![Robots
• Robots.txt is a text file webmasters create to instruct web robots (typically search engine robots)
how to crawl pages on their website. The robots.txt file is part of the the robots exclusion
protocol (REP), a group of web standards that regulate how robots crawl the web, access and
index content, and serve that content up to users.
• www.example.com/robots.txt
• User-agent: [user-agent name]
• Disallow: [URL string not to be crawled]
• Sitemap: [Sitemap URL]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/seofundamentalstraining-180917151557/85/SEO-Training-Course-Online-Learn-SEO-SEO-for-Beginners-Complete-SEO-Tutorial-42-320.jpg)
SEO Training Course Online, Learn SEO, SEO for Beginners, Complete SEO Tutorial
- 3. What am I going to get from this course? • Fundamental comprehension of how search engines rank websites, and why higher rankings means more traffic • An understanding of high-level theories and applying them to actual use cases • An immediate action plan for getting you from an idea to a live website to ranking high as quickly as possible
- 4. Here we go…
- 5. Types of Online Businesses/Business Objectives Ecommerce Sales Lead generation Usually products! Usually services!
- 6. Digital Marketing • Using digital channels to attain any of the said objectives • Use of internet not necessary – eg. SMS marketing, digital OOH, etc.
- 7. Digital Marketing Services • Search Engine Optimization & App Store OptimizationSEO & ASO • Social Media MarketingSMM • Email MarketingEmail • Pay per click (AdWords) MarketingPPC • Affiliate MarketingAffiliate • Online Reputation ManagementORM • Conversion Rate OptimizationCRO
- 8. Digital Marketing Services • Search Engine Optimization & App Store OptimizationSEO & ASO • Social Media MarketingSMM • Email MarketingEmail • Pay per click (AdWords) MarketingPPC • Affiliate MarketingAffiliate • Online Reputation ManagementORM • Conversion Rate OptimizationCRO
- 9. How Search Engines Work? • Consider a wardrobe with multiple drawers… • LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) • The three steps taken by search engine spiders
- 10. Terminologies
- 11. Metrics • PageRank • Alexa Traffic Rank • Keyword Rank
- 12. Tech • HTML • CSS • Javascript • AJAX • Flash • URL • 301 redirect • 404 Page not found • Domain & TLD • Fold
- 13. Okay, ‘nuff of that.. Tell me about SEO!
- 14. What is SEO? A highly data driven methodology of strategies and tactics, used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search engine results’ page (SERP), including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.
- 15. Types of SEO • On page • Off page
- 17. 70% of the links clicked on by search users are actually organic (searchenginejournal)
- 18. One and only marketing activity where users show INTENT
- 19. 89% of customers begin their buying process with a search engine. (Biznology)
- 20. 72% of marketers from enterprises rate search engine optimization (SEO) as successful in achieving marketing objectives like lead generation and increased Web traffic. (MediaPost)
- 21. 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine
- 22. But why this..
- 24. Myths • SEO is dead! • I must submit my site to Google • More links are better than more content • SEO is something I can hand off to IT • Alexa is a metric of how good your website performance is • PageRank still works
- 25. But yes, it does have some challenges…
- 26. Challenges in SEO • Slow process • Not a very transparent process • Too many things not in your control • Requires constant efforts & optimizations • Combination of skills - tech + content + analytics
- 27. White Hat vs. Black Hat
- 28. White Hat vs. Black Hat White Hat Technique • Following search engine guidelines • No malpractices in keyword seeding or backlink building • Has long lasting impact on business Black Hat Technique • Not abiding by the search engine guidelines • Using methods like cloaking, keyword stuffing, link exchange schemes, duplicate content, etc. • Harmful for businesses in the long run
- 29. SEO Overview
- 30. Penalties • Fred – Low value content, repeated content • Panda – Duplicate content, thin content • Penguin – Poor backlinks • Hummingbird – Search intent, than literal search • Pirate - software and digital media piracy • Mobile Friendly • Pigeon – Preference to local results • https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change
- 31. The Pillars of SEO Tech Architecture (for crawl-ability) Content (for keywords) Backlinks (for link juice)
- 32. TG Identification • Age • Gender • Occupation • Geography • Web Consumption Habits • Psychograph Analysis Persona Building
- 33. TG – Example for a Real Jewellery Rental Fashion Brand Gender: Female dominant, decision influencer could be male Age: 25+ years of age Geography: Metros & Tier 1 Cities Web consumption habit: Active on FB, reads about fashion & trends on blogs, check catalog of real jewellery on websites like orra.co.in, bluestone.com, etc. for an upcoming function Psychograph analysis: Likes to try a new look in every function, conscious about her tastes & preferences, enjoys the extravagant wardrobe of celebrities on television, likes to spend on leisure in her life, looks for smarter way of living in day to day life, etc.
- 34. Keyword Types
- 35. Keyword Analysis • Using Google AdWords Keyword Planner
- 36. SEO Overview
- 37. User Friendly URLs • Google has stated that the first 3-5 words in a URL are given more weight. • So make your URLs short and sweet. • And always include your target keyword in your URL. • In other words: • Avoid ugly URLs: backlinko.com/p=123 Or long URLs: backlinko.com/8/6/16/cat=SEO/on-page-seo-is-so- amazing-omg-its-the-best
- 38. Title • A title tag is an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. Title tags are displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs) as the clickable headline for a given result, and are important for usability, SEO, and social sharing. The title tag of a web page is meant to be an accurate and concise description of a page's content. • <head> <title>Example Title</title> </head>
- 39. Meta Description • Meta descriptions are HTML attributes that provide concise summaries of webpages. They are between one sentence to a short paragraph and appear underneath the blue clickable links in a search engine results page (SERP). However, depending on a user's query, Google might pull meta description text from other areas on your page (in an attempt to better answer the searcher's query). • <head> <meta name="description" content="This is an example of a meta description. This will often show up in search results."> </head>
- 40. Alt Text • Alt text (alternative text), also known as "alt attributes", “alt descriptions,” and colloquially but technically incorrectly as "alt tags,” are used within an HTML code to describe the appearance and function of an image on a page • <img src="pupdanceparty.gif" alt="Puppies dancing"
- 41. Heading tags • The H1 tag is your “headline tag”. Most CMS’s (like WordPress) automatically add the H1 tag to your blog post title. If that’s the case, you’re all set.
- 42. Robots • Robots.txt is a text file webmasters create to instruct web robots (typically search engine robots) how to crawl pages on their website. The robots.txt file is part of the the robots exclusion protocol (REP), a group of web standards that regulate how robots crawl the web, access and index content, and serve that content up to users. • www.example.com/robots.txt • User-agent: [user-agent name] • Disallow: [URL string not to be crawled] • Sitemap: [Sitemap URL]
- 43. Page Speed Insights • Page speed is often confused with "site speed," which is actually the page speed for a sample of page views on a site. Page speed can be described in either "page load time" (the time it takes to fully display the content on a specific page) or "time to first byte" (how long it takes for your browser to receive the first byte of information from the web server). • Tools to use – Gtmetrix.com & Google PageSpeed Insights
- 44. Page Content • Text can only take your content so far. Engaging images, videos and diagrams can reduce bounce rate and increase time on site: two critical user interaction ranking factors. • Lengthy researched content is preferred • Seed keywords don’t stuff keywords
- 45. XML Sitemap • A site administrator has the ability to tell/feed search engines data on the pages of a site they want crawled as well as the priority or hierarchy of site content alongside information on when the page was last updated. • Below is an anatomy of a standard XML sitemap URL entry. • <url> <loc>http://www.example.com/mypage</loc> <lastmod>2013-10-10</lastmod> <changefreq>monthly</changefreq> <priority>1</priority> </url> • Other sitemaps – image, video, news, etc. (self study)
- 46. External Linking • This is an easy, white hat SEO strategy to get more traffic. • Outbound links to related pages helps Google figure out your page’s topic. It also shows Google that your page is a hub of quality info. • NOT linking out might be the #1 on-page SEO mistake that I see people make. I try to use 2-4x outbound links per 1000 words. That’s a good rule of thumb for most sites.
- 47. Internal Linking • Internal linking is very important • Helps in crawl-ability • Helps passing link juice
- 48. Importance of Building a Company Blog • Can carry out multiple campaigns • Space to target conversational queries • Helps in internal linking • Helps in content marketing & customer education • Keeping customers updated about the happenings in the company
- 51. Introduction to Google Analytics
- 52. Introduction to Google Webmaster Tools
- 53. Tools To Use • SEO Quake • Google Analytics • Google Webmaster Tools • CognitiveSEO • SEO Tools for Excel • Xenu • Screaming Frog • Plagiarisma.net • web-site-map.com
- 54. Anchor Text • Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. SEO best practices dictate that anchor text be relevant to the page you're linking to, rather than generic text. • The blue, underlined anchor text is the most common as it is the web standard, although it is possible to change the color and underlining through html code. • The keywords in anchor text are one of the many signals search engines use to determine the topic of a web page. Anchor Title The title is not meant to be a duplication of the anchor text. It’s supposed to provide additional / advisory information (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) Anchor Tag
- 55. Canonical Tag • Canonicalization is a process for converting the data that has more than one possible representation into a standard representation. • A canonical URL, therefore, is the standard URL for accessing a specific page within your website. • For e.g., the canonical version of your domain might be http://www.domain.com instead of http://domain.com • The tag is part of the HTML header on a web page, the same section you'd find the Title attribute and Meta Description tag. <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.thebrandsaloon.com" />
- 56. Schema Schema markup is code (semantic vocabulary) that you put on your website to help the search engines return more informative results for users
- 57. Landing Page Optimization • Landing page optimization is about more than search engine rankings and targeted traffic. • It’s about ROI. It’s about conversion tracking. • If your landing page isn’t ready to seal the deal then all the SEO in the world won’t help it. How you can improve your landing page? • Optimize Meta title, Meta description and Meta Keywords. • Speed up as loading time as far as you can. • Remove the pop-ups, keep an eye on grammar, show security info of your website, Remove the big box Ad appearing to hit the nose of the visitor. • Use good color combination. • Understand what visitors want from you. Define your own goals. • Construct your website’s navigation in a meaningful logical way. • Allow your visitors to contact you easily.
- 58. Spider-Friendly Navigation • Having a spider-friendly site reduces half your worries on performing the SEO for your site. • Spider friendly navigation setup ensures that every page is reachable from at least one static text link, as well as a properly setup main website navigation system. • How to make your site's navigation spider-friendly? 1. Site Design 2. Website Content 3. HTML Code
- 59. Google AdWords Keyword Planner • Go to adwords.google.com • Login using any Gmail id • Follow steps in next slides
- 63. Steps for Keywords Analysis • Identify seed keywords • Use Google AdWords Keyword planner • Download the CSV of all keywords • Remove unnecessary columns • Sort basis search counts, remove unnecessary rows • Check every keyword from top to bottom & identify target keywords
- 64. Introduction to Google Analytics • Access the demo account using this URL: https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/demoAccount • SEO Related features in GA • Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels (check organic traffic) • Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels > Click on “organic search” (check keywords traffic) • Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/medium (check search engine wise traffic) • Behavior > Site Content > All Pages (check pageviews via Organic, use Organic Traffic segment) • Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages (check sessions via Organic, use Organic Traffic segment)
- 65. Introduction to Google Webmaster Tools
- 66. Tools To Use • SEO Quake • Google Analytics • Google Webmaster Tools • CognitiveSEO • SEO Tools for Excel • Xenu • Screaming Frog • Plagiarisma.net • web-site-map.com
- 67. Creating content is half of the story. You need to market that content for effect in keyword rankings. This is done via Off- Page Activities.
- 68. Off-Page Optimization “In search engine optimization, off-page optimization refers to factors that have an effect on your Web site or Web page listing in natural search results. These factors are off- site in that they are not controlled by you or the coding on your page.”
- 69. Why Build Links?
- 70. Follow vs. No Follow Links • A no follow link is a link that does not count as a point in the page's favor, does not boost PageRank, and doesn't help a page's placement in the SERPs. • No follow links get no love. Theirs is a sad and lonely life. • The nofollow tag is basically a notice sign for search engines saying “don't count this.”
- 71. Link Building Mantra • Is the website where I am linking from, relevant to my website? • Is the website where I am linking from, credible enough?
- 72. Activities
- 73. Social Bookmarking helps in making sure every page on the website is crawled Social Bookmarks help in improving keyword rankings, which ultimately lead to better organic traffic Apart from these benefits, Social Bookmarks generate a referral traffic as well Social Bookmarks
- 74. Forum Participation is a method to reach out to the niche audience Create a brand presence, which ultimately leads to two tier marketing via Word of Mouth Forum Participation helps in generating a targeted referral traffic on our website Forum Participations
- 75. Social Sharing helps in gaining visibility amongst target audience It generates a conversation about the topic Results in user generated content on the blog Social Sharing
- 76. Guest Posts are a good backlink earning strategy The overall DA (Domain Authority) of the website is judged by a search engine based on the number and quality of back-links it receives from third party websites This ultimately improves rankings and helps in a better organic traffic Guest Blogging
- 77. Increase awareness of the firm within the influencer community Influencer Marketing Identifying influencers Marketing to influencers Marketing through influencers Marketing with influencers Rank them in order of importance Using influencers to increase market awareness of the firm amongst target markets Turning influencers into advocates of the firm Influencer Marketing
- 78. Other Activities • Press Releases • PPT/PDF Submissions • Audio File Submissions • RSS Submissions • Comments Posting • Image/Infographics Submissions • Classified Submissions • Local Listings • Profile Link Creation • Directory Submissions • Article Submissions
- 80. Sky Scraper Technique • Step 1: Find link-worthy content • Step 2: Make something even better • Step 3: Reach out to the right people
- 81. Broken Link Building Technique • Step 1: Find broken links in your niche (Use Google) • Step 2: Create content for the broken link • Step 3: Approach website owner!
- 82. Backlink Profile
- 83. Backlink Profile
- 85. Do’s & Don’ts in Link Building • NEVER FORGET “RELEVANCY” & “CREDIBILITY” • Judge a target website basis it’s Similarweb.com traffic • Or judge by age of domain, number of indexed pages in Google • Avoid spammy backlinks at all costs • Do not fall for massive link building campaigns that promise good links at low cost • Don’t go for paid links on websites that look spammy
- 86. All Ranking Factors By Moz
- 87. Mobile SEO • Have you set up a Vary-HTTP header to tell Google and browsers that you vary the HTML by user agent? • Are desktop pages set up with a rel="alternate" tag pointing to the mobile version of that page? In the header, add: <link rel="alternate" media="only screen and (max-width: 640px)" href="http://m.domain.com" /> • Are mobile pages set up with a rel="canonical" tag pointing to the desktop version of that page? In the header, add: <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.domain.com" /> • Are all links given a 28x28 pixel margin between other links, so they're easy to click with a finger? • Don’t use popups • You may NOT generate a new robots & sitemap.
- 88. Local SEO • Local Reviews • Google My Business page • On Page Activities Include the location of your business in your website’s: - H1, h2 - Meta title - Alt tag descriptions of the images. - Embedded Google Map - Your NAP information in every page of your website • Off-Page Optimization - Generate citations for your business mentioning your complete contact information (Address, Telephone Number) - Add your website in local directories - Be consistent in your business’s information across listing sites • Social Media You should use hashtags including your location so as to generate local traffic on your website. • Rich Snippets Use your name business name, number & address as rich snippets using Schema.org
- 89. Bing SEO
- 90. Why Bother With Bing?
- 91. Google SEO vs. Bing SEO - Differences • Bing takes things literally, not quite contextual in search • User Engagement, no pogo sticking • Click Through Rates need to be good • Social Signals are given importance • Domain age matters • Bing likes keyword domains, Google prefers brand-name domains
- 92. The Digital Marketing Funnel
- 93. Integrated Digital Marketing Campaigns • The communication used across all channels is similar • The secondary objective for using the channels could differ, but primary objectives need to be the same • IDMC will be the stepping stone for a brand’s success in digital
- 94. App SEO Performing ASO (App Store Optimization) & enabling app-indexing to improve organic search-ability in the app Targeting the right keywords App Title Discoverability Relevant App Content (details, screenshots & videos) Choosing the right icon Reviews & Ratings Regular application updates Inbound links
- 95. Challenges in Different Business Verticals • Tech – Clutter • Fashion – Few keywords have maximum volume • B2B – Lesser avenues to build backlinks • Health – Informational pages rank higher than commercial pages • Real Estate – Low search volumes, paid results fetch maximum attention
- 96. Reporting in SEO Always mention • KPIs – Organic traffic, Referral traffic & Keyword ranks • Week over week comparisons of the said KPIs • Onpage implementations completed & pending • Date of backlink building activity • Keywords used in backlink activity • Current status of backlink • Plan of action over the next week
- 97. FAQs in Your SEO Interview • What is SEO? Types of SEO? • What is cloaking? • What is alexa? • What is PR? • Name some onpage elements • Character limits for on page elements • Name some offpage elements • What are follow or no follow links? • What is DA? What’s the range? • Types of penalties? • What is keywords analysis? Steps? • What is 301 redirect? • What is robots & sitemap?
- 98. Resources • Search Engine Journal • Moz Subscribe to both of these & read an article EVERYDAY!
- 100. Self Study
- 101. Checklist for SEO (For Audit) 1. Install Google Analytics. 2. Install Google Search Console. 3. Focusing on the US? Might want to install Bing Webmaster Tools. 4. Using WordPress? Get a WordPress Google Analytics plugin. 5. Using WordPress? Install the free version of Yoast SEO. 6. Check Google’s Search Console for crawl errors, duplicate content errors, missing titles and other technical errors. 7. Use Browseo.net to spot-check redirect problems (specifically, 302 errors that should be 301s). 8. Use Screaming Frog to find broken links, errors, and crawl problems. 9. Use Google Adwords Keyword Planner for keyword research, along with KWFinder, KeywordTool.io and SEMRush. Be sure to consider searcher intent and difficulty, pick 1 keyword per page, and you’ll generally want to start with lower-volume keywords first.
- 102. Checklist for SEO (contd.) 10. Have you looked at competitor link profiles? This is the easiest way to get started with link building. This way, you can see what kind of anchor text they’re using, as well as how and where they’ve been getting their links. Something like the Ahrefs, Link Diagnosis, Open Site Explorer, or Majestic. 11. Try to get your primary keyword into your page URL (but there are very serious consequences to changing a URL that already has authority – don’t do this if your page already has links!). 12. Add your keyword to your title tag. Is your title tag compelling? 13. Add your keyword to your meta description. Is your meta description compelling? 14. Add your keyword to your H1 tag. Make sure to only use one H1 tag, and make sure it shows up in the document before H2, H3 etc. 15. Add crawl-able text to your page. Make sure to have at least 100 words on each URL minimum – the more the better). You can still rank with less, and you don’t ever want to put unnecessary text on your site, but I recommend not creating a new page unless you have roughly ~100 words worth of content.
- 103. Checklist for SEO (contd.) 16. Use synonyms in your copy. Remember: synonyms are great, and using natural language that’s influenced by keyword research (rather than just pure keywords) is highly encouraged. 17. Use words discovered through latent semantic indexing in your copy – you can determine what keywords to add at LSIGraph.com. 18. Add descriptive ALT tags and filenames to your pages. Search engines “see” images by reading the ALT tag and looking at file names, among other factors. Try to be descriptive when you name your images. 19. Link to other pages on your site with SEO-friendly text (use the primary keyword in anchor text). We recommend not using anchor text in your global navigation because it can look like over-optimization. Stick to in-content links instead. 20. Make sure you don’t have duplicate content – use 301 redirects, canonical tags or use Google Webmaster Tools to fix any duplicate content that might be indexing and penalizing your site.
- 104. Checklist for SEO (contd.) 21. Use PageSpeed tools, Gift of Speed, GTMetrix and Pingdom to determine page speed – keep your site fast! 22. Make sure your site is mobile friendly – use Google’s mobile friendly testing tool. 23. Create an XML sitemap and submitted it to Google Search Console. Use XML-Sitemaps.com or Google XML Sitemaps WordPress Plugin – the Yoast SEO plugin also comes with this functionality by default. 24. Create a robots.txt file and submit it to Google Search Console. 25. Add schema on your website using tools.seochat.com. And test on Structured datat testing tool on Google. 26. Claim your brand name on as many social networking sites as possible for reputation management reasons. Namechk is a great resource to see if your name is taken on most major networks. 27. Use the SEO Audit Tool to double-check everything once you’re live. 28. If your website is old check “cache:domainname.com” in the addressbar to check when did Google last crawl the website.
Editor's Notes
- #105: Link for useful tools in SEO : https://www.thehoth.com/downloads/top-seo-tools.pdf