8.7 KEYWORDS GUIDELINES- is a statement by which to determine a course of action. A guideline aims to streamline particular processes according to a set routine or sound practice. Sitemap- is a file where you provide information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site. optimization - the action of making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource. HTTP– The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is an application protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems that allows users to communicate data on the World Wide Web. URL- is an address that shows where a particular page can be found on the World Wide Web. 8.8LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. What are quality guidelines for quality SEO? ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 2. What that robots.txt file means? ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 8.9 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. What basic guidelines for creating a robots.txt file? 2. How to add a sitemap? 3. How to set up a Webmaster Tools account? Long Questions 101 1. Explain GOOGLE SEO guidelines in detail. 2. Give the step how to help visitor use page? 3. What are the techniques that need to be avoided for GOOGLE SEO? 4. Explain GOOGLE page rank. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
5. Explain process of creating robots file. B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. Use the _______ file on your web server to manage your crawling budget a. robots.txt b. robots.html c. main.txt d. main.html 2. To debug directives in your robots.txt file, use the robots.txt _________ a. Debugger tool b. Tester tool c. Compiler tool d. Cross Compiler tool 3. If another site is abusing Google's quality guidelines the report can be filed by _____ a. filing a abuse report b. filing a trash report c. filing a spam report d. All of the mentioned 102 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
4. Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine ______ a. performance b. data c. backup d. rankings 5. PageRanks is a _____ algorithm a. link analysis b. data analysis c. operation analysis d. mathematical Answers 1-a, 2-b, 3-c, 4-d, 5-a 8.10 REFERENCES References book Jerri Ledford, “Search Engine Optimization”, Wiley Publishing Inc. S.S. Niranga, “Mobile Web Performance Optimization”, PACKT Publishing Textbook references Danny Dover, “Search Engine Optimization Secrets”, Wiley Publishing Inc. Bruce Clay, “Search Engine Optimization AA-In-One for Dummies A Wiley Brand”, John Wiley & Sons. Aaron Matthew Wall, “Search Engine Optimization”, http://www.seobook.com/seo- tools.pdf H.J. Bernardin, Human Resource Management, Tata McGraw Hill, New Delhi, 2004. 103 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Website https://www.umassmed.edu/globalassets/it/web-services/google-analytics/google- analytics-user-guide.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//grants/education/Go ogle_Analytics_Training.pdf https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/#/p287091400/reports/reportinghub Internet Basics: What is the Internet? (gcfglobal.org) https://www.semrush.com/blog/black-hat- seo/?kw=&cmp=IN_SRCH_DSA_Blog_Core_BU_EN&label=dsa_pagefeed&Networ k=g&Device=c&utm_content=515715717309&kwid=aud-422673590326:dsa- 1053501806627&cmpid=11773572684&agpid=115407097598&BU=Core&extid=20 3745429736&adpos=&gclid=Cj0KCQjww4OMBhCUARIsAILndv6WsS0Lw7OOGv i5TA6yAGFZNZNRGP44MNM3cnYj70oeQ3LiFot_Hn4aAt4aEALw_wcB 104 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT- 9: OFF PAGE OPTIMIZATION STRUCTURE 9.8 Learning Objectives 9.9 Introduction 9.10 Black Hat SEO 9.10.1 The Risks of Black Hat SEO 9.10.2 Black Hat SEO Tactics To Avoid 9.10.3 How To Report Black Hat SEO 9.11 White Hat SEO 9.12 Grey Hat SEO 9.13 Summary 9.14 Keywords 9.15 Learning Activity 9.16 Unit End Questions 9.17 References 9.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to: Describe the general guidelines of google SEO Setup page for the visitor to visit in more easy manner. Explain the quality check guidelines. Create robots file. 9.1 INTRODUCTION Successful SEO optimisation can be done through two ways. These two factors play a vital role in running of Seo optimisation. On page and off page factors are the wheels that run the vehicle of SEO. Off page optimisation is defined as the technique which helps the website to improve its ranking on the search engine results page. These factors functions outside the boundaries of the web pages. These ranking factors are not directly controlled by the publisher. Off-page optimisation basically deals in link building for SEO. 105 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Off page SEO is a long term and time consuming process. It includes acquiring backlinks to your webpage from the authority sites, Social media and social bookmarking. Off page factors work in the background to improve the search rankings. By applying off page Seo tactics, you can boost the ranking of your web page, be noticeable and get drive traffic on your webpage. Let’s go through various techniques to optimize your web page. Figure 9.1 Link building - It is one of the most famous ways of doing off page optimisation. Link building is defined as building external links with your website. The main aim is to get as much links or votes you can to rank higher than your competitors. The webmasters are looking out for cheat codes that how can they build links to their websites. The more the backlinks, the better is the authority. Some of the ways which the helps in increasing link building are: O Blog Directories - These are directories like yellow pages which links the entry back to a website. O Forum signatures - By commenting on forums, people were getting a link back to their website as they used to leave links in their signatures. O Comment link - Just as in forum signatures, where you leave a link in your signature when you comment on any other’s blog to get a link back, here, instead of writing your name you 106 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
write keywords in the comment. For example, Instead of writing ‘Comment by Joe’ you write ‘comment by where to buy dogs’ or something of that sort. O Article directories - If you publish your article in the article directories, you will get a backlink to your website. Mainly directories accept only original content, but there can be some directories which accepts article which are reworded or spinned. O Shared content directories - In shared content directories, websites like hub pages or info barrel allows you to publish your content and in return, you can add links favouring your website. O Link exchange schemes - This is an interesting way to build links. The scheme talks about getting in touch with the webmasters of different websites and exchange links, i.e. linking website ‘X’ to website ‘Y’ and in return website ‘Y’ would link to website ‘X’.There is another complex method which is by exchanging links with 3, i.e. linking website ‘X’ from website ‘Y’ and website ‘Y’ links to another website. • Social Media - Another way of building links is by engaging your website on social media platforms. It is a great way to attract traffic. The links which you see on social media are generally no-follow links, but this does not indicates that those links do not have any value. Mentioning your brand on social media platforms will drive a hell lot of traffic. Go straight with your strategy and website, you will definitely start ranking. • Social Bookmarking - This is another great way of promoting and attracting huge traffic to your website. This can be done by promoting your blogs on famous websites such as, Reddit, Scoop It, and digg, Stumble Upon etc. The content is very frequently updated on such sites, which is appreciated by Search engines. • Guest Blogging - We know the fact that by curating new, unique, compelling content, building up new links will drive traffic to your website. Blogging is a way to attract traffic with bare cost. By posting comments on other websites will allow you to add links in the comments section. The links will be crawled by the search engines leading to driving traffic to your website. 9.2 BLACK HAT SEO Black hat SEO refers to a set of practices that are used to increases a site or page’s rank in search engines through means that violate the search engines’ terms of service. The term “black hat” originated in Western movies to distinguish the “bad guys” from the “good guys,” who wore white hats (see white hat SEO). Recently, it’s used more commonly to describe computer hackers, virus creators, and those who perform unethical actions with computers. For Example: Content Automation, Doorway Pages, Hidden Text or Links, Keyword Stuffing, Reporting a Competitor (or Negative SEO), etc. 107 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
9.2.1 The Risks of Black Hat SEO: There are significant risks involved with using black hat tactics to rank your website, and that's the reason why most SEOs choose not to consider such approaches. The majority of the SEO industry deems these practices to be completely unethical. But the reality is that there are, and likely always will be, a small percentage of marketers who want to try and cheat the system and try to fast-track their site's organic success. However, even if black hat SEO techniques prove to work for your website, the results are often short-lived. Reasons To Avoid Black Hat SEO: 1. It Can Negatively Impact Your Search Rankings and Visibility : The number one reason not to use black hat SEO tactics is that they will ultimately result in your site losing search rankings, visibility, and traffic. Just take a look at the below figure 5.1. This is the visibility of a site that participated in unnatural tactics and was negatively impacted as a result of this: Figure 9.1 When a website loses traffic and visibility, this typically means that conversions and revenue follow a similar trend. This, in itself, can mean a reduction in a business' income and lead to job losses or even business closures. At best, a severe decline in organic traffic will mean that this has to be supplemented with a higher investment into PPC or other paid media. 2. It Won’t Drive Long-Term Results: Even in cases when rankings and organic performance initially increases from manipulative techniques, these are rarely sustained. While it might take some time for Google to determine that a site participates in unethical approaches (this could be that a manual review was conducted or that a core algorithm was updated), once it happens, a loss of traffic is inevitable. 108 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Perhaps the only thing worse than struggling to rank a site at all is seeing rankings and traffic artificially inflated, only to drop suddenly in the near future. Businesses need predictability, and that's not something that black hat tactics can deliver. 3. It Typically Results In A Poor User Experience: SEO needs to consider a user's experience on a site and work to serve the best content and the best UX. However, black hat tactics do the exact opposite; they optimize for search engines (at least what they think search engines want to see) rather than users. This, in itself, can be problematic. Trust plays a large part in search success. If primary consideration is given to search engines over users, there's a good chance that the site's ability to convert will be significantly limited. 9.2.2 Black Hat SEO Tactics to Avoid: 1. Keyword Stuffing : Repeating your page's main target keyword(s) excessively won't help you to rank. Keyword stuffing, as it's known, will almost certainly result in the opposite. Black hat SEOs will sometimes attempt to manipulate a site's rankings by including a keyword unnaturally across a page. Keyword stuffing often occurs in random blocks that sit outside of the main content or within paragraphs that just don't make sense when you read them aloud. 2. Automatically Generated/Duplicate Content: Creating great content isn't easy, yet there's no hiding from the fact that it remains one of Google's top three ranking factors. A common black hat technique is to automatically generate content to rank for a large number of keywords without actually going away and creating useful, unique content. An example would be a multitude of location pages created, and the same content is used for each one, except for the place name changing. Be sure to take the time to create SEO-friendly content to avoid issues caused by low quality or duplicate pages. 3. Hidden Text : Hidden text is text that is the same color as the background that is positioned off the screen or behind an image, purposefully uses CSS to hide it from users, or even uses a font size of zero. This is deceptive but is sometimes used to stuff keywords in; many marketers would provide long lists of keywords that they wanted their content to rank for in SERPs. But what we're talking about here is a clear attempt to hide text completely, and this doesn't apply to text that's in an accordion, in tabs, or is loaded dynamically using JavaScript. From our side, we definitely don't recommend adding hidden text to your 109 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
pages. Search engine crawlers are far more sophisticated now and understand that you're trying to cram in keywords. 4. Doorway/Gateway Pages : Creating pages that target specific search queries with content intended to act only as a funnel to one page is considered a violation of Google's guidelines. These types of pages are known as doorway or gateway pages. Every piece of content on your site should have a specific purpose, and you shouldn't be creating pages in an attempt to rank for keywords that aren't entirely relevant. Examples of this include: Creating pages to target geographically targeted keywords in locations where your business doesn't have a physical presence that funnels users to a single page Pages created solely to rank for search queries rather than to meet a user's need Create content for humans, not search engines. 5. Cloaking: Cloaking is a tactic that involves serving different content or URLs to users and search engines, essentially providing a different experience on each. This is a clear attempt to rank a page based on content created for search engines while pointing users to somewhere (or something) different. This is a deceptive practice, making it a violation of search engine guidelines. Focus your efforts on designing the best possible experiences for your users, and there's a good chance the search engines will also love your page. 6. Paid/Manipulative Links : Link schemes are one of the most common types of black hat SEO, and this is the area where a lot of confusion often originates. It's common sense to many marketers that you should be writing content that works for your users and that you shouldn't be hiding text, but link building gets a little more complex. The bottom line is that links should be earned, especially when considering that they're editorial votes of trust from one website to another. This means that you should avoid tactics such as: Paid (sponsored) links that don't contain a rel=\"no follow\" or rel=\"sponsored\" attribute Excessive link exchanges Blog comment spam Forum spam Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns 110 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Automated link building Spammy directories, bookmarking sites, and web 2.0 properties Site-wide footer or sidebar links Links that use exact match or commercial anchor text 7. Misused Structured Data and Rich Snippets : While structured data can help define entities, actions, and relationships online, a common black hat tactic is to abuse or misuse this type of markup. This usually means using structured data to give factually incorrect information—for example, those who attempt to create more favorable structured data for their site. Many marketers write up fake reviews that give 5-star ratings to boost their business' SERP position and enjoy a higher CTR. Like the other tactics on this list, this is pure deception and not a tactic you should consider. 8. Misleading Redirects : Whether it's an older page that you're updating to a new URL or preparing for a site migration, using redirects is a common part of SEO. There's nothing wrong with this; it's the preferred method of ensuring your site is well organized and easily accessible by users and search engine crawlers. However, similar to cloaking, sneaky redirects are placed by black hat SEOs to deceive search engines and display content that's different from what a user sees. Oftentimes a search engine will index the original page, while users are taken to a different destination URL. Google's Webmaster Guidelines specifically list sneaky redirects as a black hat tactic that violates its guidelines 9. Negative SEO : It would be wrong to assume that all black hat SEO tactics target the site that a marketer is trying to rank. Some unethical SEOs use negative SEO in an attempt to reduce their competitor's rankings. Think of this as using tactics that violate Google's guidelines on someone else's site, rather than your own. In practice, this commonly means pointing large numbers of unnatural links to someone else's domain in the hope that they're penalized because of it. While not very common, especially given that Google is getting better at ignoring the links that originate from such attacks, it's important to be aware of this and regularly analyze your link profile (something that can be done using the SEMrush Backlink Audit Tool). 111 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
9.2.3 How to Report Black Hat SEO: So, you may have asked yourself the following question reading through this guide: What if you spot one of your competitors using black hat tactics and it isn't being penalized? You can file a spam report with Google when you believe that a website is ranking due to paid links, spam, or other violations. While reporting a site won't result in direct action being taken, you're improving algorithmic spam detection. As a marketer, it's often disheartening to discover that a website is cheating the system and getting away with it. While Google is ultimately becoming increasingly good at preventing such sites from ranking in top positions on the SERPs, there are still sites performing well by leveraging black hat tactics. Depending on the severity of the web spam that other sites are using, there's a good chance that they'll be negatively impacted in the not too distant future after another algorithm updates. 9.3 WHITE HAT SEO White Hat SEO refers that work within search engines terms of service to improve a site’s search engine results page (SERP) rankings while maintaining the integrity of your website and staying within the search engines’ terms of service. For Example: Offering quality content and services, Fast site loading times and mobile- friendliness, Using descriptive, keyword-rich Meta tags, making your site easy to navigate, etc. Why Is White Hat SEO Important? White hat SEO is important because, without it, search engine results would be chaotic. Without rules to guide the internet, website owners would rely on more dated SEO methods to rank on the search pages. And users would have to comb through a lot of irrelevant sites to find what they’re looking for. White hat SEO is important because it benefits everyone. Google makes sure its algorithms only rank great content that captures user intent for every keyword search because it encourages millions of internet users to use the search engine. Site owners also benefit because they can boost their ranking without resorting to dishonest tactics. Lastly, users benefit because they can find what they’re looking for easily through organic search. What Are Some White Hat SEO Strategies? 1. Offer Valuable Content: Blog posts are used by 86% of marketing teams as a lead generator. Content is still king. So, don’t produce content for search engines. Create content for people looking for information. 112 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
You’ll also want your content to be relevant and authoritative so that others will use it for reference. To get a quick view of your website’s overall search engine presence regarding organic traffic and the number of backlinks, use our Domain Overview tool. Figure 9.2 6. Satisfy User Intent Satisfying user intent is Google’s No. 1 goal, so you should also aim for it as a website owner. User intent is the person’s goal when they type a query into a search engine. For example, if they type “keto pasta recipes,” they’d expect the results to show them keto diet- approved pasta recipes. The common types of user intent are informational, commercial, navigational, and transactional. If a person visits a clothing website, it’s safe to say they’re looking to buy, and that would be categorized as commercial and transactional. If someone looks up “how to grow mushrooms,” they’d be looking for information. A few strategies to use to satisfy user intent include: Knowing your audience and what they’re looking for Optimizing your content to fit specific keywords Formatting your content for skimmers — use subheadings and leave a lot of white space Using videos and images 7. Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly: 113 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
In 2019, 52.2% of worldwide traffic used mobile phones to access the internet. This means if your website is not optimized to be viewed on a smartphone, you’re losing potential leads. Your website visitors won’t stay if they can’t navigate your site. Type your URL into the search box of Google’s mobile-friendly test tool. You’ll get an answer on whether your website can be viewed on mobile phones. You’ll also receive a screenshot of how your pages look on a phone screen with a list of recommendations for optimization. 9.4 GREY HAT SEO It’s a mixture of white hat and black hat techniques. It’s a tactic that is currently either white or black hat but with changes to the ways search engines work could become the opposite in the future. Gray hat SEO is neither black hat nor white hat, but something in the middle. Either transitioning between the two, or a mixture of the two. It’s a blurred line. Not something that you would willingly inform Google you are doing. Not something you should automatically be penalized for. It’s not necessarily a bad practice, but it is being done with the intention to get ahead in the rankings. The content is written purely for the purpose of ranking the page well. It contains just enough keywords to drive visitors to the page but doesn’t really add much value. The page would be just as useful to the visitor without the text but ranks better with it. A common SEO practice. 9.5 SUMMARY There are significant risks involved with using black hat tactics to rank your website, and that's the reason why most SEOs choose not to consider such approaches. The majority of the SEO industry deems these practices to be completely unethical. A common black hat technique is to automatically generate content to rank for a large number of keywords without actually going away and creating useful, unique content. An example would be a multitude of location pages created, and the same content is used for each one, except for the place name changing. Creating pages that target specific search queries with content intended to act only as a funnel to one page is considered a violation of Google's guidelines. These types of pages are known as doorway or gateway pages. Sneaky redirects are placed by black hat SEOs to deceive search engines and display content that's different from what a user sees. Oftentimes a search engine will index the original page, while users are taken to a different destination URL. 114 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
You can file a spam report with Google when you believe that a website is ranking due to paid links, spam, or other violations. While reporting a site won't result in direct action being taken, you're improving algorithmic spam detection. 9.6 KEYWORDS Report- an account given of a particular matter, especially in the form of an official document, after thorough investigation or consideration by an appointed person or body. Structured Data - to data that resides in a fixed field within a file or record. Blog - a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style. Manipulative – serving or intended to control or influence others in an artful and often unfair or selfish way a clever and manipulative child manipulative behavior. SERP -is the page you see after entering a query into Google 9.7LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Define Black Hat SEO ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 2. Define White Hat SEO ___________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ 9.8 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. State reasons To Avoid Black Hat SEO 2. Explain Doorway/Gateway Pages 3. Explain Paid/Manipulative Links 4. Why Is White Hat SEO Important? Long Questions 115 1. List and explain Black Hat SEO tactics to avoid. 2. Differentiate between Black Hat SEO and White hat SEO CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
3. Explain White Hat SEO Strategies. 4. What is Grey Hat SEO? B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. Blog posts are used by 86% of marketing teams as a _______ a. lead generator b. marketing c. information d. survey 2. In 2019, _____ of worldwide traffic used mobile phones to access the internet. a. 55% b. 52.2% c. 60% d. 90% 3. Black Hat SEO It is used by those who are looking for quick ________ on their website. a. Customer b. Feedback c. Financial Return d. None of these 4. White Hat SEO is _______ SEO 116 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
a. Main b. Primary c. Unethical d. Ethical 5. White Hat SEO improves your search performance on search engine result page(SERP) along maintaining the _____ of the website a. Integrity b. Authenticity c. Confidentiality d. Privacy Answers 1-a, 2-b, 3-c, 4-d, 5-a 9.9 REFERENCES References book Jerri Ledford, “Search Engine Optimization”, Wiley Publishing Inc. S.S. Niranga, “Mobile Web Performance Optimization”, PACKT Publishing Textbook references Danny Dover, “Search Engine Optimization Secrets”, Wiley Publishing Inc. Bruce Clay, “Search Engine Optimization AA-In-One for Dummies A Wiley Brand”, John Wiley & Sons. Aaron Matthew Wall, “Search Engine Optimization”, http://www.seobook.com/seo- tools.pdf 117 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
H.J. Bernardin, Human Resource Management, Tata McGraw Hill, New Delhi, 2004. Website https://www.umassmed.edu/globalassets/it/web-services/google-analytics/google- analytics-user-guide.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//grants/education/Go ogle_Analytics_Training.pdf https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/#/p287091400/reports/reportinghub Internet Basics: What is the Internet? (gcfglobal.org) https://www.semrush.com/blog/black-hat- seo/?kw=&cmp=IN_SRCH_DSA_Blog_Core_BU_EN&label=dsa_pagefeed&Networ k=g&Device=c&utm_content=515715717309&kwid=aud-422673590326:dsa- 1053501806627&cmpid=11773572684&agpid=115407097598&BU=Core&extid=20 3745429736&adpos=&gclid=Cj0KCQjww4OMBhCUARIsAILndv6WsS0Lw7OOGv i5TA6yAGFZNZNRGP44MNM3cnYj70oeQ3LiFot_Hn4aAt4aEALw_wcB 118 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT- 10:LINKING BUILDING METHODOLOGY STRUCTURE 10.8 Learning Objectives 10.9 Introduction 10.10 Linking Building Methodology 10.11 Types of Linking Methods 10.12 Free Links / Paid Links 10.13 Articles Submission 10.14 Blog Marketing 10.15 Blog Commenting 10.16 Forum Signatures and Commenting 10.17 Press Releases 10.18 Summary 10.19 Keywords 10.20 Learning Activity 10.21 Unit End Questions 10.22 References 10.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to: Build various linking methodology. Explain different types of linking method which can help developing website. Start blogging in more effective manner. Differentiate between Paid and Free Link. Describe the concept of article submission. Make strategy of blog marketing. 10.1 INTRODUCTION If you want to rank a website on Google in 2021, you can’t ignore the importance of link building and the need to put together a solid strategy that will help you earn high-quality links. In fact, links remain one of the top three most important ranking factors out there. 119 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
That said, whether you are a total SEO beginner and are learning how to build links for the first time or have been doing it for years and just want to find new tactics that still work, there are literally dozens of approaches you can take. 10.2 LINKING BUILDING METHODOLOGY A hyperlink is a connection from the referring page to the target page - always has been. Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. A hyperlink (usually just called a link) is a way for users to navigate between pages on the Internet. Search engines use links to crawl the web. They will crawl the links between the individual pages on your website, and they will crawl the links between entire websites Figure 10.1 Google said links are the #1 ranking factor, alongside with great content. Ranking without links is hard, and why would anyone try to rank without links in the first place? Before April 2012, one could rather easily buy his ranking position by adding more and more links. A little bit of these and a little bit of those links, and you could manage ranking on the first search engine results page. Well, that time is long gone. The Google Penguin Spam Filter is now part of Google’s Core Algorithm and works in real time. 120 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Figure 10.2 There are two fundamental ways that the search engines use links: 1. To discover new web pages, which they can then use in their search results 2. To help determine how well a page should rank in their results 10.3 TYPES OF LINKING METHODS 1. Use Strategic Guest Blogging: Content marketing has evolved throughout the years. Nowadays, content marketers have a tremendous amount of digital tools available to create fantastic content. There arises the need to construct a robust content marketing strategy that marketers use to hack for gaining growth online. As social media grows, the growth of content creation and distribution is exponential as social media marketing, and influencer marketing becomes more widely available. With guest blogging, marketers can achieve more success in digital marketing. Since many companies, both startups and corporations, have proved through their success that guest blogging is one of the best ways to promote one’s business online. Guest blogging allows you to share experience, create a reputation around your industry, and improve your SERP rankings using backlinks to your website. Guest blogging is such a vital tool for companies and individuals to establish themselves as a leader in the industry, build relationships with other influencers, and expose their brands to a more significant number of potential customers. 121 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Following are 9 key steps below will help you create a compelling guest blogging strategy for your site: 1. Market Research 2. Determine guest blogging goals 3. Search for guest blogging opportunities 4. Assess guest blogging sites and connect with site owners 5. Choose and pitch a guest post topic 6. Write and edit the guest post 7. How to craft a guest bio 8. Promote content 9. Track results and get guest bloggers for your site 3. Create and Distribute Infographics Infographic was immensely popular among Game of Thrones fans, generating tons of traffic and engagement, and even getting picked up by a few other websites. How to Build Links withInfo graphics? a. Publish your infographic. b. Share your infographic on social media. c. Promote your infographic on social media. d. Reach out to bloggers and influencers. e. Send to infographic directories. f. Submit a press release. g. Connect with your contacts. 4. Get Active on Social Media : Social media does not directly contribute to SEO ranking, but the links you share across social platforms increase brand exposure. They add up and influence search engine optimization in six directions: Extensive content distribution Longer lifespan of your posts Improve online visibility and organic traffic Increase brand recognition. Enhance brand reputation 122 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Boosts local search engine optimization (SEO) 5. Use Resource Links From Trusted Sites: Link building gets a bad rap. So much so, that many have tried to re-brand link building as “link earning.” However, as long as links remain one of the most important ranking factors, anyone practicing SEO has a duty to engage in link building. Specifically: link building that conforms to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Because link building is hard and links are needed to reach the top of the SERPs, there is a huge black market. Much of it is blatant, including spam emails offering guest posts on seemingly trusted authority sites. You also have websites filled with menus of link packages available to anyone with a PayPal account. Private Blog Networks (PBNs) are the darling of the black hat forums and Facebook groups. Here’s the thing. Google employees get those emails, too. Members of the Google spam team are also members of black hat forums and Facebook groups. Google quality raters stumble upon sites selling links regularly. For those reasons alone, link cheating doesn’t make sense and anyone engaged in those activities may be just one link away from tripping the Penguin algorithm or drawing a manual action. 6. Leverage the Broken Links Strategy: Broken link building may perhaps be the most effective, white-hat link building strategy in years. In particular, broken link building is appealing because the success of the campaign is directly proportional to how much good you do for the web. You profit only if you create good content to replace lost or abandoned content that webmasters still want to link to. This is the type of strategy that marries so many of the competing interests our industry: content vs. links, link earning vs link building, inbound vs. outbound, etc. 7. Grow Your Personal Brand : The term personal branding refers to a practice of establishing an online identity for yourself. In practice, it’s similar to organizational or corporate branding, however, personal branding is used for individuals instead of the whole organization. The identity itself includes a personality and a public image which you will use as a basis for 123 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
advertising and marketing communications. The most common use of personal branding in the business world includes creating a branding campaign revolving around the CEO in order to become an additional outlet for the company’s brand. 8. Check Competitors’ Backlinks: Backlinking is one of the most effective SEO tactics to help you reach that number one search result on Google. But how do you make sure you’re outperforming your competitors? You research their linking building strategy and overthrow it. This is known as competitor backlinking. Competitor backlinking is an SEO strategy where you analyze the backlinks of competing websites to understand the benchmarks for the types, quality, and number of backlinks you need. This helps you build a more robust and effective link building strategy for your own website. Take backlink outreach, for example. Reaching out to potential referral websites is the number one link building method. By analyzing your competitor’s backlinks, you’ll get a better idea of the more effective referral websites, so you can reach out to them for your own link building strategy. When analyzing your competitors to scope out their backlinking strategy, you need a two- pronged attack. There are two types of competitors you need to research: a. Domain-level competitors b. Page-level competitors 10.4 FREE LINKS / PAID LINKS Free Links: Decades after their rise as crucial part of SEO, link building still remains the top strategy for optimizing the websites. Staying on track with the current trends of link building is not an easy task. Especially, since this strategy gets more and more complex and confusing as technology advances. This is why people need the assistance of some awesome free link building tools that can help keep the link building campaigns on track and allow website owners to discover new opportunities for linking. 124 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Paid Links: Paid link building is when a website pays a third party domain for a followed backlink that points back to their domain. While link building is a core tenet of SEO, paying for links is strictly forbidden by search engines and can result in harsh penalties. Links have been an important signal in search engine ranking algorithms since Google rose to popularity in the late '90s. The impact of backlinks on a website's search engine performance led to abuses, one of which included paying for links. Because Google's algorithm uses links as a natural signal, it strictly forbade this practice and developed complementary algorithms with the explicit purpose of identifying websites who utilized unnatural linking practices. The most well-known of these algorithms was nicknamed \"Penguin,\" released in 2012. Today, Google continues to seek out unnatural links and applies higher rankings to websites based on relevance, quality content and mobile-friendliness. Matt Cutts, who previously led Google's link spam team, has discussed how the search giant typically has no problem identifying a paid link - even when site developers think they're done a sufficient job of hiding the evidence. 10.5 ARTICLES SUBMISSION Article submission is the process of publishing your article on a third-party website, targeted at generating high-quality backlinks to your blog or website. Do follow article submission sites can improve your page traffic and increase the value of domain authority. Article submission is also an integral part of content marketing, through which you can promote articles related to your business on renowned article submission sites. Article submission sites allow you to submit high-quality, informative, and unique content to third-party websites for better outreach. Apart from exposure, there are many additional benefits of opting for such sites, like: Getting better search engine rankings. Generate leads with mostly free-of-cost marketing. Establish your identity as an expert in a subject matter. You can get yourself some genuine, permanent backlinks. Your website traffic can also increase if visitors follow the backlink. Article submissions – authored or ghost – can help in boosting the domain authority of your website, thus improving the page rank as well. In this age of social media, viral content stands a chance of gathering numerous high- quality backlinks. There are two major types of such sites: 1. Paid Article Submission 125 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
These sites charge you for publishing your content as a nominal editorial fee. You can also consider partnering with these sites in India to publish a sponsored content. 2. Free Article Submission Self-explanatory, the free article submission sites allow you to publish Web 2.0 blogs without any extra charges. You can push your link leveraging agenda here to enhance your domain value and earn do-follow or no-follow links. How to select a suitable site for getting your article published? As a professional content writer and website owner, it is given that you know all about article submission basics. Yet, to sum it up, here are a few things that you must look for in the best article submission websites: The website should be compliant with all the copyright laws existing in its geographical location. Their terms and conditions are transparent. If they are going to pay for posting your article, the payment terms should be cleared. They should let your backlinks stay on the article instead of modifying it way too much. Confirm the total number of do follow/no follow backlinks that you will get. 10.6 BLOG MARKETING The term blog comes from the combination of \"web\" and \"log\" or \"weblog,\" and was eventually shortened to \"blog.\" Blog marketing is the process of reaching your home business' target market through the use of a blog. Initially, business owners had a blog separate from their websites, but today, you can easily integrate the two to make it easier for you to manage, as well as easier for visitors to access. Many business owners use a blogging platform, such as WordPress, for both their website and blog. Further, as blogging has grown in ease and popularity, many people have created businesses from blogging all on its own, as opposed to having a business first and then blogging. For example, some food blogs are businesses in and of themselves. The very nature of blogging makes them ideal for marketing since they provide new content to draw people back, and offer a way for consumers and businesses to interact. Here are a few other benefits: 1. Inexpensive to Start and Run: For the cost of a domain name and web hosting, you can have a customized blog marketing setup. 2. Easy to Use: Most blogging platforms are simple to use. If you can copy, paste, type, drag and drop, and upload, you can have a professional-looking blog. 126 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
3. Builds Website Traffic: Offering tips, updates, and other new content gives people a reason to come and return to your business website, which gives them the opportunity to buy. 4. Improves Search Engine Ranking: Google, in particular, likes to find and rank new content. For that reason, many entrepreneurs use blogging specifically for search engine optimization (SEO). 5. Allows You to Gain Trust and Credibility: People like to know who they're doing business with. With a blog, you can prove you're an expert and provide helpful tips and other valuable information—all of which help consumers feel good about spending money on your product or service. 6. Engages Your Market: While most businesses now use Twitter and other social platforms more than blogs for engagement, blogs can allow you to have a conversation with your market. This gives you the opportunity to build trust and rapport, as well as get feedback and provide customer service. 7. Creates More Opportunities for Revenue: You can accept advertising, promote affiliate products and get sponsors, adding additional sources of revenue to your business. Like just everything else in life, there can be a downside to blogging. 1. Can Be Time-Consuming: Creating new content and updating your blog can take a significant amount of time. Hiring freelance writers and a virtual assistant can help. 2. Needs a Constant Stream of Ideas: Along with time, thinking of new content ideas is one of the biggest challenges bloggers face. 3. It Can Take Time to See Results: It can take time to begin building an audience for your blog—you won't necessarily see traffic right away. 4. It Needs to Be Marketed Too: You're using the blog to market your business, but for it to work, people need to know about it, which means you have to find your target market and entice them to your blog. How to Do Blog Marketing? Starting a blog and using it to promote your business can be set up within minutes. It's the ongoing management and marketing that will take time. 1. Make a Blog Marketing Plan: What are you going to share on your blog? News, tips, resources, etc.? How often will you update your blog? (Daily, weekly, etc.) 2. Create Your Blog: Decide on your blogging platform, and set it up, including customization that fits your business. Be sure to use the same logo on your blog as on your website (if you have a separate website) to retain consistency. If you use a free blog platform (not recommended for business blogging), have a domain name pointing to the blog to make it easier for consumers to get to your site. 127 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
3. Fill Your Blog with Several Posts ASAP: Readers don't like to visit a blog with only one or two posts. Add ten or more posts quickly to start out, and then switch to your regular post schedule. 4. Market Your Blog: It's very easy to integrate social media into your blogs so that your blog posts go out to your followers. Include your blog on your marketing materials as well. 5. Reply to Comments: Remember, blogs are social, so people will ask questions, provide feedback, or share their opinion. Delete spam posts. 6. Use Your Blog to Encourage Email Signups. Signups are another great way to keep people who are interested in your business coming back to your blog, which again, gives them more opportunity to spend money with you. 10.7 BLOG COMMENTING Blog commenting is defined as a relationship between blogs, bloggers and blog readers. It is a great way to exchange ideas, thoughts or opinions about what people feel for a particular topic or a blog post. Blog comments helps the blog to attract traffic and makes it social. Blog commenting for SEO is defined as a simple strategy to start building links back to your site while building strong relationships with people in your industry. It is about exchanging ideas or opinions about what people think or feel about a topic. It can also help blogs to attract traffic, leads, and add a ‘social touch.’ here is an art to blog commenting for SEO. Your comment should be long enough to add value and be relevant to the blog post. That means comments like, “Great work!” isn’t going to cut it. Think in terms of a mini blog post. This is important to remember because blog owners have to approve your comments. If it’s not value adding or worthwhile for them to have it on their blog, it’ll get rejected. Here are some blog commenting tips and best practices you should follow: 1. Comment First: Get that first comment spot for the most traffic (more on that in the next section.) 2. Use Your Full Name: Don’t aim for a keyword or your brand name. 3. Use Your Correct Email Address: This allows the site owner, or interested people, to contact you. 4. Connect Your Email To avatar: This will display a profile picture next to your comment. 5. Be Selective: Choose blogs and posts that are relevant to your niche or industry. 128 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
6. Ask Questions When You’re Not An “Expert”: If you’re unsure about something they wrote about, ask a question about it. 7. Add Extra Value When You Are: If this topic is something you have experience in, add your own opinion and contribute value. 8. Don’t Write Spam: Like, ever. Step #1: Identify the Blogs You Want To Comment On Step #2: Get Notified Of Their New Posts Step #3: Leave Your Comment 10.8 FORUM SIGNATURES AND COMMENTING The forums are still a great place to learn new things and meet new people. Although, they are often abused by spammers, you can make some really good contacts and also get links to your website. To find forums for your niche, you can use query like “keyword” forum. Also you can try searching for “Top/Best XX industry forums” to get an overview of the hottest places at the moment. Another good way to find relevant forums is to use automated services. A good place to start is Social Mention. You can do a search for your keyword and you will get plenty of discussions to engage into. What makes the forums so good for link building is that most of them allow you to add a link to your website in your signature and link from every thread you have replied to. Additionally, you can also link to your website as a source for your reply, but more often you must be a member of the forum for at least 2 weeks until you are allowed to do so. When linking back to your website from your signature, you have to choose the anchor text really well – if it is too short and you have been really activy in the forum, you might end up with too many exact match links. This is why, we would suggest you go for mega long tail keywords or with your page’s title- for example “Professional SEO Services by SEO PAL”. If you comment on other people’s blogs you can easily build up your reputation and even exchange content with site owners. In addition to that, if your comments are interesting enough, you can create a discussion that will drive lots of traffic to your content. The main thing you must remember about blog commenting is the good old rule – “Blog comments are not done for the links, but instead to add value to the content on the page and all visitors”. In post Penguin world, you must be really careful when it comes to all backlinks your website receives. This is why, it is a good idea to comment only on topics you have some knowledge of. Here comes the big question – How to find relevant blogs to comment on? 129 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
The best place to start are the top industry blogs. You can find those if you search in Google with queries like “top XX blogs” or “best XX blogs”. Once you are done with those, you can use more advanced queries. For example: keyword “leave comment” keyword “reply to post” keyword “powered by wordpress” keyword “leave a comment” If you want to find .edu domains you can always add site: .edu to your query. Additionally there are services like CommentLuv and KeywordLuv that allow you to link back to a post from your blog or page from your website. To find those use add to your queries – keyword “this site uses commentluv” keyword “this site uses keywordluv” If you want to save some time, you can use Google Alerts to find relevant niche blogs. You only have to setup an alert for your keywords, set the type to blogs and you will receive updates from many blogs listed in Google as often as you want. From most of the comments, you will be abel to get a link to your website. Now it is the time to distinguish yourself from the spammers – use a name or a nickname, but never your keywords. 10.9 PRESS RELEASES A press release in marketing is when a brand releases a summarized announcement of something they are trying to promote. The hope is that news organizations will want to publish a story about it in their publications. A press release is not a prewritten story to be copy and pasted – journalists decide whether they would like to follow up on the lead and write their own articles or posts. However, press releases can and are often used as quotes or official statements. The basics that a press release should include are: • the main announcement • relevant dates • locations • contact information The tone should be professional with correct grammar and no spelling mistakes. This is an official statement from your business and should therefore represent it well. 130 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
A press release should be kept short and sweet. Try to keep it all within one page. All you need are a few paragraphs to hook the reporter and give them the most critical information to get them started on their story. These days, the ease of writing and sending out a press release has caused an influx of low quality press releases with little-to-no newsworthiness. Many journalists comb through hundreds of press releases (most are thinly-disguised ads) a day and only get a handful of real leads. The main advantage of using a press release is the convenience and ease it brings. You can whip it up quickly and send it out to as many journalists as you want. It’s a good way to get the word out when you have something big to announce. The disadvantage is that most journalists’ inboxes are overflowing with flowery, unimportant press releases which makes it easy for yours to get lost within the crowd. However, when written effectively, a press release can stand out and benefit both you and the journalist. Sending a digital press release is extremely easy with the help of many free websites where you can distribute your press release. Most of these sites offer premium plans with customizable options. Some sites you can use to send press releases for free are: • Online PR News • PR.com • PR Free • PR Log • Newswire Today 10.10 SUMMARY Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. A hyperlink (usually just called a link) is a way for users to navigate between pages on the Internet. Search engines use links to crawl the web. They will crawl the links between the individual pages on your website, and they will crawl the links between entire websites Google said links are the #1 ranking factor, alongside with great content Content marketing has evolved throughout the years. Nowadays, content marketers have a tremendous amount of digital tools available to create fantastic content. There arises the need to construct a robust content marketing strategy that marketers use to hack for gaining growth online. Infographic was immensely popular among Game of Thrones fans, generating tons of traffic and engagement, and even getting picked up by a few other websites. Social media does not directly contribute to SEO ranking, but the links you share across social platforms increase brand exposure. 131 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
The term personal branding refers to a practice of establishing an online identity for yourself. 10.11 KEYWORDS Leverage - use borrowed capital for (an investment), expecting the profits made to be greater than the interest payable. Brand- a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name Articles - a piece of writing included with others in a newspaper, magazine, or other publication. BLOG– a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style. Forum - a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. 10.12 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. What are fundamental ways that the search engines use links? ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 2. What is create and Distribute infographic? ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 10.13 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. What are the key step to create a compelling guest blogging strategy for your site? 2. How to get active on social media? 3. Explain in detail how to use resource link from trusted sites. 4. How to grow personal brand? 5. Explain process to check competitors’ Backlinks. Long Questions 132 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
1. Explain in detail free link and paid link. 2. Explain the process of article submission in detail. 3. How to Do Blog Marketing? 4. Explain BLOG COMMENTING in detail. 5. What is Forum Signature? B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. A press release in marketing is when a brand releases a ___________ of something they are trying to promote. a. summarizedannouncement b. manufacturing phase c. development phase d. launching phase 2. Online PR News is _________ website 133 a. chargeable only b. free c. partial chargeable d. fake 3. If you comment on other people’s blogs you can easily build ___________ a. friendship b. business c. reputation CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
d. your own blog 4. When linking back to your website from your signature, you have to choose ________ a. Plain text b. Name text c. Cipher text d. anchor text 5. The term blog comes from the combination of \"web\" and \"log\" a. True b. False Answers 1-a, 2-b, 3-c, 4-d, 5-a 10.14 REFERENCES References book Jerri Ledford, “Search Engine Optimization”, Wiley Publishing Inc. S.S. Niranga, “Mobile Web Performance Optimization”, PACKT Publishing Textbook references Danny Dover, “Search Engine Optimization Secrets”, Wiley Publishing Inc. Bruce Clay, “Search Engine Optimization AA-In-One for Dummies A Wiley Brand”, John Wiley & Sons. 134 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Aaron Matthew Wall, “Search Engine Optimization”, http://www.seobook.com/seo- tools.pdf H.J. Bernardin, Human Resource Management, Tata McGraw Hill, New Delhi, 2004. Website https://www.umassmed.edu/globalassets/it/web-services/google-analytics/google- analytics-user-guide.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//grants/education/Go ogle_Analytics_Training.pdf https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/#/p287091400/reports/reportinghub Internet Basics: What is the Internet? (gcfglobal.org) https://www.semrush.com/blog/black-hat- seo/?kw=&cmp=IN_SRCH_DSA_Blog_Core_BU_EN&label=dsa_pagefeed&Networ k=g&Device=c&utm_content=515715717309&kwid=aud-422673590326:dsa- 1053501806627&cmpid=11773572684&agpid=115407097598&BU=Core&extid=20 3745429736&adpos=&gclid=Cj0KCQjww4OMBhCUARIsAILndv6WsS0Lw7OOGv i5TA6yAGFZNZNRGP44MNM3cnYj70oeQ3LiFot_Hn4aAt4aEALw_wcB 135 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT- 11: DEVELOPING HOME PAGE STRUCTURE 11.8 Learning Objectives 11.9 Introduction 11.10 How to promote home page 11.11 Video Submissions 11.12 Social Media Optimization Techniques (Basics) 11.13 Tracking the Links 11.14 Page Rank 11.15 Summary 11.16 Keywords 11.17 Learning Activity 11.18 Unit End Questions 11.19 References 11.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to: Build your own home page and promote. Explain the process and condition of video submission on home page and promote it as well. Make best use of social media websites. Explain the method of tracking the websites links associated. Describe method of increasing Page Rank 11.1 INTRODUCTION You can have the best product in the world, but without effective advertising, no one will know about it. Just because you have launched your website on the Internet doesn’t mean that everyone will come flocking to it. In fact, nobody will know it exists if you do not get out there and promote it. There are several services available to help you get the word out there, but they cost money. However, there are several ways to get the word out for free. Here are seven website promotion tips you need to follow to get your page up to the top of the search engines. 136 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
11.2 HOW TO PROMOTE HOME PAGE 1. Search engine optimization: Search engine optimization, or SEO, is arguably the biggest thing you can do to promote your website. With more than 2 billion websites on the internet, and more being created every second, you can easily risk your website getting lost in the ocean of content if you don’t make your website search engine friendly. Thousands of free online guides can help you improve your website’s SEO, so you don’t necessarily need the budget to hire an SEO professional. More often than not, you can fix most SEO problems on your website yourself with a few simple optimizations. When you’re looking at your website’s SEO, there are two main things to be aware of: on- page and off-page SEO. On-page SEO is, as you might expect, everything you can see on your website. This covers things like your website copy, images, videos, meta descriptions, responsive design, and even how your website is structured. Off-page SEO, refers to what’s going on behind the scenes. This covers aspects of your website like who’s linking to it, how authoritative it is, and the engagement it’s getting from readers. If you’re using Web flow, most of the technical aspects of being an SEO-friendly and responsive website are already done for you. This way, you only have to worry about making great content. Search engine optimization is one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your website because while you will need to make adjustments from time to time, this method largely generates traffic without much input once everything’s been optimized. However, you should also know that it can take months to see results from this method, so don’t expect a quick fix. 2. Guest blogging: Guest blogging is an underutilized yet fantastic way of building links to your new website. With this method, you write a guest post for an authoritative blog in your industry (or an adjacent one) to showcase your expertise. With each guest post linking back to your website at least once, you’ll be able to direct traffic from a reputable source back to your new website. Whether you’re a new business or you’re in marketing, you might find it difficult to secure a guest posting spot on certain websites through no fault of your own. Given that writing guest posts for other publications used to be a massively popular SEO tactic, many websites either carefully vet who guest blogs for them or they don’t accept submissions at all. 137 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
The key thing to remember with guest blogging is that it’s less about SEO and more about building relationships, both with the publisher and with your audience. If you can build a relationship with a publisher and regularly contribute new content, it won’t just drive traffic to your website, but it’ll also help you to build contacts within your industry. 3. Content marketing: Content marketing is a great way to promote your website because it both improves your SEO and generates content that your audience will find useful. A common misconception is that to do content marketing, you need to blog, but that’s not necessarily true. While blogs are the tried-and-true content marketing avenue, you can produce videos, create a podcast, or even start a newsletter around something related to your work. With content marketing, the biggest thing to remember is the content you create needs to be useful, interesting, or entertaining for your audience. The best way to make sure you’re answering questions people have is to do plenty of keyword research before you get started. If you don’t have the budget to pay for an SEO specialist, or SEO tools, to conduct keyword research for you, a great free resource is AnswerThePublic. By searching for your chosen word or phrase, AnswerThePublic will show you different questions, statements, and location-based searches that users have typed into search engines. This ensures that whatever content you’re making addresses a genuine customer need. Content marketing is a promotion method that doesn’t work in isolation, however. To get the most out of your content marketing, you’ll need to make sure you work on your website’s SEO and promote your content through other channels like social media or paid advertising. You should also make sure that you continually create new content so your customers have a reason to keep coming back. 4. Social media Social media is the best-known free method of promoting new websites — and for good reason. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have billions of users each, and it’s easy to connect with other local businesses and promote your own through these platforms. Before you get started with social media, though, you should consider what your business’s brand voice is, who you’re marketing to, and who you’re trying to reach. Here’s a quick summary of the platforms you need to consider, as well as what kind of businesses they’re good for: i. Facebook: A good all-rounder for both B2B and B2C companies, regardless of brand voice. Facebook has the biggest user base, so it’s good for posting regular updates about your business. 138 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
ii. Twitter: Good for B2C companies that can promote themselves with short, snappy statements. Best for sharing links, creating conversations, and getting involved with your audience. iii. Instagram: Great for both B2B and B2C. The best platform to use if your work is highly visual or if you want to reach younger adults as your primary audience. iv. Reddit: Best for B2C, but it takes time to cultivate. Before you begin promoting your website on Reddit, you’ll be expected to join in conversations on subreddits (specific interest forums) and only share links to your website where it’s necessary. v. LinkedIn: Best for B2B. Often used as a hybrid social media and blogging platform, so it’s great for reaching other professionals and showcasing your expertise. If you’ve got some budget available for promoting your website, then Facebook Ads is brilliant for promoting your website through social media. Through Facebook Ads, you have a wide array of targeting options available, making it easy to narrow down your target audience. You can even choose to target users who follow specific other pages or are friends of your current followers. 5. Email marketing: If you’re looking for a tried-and-tested method of promoting directly to your customers, then email marketing is a great option. Once you’ve got your website up and running, it’s easy to start an email marketing campaign, and many email marketing services are available that you can use for free or on a limited budget. While this article can’t cover everything you need to know about email marketing here, the internet is packed with free guides to email marketing, like this one from Dream Host. The great thing about email marketing is that users don’t even have to have visited your website to sign up for your email newsletter, so you can start promoting your new website before it’s launched. Most email marketing services will let you share a signup URL with your followers so they can subscribe to your email list without having to visit your website. Here are some ideas for how you can use email marketing to promote your new website: Set a countdown timer for the launch of your website, with one email every few days showing sneak peeks of what’s to come Send a coupon to all users who sign up to your email list before your website launches Invite users to a scavenger hunt, where they have to find a hidden item on your website, with winners receiving a prize or a discount on your products Share your first blog post as soon as your website launches And once your website is live, you can integrate email signups into the web design so that new visitors can get updates about your business. For example, you can easily integrate 139 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Mailchimp’s email marketing automation into your Web flow design with no HTML embeds or added scripts. 6. Google My Business If your business relies on local footfall, or if you’re looking to generate more local traffic for your website, Google My Business is a must. Creating a Google My Business profile is free, easy, and makes your business easier to find when people make location-based searches. With a Business profile, you can attach your new website to other information about your business like opening hours, contact details, and your location, making it easy for customers to find your business among the search engine results. One of the great things about Google My Business is that you can see how users are interacting with your business profile, so you can easily change your promotion strategy if you find out it’s not driving as much traffic as you hoped for. 7. Quora If you’re a regular internet user, then you probably already know about Quora because of how often it shows up in your search results. While Quora can seem spammy sometimes, it’s a surprisingly good place to promote your new website. For those of you unfamiliar with Quora, this website allows users to post questions for the community to answer. Because this website is so popular with both users and people marketing their business, Quora results tend to be shown on the first page of Google for long- tail keyword searches. The main reason why Quora is considered spammy is that it’s a good place for promoting your business. And, as with most other promotional avenues, once something is shown to be successful, you’ll always have bots and low-quality marketers using it without any care for the value it brings to the user. If you use Quora well, it’s a great promotional tool to promote your website and showcase your expertise, and can be a great distribution tool for your content marketing strategy. All you have to do is sign up for an account and start answering questions relating to your industry or niche while remembering to link back to your website at some point in your answer. This could be linking to a blog post where you’ve already answered someone’s question or linking to your About Us page to show other users what qualifications you have. 8. Online communities and aggregators 140 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
There are dozens of online communities that let you post content to their site. For example, everyday thousands of people visit Product Hunt to find new and trending products. Posting your website on Product Hunt is a great way to organically get the ball rolling. Another great community that lets you post content on, similar to Reddit, is Hacker News. This is a great place to share information about what’s happening in tech and the developer community. In fact, some of the first ever Web flow users came from a Hacker News post made by the founders. Besides just online communities, there are also many different media aggregators where you can post to. These websites focus on creating a directory of content related to a specific niche. For example, Designer News allows users to publicly share links related to design. The great thing about online communities and media aggregators is that they’re easy to post on, they can give you a link back to your website, and if your posts include content that is useful it has the potential to be shared. 9. Pay-per-click advertising Pay-per-click, or PPC, advertising, is an easy way to promote your website, even if you’ve only got a tiny budget to work with. Digital marketing in this way might be one of the more traditional channels, but it remains prevalent because it’s a great way to build website traffic as well as target specific demographics. Google AdWords, the best-known PPC advertising platform, is a great place to get started with PPC advertising. With Google AdWords, you can quickly create adverts around the keywords you’ve found through keyword research, and you’ll only pay for that advertising when a user clicks on the link. However, there’s no set amount you’ll pay with Google AdWords. When you run an ad through this platform, it’s entered into an automatic auction that happens whenever a user searches for your keyword. Typically, the advertiser who is offering more per click will win, but their ad positioning (or where it shows up on the search results) will be determined by other factors like keyword relevance, your click-through rate (CTR), and your overall ad performance. If you’ve got a strict advertising budget to meet, then you can easily set up Google AdWords so that once you’ve spent your budget for a certain period, your ads won’t be entered into another auction until that period renews. So, you don’t have to worry about endlessly spending money with little control. For a small business looking to invest capital into distribution, Google AdWords is one of the best ways to promote your website or blog. 141 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
10. Giveaways Finally, giveaways are one of the best ways for your business to build a rapport with your customers while promoting your website. While giveaways can often be seen as a cheap trick for driving website traffic, they’re a great way to get people interested in your products, generate interest in your website, and even make other industry connections. The key thing to remember with giveaways is that you’re doing it for marketing purposes. So, they need to generate a positive return on investment (ROI) for them to be worthwhile. When you’re designing your giveaway, you should keep this in mind when you choose a product or service to offer up as a prize. Along a similar vein, you also need to make the entry cost equal to or less than the perceived value of the prize, or customers won’t take the time to enter the giveaway. Make sure the rules are clear upfront so you don’t face any issues later. If your end goal is to drive website traffic, then make the entry cost something relating to this. Liking a certain Facebook page, subscribing to an email newsletter, or even visiting a certain landing page are common entry costs that help drive website traffic. It’s important to run a giveaway focused on the goals you want to reach. Given that you want people to visit your website, it should be the “hub” of your giveaway and where people go to investigate the full details. When it’s over, you’ll find you have a good number of new followers who can’t wait for the next giveaway. 11.3 VIDEO SUBMISSIONS Why Video Submission or Sharing is Important? Nowadays, video submission sites are one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. So, if you want to get quality backlinks for your website then you should make a short video of your product or services to use these platforms. Most importantly, Google has taken social media platforms very seriously in Google SERP’s algorithm. Also, Google only increases the ranking of a site if it gets effective and quality backlinks. In other words, Video submission or sharing is important to get an extremely impressive numbers of traffic from high authority video submission sites. Through which you also get backlinks which helps in improving the website’s ranking in SERPs. What Kind of Video Should Be Used in Video Submission Sites? A successful video is only that which will influence your audience to buy your services or products. Also, if you don’t want to lose your viewers’ attention, then try to make a video of only 4-5 minutes, as a longer video can lose people’s attention at any time. So, make sure the duration of the video does not exceed more than 5 minutes. 142 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Once you create the video; then upload it on High PR Video Submission Sites. This will help you to improve the bounce rate as well as the average time on your site. Moreover, the videos that you upload on High PR Video Submission sites will get more visibility in SERP and your YouTube SEO will also get enhanced. Also, Google gives more ranking to those websites which add a video to their content and share their videos on High PR Video Submission Sites. Requirements For Submitting a Video: Firstly, Video Submission Websites List Secondly, Tags (3 to 4) Thirdly and most importantly, Video (60 seconds or longer) Website (Project) URL Moreover, Keywords for anchor text And in the last, 300 Words article (For YouTube Only) 11.4 SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES (BASICS) Social media is an excellent opportunity for your company to grow online. When you optimize social media, you create, build, and maximize your social media plan. Optimizing your campaign allows you to connect better with your audience on various social media platforms. You’ll also strengthen your brand. You will gain more visibility and generate more leads for your business. This helps you connect with your audience too. 7ways social media optimization technique are as follows: 1. Optimize your strategy: If you want your social media optimization efforts to succeed, you must continually optimize your strategy. Social media is evolving and changing, so your strategy must grow with it. Start by ensuring you have clear goals and objectives. You should know what you want to achieve with your social media campaign. Whether it’s increasing brand exposure, driving leads, or earning conversions, you must know what you want to accomplish. Your strategy should focus on growing your business’s presence and achieving measurable results. It’s vital that you focus on goals you can monitor and measure to ensure you’re driving success with your campaign. When you optimize your strategy, you must also decide which networks you want to use. Choose social media platforms where you can reach people interested in your business. It will help you drive the most valuable results for your campaign. 143 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
2. Conduct keyword research: Similar to SEO, keywords play an essential role in your social media strategy. You must know what topics, keywords, and hashtags your audience uses to find information about your industry. By understanding how your audience searches on social media, you can optimize your social strategy to drive more people to your page. When you select keywords for your campaign, use social media-specific keyword tools. 3. Optimize your profile: It’s easy to create a social media profile, but many businesses don’t put in the effort to optimize their profile. Optimizing your social profile is an excellent social media optimization technique to help you drive more high-value users to your page. Here are three main areas you’ll want to focus on optimizing: Profile photo: When you add a photo to your profile, ensure it includes your company logo. You want to start building your brand recognition early, and your social profile photo is one of the first things your audience will see. Username: Your username should be consistent on every social media profile. This will make it easy for people to find your business on social media. Bio: It’s crucial that you fill out your bio information completely. State what your company does and integrate relevant keywords into your bio. You’ll also want to include a trackable link to your website to direct people to learn more about your business. 4. Optimize your content; Social media is a great place to share your content. You can’t succeed with social media marketing without sharing quality content with your audience. If you want to do social media optimization right, optimize your content for your audience. There are two types of content you post on social media: original and curated. Original content is content that you make to post on social media. Curated content gets shared from various sources around the web. 5. Use hashtags Hashtags are a unique element of social media. Many people use hashtags to find exciting and trending topics. One of the best social media optimization techniques is to integrate hashtags into your campaign. When you use hashtags, you help your posts get more reach. It makes it easier for people to find your content, even if they aren’t following your business. This is an excellent opportunity for you to expand your reach and earn new leads. 144 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
It’s vital that you don’t use hashtags without purpose. There is a strategy involved in choosing your hashtags, so be wise about your choices. You don’t want to use irrelevant tags to generate traffic on your social posts. 6. Solidify your posting schedule As you look into more social media optimization techniques, don’t forget to optimize for one of the most critical aspects of social media marketing: publishing. When you publish content on social media, you must create a strategy for when you post your content. It’s essential to find the right time to post content. Your audience isn’t always online to engage with your information. You must find the right time to post to maximize engagement. 7. Monitor your campaign As you run your social media marketing campaign, it’s vital that you monitor it to ensure it’s working. If you want to optimize your social media campaign consistently, track metrics that help you better understand your campaign’s performance. You can monitor your number of shares, retweets, follows, comments, and conversions you get through your website. These are great metrics to track to ensure that you’re driving results with your campaign. 11.5 TRACKING THE LINKS Set up Google Analytics tracking: To enable this feature, you need a Google Analytics account linked to your website by a custom tracking code. If that's set up, follow these instructions: 1. Click your profile image at the top right, then select Account settings. 2. Click Analytics tracking settings. 3. Select Enable Google Analytics integration then enter the domains you want to track: 145 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Figure 11.1 Click Save analytics settings Link tracking tags: A Google Analytics campaign tracking link consists of a URL for the web page you're linking to, followed by a question mark and UTM parameters to identify things like source, medium and campaign name. Following are utm_parameters: utm_medium = email utm_campaign = the email campaign name (not subject line) utm_content = the email campaign name plus a unique campaign identifier (CID) that can be used with our API utm_source = only included if you supply a source term utm_term = the link text, or alt attribute (for images) 146 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
For example, let's say the Widget Factory sends a campaign with the campaign name: Widget Factory Annual Clearance Sale. The domain they're tracking is widgetfactory.com and their campaign contains this link: <a href=\"http://widgetfactory.com/store/red-widget\">Buy a red widget</a> When clicked, the tagged version of that link would look something like this in a web browser address bar: http://widgetfactory.com/store/red- widget?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Widget%20Factory%20Annual%20Clearance %20Sale&utm_content=Widget%20Factory%20Annual%20Clearance%20Sale%20CID_2ca gbf4589bc1df30fe09ac7fbce5356&utm_source=Email%20newsletter%20software&utm_ter m=Buy%20a%20red%20widget If we separate the parameters from the URL above, you can see it consists of: utm_medium = email utm_campaign = Widget Factory Annual Clearance Sale utm_content = Widget Factory Annual Clearance Sale + CID_ [unique ID] utm_source = Email newsletter software utm_term = Buy a red widget 11.6 PAGE RANK It is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank web pages in their search engine results. It is named after both the term \"web page\" and co-founder Larry Page. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. According to Google: PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites. Currently, PageRank is not the only algorithm used by Google to order search results, but it is the first algorithm that was used by the company, and it is the best known. PageRanks is a link analysis algorithm and it assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of \"measuring\" its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is referred to as the PageRank of E and denoted by A PageRank results from a mathematical algorithm based on the web graph, created by all World Wide Web pages as nodes and hyperlinks as edges, taking into consideration authority hubs such as cnn.com or mayoclinic.org. The rank value indicates an importance of a 147 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
particular page. A hyperlink to a page counts as a vote of support. The PageRank of a page is defined recursively and depends on the number and PageRank metric of all pages that link to it (\"incoming links\"). A page that is linked to by many pages with high PageRank receives a high rank itself. Numerous academic papers concerning PageRank have been published since Page and Brin's original paper.[5] In practice, the PageRank concept may be vulnerable to manipulation. Research has been conducted into identifying falsely influenced PageRank rankings. The goal is to find an effective means of ignoring links from documents with falsely influenced PageRank.[6] Other link-based ranking algorithms for Web pages include the HITS algorithm invented by Jon Kleinberg (used by Teoma and now Ask.com), the IBM CLEVER project, the Trust Rank algorithm and the Hummingbird algorithm. Here is an step by step explanation of how page rank technology works Figure 11.2 Figure 11.3 148 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Figure 11.4 Figure 11.5 149 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Figure 11.6 Figure 11.7 150 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
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