitemaps
Sitemaps are divided into two broad categories:

• those created for human users

• those specifically created for search engine crawlers.
• Sitemaps help your visitors quickly get to the information they need, and they help web
spiders find your site’s links.
• Reasons for using Sitemaps
• Crawl augmentation
• Poor linking site structure
• Crawling frequency
• Content ownership
• Page priority
• Large sites
• History of changes

XML Sitemaps

• XML Sitemaps are written only for web spiders

• They are collections of links with their respective (optional) attributes formatted according
to the XML schema.

XML Sitemap Format:

• Each link in an XML Sitemap can have up to four attributes.

• loc
• lastmod,
• changefreq,
• priority.

• <loc>
o Represent actual URL or link value.
o Note that the http part is mandatory.
o Also note that the URL should not be longer than 2,048 characters, as this is a known
URL length limit for some of the server platforms.

• <lastmod>
• represents the time and date when a particular link was last modified.
• The lastmod attribute tag has two data value formats.
• short form without the time part and
• the long form with the full date and time
• <changefreq>
o Represents a hint as to how often a particular link might change.
 • <priority>
o The priority attribute tag is perhaps the most important of all the optional link
attributes.
o Its values range from 0.0 to 1.0.
o The median or default value for any page is signified by a value of 0.5.

• XML Sitemap Auto-Discovery: Sitemaps are now discovered within robots.txt.

• Multiple XML Sitemaps: Create the XML Sitemap Index file

Sitemap Location and Naming:

• XML Sitemaps can refer only to files in the folder in which they are placed, or files located in
any child folders of that folder.
• The recommended name is sitemap.xml.

Keyword Research

Keyword Strategy:

• Sound SEO calls for a sound keyword strategy.

• You need to know what keywords you should target.
• Creating new pages with arbitrary (untargeted) keywords in your page title, page
copy, and so on will not work.
 • You can go after two different types of keywords:
o Broad keywords: are extremely competitive.
o Narrow keywords are typically attributed to much lower levels of
competition.
• Long tail keywords
o Represent the narrow keyword spectrum.
o They are multiword keywords that are highly specific and narrow in focus.
o Although long tail keywords do not enjoy the same volume of search traffic
as broad keywords, they do enjoy other benefits, such as higher conversion
rates and lower competition.

Word Stemming:

• Word stemming refers to the concept of various word derivations from their basic
(root) stems.
• This concept is important, as using it can help in perceived page relevance.
• Using multiple-word variations can assist you in attaining additional targeted traffic.
• Keyword stemming is a useful tool for web pages and search engine optimization.
The process of keyword stemming involves taking a basic but popular keyword
pertaining to a particular website and adding a prefix, suffix, or pluralization to make
the keyword into a new word.
• Even if your keyword is not an exact match, if it contains either the stem or its
grammatical derivative, Google will rank your pages, as they will be perceived as
relevant.
• If your keyword is an exact match, this will typically translate to enhanced page
rankings.

Keyword Proximity:

The keyword proximity refers to the distance between the search term's individual
keywords. For example: a website contains the keywords that make up the search term
“dentist Boston implant” in the heading “Your professional dentist in Boston; dental practice
for minimally invasive implants”.

Keyword Prominence:

In search engine optimization (SEO), this refers to the prominent placement of keywords or
phrases within a Web page. Prominent placement may be in the page header, meta tags,
opening paragraph, or start of a sentence.

Keyword Modifiers:

• Keyword modifiers are words that are used adjacent to your core (root) keywords.
• Keyword modifiers can help strengthen your long tail keyword strategy.
• The easiest way to find appropriate keyword modifiers is to start with your basic root
words
• Types:
 o Generic modifiers can be used on any site. These modifiers are usually part of
popular search queries.
o Money modifiers are typically used to catch searches with buying intentions.
o Niche modifiers are modifiers that are specific to a particular industry.

Keyword Research Process:

• Establish a Current Baseline

• Compile a Draft List of Keywords You Wish to Target
o Keyword brainstorming
o Utilize keyword stemming
▪ Make use of generic keyword modifiers.
▪ Continue by finding related keywords.
o Finding related keywords
▪ Make use of Microsoft Word
▪ Using search engine keyword suggestions and related searches
▪ Use keyword suggestion tool
• Evaluate Your Keywords
o Estimating keyword competition, revisited
o Estimating keyword search volume
• Finalize Your Keyword List
• Implement Your Strategy

Keyword Research Tools:

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

• Microsoft adCenter Labs
• Yahoo! keyword tools

Content Optimization

Short Term Content

• Short-term content is the current Internet buzz.

• Sites producing such content include blogs, forums, and news sites.
• Short-term content is important, as it aids webmasters by providing a freshness and
relevancy boost to their websites.
• Unexpected buzz
o The trick when creating short-term content is to do it while the specific topic is still
“hot.”
o Better yet, if you can anticipate the future buzz the content will generate, you will
be a step ahead of your competition.
 • Expected buzz
o Creating short-term content of expected events is much easier than doing the same
for unexpected events.
o However, you will be facing a lot more competition for the same storylines.

Long Term Content

• It is the type of content that people bookmark and come back to many times.
• This type of content has a greater lifespan than shortterm content.
• Its relevancy does not diminish much over time.
• Long-term content can be anything from online software tools to websites acting as
reference resources.
• Ex: You can see that the overall search volume is more or less the same month after month.
If your site hosts the best “HTML Tutorial” around and is currently getting good traffic, you
can be pretty certain that your site will be getting steady traffic in the future

Content Balance

• How much of your content is short term or long term depends on your line of business.
• If you are in the news or blog business, you will do well by continuously producing new
content.
• If you are providing technical information, you may wish to offer a mix of new articles and
technical reference articles, which you can package into a different article category that is
easy to access from anywhere on your site.

Content Creation Motivation

• The ultimate motive of any website content is to provide information to visitors so that they
can accomplish a particular business goal.
• Engaging your visitors
• Modern sites try to make it easy for their visitors to comment on and share their content.
• Fortifying your web authority
• Creating a continuous buzz and interest is necessary to foster and cultivate your brand or
business.
• Updating and supplementing existing information
• You need to ensure that your site is on top of the latest happenings in your particular niche.
• Catching additional traffic
• Create additional unique content to get more traffic

Content Duplication

Different ways to deal with content duplication :

1. Canonical Link Element

• A canonical link is like a preferred link.

• This preference comes to light when we are dealing with duplicate content and when search
engines choose which link should be favored over all others when referring to identical page
content.
• http://www.mydomain.com/pants.html, which you want to be the preferred page, as it
points to the original (main) document.
 • But you also have three other pages that refer to the same content page, as in the following:

• http://www.mydomain.com/catalog.jsp?part=pants&category=clothes&

• http://www.mydomain.com/catalog.jsp;jsessionid=B8C2341GE57FAF195DE34027A95DA3FC
?part=pants&category=clothes

• http://www.mydomain.com/catalog.jsp?pageid=78234

• To apply the newly supported canonical link element, you would place the following in each
of the three preceding URLs, in the HTML header section:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.mydomain.com/pants.html" />

2. Multiple urls

All requests will now be redirected (using the HTTP 301 permanent redirect) to the URL version with
the trailing slash.

3. Multiple Slashes

4. WWW prefix

5. Domain misspellings

6. HTTP to HTTPS and Vice-versa

External Content Duplication:

1. Mirror sites
2. Content syndication
Similar Pages: If you have many pages that are similar, consider expanding each page or
consolidating the pages into one.

Deep-Linked Content:

1. Sitemaps
2. Resurfacing
3. Navigation structure