What is SEO? How to improve your search Ranking on Google search engine

 What is SEO? 

How to improve your search 

Ranking on Google search engine 

Improving positions in the natural listings is dependent on marketers understanding the process whereby search engines compile an index by sending out spiders or robots to crawl around sites that are registered with that search engine.

The technology harnessed to create the natural listings involves these main processes:

1 Crawling. The purpose of the crawl is to identify relevant pages for indexing and assess whether they have changed. Crawling is performed by robots (bots) that are also known as spiders. These access web pages and retrieve a reference URL of the page for later analysis and indexing.

Although the terms ‘bot’ and ‘spider’ give the impression of something physical visiting a site, the bots are simply software processes running on a search engine’s server which request pages, follow the links contained on that page and create a series of page references with associated URLs. This is a recursive process, so each link followed will find additional links which then need to be crawled.

2 Indexing. An index is created to enable the search engine to rapidly find the most relevant pages containing the query typed by the searcher. Rather than searching each page for a query phrase, a search engine ‘inverts’ the index to produce a lookup table of documents containing particular words.

The index information consists of phases stored within a document and also other information characterising a page such as the document’s title, meta description, Page Rank, trust or authority, spam rating, etc.

For the keywords in the document, additional attributes will be stored such as semantic markup (<h1>, <h2> headings denoted within HTML), occurrence in link anchor text, proximity, frequency or density and position in document, etc.

The words contained in link anchor text ‘pointing’ to a page are particularly important in determining search rankings.

3 Ranking or scoring. The indexing process has produced a lookup of all the pages that contain particular words in a query, but they are not sorted in terms of relevance. 

Ranking of the document to assess the most relevant set of documents to return in the SERPs occurs in real time for the search query entered. First, relevant documents will be retrieved from a runtime version of the index at a particular data centre, then a rank in the SERPs for each document will be computed based on parsing many ranking factors, of which we highlight the main ones in later sections.

4 Query request and results serving. The familiar search engine interface accepts the searcher’s query. The user’s location is assessed through their IP address and the query is then passed to a relevant data centre for processing. Ranking then occurs in real time for a particular query to return a sorted list of relevant documents and these are displayed on the search results page.

Search engine ranking factors

Google has stated that it uses more than 200 factors or signals within its search ranking algorithms.These include positive ranking factors that help boost position and negative factors or filters which are used to remove search engine spam (also known as webspam) from the index where SEO companies have used unethical approaches such as automatically creating links to mislead the Google algorithms.

The importance of ranking factors are much disputed by SEOs since with so many factors it is difficult to isolate their impact to prove a correlation, or more important a causative relationship between.

The interested should read the balanced article bdiscussing the The Myth of Google’s 200 Ranking Factors. In this coverage we will summarise the current thinking based on Dave Chaffey’s more than 15 years of experience as an SEO consultant and publisher.

At a top level, the two most important factors for good ranking positions in all the main search engines are:

● Matching between web page copy and the key phrases searched. The main factors to optimise on are ‘keyword density’, keyword formatting, keywords in anchor text and the document meta-data including page title tags. The SEO process to improve results in this area is known as on-page optimisation. We will cover some of details of best practice for this process in a topic later in this section.

● Links into the page (inbound or backlinks). Google counts each link to a page from another page or another site as a vote for this page. So pages and sites with more external links from other sites will be ranked more highly. The quality of the link is also important, so if links are from a site with a good reputation and relevant context Search engine ranking factorsGoogle has stated that it uses more than 200 factors or signals within its search ranking algorithms. 

These include positive ranking factors that help boost position and negative factors or filters which are used to remove search engine spam (also known as webspam) from the index where SEO companies have used unethical approaches such as automatically creating links to mislead the Google algorithms.

The importance of ranking factors 

are much disputed by SEOs since with so many factors it is difficult to isolate their impact to prove a correlation, or more important a causative relationship between. The interested should read the balanced article by  discussing the The Myth of Google’s 200 Ranking Factors. In this coverage we will summarise the current thinking based on Dave Chaffey’s more than 15 years of experience as an SEO consultant and publisher. 

At a top level, the two most important factors for good ranking positions in all the main search engines are:

● Matching between web page copy and the key phrases searched. The main factors to optimise on are ‘keyword density’, keyword formatting, keywords in anchor text and the document meta-data including page title tags.

 

The SEO process to improve results in this area is known as on-page optimisation. We will cover some of details of best practice for this process in a topic later in this section.

● Links into the page (inbound or backlinks). Google counts each link to a page from another page or another site as a vote for this page. So pages and sites with more external links from other sites will be ranked more highly. The quality of the link is also important, so if links are from a site with a good reputation and relevant context.

Phase 1

Determine relevant documents set.Rank in order of relevance Search query string User searches Query/Rank processes SERPs

Phase 2

Extract document titles and snippets. Return as SERPs Crawl control Crawlers Inverted Document and index servers link history Crawl/Index processes The WWW web pages and documents/media Inverted index servers.

Level of investment in digital assets

 Level of investment in digital assets

The digital assets are the creative that support a campaign such as that they include:

● display ad or affiliate marketing creative such as banners and skyscrapers;

● microsites;

● email templates;

● video, audio and other interactive media such as Flash animations, games or screensavers which form a microsite.

As with traditional media, there is a tension between spend on the advertising creative and the media space purchased to run the executions. There is a danger that if spend on media is too high, then the quality of the execution and the volume of digital assets produced will be too low.

Integration into overall media schedule or plan

In common with other communications media, digital media are most effective when they are deployed as part of an integrated marketing communications approach. 

Describe integrated marketing communications as: 

The concept under which a company carefully integrates and coordinates its many communications channels to deliver a clear, consistent message about the organisation and its products.

The characteristics of integrated marketing communications have been summarised by Pickton and Broderick s the 4Cs of: 

1.Coherence – different communications are logically connected.

2.Consistency – multiple messages support and reinforce, and are not contradictory. 

3.Continuity – communications are connected and consistent through time.

5.Complementary – synergistic, or the sum of the parts is greater than the whole! The 4Cs also act as guidelines for how communications should be integrated. 

Further guidelines on integrated marketing communications from Pickton and Broderick that can be usefully applied to digital marketing are the following. 

● Integrated communications planning is based on clearly identified marketing communications objectives (see later section). 

● Digital marketing should involve management of all forms of contact , which includes management of both outbound communications, such as banner advertising or direct email, and inbound communications such as email enquiries. 

● Internet marketing should utilise a range of promotional tools . These are the digital media channels. 

● A range of media should be used to communicate consistent messages about opportunities for customers to interact with a brand online. Marketing managers need to consider the most effective mix of online and offline media channels to encourage interactions and drive traffic to their online presence. 

● The communications plan should involve careful selection of the most effective promotional and media mix.

Additionally, we can say that integrated marketing communications should be used to support customers through the entire buying process, across different media.

Planning integrated marketing communications 

The Account Planning Group ( www.apg.org.uk ), in its definition of media planning, high lights the importance of the role of media planning when they say that the planner:

 Needs to understand the customer and the brand to unearth a key insight for the communication/solution Relevance.

As media channels have mushroomed and communication channels have multiplied, it has become increasingly important for communication to cut through the cynicism and connect with its audience Distinctiveness. The planner can provide the edge needed to ensure the solution reaches out through the clutter to its intended audience Targeted reach.

Attributing influence on sales to digital media channel

Attributing influence on sales to digital media channel

It is seldom the case that a customer will go straight to a site and purchase, or that they will perform a single search and then purchase. Instead, they will commonly perform multiple searches and will be referred to the ultimate purchase site by different types. This consumer behaviour is indicated by This shows that someone looking to purchase a car may be referred to a site several times via different digital communications channels.

A common approach to attributing the influence of different online media a customer consumes before purchase has been the last-click method of digital media channel attribution introduced well by Lee. Gives an example of using a social media marketing tool to assess effectiveness on a last click basis.

 It shows that when a business shares content across different social networks they can review how many clicks and conversion to leads are generated. In this example, Facebook is most effective by volume.

However, Lee explains that this can give a misleading picture of which marketing channels are effective

In an analysis of visitors to an airline site for non-brand terms and PPC for brand terms are more significant when looking at the contribution of all sources. Referring to you can see this has the benefit that we don’t credit multiple affiliates with sale for affiliate marketing only Affiliate 2 is credited with the sale, a process known as digital media deduplication. But it has the disadvantage that it simplifies the reality of previous influence or digital media ‘assists’ and previous referrals influenced by other customer touchpoints on other sites are ignored, such as the natural search or display ad.

So, for the most accurate interpretation of the contribution of different media, the online marketer needs to use tagging and analysis tools to try to build the best picture of which channels are influencing sales and then weight the media accordingly. For example, a more sophisticated approach is to weight the responsibility for sale across several different referrers according to a model so just considering the affiliates, Affiliate 1 might be credited with 30 per cent of the sales value and Affiliate 2 with 70 per cent, for example.

This approach is useful since it indicates the value of display advertising a common phenomenon is the halo effect where display ads indirectly influence sales by creating awareness and stimulating sale at a later point in time.These are sometimes known as ‘viewthrough’ or post-impression effects.

These allocation approaches won’t be possible if agencies are using different tracking tools and reporting separately on different media channels for example, the ad agency reports on display advertising, the search agency on pay-per-click, the affiliate manager on affiliate sales.

Instead it is important to use a unified tracking system which typically uses common tags across all media channels. Common unified tracking solutions that consider all media are available from the likes of Atlas, Doubleclick Dart and some of the larger media agencies.

Further sophistication of tracking will be worthwhile for companies investing millions in digital media in order to understand the customer journey and the contribution of media. 

A useful analysis to perform is in the formThis anonymised example shows the importance of display ads, for example, and how different channels support each other.

It can then be worthwhile understanding the role of individual channels better, and in particular paid search. Marketers need to understand how consumers use different types of terms. The repeated use of different types of search terms for a single customer (other digital channels such as affiliates are ignored here). 

The two columns on the right show how it is unrealistic to attribute the sale to the last search since the influence of the assists isn’t shown.

Achieving and measuring repeat visits is worthwhile since, according to on average, purchase intent sees a double digit increase after someone has been to a site more than once. For some promotional techniques, tagging of links on third-party sites will not be practical.

These will be grouped together as unattributed referrers. For word-of-mouth referrals, we have to estimate the amount of spend for these customers through traditional market research techniques such as questionnaires or asking at point of sale.

The use of tagging enables much better insights on the effectiveness of promotional techniques than is possible in traditional media, but due to its complexity it requires a large investment in staff time and tracking software to achieve it. It is also very dependent on cookie deletion rates. To see how a budget can be created for a digital campaign.

Selecting the right mix of digital media communications tools

 Selecting the right mix of digital media communications tools

When selecting the mix of digital media for a campaign or longer-term investments, marketers will determine the most appropriate mix based on their knowledge built up through experience of previous campaigns and taking input from their advisers such as experienced colleagues or agency partners.Mecri and Hafa 2022 have suggested that many online marketing failures have resulted from poor control of media spending. 

The communications mix should be optimised to minimise the cost of acquisition. If an online intermediary has a cost acquisition of £100 per customer while it is gaining an average commission on each sale of £5 then. Cleary , the company will not be profitable unless it can achieve a large number of repeat orders from the customer. Suggested that e-commerce sites should focus on narrow segments that have demonstrated their attraction to a business model. 

They believe that promotion techniques such as affiliate deals with narrowly targeted sites and email campaigns targeted at segments grouped by purchase histories and demographic traits are 10–15 times. more likely than banner ads on generic portals to attract prospects who click through to purchase.

Alternatively, pay-per-click ads on Google may have a higher success rate

 When this experience isn’t there, which is often the case with new digital media opportunities, it is important to do a more structured evaluation including factors such as the ability of each medium to influence perceptions, drive a response, the cost of response and the quality of response are respondents more likely to convert to the ultimate action such as sale? What is their likely lifetime value?

For example, some digital media channels such as affiliates are more likely to attract customers with a lower lifetime value who are more likely to switch suppliers. Media planning services and buying agency Zed Media has produced a useful summary of how a media mix might typically vary according to budget. 

The  blog shows that for a direct response campaign with limited budget, investment in controllable, targeted media which typically have a lower cost-per-acquisition such as affiliates and paid search should be the main focus. If more budget is available, it may not be possible to buy further keywords or there may be benefits from generating awareness of the offering through more display advertising.

• Cost effective and volume channels priority

• PPC search 60%

• Affiliates 30%

• Display 10%

• Test 2–4 weeks

• Affiliates maxed out, more networks

• PPC search 40%

• Affiliates 20%

• Display 40%

• 12 months

• Display more viable networks

• PPC search 50%

• Affiliates 30%

• Display 20%

• Up to 3 months

• More money available for display

• PPC search 50%

• Affiliates 25%

• Display 25%

• 6–8 months £100k £250k £500k

With a brand campaign where the focus is on generating awareness, the recommendations of Zed Media are reversed where they recommend that, even at lower budgets, more invest-ment should be made in display advertising.

Deciding on the optimal expenditure on different communication techniques will be an iterative approach since past results should be analysed and adjusted accordingly.

 Marketers can analyse the proportion of the promotional budget that is spent on different channels and then compare this with the contribution from purchasing customers who originated using the original channel. 

This type of analysis, reported by Hoffman and Novak (2000) and requires two different types of marketing research.

First, tagging of customers can be used. Here, we monitor, using specifically coded URLs or cookies, the numbers of customers who are referred to a website through different online techniques such as search ads, affiliate or banner ads, and then track the money they spend on purchases.

 Digital marketing  gives more details of how the Google Analytics system is used.