PROJECT ON

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

CHAPTER – 2

Research Methodology

1.1 Objectives Of Search Engine Marketing

1 To analyze the Market Share

 GOOGLE
 Google dominates the global search engine market share with over 90 percent of all
search queries worldwide being handled by the internet giant.
 As it stands 92.71 percent of all search queries conducted across all search engine
providers were done through Google. In other words, more than nine out of ten internet
users who search for information online do so through Google.
  Microsoft Bing and Yahoo
 Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo!, could only manage a small fraction of Google’s search
queries. Bing and Yahoo!’s market shares currently come in at 2.32 percent and 1.59
percent respectively. Their total of 3.91 percent is less than 5 percent of that of Google’s

 BAIDU
 China’s leading search engine, Baidu, has a search engine market share of 1.06 percent.

 YANDEX RU
 Russia’s Yandex at 0.56 percent, they are also one of the world’s top search engines

2 To Analyze The Role Of Search Engine Marketing

 Every business wanting to improve its online visibility on various search engines, has
two options paid advertising or SEO. SEO simply means improving the ranking of the
website against a specific set of keywords on a specific search engine, say Google,
organically.

 There are basically three main types of online searches

1 Do Transactional Queries: Which is the best insurance policy
2 Know Informational Queries: Policy bazaar website
3 Go Navigation Queries: Buy insurance policy online

 When a search is performed on a search engine say Google, a user sees:

1 Approximately 10 Organic Results per page
2 100s of Pages of Search Results
3 Few paid results per page

 All these websites are competing for attention around the same keyword! The organic
results on each page get the majority of clicks and users tend to click only on the top 3-4
results as they are perceived to be the most relevant ones.
  How Does Search Engine Marketing Work
 For the search engines to operate effectively, they use certain complicated algorithms.
This ensures that the search queries give the most relevant results depending on the
location and other information that may be available. This paid search advertising works
in such a way that the sponsored ads appear either at the top or beside the very first
search engine results.
 This helps to give the advertised websites more visibility as well as prominence over
other websites when compared to the organic SEM. For instance; if you are looking up
for a certain product or service online, you will go to the search engine and type the
specific keywords of what you want.
 In the search results page, there will be various ads from different companies whose
keywords will most likely match the words that you entered in the search box. The ads
are more likely to be found on the most prominent locations on the search engine
results page alongside the search listings that match the entered keywords.
 These paid listings are always the most relevant to the specific search that you entered,
therefore, you are more likely to click on them. This is just how SEM works from the
consumer’s point of view. Let’s now look at how it works from the advertiser’s point of
view.

3 To understand how to succeed in SEO

  In order to succeed at SEO, every business needs to follow these simple steps

1 Understanding How Search Engines Work

 The first step here is to understand how Search Engines work. To replicate how users
would search for information on the web, Search Engines use supercomputers to scan
through every page on the internet which are commonly known as ‘spiders’? These
spiders perform two main functions: Crawling and Indexing. ‘Spiders’ crawl through
each webpage on the Internet and index these pages and their content to provide
relevant results when users search for a query.
 The next important thing to understand is that how does search engines determine how
pages are to be ranked? They determine the ranking of each result based on two
criteria.
 Relevance
  How relevant is the content on a website with regard to the keyword searched?

 Popularity
 How many websites on the web refer to your website as a credible source of
information?

2 Getting Website Ready

 The next step post understanding the working of search engines is to get the website of
the business ready according to the algorithm of the various search engines.
 Search engines like Google can’t read images and only crawl and index the text listed on
various WebPages online. This information is provided through alt-tags. Every image
must have alt-tags in order to be crawled. Always ensure that the text that needs to be
indexed is not put inside images. For example, if the company name or address is to be
indexed, make sure it is not displayed inside a company logo
 Planning the Navigation Tab is a very important element here because search engines
read a website from left to right and top to bottom. The navigation tab needs to be
planned accordingly for the spiders to crawl easily.
 Having a clear structure of how the website pages are linked is always better. Creating a
simple, easy to navigate link structure for a website allows search engines to index them
easily.
 The use of Header Tags to structure the content to suit crawling helps improve the
ranking of the website. The header allows users to discover and consume the content
more easily and Search Engines look at headings to understand what the content in the
page is about. Always remember to never use more than 1 header per page.
 Titles and Meta Descriptions play a major role in attracting users to visit a website. One
should always use a Title of less than 70 characters, and Meta description of 150-160
characters and to never use the same Meta description for 2 WebPages.
 Lastly, Having a clear, well-defined URL Structure is a must. One should always include
the most important keywords in the webpage URL by using hyphens to separate
different words.

3 Select Keywords Relevant to Users

 There are two types of keywords to target in SEO. Short Tail keywords include 1-3
words. ‘Long Tail’ keywords are more descriptive, and more intent-ful when typed.
 Long-tail keywords make up majority of searches on the internet. A Visitor on a Website
from a Long-Tail keyword is more likely to convert over a visitor from a short-tail
keyword. Google's AdWords Keyword Planner tool is a common starting point for SEO
keyword research.
 It not only suggests keywords and provides estimated search volume, but also predicts
the cost of running paid campaigns for these terms.

4 . Updating Website Content as Per the Keywords

 Website content continues to be the no.1 factor for success in SEO. The content should
be be simple , precise and to-the-point, speak about the company, product, or service,
bring out the USPs of the business and keep a visitor interested in the website. Search
Engines determine the relevance of a website’s content with respect to a keyword
searched based on:
 Does a website content include this keyword
 Is the website content relevant to the keyword
 Is the website content unique
 Does the website create fresh content often

 Tailoring the content on the website contributes to on-page optimization. One should
not stuff the content with keywords and as a practice should try to restrict the ‘keyword
density’ to 5 words out of every 100 words. The focus should be on creating simple,
genuine content that website users will understand

5 Establishing Credibility of a Website

 Search engines determine the popularity and relevance of a website in another way: the
number of websites linking back to a particular website. The links to the website are
called backlinks.
 The more the number of backlinks, the more shall be the credibility of the website.
Creating backlinks to a website is a cornerstone of SEO and is 50% responsible for SEO
results.

Backlinks can be built in the following ways:

 Directories
  There are hundreds of online business directories on the web. A business should find
appropriate ones and list the business there along with the website.

 Comments
 Identifying relevant blogs related to the industry or product. Leaving comments or
opinion in their comments section along with a link to the website is a very good way to
build backlinks.
 Guest Blogs
 On relevant blogs and websites, submitting a guest blog in the form of a 100-200 word
limit and including a link to the website in the blog would ensure quality backlinks
generation.

1.2 Limitations Of Search Engine Marketing

1. IT’S SLOW
 SEO is slow. According to some of the top industry experts, it can take 3-6 months for a
new page to be crawled and, speaking from personal experience, even a properly
changed domain can have ramifications for years.

2. IT’S AT THE MERCY OF THE ALGORITHMS

 Even after your site is indexed, you’re not out of the weeds. I cannot count the number
of clients I’ve watched rank very highly and then overnight fall of the face of the organic
planet due to an algorithm update. There’s not much that can be done here. The last 2-
3 major updates have rewarded pages that were previously and came with not helpful
tips on how to regain the previous rank. If you’re very concerned about being at the top,
paid ads are the way to go. In fact, on mobile, organic listings typically don’t even show
up before a user scrolls. With that said, a strong SEO presence with fully optimized
pages and content are always advised and, eventually, you may be rewarded when your
site was previously underappreciated.

3. IT’S HARD TO TEST

 Unlike paid ads, it’s difficult to test SEO. The first reason is that it’s difficult to control
the amount of traffic that reaches the page or the number of people who see a
particular organic listing, meaning you could have either an infinite test or an
inconclusive one. The second reason it’s difficult to test with SEO is because, at least
with the organic listing, you have to run asynchronous tests – tests that run back to back
 instead of side by side. This lends itself to unknown variables such as seasonality or a
fluke occurrence. Both of these lead to less-than-ideal testing conditions. If you’re
looking at the performance of two page designs, it might be best to throw some paid
traffic on the pages. Once you have a winner, strong optimization through SEO will keep
your page at the top.

4. IT’S HARD TO TARGET

 Somewhat related to the difficulties with testing, reaching your ideal customer on a
consistent basis can be a challenge with SEO. If you want to appeal to women ages 25-
31 with an interest in handbags or luxury purses, you can absolutely design your page
with that in mind, but Google will show your organic listing to whoever they deem
relevant, whether they fit in that demographic or not. If you have specific messages for
specific groups, it might be best to build out some landing pages and use paid
ads.However, you can also leverage dynamic content insertion to customize pages that
users find through other channels (such as SEO).

5. IT’S INEFFECTIVE PROMOTING ONE-TIME EVENTS

 SEO is bad for one-time events for a couple of reasons. First and foremost (and a nod to
my final disadvantage), without considerable publicity, it’s unlikely people will search for
your event. Second, even if your event could rank for “nyc charity ball,” you would need
to create the page well in advance in order to ensure the page could show up in search
results. Given the extreme reliance on existing demand and the requirement of planning
at least 3-6 months in advance, it’s probably not wise to rely on SEO to drive significant
traffic for a one-time event.
 Things change, however, if there is a recurring event. Everyone knows about Walk For A
Cure and about 600 people search for it every month. Because of the recurring nature of
the event, it’s a worthwhile endeavor to try to rank for some relevant keywords and
consistently optimize the page for better performance.
 If your event is a one-time occurence, it’s probably best to promote it through other
channels to ensure the message gets out effectively. However, if it’s a recurring event,
SEO should definitely be in the ongoing plans for promotion.

6. IT’S (BASICALLY) INCAPABLE OF DEMAND GENERATION

 Last but not least, SEO is almost entirely incapable of demand generation. What this
means is that if your product or category isn’t well known and searched for, even the
best SEO won’t help you.
  If you’re pioneering a new way to do things you need to have a disruptive presence that
SEO won’t provide in order to generate sales. With that said, it’s worth investing in SEO
to rank for keywords you believe will explode. For example, at one time, “smartphone”
was probably an easy search to rank for and the people who started at the top have an
advantage compared to those who had to climb through the intense competition.

7. Difficulty of Competitive Keywords

 you are, and if there are major corporations in your market you likely won’t be able to
beat out Your competitors are likely trying to rank on the same keywords as their
domination over general keywords. With this obstacle, you will either need to dedicate
time and money to rank on those popular keywords, or aim for the ones with less
competition that are specific to your geographic location.

8. Getting noticed by more than your target audience

 As you get more visible online through SEO so your competitors will start to notice and
they may well up their game to compete. Increased competition is fairly common once
competitors see your marketing is working especially if their leads and sales are
dropping. Also, expect to be targeted by a lot more people trying to sell you their
services. From other SEO agencies to advertising the greater your exposure online the
more others will start to see you as a desirable prospect to work with.
1.3 Significance Of Search Engine Marketing

 Search engine marketing (SEM) is one of the most cost efficient ways to reach your
target audience when they are ready to buy. Research shows that 90 percent of online
searches are conducted by people who are at the end of the buying cycle.
 Done properly, SEM will get your ads in front of your target audience with content that
is highly relevant to them, all for free until they click on your ad.
 With SEM, your ad is placed on the sponsored section of a search engine’s result page. It
is ranked based on how much you pay for keywords (the more popular a keyword, the
more expensive it is) and a ‘quality score’ of how relevant your ad is in relation to
others.
1. SEM grabs the attention of your audience at the right time

 Research shows that 90 percent of people who research online know exactly what
they’re looking for. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have used the keywords you are targeting.
 This means that you’re getting your content and ads in front of a highly engaged target
audience, who are actively looking for offers like yours – all for a low cost and without
having to impose on them.

2. It’s easy and quick to implement

 Setting up a SEM campaign is quick and easy. While it might take a little while until you
can see the full impact of a campaign, it is highly flexible and configurable and can be set
up in a few hours.
 Changes can be done on an ad-hoc basis, so you can tailor your website content,
keywords and spending around the behavior of your audience.

3. It’s measurable

 SEM allows for precise success tracking and in-depth campaign analysis so you can
continually optimise your keyword mix, the amount of dollars you spend and the
content you use.
 Whatever your goal is, you can tell exactly how much value you are generating from this
marketing and advertising channel, and can therefore make more educated decisions
when it comes to budgeting.

4. It helps raise brand awareness

 SEM (and SEO) not only helps to generate qualified traffic to your websites but can
increase brand awareness too.
 The higher your product or service ranks in search engines, the more likely consumers
will visit your website and prefer you or even recommend your offerings.
 Over time you’ll notice that the search terms of your prospects are becoming more and
more related to your brand as they become familiar with you and see you as a trusted
advisor or provider.
5. SEO targets quality traffic

 One of the biggest advantages of SEO is that it’s an inbound marketing strategy.Unlike
traditional “outbound” advertising channels, which involve reaching out to consumers
whether they want to hear from you or not, inbound methods center on making it easy
for your audience to find you when they want information.

 These traditional methods, like cold calling, spam emails, and interruptive ads, are done
solely with the advertiser’s goals in mind. And many consumers find them downright
annoying.
 Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is much more customer-centric. Instead of
interrupting consumers as they’re watching TV or listening to the radio, it involves
creating helpful resources and making helpful information more easily accessible. Then,
when users are ready to spend some time researching your industry or learning more
about their options for a specific type of product, they can find you on their own.
6. You don’t need to pay for ads in SEO

 Google’s organic rankings are based entirely on what its algorithm determines to be the
best results for any given query.
 This means that once you’ve created a page that the search engine deems worthy of
directing their users to, it can continue to attract traffic to your site for months (or even
years) after you publish it. Of course, researching and writing high-quality content
requires an investment. That investment will either be in the form of time, if you choose
to create it yourself, or money, if you choose to hire a digital marketing agency to create
it for you. But once you’ve made that initial investment, there’s no ongoing cost to keep
attracting traffic to your content.
7. SEO gets more clicks than PPC

 Although PPC ads appear above organic rankings, 71.33% of searches result in a click on
an organic result on the first page. It’s difficult to say why this is, though the most logical
conclusion is that users trust Google’s algorithm. They know which spots advertisers are
paying for, and they choose to instead visit the pages the search engine has determined
to be the best.
 But regardless of the reasoning behind it, the fact is that the majority of the clicks for
any given search go to an organic result.
8. SEO helps PR

 Although SEO and PR may seem like entirely separate marketing strategies, you can use
them together to maximize the results you see from each.

 The biggest connection between the two lies in link building.

 Earning links from reputable websites is a main component of any SEO strategy. This
means that one of the biggest parts of an SEO professional’s job is to identify
opportunities for placement or coverage on industry blogs, news publications, and other
relevant sites. And considering that a PR strategy revolves around getting prominent
publications and influencers to talk about your company, this presents a huge
opportunity.

1.4 Scope Of Search Engine Marketing

 SEO is the force behind a company’s online success. Internet marketing is now a billion
dollar industry and everyone is slowly but surely accepting this. Even top companies in
India and the world are now keeping huge budgets for internet marketing.
 There is so much buzz going about internet marketing. People know that SEO can bring
them new prospects for their products and services . But what’s the scope of SEO’s in
India in comparison to the rest of the world.
1.5 Sample Size
 50 response

1.6 Data Collection

For my study the data has been collected by primary research through creating questionnaire.

1.7 Tabulation
Forms response chart.

Question title:

1. Do You Know About Search Engine Marketing.

Number of responses: 50 responses.

 Yes 42 No 8

2. Do You Know About Google Adwords.

Number of responses: 50 responses.

 Yes 32 No 18

3. Which on-page element carries the most weight for SEO.

Number of responses: 50 responses.

 The meta keywords tag 16

 The title tag 19
 The headers 16

4. The number of characters recommended for Title Tag.

Number of responses: 50 responses.

 120 11
 250 13
 70 27
5. How much time period is required to get a Google page ranking.

Number of responses: 50 responses.

 2 week 9
 1 week 9
 More than 3 months2 week 33