SEO

1.What are the differences between short-tail and long-tail keywords?

Length and Specificity:

● Short-tail Keywords: Also known as "head" keywords, these are shorter,
more generic terms, usually comprising one to three words. They are
broader and less specific, such as "shoes" or "digital marketing."
● Long-tail Keywords: These are longer and more specific phrases,
typically containing more than three words. They are highly targeted
and detailed, aiming to capture specific search intent, such as "best
running shoes for women" or "digital marketing agency in New York."
Competition and Search Volume:
● Short-tail Keywords: Due to their broad nature, short-tail keywords tend
to have high search volumes and intense competition. Ranking for
these keywords can be challenging because they attract a large
number of searches, making it harder to stand out.
● Long-tail Keywords: These keywords usually have lower search
volumes but are more targeted and less competitive. While they may
attract fewer overall searches, they often lead to higher conversion
rates because they align more closely with specific user intents.

2.Short Note on SEO.

Key aspects of SEO include:

On-Page Optimization: This involves optimizing individual web pages to improve

their relevance to specific keywords and user search queries. It includes
optimizing content, meta tags, headings, URLs, and internal links.
Off-Page Optimization: This focuses on activities outside the website to improve
its authority, relevance, and popularity. Strategies include building quality
backlinks from reputable websites, social media engagement, and online
mentions to improve the website's credibility and trustworthiness.
Technical SEO: This aspect deals with the technical structure and performance of
the website. It includes optimizing site speed, mobile responsiveness, fixing
crawl errors, creating sitemaps, and enhancing overall website usability.
Content Creation: Creating high-quality, relevant, and valuable content is crucial
for SEO success. Content should be optimized for target keywords and
 provide useful information that meets user intent, attracting visitors and
encouraging engagement.
Keyword Research: Understanding and targeting the right keywords that users
are searching for is fundamental. Keyword research helps identify terms and
phrases that have adequate search volume and relevance to the website's
content.
User Experience (UX): Ensuring a positive user experience is increasingly
important for SEO. Factors such as easy navigation, clear website structure,
mobile-friendliness, and fast loading times contribute to better user
experience and can positively impact rankings.
Analytics and Monitoring: Regularly monitoring website performance using tools
like Google Analytics and Search Console helps track key metrics, understand
user behavior, and make data-driven decisions to improve SEO strategies.

3.Types of Keywords (Page 11)

Ranking, Google Hummingbirds (Page 10)

Ranking
The third step, ranking, is crucial, and can only happen after the crawling and indexing steps are
complete. For any given keyword, search engines sort or rank the results to give the searcher the
most useful and relevant results they can find.

Some examples of signals that search engines use to rank web pages are: Keyword presence in title
tag: Engines check to see whether the keyword or a synonym was mentioned on the page and within
the title tag.

Loading speed of web page: Engines check to see whether the web page loads quickly and is mobile
friendly.

Website reputation: Engines check to see whether the web page and website is considered
reputable for the topic being searched for.

Google Hummingbird

Google’s main search algorithm is called Google Hummingbird, and it is responsible for deciding
how to order and rank search engine results.

In 2013, Google upgraded its main algorithm and named it Hummingbird. This upgrade included
Google being better able to understand the meaning of keywords and to return more relevant
results
On-page Optimization (Page 33)

4.What is it? (first 2 paragraphs)

On-page optimization is the process of ensuring the content is both relevant and provides a
great user experience. In the past, many businesses approached it as simply keyword
stuffing: that is, mentioning their keywords as many times as possible within the content.
This made for a poor user experience. These days, on-page optimization includes smart
keyword targeting, where keywords are mentioned in key elements while still providing a
good user experience. This means that your content reads well, and also satisfies what the
user is actually looking for. The research you have conducted on keywords will play a key
role in determining which keywords you will use. Changes are made through a Content
Management System (CMS), meaning a non-technical person should be able to update it. If
you have a modern CMS like WordPress, it should be easy to target keywords in key
elements. This includes making images, headings, main body copy, meta description tags,
and title tags

5.Categories of On-page Optimization

There are two categories of on-page optimization.
Pre-click on-page optimization: This is what is visible to the user before they click on a result on the
search engine results page. It includes the title tag, the URL, and the meta description. The goal of
pre-click optimization is to encourage the user to click on your listing.
Post-click on-page optimization: This is what is visible to the user after they click on your listing and
land on your web page. It includes the main copy, the main heading and subheadings, hyperlinks,
and images.

6.Optimizing the Title Tags (1-2 words)

Optimizing title tags
Work in keywords: One of the reasons keyword research is prioritized is for title tag optimization.
Remember, if the title tag looks like one long keyword list, you may be considered a spammer. But if
it includes your main keywords, and is written in natural, compelling English, then it should work
well. To optimize title tags for keywords, o Include main (primary and secondary) keywords. o
Position main keywords nearer the beginning. o Avoid keyword stuffing.
Use the space provided: The optimum space for a title tag is a maximum of 512 pixels, or
approximately 55 characters. The SERP Preview Tool can be used to measure this.
Be descriptive and engaging: Describe the page in natural language and make it enticing for the
searcher to click through.

● Title

● Meta-description
Meta description tags are only visible in the SERPs and the source code. You cannot see them when
you are viewing the main content of a page. A meta description tag is the short piece of descriptive
text that you see under the URL in a SERP. Meta description tags are important for on-page
optimization, but they’re not actually a direct ranking factor. Including keywords in your meta
description won’t have a direct impact like title tags do, but it will influence whether someone’s
going to click on your listing. Meta description tags are a medium weight on-page SEO signal and
encourage the searcher to click on your listing. If the meta description t
7.URLs (Page 36)
URLs URL stands for ‘Uniform Resource Locator’, which is another term for a web address. URLs sit
between title tags and the meta description tags. Over time, a page will build up trust and authority
which is assigned to its URL. Changing a URL without redirecting appropriately can lose trust.
Because of this, it is best not to change a URL where possible – try to get them right from the start.
Why are URLs important?
URLs are light weight on-page SEO signals. They attract click-throughs from
search results and are used by search engines to index and retrieve pages.

8.Headings (Page 37) – short information

Headings help to outline what a web page is about. They are used in a similar way on a web page to
how they are used in Microsoft Word. The main heading should be within a H1 tag, secondary
headings in H2 tags, tertiary in H3 tags – all the way up to H6 tags.
Main heading should be in a H1 tag
Secondary sub-headings should be in H2 tags
H3 - H6 tags aren’t used as often in body copy but work in the same hierarchal subheading way

9.Main Body Copy (Page 38)

main body copy (body text) important? It is where users should find what they are looking for:
Search engines therefore pay close attention to it.
It’s a high-weight on-page SEO signal: It adds relevancy to the page.
The position of the body copy on the page can also be a determining factor in search engine ranking:
It can include hyperlinks and it features after the main heading.

10.Images (Page 39)

Image optimization is important because it is a light-weight on-page SEO signal and adds relevancy
to your web page. Alt text should be added to images because it is often read out to visually
impaired people who rely on screen readers

Off – page Optimization

Off-page optimization is the process of enhancing a website’s search engine rankings through
activities that happen outside of the website.

This is largely driven by building backlinks to the site and is often the most influential factor for
search engine rankings as it helps build the website’s reputation.

The more high-quality backlinks you have from reputable websites, the more credible your website
is seen to be and search engines will rank you more highly as a result. Although you may not be able
to directly control how external websites link to your site, you can influence them by creating great
content.
Off-page optimization is an ongoing activity, so if you stop acquiring backlinks, you may find that
your competitors overtake you.

11.Backlinks
A backlink is an incoming hyperlink from one web page to another website. When a website receives
a link from an external website, some reputation is passed to it. It acts as if one web page is voting
that the page it links to is credible. Increasing the number of backlinks to your site is therefore one of
the key SEO goals.
Google has a sub-algorithm called PageRank, which calculates how much reputation is passed. The
text within the backlink is called anchor text and some relevancy from the text is passed. A credible
page with valuable content can earn dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of backlinks.

To increase your website’s opportunities of acquiring backlinks, you can reach out to peer websites
or websites that share a similar type of content to yours. PR and getting involved on social media can
help in this regard. Creating content and content clusters that naturally attract links from other
sources is a strong method to receiving backlink traffic

Page Ranks (Page 41)

12.What is Keyword Research? Why is it important? (Page 21)

Get the right kind of visitors to your site: If you get the wrong kind of visitor to your site, it’s likely to
not convert into sales. It may convert into leads, but it could be the wrong type of lead, which means
your sales team is potentially wasting valuable resources.

Identify keywords with high search volume and omit low volume terms: Keyword research helps to
identify and keep phrases that have good search volume, and disregard keywords that have poor
volume.

Identify content gaps on your website: This is more common than you might think. When we lay out
a website, for example, it’s often the web designer who leads the process. Or perhaps your CEO
decided what content to include, and where. But that’s not necessarily the content that your users
or potential customers are looking for. You can identify this disconnect by doing keyword research.

Target keywords that are within your reach: Keyword research helps to differentiate between
transactional keywords, which will be highly competitive to rank for, as well as the less competitive
informational keywords that may be useful for your business to target.

Turning Research into Content (Page 27)

13.turns keyword research into content

Content gaps are pages that don’t exist on your site, but could be quite valuable to create.

Create a spreadsheet to keep track of your keyword research and use the left column to list the
topics that you want to research.
Identify the top 10 pages from your website that you would like your site to rank for on search
engines.

While the focus will be on your most important keywords, you don’t need to fit them all into your
content onto a limited number of pages. Doing so might otherwise appear forced, or seem artificial.

Sometimes you will have to create a new page to rank for a specific keyword. You can justify creating
a new page if your existing content doesn’t satisfy the user intent for that keyword, or it can’t be
easily adapted to do so.

Repeat the keyword research for each page and record the details in the spreadsheet. Review your
findings and explore any relevant topics that aren’t already covered to identify potential content
gaps. Research further web pages and add any content gaps you’ve identified to your content
creation plan.

Meta description tags (Title (Page 33), Description, URL)

Search Engine Algorithm (Crawling, Ranking)

14.Types of SEO Objectives. (Page 17)

SEO objectives

They encourage buy-in from key stakeholders: For SEO to work, it needs to be embraced in the
company. Historically, SEO has built up a reputation of being a kind of dark arts that many people
don’t really understand. Your goal is therefore to inform the stakeholders who are responsible for
SEO about the how SEO works

They help to formulate your SEO strategy: Setting SEO objectives helps formulate your SEO strategy.
You need to set objectives so you can be clear where you want to get to, and then start moving in
that direction.

They ensure objectives are met: Remember the old saying, “What gets measured gets managed” –
this is especially true in SEO.

15.Measuring Organic Traffic (Page 47)

Measuring organic traffic Organic traffic is best measured in a web analytics tool like Google
Analytics. Organic traffic indicates that a visitor has come from SEO, so it’s a good high-level way of
reviewing progress. You can monitor organic traffic for the whole of a website, a section of it, or for
specific URLs.

Monitoring your SEO traffic is straightforward in Google Analytics. You can do this by:

Accessing ‘Channels’ from the ‘Acquisition’ menu and then viewing ‘Organic Search’, or

Using the built-in Organic Search custom Google Analytics Segment

16.Conversions and Sales (Page 48)

Conversions and sales are also best measured in a web analytics tool like Google Analytics. It is
possible to have good keyword rankings and traffic but low or no conversions, goals, or sales. This
may indicate that the keyword research and SEO strategy was wrong.

Conversions and sales metrics are often considered the most important SEO success metrics as they
tend to be the most closely aligned to the business goals. In Google Analytics, a conversion can be
measured through Goals. This can include lead generation – for example, newsletter sign ups, PDF
downloads, and brochure requests.

If you have an Ecommerce website, it’s essential to set up Ecommerce tracking, so you can see how
much impact SEO is having on sales.

SEM
17.Paid Search

Paid search is an inbound advertising channel that matches searcher intent with relevant ads
intended to meet consumer needs. It is advertising within the search results of a search engine.
Essentially, you're putting your ad on the search engine in front of people who are actively looking
for it. And that word active is really important. We’ll explore how user intent is the fundamental
differentiator for search advertising, and how we can use it to leverage business objectives.

18.Paid Search Metrics and Reports (Page 37) (Details of any 5)

Impression: The number of times an ad is served to audiences

Click: How often an ad is clicked

Cost per click (CPC): The actual price paid for each click in a PPC campaign

Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage number of impressions that lead to a click

Cost per impression (CPM): The cost of serving a batch of 1,000 impressions

Cost per acquisition (CPA): How much it costs in PPC advertising media spend to generate

a sale or conversion

Conversion: An action that an advertiser has defined as valuable on a website, such as

purchase or contact form completion

Conversion rate: The percentage number of clicks that turned into conversions

Cost per conversion: The total cost of generating traffic divided by the total number of
conversions

Impression share: The number of impressions received divided by the estimated number of

impressions that were available

Click/Impression assisted conversions: The number of conversions that were assisted by

a particular campaign, ad group, or keyword

Quality score: An estima

19.Ad Copy (Page 13)

If you think of a search query – which is what someone types into Google – as a question, the next

thing we have in the journey is the response. The response itself is your ad copy.

So how do you write a good ad?

There are three things to focus on:

The ad must be Relevant – containing the keywords the searcher used and be written in a

way the searcher understands. They know what they’re looking for.

The ad copy must be Attractive – this could mean including an offer or a Unique Selling

Proposition (USP) or what’s called an Emotional Selling Proposition (ESP).

The ad copy must be Directional – now that you’ve engaged the searcher’s attention, you

want to direct them towards what you want them to do next, perhaps to purchase

something or download an eBook. What we use at this point is a CTA or call-to-action.

20.Landing Page, Conversion Rate Optimization (Page 13)

The landing page should deliver on the promise of the ad and resolve the user’s need state. It also

needs to be aligned to the ad copy. In other words, it needs to be relevant, attractive, and
directional.

Good landing pages are related to what the searcher typed into Google, as well as the ad copy that
they clicked. This increases the relevance of the search experience. If the relevance level is high, the

searcher is more likely to engage with the page content.

Conversion rate optimization Some elements of a landing page can be distilled into what is known
as conversion rate optimization. Conversion rate optimization is a process whereby pages are
designed to drive valuable actions based on how people interact with the page and what they are
likely to do. It’s about making it clear and easy for them to do the things they want to do on your
page like purchase or make contact and so on.

21.Benefits of Paid Search (Page 11)

benefits of paid search?

Relevance: It's relevant to what the person is looking for. Can you resolve the need state?

Can you give them the product, service that they desire at that particular moment?

Timing: We've talked about the timeliness and the ability to, I suppose, very quickly adapt

and change, whether it's keyword lists, ad copy or how much you want to spend each day.

Qualified visitor: The qualified visitor is something that should always be in your head when

we're doing any kind of search activity, because they're coming to you. It's not like you're

putting an ad out there and the consumer decides to engage with it or not. They're actually

coming to you, so they're a qualified visitor. They're saying, "I'm interested," and all you have

to do is deliver on the promise that your search ad is saying on your website.

Control: You have the control, of course, to change your landing page, to change your

website, to change your ad copy, to change in which you want to spend to change the

keywords and all of the different moving parts within a search campaign. So, that kind of

control, again, it's instantaneous in many ways.

Measurability: The metrics that are associated with search, gives you the accountability that

you spent X, you got Y, and that kind of measurement brings it alive, and that measurement

justifies the investment. It justifies the investment in time and resource and media spent. And
it just allows you to build on what you've done in the past to accelerate what you want to do

in the future.

Accountability: Precise measurement gives you accountability within your organization, that

is, you spent X and you got Y, helping you justify the investment in time, resource, and money

spent.

Visibility. Your product, brand or services are highly visible at the top of the results page so

you are front and center when potential customers are actively looking.

Mobile micro-moments: Micro-moments are when you have an instant need state and

search for answers on a mobile device.

22.Ad Extensions, why should you use ad extensions? (Page 22 - 23)

Ad Extensions Now that your campaign has been created, it’s time to consider including ad
extensions. Ad Extensions are found in the Extensions tab and can be added at the campaign or ad
group level by choosing the extension from the list available and pressing the plus-extension button.

There are a number of ad extensions available to marketers, which can enhance the ad detail that a
searcher will see. Some commonly used extensions include:

Adding your phone number which someone can dial directly from a mobile device or manually
following desktop searches.

Sitelinks are clickable links which appear below your ad and take searchers to different parts of your
website like product catalogue, about us, blog or contact pages.

Call out extensions are non-clickable pieces of copy which appear below the ad description.

Location extensions link your location from Google maps to Google Ads and these are particularly
impactful on mobile as people search in real time for directions.

New Ad Extensions are being added all the time. Take a look at the list available to you now and
decide which ones you’d like to use.

23.Difference between Paid and organic search (Page 8)

Traffic With paid search advertising you're obviously paying for the traffic. So it's built on what's
called a PPC model, or CPC model, which is a pay per click or cost per click as other people call it.
Sometimes people refer to paid search as PPC. And PPC, it's become a synonym for paid search. So
even though it is actually the pricing model, it is also another word for paid search

In terms of speed and accuracy, we do find that because paid search is a more instantaneous
medium, you can get up to the very top of Google or Yahoo or Bing, or whatever engine you're
actually operating on far quicker than your organic optimization, which is really about driving
content and links and website development. It can be a less controlled process than with paid search
which is pretty much telling Google, "I want these keywords, this ad copy, and I want to appear in
position one, and I'm willing to pay for it." So while there are differences and similarities between
the two, I suppose the biggest and most obvious difference is the speed by which paid search kind of
trumps the organic world, and that is really the key differentiator between the two.

24.Bidding and Ad auction (Page 28)

How do we actually pay for clicks? What does Google do to decide how we pay for a click? Well, the
starting point of that is the bid auction. A bid auction is when all the different advertisers who are
bidding and competing for clicks are piled into Google's black box system. There, a number of factors
determine what the actual cost per click will be. These include the maximum cost per click, or CPC,
the advertiser has set, the quality score of the advertiser, the perceived relevance of their ads, their
ad rank, and so on

When a click occurs, Google assigns a charge to the advertiser based on these factors and that is,
ultimately, what you will pay. It may not be as high as your maximum CPC bid or it may be slightly
higher, depending on different factors within the system. But it’s rarely much higher than what you
said you were willing to pay.

There are two options to pay for clicks on Google:

Automated Bidding

Manual CPC

25.Ad rank and Quality Score (Page 29)

Ad Rank and Quality Score are two internal Google Ads metrics that will affect final cost per click.

Ad Rank is ultimately where you appear on the page. Your ad rank is decided when you multiply your
quality score by your maximum CPC bid.

Quality Score is a measurement of how relevant and how good your ad and keyword combinations
are versus what Google thinks your audience is looking for.

The main factors that determine a quality score are:

Your bid (or what you’re willing to pay)

The perceived CTR of your ad

Your landing page relevance

26.Budget Management (Page 27)

Budget management determines what we are willing to spend. This is what a particular campaign or
indeed, a particular group of campaigns within an account will spend in a day multiplied over 30 days
to see the aggregate spend for the month itself. When you are assigned a marketing budget, you
have to know what percentage of the marketing budget you want to give to different campaigns.

And the way you understand that is based on what that campaign does. So, is it a campaign that
converts quite readily like a brand search campaign, or a high-volume generic campaign, is it a
longtail keyword campaign? What exactly is it? Understanding how to allocate your budget is
essential to knowing what is the best way to optimize your daily spend.

VAK Words and Phrases (Page 46)

Copying VAK words and phrases VAK stands for visual, auditory, or kinesthetic, and it refers to the
words and phrases that people use. Noticing these words and phrases, you can learn to notice how
someone is thinking.

Visual Think of these as ‘see’ sensory phrases. Examples of these phrases are ‘appears to me’;
‘beyond a shadow of a doubt’;

Auditory These are ‘hear' sensory phrases. Examples of these include ‘manner of speaking’; ‘clear as
a bell’; ‘call on’; ‘describe in detail’; and ‘to tell the truth’. In this case, all the phrases revolve around
how something sounds.

Kinesthetic There are ‘feel' sensory phrases. Examples of these include ‘boils down to’; ‘come to
grips with’; ‘firm foundations’; ‘lay cards on the table’; and ‘pull some strings’. In this case, notice
how the dominant sense is touch.

27.Paid Search KPIs (Page 36)

KPIs should reflect your business goals and how they can be achieved online.

Conversions

Conversions are those valuable actions that users take on your site like buying something or filling in
a form. The success can be measured in the number of conversions generated at a particular cost.
This determines your ROI, and campaign KPIs can be set around, generally, conversions because they
are the closest thing to aligning search with the business objective that we can find. Conversions are
a really important metric to consider

Awareness Now, another key performance indicator that we can use to measure the success of a
campaign would be something like awareness. So, if we do a lot of wider searches, broad searches,
do we get our brand name out there? Can that be attributed to things like increases, then, in brand
searches?
Brand impressions Brand searches where a searcher is looking for your brand name are low cost and
high conversion. However, for the majority of businesses, brand impressions and clicks tend to be
lower than generic searches. So driving higher levels of brand searches, that remember are low cost
and high conversion should be a goal of all organizations

28.Conversion Tracking (Page 36-37)

With website conversions, you add a piece of code to what's called the "thank you" page or, if it's an
ecommerce transaction, to the purchase complete page. Every time that page shows, the code is
loaded and once the code is loaded, that sends a signal back to Google Ads that has all the details

around what click drove that particular action, you know, the time, the location, all of those different
campaign settings.

Remember, this page is only ever displayed after conversion. So every time the thank-you page is
shown the tracking code that's on that page pings Google a notification that a conversion has
happened and you can see what keyword, what campaign drove that conversion.

You can find and create your Google Ads conversion tracking code in the tools menu of Google ads
under ‘conversions’. The other way to track conversions is to import goals or e-commerce
transactions from something like Google Analytics into Google Ads.

This is the recommended way of adding conversions to Google Ads as there can be a discrepancy
between the numbers when using the Google Ads website tag versus what Google Analytics says.