Search engine optimization involves four main functions for search engines: crawling websites to index their content, building an index of keywords and phrases from crawled pages, calculating page relevancy and ranking, and serving relevant search results to users. Key aspects of on-page optimization include using targeted keywords in page titles, headings, body text, URLs, and meta descriptions. Off-page factors like link building aim to pass authority and trust to pages from other relevant and trusted sites. Keeping content fresh, usable and of high quality helps rankings, as Google's algorithms increasingly focus on user experience over other signals.

1. Search Engine Optimization
Prasanna Ramamurthy

2. How Search Engine Works?
• Search engines have four functions
 Crawling – robots reach millions of interconnected pages through links
 Building an Index – parse the code from the pages; build a keywords/phrase based index in
smaller tables in massive hard drives
 Calculating relevancy and ranking
 All the pages that have the query word displayed
more prominently would be relevant results
 Ranking is based on popularity of the site
 Serving results
• Limitations
– Some contents can not be indexec
– Search Engines can’t generate popularity
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3. How People Interact with Search Engines?
Experience the need for an answer,
• The primary principles of conducting a search remains the same solution of piece of information
though the usage is evolving
• Satisfactory completion of a task results in positive experience, Formulate the need in the string of words
both with the search engine and the site
• Search is also used to find local information & research a Execute the query at a search engine
product online before buying offline
Browse through the results for a match
Very Popular and still growing;
Top listing is critical to visibility & instills trust
on the brand; Click on a result
Drives incredible amount of offline activity
Scan for a solution or a link to that solution
If unsatisfied, return to the search results
and browse for another link
Perform a new search with refinements to
the query
3 billion searches/day on Google
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4. SERP - Rich Snippets & Schema.org
Meta Title
Page URL
Meta Description Tag
Site Links
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5. Search Engine
Friendly Design
& Development
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6. Index & Keyword Usage
• Indexable Content
– Reads only HTML contents
– Images should be assigned “alt attributes” in HTML or should be shown using CSS styles
– Flash & Java Plug-in (Repeat content in text); Video & Audio files (Include transcripts)
– Double check using tools like “Google’s Cache”, SEO-browser.com, the MozBar or Yellowpipe
• Crawlable Link Structure
– Links that require forms to be filled, those in Javascript, blocked by meta robot tags, those that are accessible
only through search & Links in flash, java & other plug-in will not be crawled by robots
– Search Engine tend to crawl only 100 links per page
– Basic Anatomy of a link
<a href="http://content.dell.com/order-support.aspx?s=dhs">Order Support</a>
– rel=“nofollow”
• Keyword Usage & Targeting
– Most web based Search engines keep track of pages in keyword based indices.
– Pages containing the query term will have the chance of being listed for the term.
– Use the keywords in titles, text and meta data.
– Keyword Density is not part of modern web search engine ranking algorithms. Keyword density is divorced
from content, quality, semantics, and relevancy.
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7. On Page Optimization
• On-page Optimization
– Use the keyword in the title tag at least once and as close to the beginning of the title as possible
– Once in the H1 header tag
– At least thrice in the body copy of the page
– At least once in bold (either <strong> or <b>), in the alt attribute of the images, in the URL and at least once in
the meta description tag (Meta description tag does not get used by Search Engines)
– Generally not in the link anchor of the page that is linked to other pages
• Title Tags
– Be mindful of the length. 70 characters is the maximum that will be displayed in search results
– Place important keywords close to the front.
– Leverage Branding
– Consider readability and emotional impact  first interaction of the user with the brand
• Meta Tags
– Meta Robots  Index/No Index, Follow/No Follow, Noarchive, Nosnippet, NoODP, NoYDir
– Meta Description  Primary source for snippets displayed; Engines do not use keywords in this tag for
ranking
– Meta Keywords  No longer important for SEO
– Some more like meta revisit-after, meta refresh
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8. URLs & Duplicate Content
• URL Structures
– Shown in Search results & address bar; can impact clickthrough & visibility. More credit is given to the page
when the query term is part of the URL.
– Can influence the link anchor text for outbound links
• URL Construction Guidelines
– URL should provide good idea about the content on the page
– Shorter is better
– Keyword use is important but don’t overuse
– Use static URLs. Every single dynamic parameters in the URL can result in lower overall ranking
– Be descriptive (don’t use meaningless numbers/texts) and use hyphens to separate words
• Canonical and Duplicate Versions of Content
– Organize the content - only one URL for every unique piece of content  singular version of the content and
Search engine can assign it the highest achievable rankings
– Use 301 re-direct or “Canonical URL Tag”
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.dell.com/us/p/laptops" />
– Scraping  Practice of fetching one’s content and re-publishing; Make use of Ping services and use absolute
links instead of relative links in the page
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9. Keyword Research
• Choose keywords that are appropriate and has reasonable
number of searches
Keyword Research
• Create a simple page targeting the chosen keyword
• Use Google Adwords to bid and have the page displayed
for those who are searching targeted keywords
• Use Adwords impressions to assess the popularity
• Assess the number/performance of visits the keywords
bring
• In case of Poor response, change keyword. If the
Optimize organic search traffic
response is good, spend money on SEO
SEO Tools
• Google Adwords’ Keyword Estimator
• Google Insights for Search
• Google Trends Keyword Demand Prediction
• Microsoft AdCenter Keyword Forecasting
• Wordtracker’s Free Basic Keyword Demand
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10. Usability, User Experience & Content
• Common traits of a good site
– Easy to use, navigate and understand
– Provide direct, actionable information
– Professionally designed
– Deliver high quality & credible content
• Analysis of Link structure of the web serves as the proxy for popularity of a content  Timing,
source, anchor text, and number of links are factored in the assessment
• Developing good content. There are different search intents  Navigational Searches,
Informational Searches, Commercial investigation, Transactional searches
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11. Link Building & Trust Rank
Link Signals
• Global Popularity
• Local/Topic specific Popularity
• Anchor Text
• Trust Rank
• Link neighborhood
Link Building Strategies
• Directories/Listings of relevant sources
• Get your customer link to you
• Build a company blog and make it a valuable,
informative and entertaining resource
Trust Rank
• Create that inspires viral sharing and natural Trusted Seeds +2 from Trusted Seeds
linking
•100 sites [Very high trust] •100k sites
• Build content that can be shared through a •0% spam •10% spam and 90% trusted
•Ex: Wikipedia, CNET
citation based licensing agreement
+3 from Trusted Seeds
• No Reciprocal Links +1 from Trusted Seeds
•1 Million sites
•5k sites •100% spam
•1% spam and 99% trusted
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12. Latest Updates
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13. Google’s Panda Update
Machine Learning Scalability
www
People like
more
Quality
Raters
People like
Less
Before After
Design + UX Content Quality Usage Metrics
Title • Time on Site/Page
• Bounce Rate
• Browse Rate
• CTRs from SERPs
• Diversity of Branded
• Unique • Content that Search + Direct Traffic
• Useful makes
• Grammatical everyone Sources
• Right say “WOW”
Context
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14. Other Updates
Freshness Update
• Affects 35% of the queries
• Prioritizes recent & timely results
• Based on the caffeine update
• Behaves similar to RSS Feeds [but shows the latest popular ones] and could have huge impact
on blog posts
SSL Implementation
• Google don’t provide keyword level data for users for https secure searches  about 2%
• With SSL Implementation, Google will not provide keyword for logged in users while they click
on organic results  estimated to affect 10% of the searches
• The above secure searches affects only organic results
Google Plus Integration
• Option to search against both web and Google + social graph
• Google+ results are blended in with the traditional “authoritative results,” but clearly annotated
• Allows one to add public profiles right from the results page
• Provides results from prominent “SME”
• Works only when a user is signed in and does a https secure search
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15. SEO is a happening place
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16. What does
Google say
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17. What does Google say?
• Create unique, accurate, brief but descriptive page titles appears on the first line of the results
• Meta Description Tag
– Accurately Summarize the content in the “description” meta tag. Google might use these as snippets. Snippet
are bolded when they appear in the user's query.
– Snippets give users the clues on the content
• Structure of URLs
– Use Words in URL. Simple & Organized URLs will lead to better Crawling; Easy to remember for the User
– URLs are displayed in the search results. Dynamic URL  Static URL.
– Provide one version of URLs
• Make your site easy to Navigate
– Plan out your navigation based on your homepage/root page; Use mostly Text for navigation
– Ensure more convenience for users by using ‘breadcrumb lists’
– Allow for the possibility of a part of the URL being removed
– Prepare 2 Site maps – One for Users & One for Search Engines; create a naturally flowing hierarchy; have a
useful 404 page
• Offer quality content and services
– Interesting sites will increase their recognition on their own
– Anticipate differences in users‘ understanding of your topic and offer unique, exclusive content; Stay
organized around the topic; create content primarily for users and not for search engines
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18. What does Google say?
• Write better anchor text
– Conveys the contents linked
– Could either be internal/external; Better the text, easy to navigate; format links to make it east to spot
• Optimize your use of images
– Provide alt attribute  alternative text to be displayed for users, when image can not be displayed
– Store files in specialized directories and manage them using common file formats; provide image site map
• Use heading tags appropriately
– Heading tags are bolded  this is a visual cue to users that this text is important and could help them
understand something about the type of content underneath the heading text; Avoid excessive use of
headings
• Make effective use of robots.txt
– A "robots.txt" file tells search engines whether they can access and therefore crawl parts of your site
• Be aware of rel="nofollow" for links
– Combats spam; Avoid passing page weights/credits to comment columns and message boards
• Notify Google of Mobile sites
• Guide Mobile users accurately
• Promote your websites in the right ways
• Make use of free webmaster tools
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19. Thank You
Global Marketing