Transcript Search Engine Optimization SEO or Search engine optimization is

WHAT IS A SEARCH ENGINE?
It is an information retrieval system designed to help find information
stored in a computer system
Evolution of Search Engine
- A Timeline -
Lycos (active)Featured qord
matching & word
proximity.
Jumpstation (inactive) 1st WWW resourcediscovery tool to
combine the three
essential features of a
web search engine
(crawling, indexing, and
searching).
ARCHIE- 1st search
engine (retired in
1995). Was created by
Alan Emtage, Bill
Heelan and J. Peter
Deutsch, computer
science students at
McGill University in
Montreal.
W3catalog (retired in
1996) - Mirrorred web
pages reformatting
contents into individual
entries.
Vlib (retired in 1994) A virtual library of web
servers in collaboration
between Time Berners
- Lee & CERN.
1991
1992
Excite (active) - Major
"dotcom" portals in
1990s.
AliWeb (retired in
1994)- Allowed user to
submit pages they
wanted along with a
description.
Jughead - Veronica
(retired in 1994).
Searched files by their
names in the Gopher
listings.
1990
AltaVista (inactive) - 1st
to provide natural
language queries, had
search tips & allowed
users to add/remove
an URL within 24hrs of
publication.
1993
Daum (active) - Popular
web portal in South
Korea.
Yahoo (active) - Began
as a collection of
WebCrawler (still
webpages (directory),
alive)- 1st search
engine to provide full then evolved into a
text searches. Now, it is search engine.
a metaresearch engine
that blends top search
LookSmart (active) results from Google,
Competed with Yahoo
Yahoo etc.
but became a pay-perclick provider later on.
1994
1995
Evolution of Search Engine
AskJeeves.com
(ask.com) - Natural
search engine that uses
human editors to
match search queries.
- A Timeline -
Yandex (active)- Holds
the largest search
market share in Russia
Google - adopted the
idea of selling search
terms
MSN was launched.
BackRub (later became
Google) - search engine
which utilized backlinks
for search. Uses
PageRank technology
becoming the most
important search
engine in the world.
Inktomi/Hotbot Hotbot was the
internet search engine
of the Wired Magazine
& was incorporated
into Inktomi.
1996
1997
1998
AlltheWeb (Yahoo) Presented a sleek
interface w/ some
advantages like direct
FTP search
Info.com (active) Metasearch engine
which provided payper-click results.
Partnered with
White/Yellow Pages.
Vivisimo (active) Awarded the contract
to power the search
portion of Firstgov.gov
(now USA.gov)
Yahoo Search (active)
was relaunched with its
own search engine.
Baidu (active)- China's
giant search engine.
1999
2000
2001
2002
A9 (active) - Amazon
search engine
2003
2004
Evolution of Search Engine
- A Timeline ChaCha (active) - A
question-answering
service with humanguided help.
LiveSearch (active as
Bing) - Microsoft
announces launch of
Live Search product.
Sproose (inactive) Consumer engine that
re-arranges ranks due
to users' votes for
websites
SearchMe (inactive) - A
visual search engine
that organized results
as snapshots of web
pages.
Powerset (inactive,
redirects to Bing) Microsoft owned
company.
Snap (inactive) - This
search engine showed
volumes, revenues and
advertisers but proved
to be too complicated
for average users.
2005
2006
wikiseek (inactive) Indexed Wikipedia and
Bing (active) - Current
linked-to Wikipedia
web search engine
pages. WikiSeek was
funded by SearchMe. from Microsoft.
Provides video, search
suggestions & other
features.
2007
2008
2009
2010
Cuil (inactive) - Search
engine that organized
web pages by content
& displayed relatively
long entries along with
thumbnail pictures.
Yandex (active) Launched global
(English) search.
OpenDrive (active) Cloud file search from
Google
2011
2012
How SE works?
It operates in the following order:
Web crawling
Indexing
Searching
Web Crawling
A Web crawler is an Internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web,
typically for the purpose of Web indexing.
A Web crawler may also be called a Web spider, an ant, an automatic indexer, or a
Web scutter.
Web Crawling
PANDA & PENGUIN:
Google’s Algorithm Updates
Penalize websites of low
quality and those with
low-quality content.
It was first introduced in
24thFebruary, 2011 as
Farmer Update in USA.
Bring down websites
that violate Google’s
Webmaster
Guidelines and
use black-hat SEO
techniques
Indexing
: collects, parses, and stores data (keywords or keyphrases) to facilitate
fast and accurate information retrieval.
Searching
: is the activity of obtaining information resources relevant to an information
needed from a collection of information resources.
SERP
Search Engine
Results Page
You have a website,
but are you SEARCHABLE?
Search Engine Optimization
SEO or Search engine optimization is the process
of affecting the visibility of a website or a web
page in a search engine's "natural" or unpaid
(organic) search results.
 PAID Search result
}
Organic Search results
Purpose of SEO
1. Brand awarenessA web site having a high ranking means
more people see the name of the
company and become familiar with the
company and its products.
2. Targeted TrafficSearch engine optimization brings
paying customers to your door step as
they enter your websites by using
relevant keywords/phrases into the
search engines.
3. Long term cost benefit Once you have achieved a good ranking
for a specific keyword, you will not pay
for the traffic it generates. Although it
has a higher entry cost, long term, its
very cost effective.
4. Brand credibility There is a higher level of brand trust
when a visitor finds you organically.
They are more likely to bookmark your
site, spend more time reading your site
and return as a customer.
5. Your competitors Keeping ahead of your competition in
the organic search results can help
boost the perceived position of your
company in your marketplace.
Optimization
On- Page SEO
Title Tags
The title tag tells search engines what the page is about and that the
page on your website is relevant for that keyword or keyword
phrase. Title tags should be unique for every page.
In search results, search engines will highlight your keyword phrases if a
user has searched for those terms. This increases visibility and clickthrough rate.
Example of Title tag in SERP
Best Practices:
• Your title tag should be written like this: Primary Keyword – Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
• Use a dash in between your keyword phrases and a pipe at the end before your brand name
• Avoid duplicate title tags
• Keep title tags at 66 characters or less in length, including spaces
Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions should include a compelling description on which a
user would want to click on. Much like title tags, the SERPs will highlight
keywords that the user searched for, increasing the likelihood of the user
clicking through to your website.
Example of Title tag in SERP
Best Practices:
• Write compelling meta descriptions
• 150 to 160 characters is the recommended length
• Avoid duplicate meta descriptions
• Do not use quotes or any non-alpha characters (Google, cuts them out of the meta description)
Content with Targeted Keyword Phrases
With the latest Google Panda updates, it is extremely important that your
content is unique and relevant.
If you have multiple pages with the same content (or if you have your
content on other people’s websites), you will run the risk of getting
penalized by Google and your search rankings will suffer.
Best Practices:
• Create content that is extremely relevant for that keyword phrase
• Use your keyword phrase 4 times within your content
• Use multiple variations of that keyword phrase – singular and plural versions,
abbreviations, acronyms (SEO vs. search engine optimization) and synonyms
• Include links from other pages within your website that point back to this page
• Create unique content for every medium (press releases, blogs, guest blog posts, etc…).
Example of Web Content with highlighted keywords
Website’s Meta data
Header Tags and Keyword Phrases
A header tag, also known as an H1 tag, is much like the subject line of
your web page. You should only use your keyword phrase once in the H1
tag.
This should be included on a page to which you are trying to drive
unique traffic to. You can also use H2 tags (second header) if there are
multiple sections.
Best Practices:
• Use your keyword phrase once in your H1 tag
• Use H1 tags on pages you are trying to drive unique traffic to (SEO page)
• Use H2 tags if there are multiple sections
Example of an
H1 tag being
optimized for
‘nfc reader’:
header tag 
Internal Page Linking with Anchor Text
Internal linking refers to a link on a page that points to another page on
the same website. Internal linking is important because it helps
strengthen those keywords internally for those pages, it allows users
(and search engine robots) to navigate through the website, and it tells
the search engines that the page is relevant for that keyword phrase.
Example of how to use anchor text in your internal links:
Best Practices:
• When linking to another page on the same site from within content, select good anchor
text (keywords) to use in the actual link and do this often.
Image ALT Tags and Filenames/Image
Optimization
An alt tag is essentially the name of an image. All images should use
appropriate alt tags. Not only are alt tags good for search engines; they
are also good for accessibility.
Example of image in a website with an alt tag.
Best Practices:
• Name all of your images in a way that describes what they are
• Use dashes between the words, rather than underscores ( purple-hat.jpg rather than
purple_hat.jpg)
• Do not use non-alpha characters in your image or file names (so no %, &, $, etc…)
How to Optimize Images
Find the right
images
Use the most
relevant and highquality image.
Make sure the
image matches
the content of
your page.
Use
keyword(s) in
the file name
Update your
image’s alt
attributes tag:
Use descriptive
text.
Using a keywordrich filename
helps search
engines determine
relevance.
<img
src="/img/contactle
ss_acr122_big.png"
alt="ACR122U USB
NFC Reader"
border="0">
Don't scale
the image via
HTML
Making an image
smaller or bigger
by using height
and width
different from the
image size is bad
for website
performance (and
image quality).
Create separate
files for different
image
sizes instead.
Make Content Easy to Read
This is not a huge factor in search engine rankings, but will help your
users easily scan your content and find the keywords they are looking
for.
You should use bolding and bullet points to set apart words in the text,
and this further tells the engines what is important on the page.
Best practices:
• Paragraphs should be roughly three sentences long. Extremely long sentences will lose
the users’ attention
• Use bullet points and bolding to break up large blocks of content. Users tend to scan
content looking for keywords
• Do not overuse bullets and bolding
Meta Keywords
Keywords or key phrases are the search terms someone types into a
search engine, when they are looking for certain information.
Why do KEYWORDS matter?
People are constantly using keywords whether they are in search of a specific
product or just browsing to conduct personal research.
XML Sitemaps
is an xml page on your website that incorporates a list of links in every
single page on your site.
It can also detail the hierarchy of pages on your site.
Sitemap content/code:
Note:
Without a quality sitemap, pages that are buried more than a couple of clicks from the
home page will take longer to get indexed and in some instances, Google (and other
search engines) may not index them at all.
Robots.txt
A Robots.txt file complements your XML sitemap by providing search
engine crawlers with instructions on how to read and index your website.
Robots.txt tells search engines which pages to index and which to skip, so that private
information stays protected.
Example:
Inside ACS’ robots.txt file…
Not indexed by Google
SEO Friendly URL
SEO-friendly URLs are purely structural URLs that do not contain a
query string:
[e.g., www.example.com/?p=578544]
but use keyword-rich naming conventions instead:
[e.g., www.example.com/products/smartcardreader]
Optimization
Off- Page SEO
Off-page SEO is all about building online authority –
trust and reputation – for your website.
It has been defined by the quantity, quality, and
relevance of links to your website that establish your
SEO authority and ultimately influence your search
results ranking.
Link Building
Is the practice of building inbound links to help give your website
authority.
WHY SEARCH ENGINES CARE ABOUT LINKS?
The number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or
importance of that website or page.
Search engines’ major ranking factors that is put into consideration :
Search Engine Signals
SERP ranking
The Wrong Way to Build Links
• Spamming
• Buying a massive number of links
• Publishing low-quality article
• Over-using one article
Social Media
is a new platform presenting an opportunity to connect and have real
conversations with your audience.
Social media signals are
search engines’ signals as
natural ranking factors.
a. Bookmarking
A social bookmarking service is a centralized online service which
enables users to add, annotate, edit, and share bookmarks of web
documents.
b. Sharing
Sharing represents the extent to which users exchange, distribute, and
receive content.
c. PR
Press Releases boost exposure online and is usually recognized and
indexed by all major search engines.
Press release is a good tool for reputation management and search
engines’ ranking factor.
c. Interaction
Visitors spend the most time on websites where they can voice and share their
opinions. If you can engage with visitors to your site, they will hang around for
longer. And the longer they hang around, the better exposed they are to your
brand.
Example of ACS’ social media account enhancing customer engagement by interaction:
c. Blogging
Content marketing, article writing or blogging is critical to your online visibility.
It generates search engine traffic by providing inbound links and can get you
leads for your business.
Example of ACS’ blog with inbound links to acs.com.hk:
c. Visual Content
Information graphics or infographics are visual representations of information,
data or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and
clearly.
Example of a top ranking infographic from visual.ly with inbound link to the author’s blog:
SEO Metrics
1) PageRank
Is a scoring system that Google uses to determine the
importance of a web page.
PageRank is scored on a logarithmic scale between 1 and
10.
PR checkers
Browser plugin from SEOquake
Online PR checker
Example of High Ranking Websites
twitter.com
addthis.com
leru.org
unesco.org
miibeian.gov.cn
hhs.gov
google.com
ipod.com
facebook.com
youtube.com
yahoo.com
baidu.com
2) Alexa Ranking
This is a ranking system set by alexa.com (a subsidiary of amazon.com) that
basically audits and makes public the frequency of visits on various Web sites.
The global traffic rank is a measure of how a website is doing relative to all other
sites on the web over the past 3 months.
The rank is calculated using a combination of the estimated average daily unique
visitors to the site and the estimated number of pageviews.
The site with the highest combination of unique visitors and pageviews is ranked
#1.
Example Alexa Traffic Rank:
3) SERP
Ranking
The rank where your
website appears on the
Search Engine Results
Page (SERP).
1st page is usually every
website’s target as it
gets 75-95% clickthrough rate.
Key Drivers of Good SEO to Note
Relevancy
Authority
Quality
Sources:
Wikipedia.com
Advancedhtml.co.uk/robots-sitemaps.htm
Htmlbasictutor.ca
searchengineland.com
seo-creare.co.uk
Hubspot.com
w3schools.com
googleblog.blogspot.com
alexa.com
managewp.com/the-importance-of-social-media
Thanks!
FIN