DIGITAL MEDIA

2022-2023
Semester-VI- TYBAMMC

EDITION III
haniflakdawala@gmail.com

NOTE: This material is for non commercial purpose. Only for the purpose of reference.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

MODULE I:
Introduction to Digital media:

1. Understanding Digital Media

2. Principle
3. Key concepts
4. Evolution of the Internet
5. Traditional v Digital

Understanding Digital Media:

Digital media are any media that are encoded in machine-readable formats. Digital media can be created,
viewed, distributed, modified and preserved on digital electronics

The term digital media refers to any type of media that is in an electronic or digital format for the
convenience, information and entertainment of consumers. It includes anything that is presented in an
audio (sound) or video (visual) form that can be seen and heard by others. Examples include music files,
such as MP3, Midi, or WMA files; video feeds found on the Internet at popular video websites; and
animated Flash® or graphic design files and images used to create interactive websites and games.

Digital media files are generally accessed by using complex electronics devices that contain digital
receivers or processors. These devices can include computers, mobile devices, video game consoles,
projectors, television and radio. Consumers access these files mostly for entertainment and educational
value; however, others are used for manipulation into other forms of media, such as movies, albums, or
websites.
Audio and music files are usually accessed with digital media players, such as MP3 players or radio
devices; they can also be downloaded from the Internet on music file sharing websites. Since digital
music files are easy to locate, download, and store, this format is very popular among music lovers. These

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

files are also easy to share among consumers. This is a lower cost alternative to purchasing large albums
or collections of music permanently stored on tapes, CDs and records.

Digital visual and video media is becoming a more popular form of sharing images and information for its
quick entertainment value. Video and graphic image media is not only used by regular consumers who
have access to affordable digital image and video creation and editing equipment and software, it’s also a
format that many businesses are beginning to use. These files provide interesting and stimulating formats
that have many ways of being used for the benefit of promoting ideas, information, and entertainment
with the public.
Gaming digital media has been available since the first video games were introduced in the 1980s. While
this has been traditionally a youthful pursuit, with the introduction of mobile gaming systems and family-
friendly video games, this hobby is becoming a staple of many households and is enjoyed by consumers
of all ages and abilities. The gaming media is most often found is either in a physical format, which must
be purchased at video game retailers, or the more convenient downloadable forms that are found on the
Internet.
Types of digital media:
• include software,
• digital images,
• digital video,
• video game,
• web pages and websites,
• social media,
• data and databases,
• digital audio, such as MP3 and
• Electronic books.
Definition of Digital Media. Digital media is digitized content that can be transmitted over the
internet or computer networks. This can include text, audio, video, and graphics. This means that
news from a TV network, newspaper, magazine, etc. that is presented on a Web site or blog can
fall into this category.
Advantages of Digital Media Campaign
Long-lasting and Impressive: It is plain and simple that a winning advertisement will last longer in
customer’s minds. Whether the ad is brilliant, funny, influential, or creative, a highly innovative ad is

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

more likely to make the consumer select that company when they find later on that they are in
requirement of that product.
a. Forms a Fan Community Quicker: Creative communiques get more consideration and more
positive reviews about the products being marketed from their customers. Moreover, they are
more probable to involve the audience and the product promoted. When your audience is
engaged, word of mouth elevates automatically. Highly creative digital media advertising
campaign leads to more conversation about these ads and therefore, extend the audience from just
those who perceived the campaign.
b. More Productive: A lot of study says that when a dollar is invested in a greatly resourceful
digital media advertising campaign instead of ordinary ad of similar products, on average, this
leads to double the sales impact of a dollar expended on a non-innovative advertisement
campaign. Therefore, the creative advertisement is more impact and propel higher sales.
c. Digital Media Advertising: Keeps you at par with rivals: Digital advertising not only maintains
your pace with your competitors, it can also brace you up to compete head- to- head with
noteworthy brands and huge corporations.
d. Less Media Spending: A more convincing advertisement can enable other aspects of the ad
budget to be drastically decreased. This not only leads to more revenue by least cost, but this can
also help in rearranging your marketing budget to other parts of the business in want of it.
e. Easy to measure: You can keep eagle’s eye on the real-time, which campaign is working and,
which is not working for your business online and you can acclimate very fast to amend your
results. For evaluating traffic to your site, you can use Google Analytics to measure particular
goals you want to attain for your website or blog and most packaged email marketing solutions
deliver better understanding into how many people are opening, reading and getting converted via
your emails.
f. Brand Improvement: An appropriately maintained website with quality content targeting the
requirements and adding value to your target audience can offer substantial value and lead
generation chances. The same can be said for making use of direct advertising response with

Principles of Digital Media Marketing

For a business to succeed in today's world, it is important to have a strong digital impression within the
internet. Therefore, when a business is defining its marketing plan, it must incorporate a solid digital

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

strategy. How much value you have on each of the following factors correlates to how successful your
business can be online and in the real world.

1. Innovation: Creative innovation as the name suggests is all about bringing new formats of creative
assets, or a new technology in existing forms. One of the obvious problems in executing creative
innovations is the feasibility of implementation, especially when it involves new technology. The
capability of media owners in execution decides the fortune of the ‘innovation’.
Media innovation is all about finding new ways of using the media space or creating a new media space
altogether. We have seen how the media space has evolved, for it to be used for advertising purpose.
Therefore, its very hard to differentiate ‘innovation’ from what it would have been an organic evolution
of the space. For example, if you had run advertising in mobile apps five years back, we would have
called it innovative, but today it’s a standard part of any mobile media plan. Creative and media services
need to and are blending very fast with each other, which is essential for bringing about a true innovation.
Innovation suffers from another major bottleneck while selling the idea and that is resistance from
advertisers. Digital media is always being looked at as a highly measurable media, and this measurability
extends to ‘innovation’ before even executing it. Usually clients ask about the projected numbers as a
result of the proposed idea, how it will achieve results that are quantifiable, what are the benchmarks, etc.
First of all, if it’s an innovation, how can there be any benchmarks? Secondly, if clients have the appetite
for innovation, then they should not be afraid to try it in absence of any benchmarks.
Innovation leads to impact. While we question the reasonability of clients’ doubts, another problem with
executing innovations is the lack of farsightedness on agencies’ parts in the proposed idea. Advertisers
always want to see some actionable results through the innovation and they are not doing it for the sake of
doing it. Agencies will need to support the idea with scalability so that the overall media/marketing
objectives are always in sight while ideating and execution. Most of the creative ideas fail purely because
of the scalability issue. The long-term impact of the innovation on brand has to be kept in mind and
should be visible as a result of the execution. It could be difficult to measure the impact in purely
quantifiable terms but there are some soft parameters that can be deployed to gauge response and effect of
the execution.
2. Integration: The importance of integration within digital media and with traditional media is ever
increasing. With increasing media fragmentation, as it becomes harder for clients and agencies to choose
an apt media, the need for integration is inevitable. The media needs to work harder and integration is a
huge help to the cause. We have seen some real good examples of integrated marketing from across
categories such as outdoor hoardings carrying a short code for SMS, tickers scrolling on TVCs to send
SMSs or participate in online contests, print ads with QR codes to be scanned, so on and so forth.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Integration remains the most favourite question of today’s marketer and agencies need to deliver what we
call ‘integrated media plans’, which calls for a different kind of talent within the partner agencies and
most agencies are moving towards it.
3. Investment: Investment in digital media has always been in debate and its not only about how much a
brand should be investing in digital vis-à-vis other traditional media, but also about how much should be
invested within digital media itself given the choices of display, SEM, mobile, and social media
advertising. More choices signify more confusion in choosing the right option. While there is no exact
formula of how much should be invested, there are some principles that digital can adopt from traditional
media. For example, SOV (share of voice) can be translated to SOI (share of impressions) in digital
media, especially SEM and display. Secondly, the ROI of digital media will always be the forefront of
measurability for this medium. This has resulted in a number of metrics that can be used while buying
digital media other than purely CPM or CPT viz. CPC, CPL, CPA, and now even CPF (cost per fan). We
will talk more about ROI in the next section.
4. Insights: Rich customer insights have always been a very strong point for digital media both pre and
post planning. It will continue to enjoy that status for years to come. No other medium can compete with
digital when it comes to real consumer data. Whether it is the total number of search queries on Google
about a brand as pre-planning insights or the number of repeat and late visitors on brand website post-
execution kind of insights, both have equal importance. Web analytics post executions provide quite
useful insights on how users behaved after interacting with the ads. Insights help the media planner to
know the ROI of each media vehicle used in the digital media plan. These are also helpful in building
benchmarks for future planning such as help in building a media mix of various digital media viz. display,
search, mobile and social, etc. How much of what vehicle to be used can be answered if these insights are
accumulated over time?

5. Involvement: Involvement from all stakeholders while planning for digital media is an absolute
necessity nowadays. Digital media is more of a mindset than anything else, and this needs to be shared
jointly by the creative agency, media agency, PR agency, and the advertiser. These partners can no longer
work in isolation in order to execute an effective digital media initiative. I still remember those days when
clients used to brief the agencies and then left everything to them for delivering an effective campaign
plan. All partners need to learn the art of complementing each other with their respective skill sets. The
boundaries of responsibility and accountability are blurring, and are blurring rapidly. Lack of support by
one partner might result in the failure of the entire initiative or a campaign.
6. Interactivity: Interactivity was and will continue to be the differentiator for digital media from the rest
of the media, although the ‘type’ of interactivity is changing as expected. We have witnessed discussions

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

are not only about the ‘click’ but also the ‘touch’, especially for tablets and touch phones. Marketers and
agencies are preparing themselves to deliver the interactive experiences across devices such as PCs,
mobiles, tablets, and now even GPS/navigation devices. Given this scenario, content needs to be device
agnostic and it calls for an effective content strategy and interactivity needs to be delivered across owned,
earned, and paid media.
7. Map out your customer's journey: How often and through which channel are customers receiving
information? What content is most effective for customers to push past purchase roadblocks? Where
should messages be placed along the journey? These are all questions that you need to be able to answer
and address in order to better market your business in the digital marketing realm, and with digital
methods of communication and marketing becoming faster, more versatile, and streamlined, it is perhaps
unsurprising that once new technology becomes available we quickly move further into the digital age.
8. Content...Content...Content...:Content is key! It builds trust and loyalty and can help define you as an
expert in your chosen field. Good content promotes your credibility as well as your SEO. Regular,
original, relevant and engaging content that enhances your brand will help build a positive relationship
with your potential customer base. Utilizing a blog on your website is a great way to provide fresh and
relevant content, this can lead to an increase in site visitors, user engagement, which both work to drive
conversions.

Key Concepts

Three key concepts in Digital Media:

1. Interactivity
2. participation and
3. immersion

Introduction: Digital media have facilitated a context where new forms of communication and storytelling
are possible. Interactive communication professionals become here key specialist who can understand the
potential of the medium and, in turn, become creators or, at least, facilitators of stories. They are
responsible for the innovation in communicative processes: Designing and implementing them
successfully not only in the well established channels and contexts, but also in these which appear –and
sometimes disappear- at a much higher rate than that to which the pre-digital professional was used to.
Some of these new channels and contexts will complement or expand existing ones, while others will end
up replacing them entirely.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

At the same time, media itself has radically changed, adapting at different rates –and with varying
success—to the context in which concepts such as ubiquity, active user (as opposed to the passive viewer)
or user generated content have reshaped the landscape. It is a context where social media has gone from
being a space for dialogue on ‘main’ media (second screen) to become the main context in which stories
are accessed and disseminated, often replacing the media platforms themselves, not without new inherent
problems. However, and despite the accelerated rate of change, there are some concepts that remain
central in order to understand digital media, the sound understanding of which is key to successfully
engage in the creation of interactive communication processes. As stated above, we consider the three
concepts discussed in the following section as being central to this discourse.

1. Interactivity: Interactivity refers to ability of a system to partake in the pro-cess of interaction.

When this refers to communication, a key aspect is the fact that the passive viewer or reader of
traditio-nal media is replaced by an active user; an entity with agency. The way this agency
affects the reception of the work or the work itself is widely varied. And while interactivity is an
intrinsic to digital medium, one can argue that not all of our experiences with it are really
interactive, according to the definition below. In this context, working with interactive media not
only means telling stories, but also creating and designing experiences for an active audience.
Here point of view of the designer of these systems becomes important, and from it it’s useful to
differentiate between passive, reactive and interactive systems, and to understand that there is not
so much a division but continuity between the latter two. However, while reactivity means
roughly that the same actions will always result in the same system responses, interactivity refers
to a much complex process.

Interaction are defined as series of related actions between two or more agents where at least one
of them is an artificial system that processes its responses according to a behavior specified by
design, and that takes into account some of the previous actions executed by .

This definition aims not at addressing all types of interaction, nor at framing interactive systems
under the umbrella of usability, but at a more experimental approach. Useful ideas to understand
this are the concepts of design for motivation or poetic interaction.

2. Participation. The second key idea to understand digital media is participation. Although some
authors conflate it with interactivity, it is very useful to differentiate both concepts. While
interaction always implies some sort of participation, this is a pertinent distinction in order to
frame the different types of activities that can take place with technological systems that afford

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 that the users take action in relation to them. It is especially relevant in the context of the web 2.0
and social media, where user generated content is central. The proposal here is to understand
participation as contribution: That is, the creating content by the user of the system, as a different
act than that of interacting with this content. Participation, from this point of view, includes any
form of contribution of a user to a (generally online) system. Uploading picture to a social
network is an act of participation, and it does involve interactivity when the actual uploading is
happening. But it is a trivial and mechanistic kind of interactivity. Thus, the interest here in such
cases does not reside the interactivity as described above. It is on this very act of contributive
participation that, in turn, constitutes a form of social interaction.

3. Immersion: The third and final concept in this triad is immersion. Similarly to interaction, it can
appear in a digital media experience in various degrees. But in this case we can differentiate
between a technological and a psychological component of it or, in other words, between spatial
and emotional immersion. The first is the immersion created with systems that are designed to
isolate the user from his or her environment, and give control of the point of view on a usually
360 degree scene. These types of technologies, which find its technological ancestors at least on
Baker’s panoramas of the late eighteenth century, have resurfaced in recent years with the revival
of Virtual Reality. They are well known for pro-viding very strong experience in terms of ‘sense
of place’, and have been linked to the –already cliché–creation of empathy, as they are very
powerful in having the user experience a specific point of view. There is, however, another type
of immersion that relates strongly to interactivity. In this case it is not so much the technology but
the engagement that generates immersion. Playing a game in a very small screen, or a monitor a
few meters away.

Traditional v Digital

What is Traditional Media?

Traditional media, or as some refer to as old media, has been used in the marketing/advertising world for
years. When related to advertising, traditional media encompasses that of television, newspaper, radio and
magazine ads and out of home including in-store promotion, and transit. These forms of communication
are the steadfast ways that businesses have reached both consumers and other companies for decades.
They are the roots of advertising and the most common form utilized by businesses on a daily basis.
Though traditional media is effective, over the course of the last few years we have seen more and more
businesses utilizing new media to reach its target audiences.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

What is New Media?
New media is the future of advertising. More and more consumers and businesses rely on new media to
find their information. Ultimately, new media refers to content that is easily accessible via many different
forms of digital media. When related to advertising, some examples of new media include online
advertising (retargeting, banner ads, etc.), online streaming (radio and television) and social media
advertising. Each of these are means in which businesses have the capability to reach consumers and
other businesses with ease.
Effect of Traditional and New Media on Consumers
As consumers, we sometimes find ourselves in a conundrum when it comes to how get our information.
Now-a-day, more and more consumers use the internet to quickly find information, making new media
advertising pertinent for any type of business. However, at the same time, consumers still take a good
chunk of time out of their day to use traditional media. On the way to work we have our radios playing, at
home we have the television on watching the news, and at the doctor’s office we find ourselves reading
the magazine on the end table next to us. Each of these are forms of traditional advertising that we use on
a daily basis.
As consumers, we may also find that there are instances when we multitask each day. Take it from
experience, there are many times when I’ll be at home watching television and at the same time I’ll be on
my tablet looking up the next vacation I’m going to take. It’s at these times that as an advertiser you need
to decide where the best place to put your money will be. Is it going to be running an ad on that television
show that I’m watching, or is it going to be online while I’m surfing the web? For advertisers, it’s
important to find that balancing act and not to strictly choose one over the other, but to weigh all the
options, and find a harmonious mix between both traditional and new media.

Digital Marketing Vs. Traditional Marketing: Which One Is Better?

What's the difference between digital marketing and traditional marketing, and why does it matter? The
answers may surprise you.Many small businesses struggle with deciding which kind of marketing to do,
because their budget will only stretch to one or the other, not both. The decisions that must be made are
not easy: which method of marketing will give me the most bang for my buck? How do I know if my
marketing is working? Who should I trust with my marketing? Should I do it myself? The answers may
surprise you.
To clarify the terms, the use of print ads on newspapers and magazines is a simple example of traditional
marketing. Other examples include flyers that are put in mailboxes, commercials both on TV and radio
and billboards. On the other hand, when a business invests on building a website, advertising the brand

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

name through different social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, this kind strategy is called
digital marketing.

Benefits of Traditional Marketing

1. One can easily reach your target local audience. For example, a radio ad might play in one
location: your city or region. Or mailbox flyers will go to households in a select number of
suburbs.
2. The materials can be kept. The audience can have a hard copy of materials of which they can
read or browse through over and over again.
3. It's easy to understand. It can be easily understood by most people because they are already
exposed to this kind of strategy.
4. Neuroscience seems to support the benefits of hard copy marketing. A study sponsored by
Canada Post and performed by Canadian neuro-marketing firm TrueImpact compared the effects
of paper marketing (direct mail pieces, in this case) with digital media (email and display ads).
The technologies used in this study were eye-tracking and high resolution EEG brain wave
measurement. The three key metrics evaluated in the study were cognitive load (ease of
understanding), motivation (persuasiveness), and attention (how long subjects looked at the
content).
5. Direct mail was easier to process mentally and tested better for brand recall. According to
the report, Direct mail requires 21% less cognitive effort to process than digital media (5.15 vs.
6.37), suggesting that it is both easier to understand and more memorable. Post-exposure memory
tests validated what the cognitive load test revealed about direct mail’s memory encoding
capabilities. When asked to cite the brand (company name) of an advertisement they had just
seen, recall was 70% higher among participants who were exposed to a direct mail piece (75%)
than a digital ad (44%).

The Downside to Traditional Marketing

1. There is very little interaction between the medium used and the customers. It is more of
providing information to the public that the brand exists with the hope of these people patronizing
the brand.
2. Print or radio advertisements can be very costly. Printing materials can be expensive and you
need to hire people to distribute these.
3. Results on this marketing strategy cannot easily be measured. Was the campaign successful?

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Benefits of Digital Marketing
1. You can target a local audience, but also an international one. Further, you can tailor a
campaign to specific audience demographics, such as gender, location, age and interests. This
means your campaign will be more effective.
2. Your audience can choose how they want to receive your content. While one person likes to
read a blog post, another person likes to watch a YouTube video. Traditional marketing doesn't
give the audience a choice. Most people hate receiving sales flyers in their mailbox or phone calls
at inconvenient times on stuff that they have little interest in. Online people get the choice to opt
in or out of communications and often it are relevant because they were the ones searching for it
in the first place. Don’t underestimate the power of market segmentation and tailored marketing.
3. Interaction with your audience is possible with the use of social media networks. In fact,
interaction is encouraged. Traditional marketing methods don't allow for audience interaction.
You can encourage your prospects, clients and followers to take action, visit your website, read
about your products and services, rate them buy them and provide feedback which is visible to
your market.
4. Digital media is cost-efficient. Though some invest on paid ads online; however, the cost is still
cheaper compared to traditional marketing. Data and results are easily recorded. With Google
Analytics and the insights tools offered by most social media channels, you can check on your
campaigns at any time. Unlike traditional marketing methods, you can see in real time what is or
is not working for your business online and you can adapt very quickly to improve your results.
5. Level playing field: Any business can compete with any competitor regardless of size with a
solid digital marketing strategy. Traditionally a smaller retailer would struggle to match the
finesse of the fixtures and fittings of its larger competitors. Online, a crisp well thought out site
with a smooth customer journey and fantastic service is king – not size.
6. Real time results: you don’t have to wait weeks for a boost to your business like you would have
to waiting for a fax or form to be returned. You can see the numbers of visitors to your site and
its subscribers increase, peak trading times, conversion rates and much more at the touch of a
button.
7. Brand Development: A well maintained website with quality content targeting the needs and
adding value to your target audience can provide significant value and lead generation
opportunities. The same can be said for utilising social media channels and personalised email
marketing.
8. Viral: how often do your sales flyers get passed around instantly by your customers and
prospects? Online, using social media share buttons on your website, email and social media

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 channels enables your message to be shared incredibly quickly. If you consider the average
Facebook user has 190 friends of which an average of 12% see their liked posts – your one
message has actually been seen by 15 new prospects. Now imagine a number of them also like
and share your message and their friends do the same? That's why high-quality content is so
important.

Finding the Equilibrium

The million dollar question is this – how do we find this equilibrium between a world of traditional and
new media? For starters, although traditional advertising is important for businesses to effectively reach
mass consumers, It is highly recommend finding a way to inject a type of new media into all media
campaigns. Traditional media tends to be a bit more expensive than new media, but it also has the ability
to reach a broad target audience. If the ultimate goal of the business is to reach a broad range of people,
this is definitely the way to go. If you want to target a more narrow audience, then new media may be the
way to go.
New media is changing the overall media landscape. New media allows businesses to target ads more
specifically to consumers based on their age, gender, marital status, etc. It also allows businesses the
ability to track what these consumers are doing and how they end up on your website. All of these reasons
make new media imperative to any media campaign.
There are ways that traditional media can be tracked, but sometimes we ask ourselves is the ad targeting
the people we really should be targeting? New media allows us to get this data and analyze our target
audience. From there, we may have a better understanding of where traditional media dollars should be
spent.
All-in-all, the key to a successful media campaign is to have a well-balanced mix of media that ultimately
targets your businesses audience. It’s important to not waste advertising dollars on media that won’t be
effective. Take the time to analyze your business’s marketing plan and target audiences and ask yourself
what types of media can be used to reach these consumers. Overall, utilizing a mix of the two has proved
beneficial for a variety of our clients over the past few years.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 MODULE II:
Search Engine Optimisation

What are Search Engines?

A search engine is really a general class of programs, however, the term is often used to specifically
describe systems like Google, Bing and Yahoo! Search that enable users to search for documents on the
World Wide Web. The purpose of a search engine is to extract requested information from the huge
database of resources available on the internet. Search engines become an important day to day tool for
finding the required information without knowing where exactly it is stored. Internet usage has been
tremendously increased in recent days with the easy to use search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!

Different Types of Search Engines and How Search Engines work and how they rank websites
based upon a search term?
Search engines are classified into the following three categories based on how it works.
1. Crawler based search engines
2. Human powered directories
3. Hybrid search engines
4. Other special search engines

1. Crawler Based Search Engines

All crawler based search engines use a crawler or bot or spider for crawling and indexing the new content
to the search database. There are four basic steps which every crawler based search engines follow before
displaying any sites in the search results.
• Crawling
• Indexing
• Calculating Relevancy
• Retrieving the Result

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 Crawling: Search engines crawl the whole web to fetch the web pages available. Crawling is
performed by a software, called a crawler or a spider. The crawling frequency depends on the
search engine and it may take a few days between crawls. This is the reason sometimes you
can see your old or deleted page content is showing in the search results. New content will
get updated in the search results once the search engines crawl your site again.

Indexing: is next step after crawling which is a process of identifying the words and expressions that
best describe the page. The identified words are referred as keywords and the page is assigned to the
identified keywords. Sometimes when the crawler does not understand the meaning of your page,
your site may rank lower on the search results. Here you need to optimize your pages for search
engine crawlers to make sure the content is easily understandable. Once the crawlers pickup correct
keywords your page will be assigned to those keywords and rank high on search results. Search
engine compares the search string in the search request with the indexed pages from the database.
Since it is likely that more than one page contains the search string, search engine starts calculating
the relevancy of each of the pages in its index with the search string.
Relevancy: There are various algorithms to calculate relevancy. Each of these algorithms has
different relative weights for common factors like keyword density, links, or meta tags. That is why
different search engines give different search results pages for the same search string. It is a known
fact that all major search engines periodically change their algorithms. If you want to keep your site at
the top, you also need to adapt your pages to the latest changes. This is one reason to devote
permanent efforts to SEO, if you like to be at the top.
Retrieving the results: The last step in search engines’ activity is retrieving the results. Basically, it
is simply displaying them in the browser – the endless pages of search results that are sorted from the
most relevant to the least relevant sites. Most of the popular search engines are crawler based search
engines and use the above technology to display search results. Example of crawler based search
engines:
• Google
• Bing
• Yahoo!
• Baidu
• Yandex

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

2. Human Powered Directories
Human powered directories also referred as open directory system depends on human based activities for
listings. The process of indexing is explained as below:
Site owner submits a short description of the site to the directory along with category it is to be listed.
Submitted site is then manually reviewed and added in the appropriate category or rejected for listing.
Keywords entered in a search box will be matched with the description of the sites. This means the
changes made to the content of a web pages are not taken into consideration as it is only the description
that matters.
A good site with good content is more likely to be reviewed for free compared to a site with poor content.
Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ were perfect examples of human powered directory. Unfortunately all those
human powered directory style search engines were wiped out of the web with the automated Google
search.
3. Hybrid Search Engines
Hybrid Search Engines use both crawler based and manual indexing for listings the sites in search results.
Most of the crawler based search engines like Google basically uses crawlers as a primary mechanism and
manual screening as a secondary mechanism. When a site is being identified for spammy activities,
manual review is required before including it again in the search results.
4. Other Types of Search Engines
Besides the above three major types, search engines can be classified into many other categories
depending upon the usage. Below are some of the examples:
Search engines have different types of bots for exclusively displaying images, videos, news, products and
local listings. For example, Google News page can be used to search only news from different
newspapers. Some of the search engines like Dogpile collects meta information of the pages from other
search engines and directories to display in the search results. This type of search engines are called
metasearch engines. Semantic search engines like Swoogle provide accurate search results on specific
area by understanding the contextual meaning of the search queries.

Organic Vs Inorganic
Organic & Inorganic SEO
Organic SEO
It is a natural way of getting top ranking in SERP (search engine result page) without paying any amount
to search engines for the placement. This is more preferable and trustworthy method of securing high rank
on SERP.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Benefits of Organic Search Engine Optimization:
• Usually normal user’s clicks more on organically optimized sites.
• Results are long lasting on search engine result pages.
• Organic results are more trustworthy than inorganic results.
• Organic service is cheaper than inorganic services.

Inorganic SEO
Known as SEM, It includes usually paid services such as PPC – Pay Per Click, CPC – Cost Per Click,
CPA – Cost Per Acquisition, banner ads, classifieds etc. This service is very expensive. But those who
wants immediate results, they can go for inorganic service.

Benefits of Inorganic Search Engine Optimization:

• Results in short period.
• Site gains more visibility.
• More traffic in sort time period.
• Unlike organic SEO, inorganic SEO gets more effective result in very short time.

Inorganic SEO technique is quite risky; as its cost will be count as per clicks, webmaster must remain
alert from competitors, they might click on your site unnecessarily to force you pay more. There is a
solution to block those users, but for that you must be aware that they clicked you unnecessarily.

Introduction to SEO and what it involves

What Is SEO?
SEO (search engine optimisation) involves following steps designed to improve a website’s ranking in
search results. The ultimate goal of SEO is to attract higher numbers of quality visitors to the website
through organic search.
Let’s break that description down a bit to get a better understanding:
1. Ranking in search results – when a user enters a search request on Google they are shown a list
of results. The results at the top of the first page attract the most attention, so it is important to get
into at the top two or three positions for as many relevant searches as possible (keywords).

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 2. High quality visitors – it is sometimes thought that SEO is all about getting as much traffic to a
website as possible, but it is as important to get good quality traffic. For example, a fashion
boutique in Mumbai will get no benefit from a website visitor looking for fashion boutique in
Delhi.
3. Increased quantity of visitors – once the right visitors come to your website, the more the better.
4. Organic search – a search engine results’ page is usually made up of both paid-for ads and
organic listings, i.e. results that are not paid-for ads. SEO is concerned with organic listings.

What is the importance of search for websites?

Websites can attract visitors to website through organic search but also can also get visitors from other
sources:
• Links from other websites (referral traffic);
• Social media;
• Email marketing;
• Paid ads;
• Offline marketing;
• And lots of other methods.

The ideal situation is to attract high quality visitors to website in as many different ways as possible, but
organic search will almost always be an important source. In fact, for many websites it is the primary
source of traffic, while for others it is a significant source.
If websites wants to attract visitors through organic search, or want to attract more, then one need SEO.

Search Engine Overview and Doing SEO

When a user does a search on Google – or any other search engine – they want an answer to their query,
and Google’s objective is to provide that answer. This involves sifting through millions of website pages
and displaying them in order. From Google’s perspective, “in order” means putting the website that is
most likely to answer the user’s query into first position on its results page.
This is an important concept: Google’s objective is not to comprehensively list the websites on the
internet, or to display your website in organic search results. All it cares about is answering the queries of
its users. It does this by looking at individual website’s relevance and popularity, so SEO is about
positively impacting website’s relevance and popularity. In practice this means making sure website is
SEO-friendly, creating fantastic content that people want to read and link to, and increasing awareness of
brand through marketing (link-building, social media, offline marketing, press, etc).

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

What are the areas of operation for Search Engine Optimization Professionals?
The core areas of operations for SEO professionals can be broken down into three key areas:
1. On site optimization
2. Content marketing
3. Link building and outreach

On Site Optimization: On site optimization is usually the first service that an SEO consultant or agency
will carry out on website; it entails examining website to make sure it is properly set up for search engines
like Google. Onsite optimization can include improving keyword density and page loads times.
This can include details such as the keyword density of the content, page load times or site speed, and
ensuring that website content and navigational menus are organized and setup for an efficient user
experience.
Content Marketing: The more content website has, the more chances it has to get visitors from search
engines. The more content published on website (in the form of WordPress posts or pages), the more
opportunities it has to rank high in search engines, allowing website to receive more visitors who are
searching for information about the services business provides. An SEO professional who offers content
marketing services will work to establish which keywords or search terms are relevant to business. Those
keywords will then be used to develop a content creation strategy designed to deliver targeted visitors to
website. Depending on the level of service offered, the SEO professional may create content, or simply
provide a plan for to use when creating own content.
Link Building and Outreach: One of the most effective ways to improve the rank of website is to
acquire backlinks, links from other websites which are pointing to your’s. This is a staple service of any
SEO professional or agency. Google expressly prohibits the manual acquisition of backlinks. As Google
expressly prohibits the manual acquisition of backlinks, this is often the most difficult part of SEO. One
of the safest ways to increase the number of backlinks to your site is to publish great content, and bring
that content to the attention of other websites who might find it interesting. Hopefully, they will share the
content with their audience and link to your site. Less-than-ethical SEO professionals may engage in
dubious means to build backlinks to your site. This can include buying links from other websites, using
automated tools, or building a network of websites with the sole purpose of linking to your site.

Outreach vs. Manual Link Building: Conversely, SEO professionals adhering to search engine
guidelines will do outreach and promotion of website content, in order to acquire links from legitimate
external sites. Results from questionable approaches to link building could be lost overnight. The more
questionable approaches to link building might yield quicker results, compared to a content marketing and

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

outreach program. However these quick results could be lost overnight once they come to the attention of
the search engines and their increasingly sophisticated algorithms. Removing harmful unnatural backlinks
can take up a lot of resources.

How do you search for the right keywords that will help bring in the most
traffic?
Keyword optimization (also known as keyword research) is the act of researching, analyzing and
selecting the best keywords to target to drive qualified traffic from search engines to your website.
Keyword search optimization is a critical step in initial stages of search engine marketing, for both paid
and organic search. If you do a bad job at selecting your target keywords, all your subsequent efforts will
be in vain. So it’s vital to get keyword optimization right.

But optimizing keywords isn't something you do ONLY at the outset of a search marketing campaign.
Ongoing keyword optimization is necessary to keep uncovering new keyword opportunities and to
expand your reach into various keyword verticals. So keyword optimization isn't a set it and forget it
process. By continuously performing keyword analysis and expanding your database of keywords, your
site traffic, leads and sales will continue to grow.

Benefits of Keyword Optimization: In a recent survey, participants listed keyword optimization as one
of the hardest tasks in search engine marketing. Because of its difficult nature, most site owners,
marketers and bloggers don't spend enough time optimizing keywords. This is ironic since optimizing
keywords is the most important aspect of SEO and PPC. If you don't choose and use keywords your
customers are searching for, you won't get found. That means no traffic, no sales, no money.

Benefits of search engine keyword optimization are:

• Drive qualified traffic to your website: To drive searchers to your site, you must optimize for
the keywords they're searching for
• Measure traffic potential: Analyzing the popularity of keywords helps you gauge the size of a
potential online market.
• Write effective content: By incorporating optimized keywords into your website content, you
can connect instantly with potential customers and address their needs.
• Understand user behavior: By analyzing the words that your customers use, you get an idea of
their needs and how to service those needs.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Where Keyword Search Optimization Comes into Play
Keyword optimization plays a major role in every aspect of Internet marketing from content strategy, to
link building, to how you group your keywords in your AdWords ad groups, to how your site content is
organized, a.k.a your information architecture.

SEO Keyword Optimization: When it comes to SEO, the success of your organic search efforts rests
largely on how effective you are at discovering, researching, analyzing and selecting the right search
engine keywords for your website. All other aspects of SEO rely on successful keyword optimization.
What's more, optimizing keywords touches every aspect of your SEO marketing efforts.
• Title Tag: Your target keywords must be included in the title tag (and front loaded). This is the
most important piece of content on your website, both on and off-page.
• Links: Keyword optimization should be integrated into your link building strategy. Internal links,
inbound links, breadcrumb links, navigational links should all have your top optimized keywords.
It's also important to track and manage your link text efforts
• Content strategy: If you want to rank well and connect with searchers, you need to use your
target keywords in your content. WordStream for SEO helps combine keyword research with
content authoring (just saying...).
• Images: Don't forget to optimize keywords in the pictures on your website. Target keywords
should be used in your image alt attribute and file names, to name a few.
• Meta Description: There's some debate over whether or not including target keywords in your
text snippets helps rankings. But there's little doubt that having your optimized keywords here
produces more clicks in searches, which is optimal.
• URL: Be sure to include keywords for SEO in file name slugs, like I've done with this page's
URL. The page is about keyword optimization, so the slug name is /keyword-optimization.
• Site Structure: Keyword optimization is also critical to how you structure and organize your site
content. Not only do you need to select the right keywords, but you need to group them
hierarchically and order the corresponding pages on your website accordingly.

Pay per click (PPC) Keyword Optimization: But optimized keywords aren't just for organic search
marketing. There's tremendous value in optimizing your PPC keywords. To be effective with your pay-
per-click campaigns, you must speak the searcher's language. The more keywords you select that your
customers are searching for, the more traffic you'll drive to your website, the more consumers you'll
convert to customers.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 • Creating a keyword list: Determining which keywords to target and bid on is the linchpin for
all your PPC marketing strategies. Different keywords have different demand and traffic
potential.
• Grouping and segmenting: Keyword optimization helps organize your keywords into tight
groups that are semantically related.
• Improved relevancy: The key to a higher click-through rate is being relevant to the searcher's
query. Higher CTR leads to better Quality Score. Optimized keywords are instrumental in being
relevant.
• Crafting ad text: To coax searchers into clicking on your ads, you need to integrate your
keywords into your PPC ad text.
• Landing page optimization: Once a user lands on your page, your message must match the
offer. So the optimized keywords that were present in your ad text, must be present on your
landing pages.

You can take your PPC optimization further by evaluating your AdWords account with the AdWords
Performance Grader, which grades your campaigns on important factors like ad text and long-tail
keyword optimization.

Social Media Keyword Optimization

Determining which keywords to target and how to incorporate them into your messaging is also a big
factor in social media marketing. This guide to Keyword Research for Social Media is a good resource for
determining which keywords your audience is using and covers everything from how to conduct keyword
research for YouTube to researching keywords for Facebook.

What to Evaluate When Optimizing Keywords

When determining which keywords to choose for your optimizations efforts, there are a number of factors
you should evaluate.
• Keyword Popularity – The more popular a keyword is (meaning the more that people search for
it), the more traffic it will drive to your website, should you rank highly for it, that is. When it
comes to choosing keywords based on popularity, there are two lines of thinking.
• Target the most popular keywords. This seems pretty straightforward. If you want to attract the
most visitors to your website, you should optimize for the most searched for keywords. Right?
But the more popular a keyword is, the harder it is to rank for.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 • Target less competitive keywords. It may seem counterintuitive to go after keywords that aren’t
as popular, but for a new website, this is often the best approach. It’s very difficult to compete
with mature websites that have achieved trust and authority for the most popular keywords in
competitive ranking verticals. So sites that are young typically have more success optimizing for
keywords that aren’t that popular or competitive or optimizing your keywords by integrating
modifiers (thematic modifiers or geo-targeted modifiers) and creating mid to long tail keywords.

Keyword Relevance – It’s critical to choose keywords to optimize for based on how relevant they are to
your products or services. If your keywords are not intrinsically relevant to what you're offering on your
website, the traffic the search engines feed your website will not be delivered a relevant message. Thus,
they will be unable to complete the “search and reward cycle.” You see, searchers seek relevance and
without it you're unlikely to convert them into customers.

Keyword Intent – To determine the value of your keywords, you need to identify the intent of the
searchers. Which stage are they at in the search cycle? Are they browsing? Are they ready to buy? Or are
they simply looking for solutions or pursuing information?

The intent behind keywords or more specifically "search queries" can be broken down into three
categories.
• Navigational: company or brand queries, domain queries
• Informational: curiosity, question-oriented, solution-seeking queries
• Transactional: looking to purchase queries

It's important to optimize for the high intent keywords rather than keywords of low intent. By identifying,
classifying and segmenting your high intent keyword groups into separate baskets of intent and
eliminating the low-value keywords, you’ll see your search relevance rise and you’ll generate more,
qualified traffic.

Keyword Optimization Tools and Resources

Finally, since it's so important to choose the right keyword for blogging, Web copy and landing page
creation, let's wrap this up with some of the best tools on the Web for researching, analyzing, discovering
and optimizing keywords. I've also included some of my favorite articles on keyword optimization,
analysis and research so you can learn more about optimizing keywords.

Successful SEO optimisation can be done through two ways

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 1. On page optimization and
2. Off page optimization

What is on Page Optimization?

Onpage optimization (onpage SEO) refers to all measures that can be taken directly within the website in
order to improve its position in the search rankings. Examples of this include measures to optimize the
content or improve the Meta description and title tags. Getting a good ranking in a search engine hasn’t
been the easiest thing for many. Search engines are getting more smarter & intelligent every day, so now
it takes more than just good content to top your competitors. On page optimization is one of the very first
step of SEO which every webmaster should look into. It probably won’t even take you an hour to learn
and implement some of these on-page optimization techniques. But you may ask me, why it is so
important? – Well literally speaking, if you can do proper on-page optimization for your website you can
not only rank well in a search engine but also can increase the overall readability of your website for your
visitors.

Some of the most important on-page optimization techniques are as under:

1. Title Optimization: A site’s title tag is by far the most important website optimization element. A title
tag should be short but descriptive enough for your visitors to identify you and your business. Title tag is
the first thing that is shown & indexed by the search engines. So naturally it is given a very high
importance – out of thousands results that a searcher sees, your site’s title has to be appealing enough for
him to want to find out more information. On the other hand, your title has to be appealing enough to the
search engine in order to rank you above thousands of other similar websites like yours.
Important things to include in your title:
• Your Name/ Business Name / Site Name: This is very important for breading propose. If you feel
that your customers may search you by your brand name than it’s also useful to put it somewhere
in your title.
• Keywords: If you want to rank for a certain keywords it is always good to place some of them in
your title tag. A Title tag represents the whole flavor & content of your website. So if you are
selling pizza online you can include keywords like – order pizza, home delivery pizza etc in your
title tag. Don’t staff too many keywords in your title. Write a title which is readable to humans &

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 also good for the search engine. (e.g. Domino’s Pizza, Order Pizza Online for Delivery –
Dominos.com)
• Include your 1-800 or other toll-free numbers: Some may not agree with me on this, but I think
including your phone number in the title tag does help your visitors to take a direct action! It also
makes your site look more professional and legit when it’s being displayed in the SERP (Search
Engine Result Page). Searchers are likely to ‘click’ on the result that has a phone number attached
to it because in their unconscious mind, they will have a good impression on the authenticity of
the business and the level of support. If you prefer not to include your number in the title tag, you
can alternatively include it in your Meta Description which will give you almost the same
benefits.

2. Meta Tags Optimization: A site’s Meta tags may not be as important as it used to be before, however
Meta Description is something you can’t just ignore. A site’s Meta description should contain a brief
description of your website focusing on the areas and services that your business is specialized in. This
small piece of text can be considered as a selling snippet, if a searcher finds it appealing he is likely to
click and go inside your page to find out more information. But if your Meta Description is too generic
and isn’t written too well then there is a good chance that your site will simply be ignored.

Important things to include in your Meta Description:

• Include your Selling Point– Tell your customers what they want to hear through your site’s Meta
Description, and you will definitely get some advantage over others in the SERP. For instance – if
you sell ‘cheap web hosting’ then including a phrase like “hosting starting from only $0.99” may
result in more clicks and visitors because your description will exactly match the flavor of search
performed by the user.
• Keywords – Including some of your keywords will give you some advantage in Google’s
relevancy algorithm.
• 1-800 or other Toll Free Numbers – if you haven’t included this already in your title, you can
rather include it in your Meta description. If the users have skype installed on their system, any
number on their browser will become clickable which will result in a direct skype-out call. So
basically, if your number appears in the Meta description some of your customers might just
prefer to call you directly instead of going through your site.

3. Important HTML Tags: It is necessary for you to highlight certain parts of your website that you
want your readers to look at. There are several tags in html which allows you to do so. For instance – the
header tags [h1] [h2] [h3], Bold [strong], Italic [em] etc. The text inside your header tags (e.g. [h1]) is

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

given very high importance by the search engine. Usually you can use them to define the page/post titles
or the important sections of your website.
Header Elements:
• Header 1: Header 1 should be used to define the most important section of your page. Usually
Header 1 is used for Site’s title or header text.
• Header 2 & 3: Header 2 and 3 can be used for Page/Post titles or important sections of your
pages. Separating your content with headers is a good practice as it makes your site more
readable and easy to navigate.

Text Styles:
• Bold: You can bold (e.g. [strong]) certain words which are of high importance. Sometimes it’s
good to bold your keywords where appropriate. However overdoing this may get you penalized.
• Italic: You can use the [em] tag to emphasize certain words which will appear in italic.
• Quote: This is very useful when you are quoting from someone.

4. Keyword Optimization & Synonyms: Your site’s content needs to be optimized in such a way that it
can suit both search engines & your readers. Stuffing your site with too many keywords can make your
site unreadable. So you will need to have some sort of balance between your keywords & your content.

Important elements of Keyword Optimization:

• Research: Do a proper research before you decide on your keywords. There are plenty of free
tools out there that can help you to do keyword research. Some of my personal favorites are:
SEObook Keyword Suggestion tool, Google Adwords Keyword Tool & Overture Keyword Tool.
• Keyword Density: Try to have a moderate keyword density so that it can help the search engine
to determine that your page is indeed related & relevant to the keyword that you are targeting.
• Synonyms & Related Keywords: I personally like to use synonyms instead of having a high
keyword density. This helps to make my content sound natural but still helps in SEO.
• Long Tail Keywords: It’s often good to target some long tail keywords as they are
comparatively easier to rank for. During your keyword research you should be able to gather
some good long tail keywords that you can optimize your site for. But you can also come up with
your own long tail keywords; for example try adding some common words like – ‘best’, ‘free’,
‘cheap’, ‘top’ etc. along with your actual keyword and you might eventually get some good long
tail keywords.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

5. Link Optimization: It is important to optimize your internal & external outbound links for search
engines as well as to give your visitors a better navigation.
Important elements of Link Optimization:
• Try using good Anchor Text when you are linking to other people. Include the appropriate
keyword in the anchor text which gives the outbound link a ‘proper meaning’ and value.
• A good & clean Internal Link Structure with proper use of anchor text will definitely help. E.g.
“Credit Card Application” is a better anchor text compared to “click here”
• If you are using a CMS, then try using permalinks. This way your keywords/post title will be
on the link itself and thus it will valued more by the search engines.

6. Image Optimization: If your site has lot of images, you need to optimize them too as they can’t be
read by the search engines. It’s very easy for a human reader to interpret the image into its meaning.
However for a Web crawler the whole interpreting process is completely different. Search Engine spiders
can only read text but not images. So you need to use some special tags for your images in order to give
them some meaning.
Some Important Image Optimization Elements:
• Alt text: ALT text or Alternate Text is the text to describe your image when your mouse moves
over an image on your web page. The text should be meaningful but short. You can use your
relevant keywords as ALT text. If your browser can’t display the image for some reason, the alt
text is used in place of that particular image.
• File name: always use meaningful file name for your images, use names like “apple-iphone-
cover.jpg” instead of meaningless “DSC24045.jpg”. Keep image file name same or similar to the
ALT text.
• Image Title: always use the title tag in images which will show the title as tool tip when a user
moves his mouse over the image. Example of an image with title tag: [img
src=”http://imagelocation.jpg” alt=”Image description” title=”Title of the Image”]
• Image Linking: Whenever you want to link to your image, use the image keywords in your link
text. Example: use “view an Apple iPhone”, instead of “Click here to view” as the anchor text.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Off page Optimization

Offpage optimization refers to all the measures that can be taken outside of the actual website in
order to improve its position in search rankings. These are measures that help create as many
high-quality backlinks (incoming links) as possible.
Off page SEO refers to techniques that can be used to improve the position of a web site in the
search engine results page (SERPs). Many people associate off-page SEO with link building but
it is not only that. In general, off Page SEO has to do with promotion methods – beyond website
design –for the purpose of ranking a website higher in the search results.Unlike On- page SEO,
Off-page SEO refers to activities you can perform outside the boundaries of your website.
The most important are:
• Link Building
• Social Media Marketing
• Social bookmarking

Basic understanding of Off page optimisation!

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.
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.

Off page optimisation techniques for better 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.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 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 they can 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:
a. Blog Directories - These are directories like yellow pages which links the entry back to a
website.
b. Forum signatures - By commenting on forums, people were getting a link back to their
website as they used to leave links in their signatures.
c. 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 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.
d. 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.
e. Shared content directories - In shared content directories, websites like hubpages or
infobarrel allows you to publish your content and in return, you can add links favouring
your website.
f. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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, ScoopIt,
digg, StumbleUpon etc. The content is very frequently updated on such sites, which is
appreciated by Search engines.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 4. 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.

How does off page optimisation benefits in SEO?

The benefits of off page optimisation are:
a. More rankings - By using the techniques of “off page” optimisation, a successful strategy will
help increase your website rankings in the SERPs. This will help you attract more traffic.
b. More exposure - The best part about Seo is when you start ranking higher on SERPs, you get
more exposure, i.e. more clicks, more visits, more links and more mentions on social media. This
is a chain of events which takes place one after another.
c. Better pagerank - Pagerank is a concept introduced by Larry page which talks about importance
of a website in the eyes of Google. The concept is about ranking the web pages between 1 to 10.
The higher the rank, the better is the website in the eye of Google.

What is SEO audit tools?

An SEO audit is the process of analyzing how well your web presence relates to best practices –
it is the first step to creating an implementation plan that will have measurable results. The
purpose of the audit is to identify as many foundational issues affecting organic search
performance as possible. The SEO audit will reveal:
• Technical SEO issues
• Website structure issues
• On-page SEO issues
• Potential off-site problems
• User experience issues
• Content gaps and opportunities
• Competitive marketplace insights

An audit is a standard procedure that should occur on a regular basis – It is essentially a “health
check” for your website.
What an SEO Audit Should Be:
First and foremost, an audit should be comprehensive. It should cover both structural and content
components affecting your SEO visibility. It should provide a “big picture” view of what is
happening in your current state. Any missing pieces could result in unnecessary or improper
recommendations.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Your audit should be easy to understand. As a business owner, you should be able to connect the
dots as to how SEO issues are affecting your online priorities, goals, or revenue. Any and all
recommendations should clearly ladder up to your overarching business objectives.
Finally, your SEO audit recommendations should be actionable. There should be a clear path to
completion; prioritized with projected impact and effort associated with each recommendation.
The output of any SEO audit should accurately convey an easy-to-follow roadmap.
What an SEO Audit Should Not Be:
An SEO audit should not be rushed. It simply takes time to uncover root causes of the issues
affecting your online health. Depending on the size of your site, a proper audit can take
anywhere from 2-6 weeks to complete. Due diligence is required when making major changes to
any website, and an SEO specialist must conduct a thorough investigation to make accurate,
impactful recommendations.
An SEO audit should not be “one size fits all”. While some technical elements are required for
all websites, a situational analysis should be performed at the outset of an SEO audit to hone in
on areas of focus for that site.
Free SEO Tools
These tools are free to use, but you might find a paid option that has more features. We've shared
some of the best features in each tool as well as how you can get the most out of them for your
SEO strategy.
1. HubSpot Website Grader: With the HubSpot Website Grader, you can:
• Website performance: Learn about your website’s performance in seconds, and identify
specific performance issues and receive clear, actionable feedback on how you can fix them.
• On-demand support: Receive how-to education on how you can improve your website.
• Improve specific website issues: Gain access to a five-lesson HubSpot Academy course on
Website Optimization so you can understand how to improve upon your website’s specific
problem areas.
• Optimize for mobile: Discover how to optimize your website for mobile.
• Boost web security: Learn how you can implement website security best practices.
• Enhance the user experience: Personalize your website’s UX to create a delightful experience
for users.

2. Google Search Console: Google Search Console has several tools available to help you
appear in the SERPs for the search terms and phrases your target audience is looking for. If
you’re the owner of a business or an SEO on your marketing team, Search Console can help you
conduct an initial SEO analysis from scratch or update your existing SEO strategy with fresh
keywords. Google Search Console monitors, debugs, and optimizes your website — and you
don't need to know how to code to benefit from this tool.
3. Google Analytics: Although Google Analytics has a paid version, the free version of the
product can help you manage your website’s SEO — this is especially true if you pair Google
Analytics with Google Search Console. In doing so, all of your website’s SEO data will be
centrally located and compiled, and you can use queries to identify areas for improvement with
the keywords and phrases that you want your website and web pages to rank for.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

What are Backlinks? How to Get Backlinks? What is Google Page Rank? How to Increase
Page Rank?

What are backlinks?

Backlinks, also called "inbound links" or "incoming links," are created when one website links to
another. The link to an external website is called a backlink.
Backlinks is an incoming hyperlink from one web page to another website. Backlinks, also called
"inbound links" or "incoming links," are created when one website links to another. The link to
an external website is called a backlink.

When a webpage links to any other page, it’s called a backlink. In the past, backlinks were the
major metric for the ranking of a webpage. A page with a lot of backlinks tended to rank higher
on all major search engines, including Google. This is still true to a large extent.
Why are backlinks important?
Backlinks are especially valuable for SEO because they represent a "vote of confidence" from
one site to another. In essence, backlinks to your website are a signal to search engines that
others vouch for your content. If many sites link to the same webpage or website, search engines
can infer that content is worth linking to, and therefore also worth surfacing on a SERP. So,
earning these backlinks can have a positive effect on a site's ranking position or search visibility.

Earning and giving backlinks

Earning backlinks is an essential component of off-site SEO. The process of obtaining these
links is known as link earning or link building. Some backlinks are inherently more valuable than
others. Followed backlinks from trustworthy, popular, high-authority sites are considered the
most desirable backlinks to earn, while backlinks from low-authority, potentially spammy sites
are typically at the other end of the spectrum. Whether or not a link is followed (i.e. whether a
site owner specifically instructs search engines to pass, or not pass, link equity) is certainly
relevant, but don't entirely discount the value of nofollow links. Even just being mentioned on
high-quality websites can give your brand a boost.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Just as some backlinks you earn are more valuable than others, links you create to other sites also
differ in value. When linking out to an external site, the choices you make regarding the page
from which you link (its page authority, content, search engine accessibility, and so on) the
anchor text you use, whether you choose to follow or nofollow the link, and any other meta tags
associated with the linking page can have a heavy impact on the value you confer.
Competitive backlink research
Backlinks can be time-consuming to earn. New sites or those expanding their keyword footprint
may find it difficult to know where to start when it comes to link building. That's where
competitive backlink research comes in: By examining the backlink profile (the collection of
pages and domains linking to a website) to a competitor that's already ranking well for your
target keywords, you can gain insight about the link building that may have helped them. A tool
like Open Site Explorer can help uncover these links so you can and target those domains in your
own link building campaigns.
Here is a glossary of common terms related to backlinks that you should know:
a. Link Juice: When a webpage links to any of your articles or your website’s homepage, it passes
“link juice”. This link juice helps with the ranking of the article, and also improves the domain
authority. As a blogger, you can stop passing link juice by using a no-follow tag.
b. No-Follow Link: When a website links to another website, but the link has a no-follow tag, that
link does not pass link juice. No-follow links are not useful concerning the ranking of a page as
they do not contribute anything. In general, a webmaster uses the no-follow tag when he/she is
linking out to an unreliable site.
Example: Links from comments on other blogs.
c. Do-Follow Link: By default, all the links that you add into a blog post are do-follow links, and
these pass link juice.
d. Linking Root Domains: This refers to the number of backlinks coming into your website from a
unique domain. Even if a website has linked to your website ten times, it will only be considered
as one linked root domain.
e. Low-Quality Links: Low-quality links are links that come from harvested sites, automated sites,
spam sites, or even porn sites. Such links do far more harm than good. This is one reason you
should be careful when buying backlinks.
f. Internal Links: Links that are going from one page to another within the same domain are called
internal links. The process itself is referred to as internal linking or interlinking.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 g. Anchor Text: Text that is used for hyperlinks is called anchor text. Anchor text backlinks work
great when you are trying to rank for particular keywords.

Advantages of backlinks in SEO: It is important to have backlinks from quality sites, and those
backlinks should be contextual. If, for example, you have a site about fish, and you are creating
links from other niche sites about monkeys, these links will be of no use. Your goal should be to
get links from authoritative and relevant sites.
Google looks at the number of backlinks and the quality of these links to determine the importance of a
website. Consequently, SEO experts put a lot of effort into getting more backlinks for their customers.
But there are good and bad ways of accomplishing this. Building quality backlinks takes a lot of effort
and time. This isn’t a one-and-done type operation. This takes ongoing dedication and effort.
Some examples of proper backlink building include:
• Guest Posting/Blogging – Are there quality websites dedicated to your industry that accept guest
articles? Try contacting them with the offer of a free article on a relevant topic in exchange for a
byline with a link back to your website.
• News Articles – Journalists and writers are always on the lookout for experts to contribute quotes
for their articles. Some (but not all) will include backlinks to their sources’ websites. Websites
such as HARO and Profnet help you to connect with journalists who have specific needs, while
other tools allow you to send interesting pitches to writers.
• Local Citations – Address listings on Google, Yelp, Facebook, Yellow Pages, and elsewhere
count as backlinks, and also go a long ways towards helping customers find your business!
• Blog/Forum Comments and Profiles – Commenting on blogs and forums used to be a great way
to build backlinks. While this approach is no longer as strong as it once was–due in part to
frequent abuse–providing support in industry-specific forums, as well as on sites like Quora can
help build backlinks and raise awareness of your website.
• Press Releases – These are published in many news sites with backlinks to your site. However,
cheap press release services don’t publish anywhere that will get you worthwhile links. For this to
work, you’ll have to work with high quality publishers such as PR Newswire. But it will cost you
dearly–about $1,000 for a 500 word press release.
• Directories – While the value of web directories has diminished dramatically submitting your
website to local, industry-specific and niche directories can net you worthwhile backlinks.
• Business Network Profiles – LinkedIn profiles, for example, allow you to post your URL and so
may other industry networking sites.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 • Reciprocal Links – These are ‘tit-for-tat’ links—your friend has a website that links to your
website, and your website links back to your friend’s site. While reciprocal links are seen by
some to be effective, it’s kind of in the gray area where they can be used both honestly and solely
to improve Google ranking. Be careful. Try and only link with sites where it makes sense. A
mechanic’s website probably shouldn’t have reciprocal links with a beekeeper’s website.
• Social Media – You simply can’t ignore the value of social media. And even on the basic level of
backlinks, there’s a modicum of value, as social media sites display a profile owner’s website
URL. However, since Facebook and some other networks don’t allow Google’s crawlers to index
profile pages, backlinks from these networks will not affect Google SERPs directly.
• Internal Site Links – Surprise! Links from one page on your site to another count as backlinks.
Technically, internal site links are not backlinks, but when used appropriately, internal links can
help increase the ranks of your internal web pages for certain keywords.
• Paid Ad Links – Technically, this is a grey/black hat area, as it can lead to link farming. When
done in an appropriate manner, such as by paying for advertising with a reputable industry
organization, it can work well. Just be careful.
• Donations – Donating your time or money to local charities, organizations, and schools can be an
effective way of obtaining backlinks.

Having a diverse “link profile” not only helps your website attract more visitors, but is looked at
positively by the search engines. But remember that some links, especially unnatural links, will not help
increase your site’s rankings, and can actually be harmful. With that knowledge in hand, just be careful
who you link to and who is backlinking to you.

PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank websites in their search engine results.
PageRank was named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google. PageRank is a way of measuring
the importance of website pages.
A search algorithm is the step-by-step procedure used to locate specific data among a collection of data. It
is considered a fundamental procedure in computing. In computer science, when searching for data, the
difference between a fast application and a slower one often lies in the use of the proper search algorithm.

WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE ALGORITHM?

Unique to every search engine, and just as important as keywords, search engine algorithms are the why
and the how of search engine rankings. Basically, a search engine algorithm is a set of rules, or a unique
formula, that the search engine uses to determine the significance of a web page, and each search engine

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

has its own set of rules. These rules determine whether a web page is real or just spam, whether it has any
significant data that people would be interested in, and many other features to rank and list results for
every search query that is begun, to make an organized and informational search engine results page. The
algorithms, as they are different for each search engine, are also closely guarded secrets, but there are
certain things that all search engine algorithms have in common.
1. Relevancy – One of the first things a search engine algorithm checks for is the relevancy of the page.
Whether it is just scanning for keywords, or looking at how these keywords are used, the algorithm will
determine whether this web page has any relevancy at all for the particular keyword. Where the keywords
are located is also an important factor to the relevancy of a website. Web pages that have the keywords in
the title, as well as within the headline or the first few lines of the text will rank better for that keyword
than websites that do not have these features. The frequency of the keywords also is important to
relevancy. If the keywords appear frequently, but are not the result of keyword stuffing, the website will
rank better.
2. Individual Factors – A second part of search engine algorithms are the individual factors that make
that particular search engine different from every other search engine out there. Each search engine has
unique algorithms, and the individual factors of these algorithms are why a search query turns up different
results on Google than MSN or Yahoo!. One of the most common individual factors is the number of
pages a search engine indexes. They may just have more pages indexed, or index them more frequently,
but this can give different results for each search engine. Some search engines also penalize for
spamming, while others do not.
3. Off-Page Factors – Another part of algorithms that is still individual to each search engine are off-
page factors. Off-page factors are such things as click-through measurement and linking. The frequency
of click-through rates and linking can be an indicator of how relevant a web page is to actual users and
visitors, and this can cause an algorithm to rank the web page higher. Off-page factors are harder for web
masters to craft, but can have an enormous effect on page rank depending on the search engine algorithm.

Search engine algorithms are the mystery behind search engines, sometimes even amusingly called the
search engine’s “Secret Sauce”. Beyond the basic functions of a search engine, the relevancy of a web
page, the off-page factors, and the unique factors of each search engine help make the algorithms of each
engine an important part of the search engine optimization design.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

MODULE III
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

What is search engine marketing?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a digital marketing strategy used to increase the visibility of a
website in search engine results pages (SERPs). While the industry term once referred to both
organic search activities such as search engine optimization (SEO) and paid, it now refers almost
exclusively to paid search advertising. Search engine marketing is also alternately referred to as
paid search or pay per click (PPC).

Why is SEM important?

With an increasing number of consumers researching and shopping for products online, search
engine marketing has become a crucial online marketing strategy for increasing a company’s
reach. In fact, the majority of new visitors to a website find it by performing a query on a search
engine. In search engine marketing, advertisers only pay for impressions that result in visitors,
making it an efficient way for a company to spend its marketing dollars. As an added bonus,
each visitor incrementally improves the website’s rankings in organic search results. Since
consumers enter search queries with the intent of finding information of a commercial nature,
they are in an excellent state of mind to make a purchase, compared to other sites such as social
media where users are not explicitly searching for something.
Search marketing reaches consumers at exactly the right time: when they are open to new
information. Unlike the majority of digital advertising, PPC advertising is non-intrusive and does
not interrupt their tasks. Results are immediate with SEM. It is arguably the fastest way to drive
traffic to a website.

How SEM works

Search engines use complicated algorithms to ensure the most relevant results are returned for
each search, including location and other available information. In paid search advertising,
sponsored ads appear at the top of and on the side of search engine results pages to gain more

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

visibility and prominence than the organic results. Let’s say that you are a customer looking for a
product or service online. You go to a search engine and type in your search terms (also known
as keywords).
In your search results page, you will come across various company ads whose keywords match
the keywords in your search. These ads appear in prominent locations on the page – along with
the other search listings that match your keywords. The paid listings are highly relevant to your
specific search, making it likely that you will click on them.
Now let’s take a look at how SEM campaigns work from the marketer’s perspective. SEM
networks are self-serve operations. Once a marketer selects a network, they can get a campaign
up within a short period of time.
When setting up a campaign within an SEM network, the marketer is prompted to:
• Conduct keyword research and select a set of keywords related to their website or product
• Select a geographic location for the ad to be displayed within
• Create a text-based ad to display in the search results
• Bid on a price they are willing to pay for each click on their ad
Text-only ads are easy to produce. Marketers enter a headline, text for the body of the ad, a call-to-action
and a URL for the hyperlink. Search engine marketing is considered by many to be the most efficient way
to spend marketing dollars.
Examples of search ad networks
The two primary search networks that SEM professionals target are Google Ads (formerly Google
Adwords) and the Bing Ads. Google AdWords is actually two networks: Google Search Network and
Google Display Network. The first network consists exclusively of search-related websites owned by
Google, while the second includes properties such as YouTube, Blogger and Gmail. The Bing Ads allows
customers to buy ads on both Yahoo’s network of websites and Bing’s network.
While Google Ads is a much larger network (around 2x the size), the pricing is often lower on Bing Ads.
Marketers may be able to get a better rank for a competitive keyword phrase for less than they get on
Google. And some report that the clickthrough rates are higher as well.

What Is Search Engine Marketing?

Search engine marketing includes all the tools, techniques, and strategies that help optimize the visibility
of websites and web pages in search engines such as Google and other, similar sites.
There are two main ways to show up at the top of the result.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 • Organic or natural results are usually displayed in the center of the page and are selected by
Google's algorithm. This algorithm assesses both the relevance of the website (the quality of the
content and to what extent it responds to a specific search) and the authority of the website (links
from other pages).
• Paid results are also displayed at the top of the page but in a column on the right. Unlike organic
results, here the advertiser must pay a certain amount for each click on their ad. To buy
advertising space on search engines, it is necessary to use platforms such as Google Ads.
In theory, search engine marketing covers both types of results. But in practice, techniques that are aimed
at improving organic positioning fall into the category of SEO and techniques that are aimed at appearing
among the paid results are categorized as SEM. To avoid confusion, we will use the term SEM or search
engine marketing only for the later.

Therefore, search engine marketing consists of a series of tools, techniques and strategies aimed at
optimizing search engine advertising, appearing in the top positions, getting lower costs per click, and
maximizing conversions from these ads. The most well known and widely used SEM platform is Google
Ads, but there are other solutions, such as Bing Ads, for example.

Search Engine Marketing Concepts

• Keywords: these are the terms that users enter into search engines that prompt a particular ad or
search result to be shown. They do not have to be individual words. In fact, it is common to use
groups of words or phrases, such as "buy Nike shoes" or "what is the best accounting software."
• Concordance: when setting up a campaign in Google Ads, you will need to define the degree of
correspondence between the keywords you have selected and the terms that people use when
typing a query into a search engine. This is known as "concordance." For example, if you opt for
a broad match, the ad will be displayed when the user searches for synonyms or terms similar to
the keyword. If you opt for an exact match, the ad will appear only when the user enters a specific
keyword in the search engine.
• Text ad: this is the standard type of ad that is shown in search engines, although today there are a
variety of options such as shopping ads. Text ads usually include a title, a visible URL that can be
customized, and a short description.
• Ad group: in Google Ads, an ad group consists of several ads that feature the same keywords.
This way, you can see which of them are the most effective.
• Campaign: in Google Ads, the campaign is like the "umbrella" under which different ad groups
with similar goals are organized. For example, if you sell school supplies online one campaign

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 could include ad groups featuring textbooks, another could have backpacks and a third could
focus on drawing materials.
• Landing page: this is the web page the user is directed to after clicking on an advertisement. To
achieve good results with search engine marketing, this page must be optimized to get
conversions and prompt users to take certain actions (like completing a form to download an
ebook). The keywords, the ad shown, and the landing page should all be aligned to ensure a good
user experience.
• Search Network: these are the places where your ads appear. The most common option is on the
top and right of the results page, but you can also show them on other sites such as YouTube.
• Impressions: this refers to the number of times an ad was shown.
• Clicks: are the number of times an ad has been clicked on
• CTR: is the percentage of clicks on total impressions.
• CPC: is the average cost per click.
• Quality Score: this is the score that Google gives ads and keywords which influences your cost
per click. This score is determined based on the relevance of the ad, the percentage of clicks
obtained, and the experience of the landing page. The objective of this system is for higher
quality ads to occupy higher positions and have a lower cost per click.

What Value Does SEM Add to Business?

a. Generates Highly Qualified Traffic: Generating traffic organically can be a very long and
tedious process where the results are only seen in the long term. Search engine marketing allows
you to accelerate this process and get users to your website from the beginning. In addition, you
can be assured that these users are interested in what you offer, since they themselves have
searched for it.
b. Generates Visibility: Appearing in the top results of Google and other search engines associates
your brand with a specific need even if the user does not click the first time they see it.
c. Generates Conversions: The ultimate goal of Google Ads and other search engine marketing
tools is to improve business results. To do this, you will need to create optimized landing pages
that put users on the path to conversion.
d. Gets the Most out of Your Budget: One of the great advantages of search engine marketing is
that it is a suitable solution for companies of all sizes, since the minimum investment is very
affordable. On the other hand, if your brand is growing, you can increase the investment and the
complexity of your campaigns to keep your momentum. Also, since you only pay if you get
results (in the form of clicks), you can be sure that your budget is used effectively.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 e. Gets Measurable Results: Search engine marketing solutions such as Google Ads provide
numerous metrics on campaigns and let you to know what is happening at all times. This way, it
is very easy to correct the course if needed and get better results.

f. Search engine marketing or SEM has great potential to help companies achieve their goals
in a quick and scalable way. To get the most out of it, it is ideal to have experts who have
extensive experience positioning brands in Google. If you want to take advantage of all the
benefits of search engine marketing for your brand, get in touch with us!

What is Google Adwords? Why Google Adwords

AdWords is an advertising system Google developed to help businesses reach online target
markets through its search engine platform and partner sites. These partner sites host a text or
image ad that appears on the page after a user searches for keywords and phrases related to a
business and its products or services.
Google Ads is the new name for Google's range of advertising capabilities — on Google.com
and across Google's other properties, partner sites and apps. These services are designed to help
businesses and marketers connect with billions of people who are finding answers on Search,
watching videos on YouTube, exploring new places on Google Maps, discovering apps on
Google Play, browsing content across the web, and more. The new Google Ads brand and
solution will help businesses of all sizes choose the right solutions for their needs, making it even
easier for them to deliver valuable, trustworthy ads and offer the best experiences for existing
and potential customers alike
How did Google Ads evolve from Google Adwords?
Google Adwords was launched nearly 18 years ago, and the world has changed enormously in
that time. Most people are constantly and quickly switching between activities like searching for
products, watching videos, browsing content, playing games, and so on as they go about their
day. Mobile is a huge part of everyday life, allowing users to get online anytime and anywhere.
It's recognition of these shifts that led to the launch of Google Ads to replace Google Adwords.
Over the years, advertising with Google has evolved from helping businesses connect with
people on Google Search to helping them connect with users at every step of the consumer

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

journey through text, video, display and more. There are now more opportunities than there have
ever been for businesses and marketers to reach consumers across a variety of channels, screens
and formats.
While these developments are certainly exciting, they can also feel overwhelming and complex
— especially for small business owners with limited time and lots to do. Google Ads improves
upon the work of Google Adwords to help you make the most of today's online opportunities,
and to provide the tools needed to help you achieve your business goals — whatever they may
be.

What does the evolution of Google Ads mean for business?

With the launch of Google Ads comes a new campaign type designed specifically with small
businesses in mind. Smart campaigns are the new default ads experience on Google Ads, and it's
never been easier to begin your advertising journey. These new campaigns tailor the innovation
and advertising technology that Google is known for to help business owners achieve their
objectives without any heavy-lifting.
Research shows that for 90% of small business owners, the primary goal of advertising online is
to get people to call, visit a store or make a purchase1. Smart campaigns from Google Ads put
these objectives at the centre of your digital marketing efforts, and you can now create ads in a
matter of minutes to begin driving real business results.
Simply choose your business goals — such as garnering phone calls from potential customers,
attracting leads to your website, or bringing potential customers to your physical shop front —
when you set up your Smart campaign to get started.
From there, Google Ads will fine-tune your ads automatically to focus on the outcomes you care
about most while you focus on running your business. Whenever you want to check in on your
campaigns, your Google Ads dashboard displays information on their performance in an easy-to-
understand format.
Whether you're a long-time Google advertiser or trying out online ads for the very first time,
Google Ads is an exciting new offering with meaningful options for businesses of all kinds. It's
never been easier or faster to set up a campaign and take advantage of Google's technology to
achieve your business goals.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

What is the Google network?
The Google Search Network is a group of search-related websites and apps where your ads can
appear. When you advertise on the Google Search Network, your ad can show near search results
when someone searches with terms related to one of your keywords.
The Google Network provides a home where your Google Ad can appear online. Direct Google
websites, hundreds of partner sites, and a handful of mobile apps can all showcase your
campaign. When it comes to the Google Network, you have two options, Google Search and
Google Display, both of which exhibit different perks. So align your choice with your business
goals when deciding to go for one, the other, or both.

The Google Network is divided into two groups:

• The Search Network covers Google search results pages, additional Google sites such as Maps
or Shopping, and partnership sites that support Google ads.
• The Display Network covers popular Google websites including YouTube, Blogger, and Gmail,
plus thousands of websites that partner with Google.
What is the Google Network?
Let’s dive deeper into the different groups. Below you can find an overview of the 5 main usages
and differences between Google Search Network and Google Display Network:
The Search Network
• When will I use the Search Network?
• With lower costs than Display Network, yet higher conversion rates, this option can deliver cost-
effective results. Perfect for startups or businesses on a budget.
• How will people see my Search Network ad?
• Your campaign will pop up whenever anyone searches a term related to your keyword list
through direct Google searches and hundreds of search partner sites.
• Which type of ads can I run on the Search Network?
• Text ads only
• What type of audience will I reach with Search Network?
• Search display specifically uses your keywords list, guaranteeing to attract your target audience.
• What does the Search Network offer me as a publisher?
• Due to the nature of this network, CTR is high as individuals are searching for your keywords
with a purpose.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

The Display Network
What is the display network?
• When will I use the Display Network: To expand and grow your business by enhancing the
visibility of your ad.
• How will people see my Display Network ad: Through Youtube, Gmail, blog posts, online articles
and a range of mobile apps.
• Which type of ads can I run on the Display Network: Text-ads, images, and videos
• What type of audience will I reach with Display Network?
Viewers are already browsing relevant topics so introducing your ad at this time provides the
perfect window of opportunity for reaching your target audience.

What does the Display Network offer me as a publisher?

Promotes brand awareness
Differences between Google Display and Search
We have explored the main differences between Google Ad Network and Google Display
Network. Now let’s compare their features to see which one is best for you.
A huge network of websites has Google Adsense enabled, meaning that you can feature your ad
on popular sites such as on a relevant blog, YouTube, or online articles.

How does the Display Network work?

The Display Network is designed for advertisers to reach their target audience at the most
effective time. Targeting options on allow you to display your ad to people most interested in
your product. Display Search targets themes within your keyword list.

What are the benefits of using the Google Display Network?

As a publisher, you will understand that time is of the essence. So save yourself precious time
with Responsive Display Ads (RDAs). Google’s new default format makes it easier for
advertisers to reach customers by automatically adjusting to the most effective display. The
Google Display Network will analyze images, headlines, descriptions, and logos to ensure your
ad is fully-optimized display.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

When Will I Use the Search Network?
What options can I find on the Search Network?
The search network is the most common form of advertising as it targets active searchers and
will appear to the most effective audience. This drives more conversions as people are
specifically searching for a product.

How does the Search Network work?

The Google Search Network is driven by keywords whereas the display network ads appear
based on themes in the keyword list. The Search Network offers keyword-specific targeting
meaning that your ad will appear whenever a search including your keywords is entered into
Google.

What are the benefits of using Google Search Network?

Publishers who offer a direct service can highly benefit from Google Search Network. For
example, if you are a hairdresser, you will display your business details along with your contact
number on your ad. When people search ‘hairdressers’ they can easily retrieve your contact
details through a Google search. This is a perfect example of successful CLT.
Google Display Network targeting allows you to set where or when your ad is shown based on
features of your ideal audience, such as their interests, age, or gender. This means your ad can
show up on sites related to your business, or to users who match the specific criteria that you’ve
specified.
here’s how you can run an ads on the Google Display Network as part of your Google Ads account:
• Log into your Google Ads account
• Click on “Campaigns,” and then “New Campaign”
• Select "Display Network only" as the campaign type
From here, select the types of Google Display Network targeting that you’d like to include as part of your
campaign. To find out about the different types of ways to show ads to users and how to set them, keep
reading.

How to reach customers based on interest

Interest targeting is exactly what it sounds like – it allows you to show your ad to people who are
interested in your products and services, or those who engage in activities related to your business.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

There are three categories of interest targeting you can choose from:
1. Affinity Audiences: This includes 80 different groups based on interests or hobbies, such as
sports fans, auto enthusiasts, or gamers. You can choose to show your ads to one or more of these
audiences.
2. Custom Affinity Audiences: To narrow your targeting even further, create your custom audience
using keywords. If you’re running ads for your running shoe shop, you might use keywords such
as marathon training, beginner runners, and running tips. When you set up your custom
audiences, your ads will be shown to people visiting websites that contain these keywords. You
can also add specific URLs that runners might visit, like running.com or runnersworld.com, to
target sites where you would like your ad to show up.
3. In-Market Audiences: With in-market audiences, you can identify customers who are actively
looking at products or services similar to yours. Running with the same example, these might be
customers who have added running shoes to their shopping cart while browsing a website, or
those who have browsed numerous sites related to running shoes.

How to reach customers based on demographics

Aside from targeting customers based on their interests, you may also base your targeting on
demographics.
These include:
• Age: "18-24," "25-34," "35-44," "45-54," "55-64," "65 or more," and "Unknown"
• Gender: "Female," "Male," and "Unknown"
• Parental status: "Parent," "Not a Parent," and "Unknown"
You can combine demographic targeting with affinity audiences and in-market audiences to
reach a narrower, even more relevant customer base. For example, if you own a baby boutique
and want to promote your prams designed for jogging, you might focus on the "Parent"
demographic group along with affinity groups based on running, fitness and athletics. You can
also exclude specific demographic groups from seeing your ads. If you know the majority of
your customers are senior citizens and want to focus exclusively on this segment, you can set up
your campaign to exclude all age groups except "65 or more". Bear in mind that the more
specific you are with your targeting, the fewer people will see your ads. Test various
combinations of targeting, to see which brings you the most conversions.
To set demographic targeting in your campaign:

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 • Go to the Display Network tab in your Google Ads account
• Click the "+ Targeting" button, and choose the ad groups to which you'd like to add demographic
categories
• Click "Add Targeting" and check the boxes for the demographics you want to target

Adwords terminologies
1. Campaign - An ad campaign on Google AdWords is made up of your ad groups, and has the
same budget, campaign type and your other ad settings. It’s generally what you first set-up when
you advertise, and it helps you organize your different paid advertising efforts. You can run
multiple campaigns at any time from your Google account.
2. Ad groups - An ad group is your set of keywords, budgets and targeting methods for a particular
objective, within the same campaign. For example, if you are running an ad campaign for a shoe
sale, you could set up ad groups to target for online sales, women’s shoes and men’s shoes. You
can have multiple ads in each ad group.
3. Campaign Type - Your campaign type is where you want your ads to be seen. Google has:

• “Search Network only” (which means Google search only)

• Display Network only” (which means your ad shows up in Google’s Display network of
websites, videos, YouTube, Blogger and more. This is also known as AdSense)
• “Search Network with Display Select” (which is a combo of search and display).
• If you have a Google Merchant Center account and want to use Product Listing Ads, you
can also choose “Shopping” as a campaign type.
4. Keywords - Keywords are very important in your Google Ads. They are the words or word
phrases you choose for your ads, and will help to determine where and when your ad will appear.
When choosing your keywords, think like your customer and what they would be searching for
when they want your product, service or offer. Though you can include as many as you like, I
suggest a maximum of twenty keywords.
5. Quality Score - A quality score is the measurement from Google based on the relevancy of your
ad headline, description, keywords and destination URL to your potential customer seeing your
ad. A higher Quality Score can get you better ad placement and lower costs.
6. Impressions - An impression is the measurement of how many times your ad is shown.
7. Ad Rank - Your Ad Rank is the value that’s used to determine where your ad shows up on a
page. It’s based on your Quality Score and your bid amount.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 8. Mobile ad - Mobile ads are what your mobile searchers see on their devices. Google AdWords
has WAP mobile ads and “ads for high-end mobile devices”.
9. Ad extensions - Ad extensions are extra information about your business, such as your local
address, phone number, and even coupons or additional websites. They’re what shows up in blue
below your ad descriptions.
General Adwords Terms
10. Call to Action (CTA) - A CTA is literally the action you want your searcher to take. Good CTAs
in your ads are short, action oriented words such as “Buy”, “Get”, “Act Now”, etc.
11. Click Through Rate (CTR) - Your CTR is an important metric in your account settings. It
measures how many people who have seen your ad click through to your link destination.
12. Landing Page - Your landing page is the page on your website to which you’re driving traffic
from your ad.
13. Optimization - Optimization in Google AdWords is like optimization elsewhere in marketing. It
means making the changes in your ad that get you higher results for your objectives.
14. Split Testing - Split testing includes A/B and multivariate testing. It’s a method of controlled
marketing experiments with the goal being to improve your objective results (such as higher
CTR’s, increased conversion or even better Ad Ranking).

Cost Related Adwords Terms

15. Bid Strategy - Your bid strategy is basically how you set your bid type to pay for viewer
interaction with your ads.
16. Daily budget - Your daily budget is what you’re willing to spend per day per ad. Your daily cost
is based on a daily average per month, so don’t be alarmed if yours varies from day to day.
17. CPC - Cost-Per-Click is the most common bid type on Google AdWords. It means you pay every
time a person actually clicks on your ad. You set your “maximum CPC” in the bidding process,
which means that dollar amount is the most you’ll pay for a click on your ad. PPC - Pay-Per-
Click is the same as CPC.
18. CPM - Cost-Per-thousand impressions is a bidding method that bases your costs on how many
times your ads are shown (impressions).
19. Billing Threshold - Your billing threshold is the level of spending that triggers a charge to you
for the ad costs. It applies to automatic payments, and the threshold level starts at $50. It you
reach that within 30 days, you’ll be billed, and your threshold then raises to $100 and so on.

Ad Creative Terms

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 20. Headline - Your ad headline is the header of your ad copy. It generally shows up in blue when
your ad is live.
21. Destination URL - Your destination URL is the landing page your ad is directed to when it’s
clicked. Your destination site can be a specific page. You can change it for differing ads within ad
groups. Your audience does not see it in the ad.
22. Display URL - Your display URL is what shows up in your ad copy. You can keep this simple
and clean to increase your brand recognition, trust, and conversions.
23. Side ad - A side ad is the ad that shows up on the right hand side of a search engine results page
(SERP).
24. Top ad - A top ad is the ad that shows up in a shaded box above the organic search results. Note:
Your ad will likely show up as both a side ad and a top ad - so write your ad copy to optimize for
both.

Campaign types
There are 8 different types of ad campaigns with Google Ads:
1. Search – Text ads on Google search results
2. Display – Image ads on websites or on Gmail
3. Video – Video ads on YouTube
4. Shopping – Product listings on Google
5. App – Your app promotion on many channels
6. Smart – Simplified automated ads on Google and across the web
7. Local – Drive customers to a physical location
8. Discovery – Runs ads across Google’s feeds when they’re open

1. Google search ads – attract people looking for your products : Google search ads are text ads
that you see on Google search engine results pages (SERPs). Your search ads can appear either at
the top above the organic search results or at the very bottom of the page.
Best used for: Getting in front of people who are ready to buy.
By targeting keywords with buyer’s intent, you can reach shoppers when they’re searching for
the products and services that you offer. For example, if you’re selling dog beds on your Shopify
store, target keywords like “dog beds cheap,” and you’ll attract people who are looking to buy a
dog bed. Whether your ad campaign is displayed on the top or the bottom of the SERPs depends
on your bid price. The more you bid, the better visibility you get.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Best practices of Google search ads
Here’s the list of best practices for Google search ads that will help you bring more sales.

• Write compelling ad copy: Remember, search ads are text ads, there are no visuals attached, so
their effectiveness depends on how well you write them. Your ad copy should be focused not on
the features of your products but on user benefits. Appeal to your potential buyer’s needs and
emotions. Also, your ad space is limited – make sure you mention the most important thing(s)
concisely. Avoid generic phrases and use specific calls-to-action.
• Create branded search campaigns: It’s highly recommended to bid on your branded terms,
especially if your business is new and you’re not ranking organically yet. This way, you can ensure
your potential customers will easily find you if they want to check you out. And, even if you already
rank on Google organically, it’s still beneficial to run a branded search ad. Grammarly does it even
though it’s a strong, well-established brand. By bidding on your brand name, you’re taking much
more space on the SERPs and increase your chances of getting traffic. Be smart, be like Grammarly!
Running a branded search campaign can also help you discover different variations in how your
audience is looking for you on Google. You may come across misspellings or long-tail keyword
variations, such as “Grammarly for technical writing,” that can give you ideas on how to market
yourself.
Google ad tip for better ad performance: Don’t just bid on your exact brand name, bid on the
specific products you’re selling, too, especially if they’re branded originally and stand out from other
similar products in their niche.
• Run competitor search campaigns: Another way to use text ads is to target your competitors’
branded terms. Don’t feel bad for doing it – it’s a very common practice. Chances are people
searching for your competitors will be interested in your products, too, so take this opportunity to
increase your sales. Plus, if you’re already popular in your niche, it’s very likely your competitors are
already bidding on your branded terms.
• Create Dynamic search ads: According to Google, 15% of searches on Google are brand new every
day. While this gives savvy marketers more ways to get in front of their target audience, it also makes
it harder to keep up with all the relevant keywords for your brand. To save time and make managing
keyword lists easier, run dynamic search ads. They offer the easiest way to reach people who are
searching for your products and services on Google. Dynamic search ads use the content from your
online store to target your ads.
• Create Responsive search ads: While they may sound similar, responsive search ads are different
from dynamic search ads. With dynamic ads, the content is pulled from your website and

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 automatically adjusted to create your ads. Whereas, with responsive ads, the advertiser needs to
prepare a list of multiple ad headlines and descriptions for the same ad. Then, Google Ads
automatically mixes and matches them to find the best performing combinations.

2. Display ads – generate brand awareness: While search ads are based on text and let you target
specific keywords, Display ads are image-based and allow you to target people who are likely to
be interested in your products but aren’t looking for them yet. You can usually see display
campaigns when you’re browsing your favorite websites. However, they can also appear on your
Gmail account, apps, or videos.
Best used for: Reach your potential clients early in the buying cycle and increase your brand
awareness.
Display ads can help you to introduce your business to specific target audiences who are likely to
be interested in what you’re selling. This way, you can reach more people compared to only using
search ads.
Best practices of Google Display ads : Here’s the list of best practices for Google Display ads
that will help you raise your brand awareness and get more people into your marketing funnel
• Prioritize Responsive Display ads: You can choose between three types of display ads:
responsive display ads, Gmail ads, and uploaded image ads. While all three ad formats are
effective and can serve different marketing strategies, Google says that responsive display ads get
the most reach of all types. That’s why we recommend putting more budget into them.
Responsive display ads are automatically adjusted in appearance, size, and format so they could
fit all the available placements on the Google Display Network. Simply upload your assets, such
as images, headlines, descriptions, your logo, or videos, and Google will figure out the best
combination of them and automatically generate your ads.
• Don’t mix new users with remarketing audiences: Display ads allow for remarketing, which is
a great way to remind your website visitors of your products. However, make sure you exclude
people who have already been to your online store or watched one of your YouTube videos from
your new audiences. They are already familiar with your brand and will probably need a different
kind of messaging than people who have never heard of you.
• Attract people similar to your high-value visitors: You can use your remarketing audiences
made from your previous visitors to expand your top-of-the-funnel audiences (those people who
don’t know about you yet). You can take your high-value visitors and use them to find similar
people who are likely to become your customers. To do it, use a targeting option called “Similar

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 Audiences.” It allows you to get in front of potential customers who have similar web behavior as
people from your remarketing campaign.

3. Video ads – get in front of targeted audience: Since YouTube belongs to Google and also acts
like a search engine–only for videos–you can target your potential customers on YouTube based
on what they are watching. And with over 2 billion users worldwide, you have quite an audience
to target! Your video ad campaigns are placed before, during, or after YouTube videos and in the
search results. With video ads, you can use demographic targeting and reach your ideal audiences
based on age, gender, and interests. In-stream video ads have a 5-second timer before people can
switch to their intended video or watch the ad for its entire duration. You have plenty of time to
get your message across in either case. For maximum impact, use this ad format together with
display advertising.
Best practices of Google Video ads : Here’s the list of best practices for running Video ads
in Google Ads that will help you raise your brand awareness and get more leads.

• Create narrow audiences: Remember, if you advertise to everyone, you advertise to no one. To
run successful video ad campaigns, create separate video ads that target ultra-specific keywords,
topics, or demographics. This way, you’ll have ads that are genuinely relevant to your target
audiences, and they’ll be more likely to get into your marketing funnel.
• Keep your ad short: Ad play rates drop off significantly after 45 seconds, so make sure to
deliver your most important messages early in the video.
• Be direct with your messaging: Because your video ad may be your only communication with
YouTube viewers, be direct about what your business offers. Provide your target audience with
clear next steps to take after watching the video. For example, you could encourage them to make
a purchase or visit your website for more information.
• Use advanced campaign settings: Optimize your video ads with advanced campaign settings.
For example, you can set your ads to run during certain hours or days of the week when you’re
most likely to reach your target audience. You can also set a frequency cap to limit the number of
times your ads appear on YouTube or partners on the Google Display Network to avoid ad
fatigue.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 4. App Ad campaigns – increase your app installs: Have a mobile app for your
business? With Google Ads, you can promote it with app campaigns across Google’s largest
properties, including Google Play, YouTube, Search, and the Google Display Network.
Best used for: Creating ads to promote your app install or take a specific action within it. Unlike
other ad types on Google Ads, you don’t need to create individual ads for App campaigns.
Instead, your ads are automatically designed for you! Provide some text, a starting bid, and a
budget, as well as the languages and locations for your campaign. You can also add some
HTML5 assets if they’re relevant to your business. Then, Google Ads will adapt this info for a
range of ads across various formats and networks.

Best practices of Google App ad campaigns: Here’s the list of best practices for running Google App
campaigns to get more potential customers.
• Give Google time to optimize your ads: When your ad campaigns are not bringing you the
results you were expecting, you might feel tempted to adjust the budget or stop the ad. However,
don’t rush into any decisions if your ads have only been running for a few days. Let Google Ads
run your campaign for at least 7 days to let it optimize your ad creatives, placements, and bids
before you make any decisions. If you do need to make some changes, make sure they’re small
enough not to reset Google’s machine learning.
• Upload diverse assets : Google recommends providing at least one landscape image, one portrait
video, and one landscape video. They will then test different asset combinations and run ads that
are performing the best more often.

5. Smart – Simplified automated ads on Google and across the web: Smart
Campaigns automatically show ads to locals in your area to drive website visits, online
sales, and offline store visits. It's a great, cheap way to bring in more sales. If you are a
local business that can't afford an outside agency to run your Google Ads account, Smart
Campaigns are for you.Smart Campaigns still maintain the simple user experience, and it
is much easier to navigate for someone who either (1) has limited time and resources or
(2) little to no experience with pay per click advertising.
Beyond being simplified, Smart Campaigns still help businesses leverage ads on Google
properties to drive sales. Smart Campaigns have a much, much simpler interface than regular

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 campaigns. The campaign overview gives you everything a PPC beginner needs to know, at a
glance.

6. Local – Drive customers to a physical location: Local campaigns are designed

to help businesses provide their potential customers the information that they need to
decide when and how to visit their stores. Local campaigns streamline the process for
you, making it easy to promote your stores across Google’s largest properties including
the Google Search Network, Maps, YouTube, and the Google Display Network. Just add
a few lines of text, a budget, some assets, and the rest is optimized to help customers find
you. When users search for nearby businesses on Google.com, your business location
may be featured at the top of the local results. Similarly, ads that feature your business
location may also appear when users make similar searches on the Google Maps mobile
app. Local campaigns also use radius targeting for the Business Profile and affiliate local
extensions (ALE) locations. The radius can vary depending on the targeted locations and
a user’s preference of travel distance to them. Other factors that determine targeted radius
include: vertical, population density, and existence of competitors.

7. Discovery – Runs ads across Google’s feeds when they’re open:

Discovery campaigns let you share your brand's story with people across Google's feeds
when they're open to discovering new products and services. Google Discover is a feed
curated by Google to deliver articles and videos on mobile devices. The content delivered
to users is personalized through searches and related stories. Users also have the
opportunity to further customize what they see on their feed by following topics that
interest them.
What are Discovery ads best for? Discovery ads are said to reach people who are ready
to discover and engage. Whereas Display ads are great for general awareness, which isn't
always the main objective of eCommerce businesses. This is what makes Discovery Ads
an interesting ad format for eCommerce businesses and certainly something worth
testing.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 Best Practice: Use Smart Bidding to optimize the performance of your Discovery ads.
For example, if your goal is to drive more conversions, you may want to use the
Maximize conversions strategy. You can also use the Target CPA recommended based
on your account performance to achieve your marketing goals

Creation of Google Display NETWORK (GDN)

Google Display Network (GDN) is a group of more than 2 million websites, videos, and apps
where your Google Ads can appear. The Display Network helps you reach people as they browse
millions of websites, apps, and Google-owned properties (such as YouTube and Gmail). A
Display campaign is one campaign type available to you in Google Ads. Your ads can appear on
the Google search engine results pages (SERPs), right when your prospective clients are in the
process of searching for products or services that your business offers. Search ads are always
displayed above or underneath the organic search results returned by Google.
How the Google Display Network works
The Google Display Network helps you find the right audience with its targeting options that strategically
show your message to potential customers at the right place and the right time. Here are some examples
of how you can approach targeting with Display ads:
• Find new customers or engage existing customers using audience segments. Similar segments and
in-market segments help you find new prospective customers by targeting people who are
interested in your products. You can also use your data segments to help you re-engage people
who previously visited your site.
• Drive more conversions using automation. Automated targeting increases conversions by finding
high-performing audience segments based on your existing audiences and landing page. By
automatically optimizing over time, Google Ads can learn which audience segments work for
you. Automated bidding automatically adjusts your bid to help meet your return on investment.
Smart display campaigns combine the best of automated targeting, bidding, and creatives to
maximize your conversions on Google Ads.

Optimize your campaign as you create it

As you create your campaign, you may receive notifications based on your setting selections.
These notifications may alert you of issues that can result in decreased performance or that may

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

be significant enough to prevent you from publishing your campaign. The campaign construction
navigation menu that appears as you construct your campaign provides a holistic view of your
construction progress and will call attention to notifications that you may want to address. Move
between steps in the navigation menu to easily review and resolve potential issues with your
targeting, bidding, budget, or other campaign settings. Learn more about features that help you
create a successful campaign

Responsive Display ads

Display campaigns use responsive display ads. Responsive display ads automatically adjust their
size, appearance, and format to fit just about any available ad space and improve performance.
You upload various assets (images, headlines, logos, videos, and descriptions) in Google Ads
and the optimal combination and size of assets will appear in ads across websites, apps,
YouTube, and Gmail.
You can also use our library of images at no cost. Both new and advanced users benefit from
responsive ads because they show as "native" ads and blend into the font and feel of the
publisher's site.
Other Display ad types
Uploaded image ads. For more control, you can create and upload ads. You can upload ads as
images in different sizes or HTML5.
When Display ads show
While the Search Network can reach people while they search for specific goods or services, the
Display Network can help you capture someone's attention earlier in the buying cycle. You can
put your ads in front of people before they start searching for what you offer, which can be key
for your overall advertising strategy. You can also remind people of what they're interested in
when you use your data segments to reach people who've previously visited your website or app.
Plan ahead
Changes in the Display Network can take 12–24 hours to apply and may not show right away.
Keep this in mind while creating a new campaign or making changes to an existing campaign.
You may want to set up your campaign a few days before the launch and set the start date in the
future.
What are the three main automation components of Smart Display?

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Across the Display Network, Smart Display campaigns combine 3 optimization technologies to
take the labor and guesswork out of targeting, bidding, and ad creation:
• Automated bidding.
• Automated targeting.
• Automated ad creation

Display Ads format

The best display advertising strategies utilise a combination of different ad types. Using several
formats and sizes increases the reach and potential frequency of your ads being seen by your
target audience. Most campaigns will have a combination of standard text ads, image and rich
media banner ads and video ads. Each type is available in various shapes and sizes and a
combination of each is required to gain optimum performance.
There are several new or non-standard display advertising formats that we can also incorporate
into your campaigns:
a. Text ads: Display text ads are built using lines of advertising text; often the same format as paid
search ads shown on search engine results pages. You can tailor your messages with dynamic
remarketing and increase click-through-rates using dynamic keyword insertion.
b. Image ads: Image ads can be used to capture people’s attention as they browse websites, enticing
them to your site using a combination of graphics and text. The different networks contain
thousands of sites and apps on which image ads can be displayed. Image ads can be static or
contain moving elements to highlight your message.
c. Rich media: A rich media ad contains images or video and involves some kind of user
interaction. The initial load of a rich media ad is 40K or more. While text ads sell with words and
display ads sell with pictures, rich media ads offer more ways to involve an audience with an ad.
The ad can expand, float, peel down, etc. And you can access aggregated metrics on your
audience’s behaviour, including number of expansions, multiple exits and video completions.
d. Video ads: Video ads can be placed across the web, but YouTube is the most popular platform.
Unlike with TV, your video ads don’t have to be short; you can take as long as you need to tell a
story – just keep it engaging.
e. Dynamic Remarketing Ads: Are the most personalised ads showing users the exact products
users have been viewing during their visit to your site. Despite the requirement to run a merchant
centre, this type of ad can also be utilised by certain lead generation business sectors. Your

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 merchant centre can be set up and optimised by Click Consult using our proprietary feedTRAX™
software.
f. Google Lightbox Ads: Lightbox Ad is a rich media display ad format that brings a fullscreen
creative to engage users with your brand’s story. The ad can contain high definition content
including YouTube videos, games or a catalogue shopping experience. When user engages with
the banner the ad expands taking a dominant position in the forefront creating a dimming effect
on the page underneath which gives great opportunity of brand exposure. We would recommend
this format to strengthen brand-to-consumer relationships and tell your brand’s story by letting
the consumers engage with your ad content.
g. Gmail Sponsored Promotions: Gmail Sponsored Promotion (GSP) is a standalone ad format
that appears in user’s personal Gmail account in promotions tab and looks like a regular email
message. Once user clicks on the teaser message, the ad expands showing full creative. The ad
can feature products, an image creative or a html ad that can contain multiple links or contact
forms for direct engagement. We use keywords to contextually target the ads to the content of
users’ inbox which facilitates high ad relevance. We recommend GSPs for top of the funnel brand
awareness as well as direct lead generation with in-ad contact forms.
h. TrueView Ads: With TrueView you can advertise your products and services with video content
on YouTube. Get your ads in front of hundreds of millions of viewers paying only when users
find your content interesting and view your video. At Click Consult we have a specialised team
managing YouTube advertising and integrating it into your comprehensive display strategy.
YouTube is a great advertising channel for almost any type of business allowing you to reach
your audience in a creative and engaging way.
i. Native Ads: Native display advertising uses ads that automatically adjust themselves to the
webpage they appear on, matching the format and function of the site. Native ads look and
behave as if they were a part of the site they appear on. Yahoo’s research into display ad
performance has proven that native ads generate 3.6 times higher uplift in brand searches than
regular display ads and 3.9 times greater uplift in the website view-through rate. At Click Consult
we use Yahoo Gemini to publish native ads across Yahoo Display Network that services on
average 400 million users monthly on Yahoo products like Mail, Mobile Search, News, Sports,
Finance, Celebrity, Movies, TV, Music, Travel, Homes, Autos and My Yahoo. The platform also
allows managing tablet, mobile and desktop traffic separately allowing us to formulate a more
granular bidding strategy.
While text ads sell with words and display ads sell with pictures, rich media ads offer more ways
to involve an audience with an ad… ads can expand, float, peel down and more

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Conversion tracking
Conversion tracking is a free tool that shows you what happens after a customer interact
with your ads -- whether they purchased a product, signed up for your newsletter, called your
business, or downloaded your app. When a customer completes an action that you've defined as
valuable, these customer actions are called conversions.
Conversion: Definition
An action that's counted when someone interacts with your ad or free product listing (for
example, clicks a text ad or views a video ad) and then takes an action that you’ve defined as
valuable to your business, such as an online purchase or a call to your business from a mobile
phone.

Conversions are measured with conversion tracking. You can use different tracking processes to
measure conversions depending on the action someone takes when they interact with your ad or
free listing. Conversions can be tracked across different surfaces (such as mobile or desktop) and
may include modeled conversions. Modeled conversions use data that does not identify
individual users to estimate conversions that Google is unable to observe directly. This can offer
a more complete report of your conversions.
Why use conversion tracking
• See which keywords, ads, ad groups, and campaigns are best at driving valuable customer
activity.
• Understand your return on investment (ROI) and make better informed decisions about your ad
spend.
• Use Smart Bidding strategies (such as Maximize Conversions, target CPA, and target ROAS) that
automatically optimize your campaigns according to your business goals.
• See how many customers may be interacting with your ads on one device or browser and
converting on another. You can view cross-device, cross-browser, and other conversion data in
your “All conversions” reporting column.
How conversion tracking works

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Conversion tracking starts with you creating a conversion action in your Google Ads account. A
conversion action is a specific customer activity that is valuable to your business. You can use
conversion tracking to track the following kinds of actions:
Website actions: Purchases, sign-ups, and other actions that customers complete on your
website. Learn more about how Google Ads tracks website conversions.
The conversion tracking process works a little differently for each conversion source, but for each type
besides offline conversions, it tends to fall into one of these categories:
• You add a conversion tracking tag, or code snippet, to your website or mobile app code.
When a customer clicks on your ad from Google Search or selected Google Display
Network sites, or when they view your video ad, a temporary cookie is placed on their
computer or mobile device. When they complete the action you defined, our system
recognizes the cookie (through the code snippet you added), and we record a conversion.
• Some kinds of conversion tracking don’t require a tag. For example, to track phone calls
from call extensions or call-only ads, you use a Google forwarding number to track when
the call came from one of your ads, and to track details like call duration, call start and
end time, and caller area code. Also, app downloads and in-app purchases from Google
Play, and local actions will automatically be recorded as conversions, and no tracking
code is needed.
Once you’ve set up conversion tracking, you can see data on conversions for your campaigns, ad groups,
ads, and keywords. Viewing this data in your reports can help you understand how your advertising helps
you achieve important goals for your business.

Remarketing
Remarketing, also known as retargeting, is a very common and popular form of digital marketing
in which marketers serve ads to users who have visited their website, or a specific web page, and
who have or have not taken a specific action. It’s an effective way to target people who have
already shown some interest in your business or brand. Because you are targeting past visitors or
existing customers, it’s called “re”-marketing. Think of it as a second chance to convert, up-sell,
or retain customers with online ads or campaigns. You can do remarketing in different ways and
with different ad platforms, like Outbrain, Google ads, or Facebook ads.
Whichever way you use it, remarketing is an absolute MUST in every marketer’s playbook.
Remarketing vs Retargeting

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

While the words ‘retargeting’ and ‘remarketing’ are sometimes used interchangeably, they have
some important differences. When it comes to retargeting vs. remarketing, the main difference is
in the strategy. Retargeting is mostly about serving ads to potential customers based on cookies
while remarketing is usually based on email. Remarketing works by collecting the information of
users and creating lists, which are used later to send sales emails. Retargeting and remarketing
are both effective methods in their own right, yet a combination of both may be the best strategy
to boost your digital marketing activity and improve your bottom line.

A word about behavioral retargeting

If you’ve been hearing about “behavioral retargeting”, it’s actually another (longer!) way of
saying “retargeting”. Behavioral retargeting is when you target online customers based on their
past behavior online, such as which web pages they visited, how long they spent on each page,
and which links they clicked on. Retargeting is much the same, as it involves remarketing to
people who have visited a certain page or clicked a certain link, or any other action you define.
Today, digital marketing – and remarketing – is all about the customer’s interests and behaviors.
After all, these are the best way for marketers to determine what their customers are really
looking for and capture their mindshare. If you are new to remarketing or you want to try it out
for your business, we‘ve put together the ultimate beginner’s guide covering all the basics of the
“what, how, why, where and when” of remarketing. Plus a few bonus pro tips as well. So don’t
wait, start remarketing today!

Example of remarketing
Here’s a fictional example: Joan visits the “Shoes R’ Us” ecommerce site, looks at a particular
pair of shoes, but doesn’t purchase them. Later, Joan visits another website – say, her favorite
entertainment news site. Shoes R’ Us is running a remarketing campaign via an ad network that
works with this entertainment site. Joan sees an ad by Shoes R ‘Us featuring the same or similar
shoes to the ones she was looking at the other day. The aim of the retargeting ad is to remind
Joan of those shoes she was interested in, and maybe by seeing the ad, she will be convinced to
click and make the purchase she didn’t make previously.
Pro tip: You can use first-party data lists from your DMP to create remarketing lists. Here is
how to do it with Outbrain.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

How Remarketing Works?
It’s not difficult to set up a remarketing campaign for your website. What it requires is pixel
installation.
When you create a campaign with a particular ad network, the network will provide you with a
small piece of code (called a pixel tag) to add to your website. Every time a new user visits your
site, the code will drop an anonymous browser cookie and the user will be added to your
retargeting list. When the same user visits another site that hosts display or native ads from your
ad network provider, the system will serve your ad to this particular user. This will occur as long
as you have an active campaign running.
Google’s move to shut down the use of third-party cookies will impact the ability of marketers to
remarket. That’s why it is important to advertise on platforms based on the use of first-party data
that allows tracking. Although the move to a cookieless world has been somewhat delayed, it is
still important to start planning now for tools and tactics that will allow you to remarket in the
future.
What are remarketing pixel tags?
Pixel tags are those small pieces of code on a webpage that enable websites to place cookies.
Cookies are ‘crumbs’ left by website visitors. Every visitor has a unique yet anonymous ID, so
their website activity can be tracked by their trail of cookies. In remarketing, the ad server can
access the visitor’s ID and save it to the relevant remarketing lists. Pro tip: Every time you start
working with a new ad network, the first thing you should do is to add their pixel and start
populating audience lists. Here’s how to set conversion tracking with Outbrain.
Remarketing pixel example: Example of Outbrain pixel (code) to add to your website for
remarketing campaigns

What is a remarketing list?

A remarketing list is a list of website visitors who perform a certain action or on your site. For
example, a “Homepage” remarketing list comprises all the visitors to your homepage over a
specified period. As the visitor lands on your homepage, their cookie is added to the remarketing
list. Then, you can remarket only to the list of people who visited your homepage.
You can create all sorts of remarketing lists, and tailor your ad messages to each list.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Pro tip: Check out this video about how to install the Outbrain pixel and create custom
remarketing lists:
Benefits of Remarketing
• Capitalize on lost website traffic
• Target people who have already visited your site and shown interest in your offering
• Target audiences who are more likely to convert
• Keep your brand at top of mind by strategically showing ads to interested audiences
• Affordable marketing tactic available on a range of platforms and channels
• Suitable for every industry and vertical
• Comes in many ad formats, including display ad, search RLSA, dynamic carousel and more
• For e-commerce – dynamic retargeting enables marketers to serve personalized ads for different
users based on products or services they viewed on your website
Your website may be attracting lots of traffic, but the fact is, the average conversion rate for
first-time visitors is low. According to research on ecommerce sites, the conversion rate is just
2.86 percent. What does this mean? Although you’re getting the traffic, you’re not getting the
sales. Remarketing is your best option to capitalize on all that lost traffic. Targeting people who
have already shown an interest in your business is one of the most effective ways to remind them
to come back to your site. Retargeting can be used in all verticals and industries, though it is
obviously an important tactic in e-commerce. Check out this success story of a European fashion
retail and e-commerce chain that saw a 66% increase in conversion rate by retargeting their
customers on the Outbrain network.
Pro tip: Use remarketing ads to offer special deals that were not available on the first visit to
your site, like a discount coupon, “buy one, get one free”, or some other offer to entice the
customer.
When should I use remarketing?
When to remarket? That’s a great question – and a tricky one. Some marketers use the “always
on” tactic, meaning they constantly run a remarketing campaign for all users who visit their
website but don’t convert (ie. don’t make a purchase, or complete a form, or download an asset).
But many marketers opt for a more advanced and personalized approach to remarketing. You can
focus your remarketing campaigns according to predefined criteria. For example, you may want
to run remarketing campaigns only for visitors who land on certain pages, such as a particular
product page, or only for users who visit your website at a certain time of day or year (for

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

example, during a special sales period). It will really depend on your overall strategy, and what
you’ve got going on at a given time.
Pro tip: With remarketing, it’s really important to avoid ‘overkill’. You don’t want to risk
annoying potential customers by showing them too many ads. Put a cap on how many ads can be
seen by each user – no more than two to three a day.
Where can I retarget my customers?
There are a number of different platforms and channels that you can use for remarketing. And
here they are:
• Simple display remarketing: The most simple and popular type of remarketing. Just display an
ad to people on other sites after they have visited yours, on display ad networks like Google,
Yahoo and Bing.
• Native remarketing: Marketers can re-engage their website visitors with valuable content,
recommended across premium publishers in native ad placements.
• Search remarketing: Remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) is a feature that lets you
customize your search ads campaign for people who have previously visited your site.
• Social media remarketing: Show your retargeting ads to people on social media platforms like
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn after they’ve visited your website.
Remarketing is a great way to increase ROI on your ad spend. If your budget is limited, or if you
already feel you’ve paid enough for that first click, you can experiment and fine tune your
approach for remarketing purposes.
Pro tip: Dig into your data and find out which devices, OS and even geo locations bring you the
highest conversion rate. Create remarketing campaigns according to these segments, and see how
they perform. You may well be able to reduce your costs and increase your conversion rate, at
the same time. The reason why visitors to your website didn’t convert is something you can
never really know for sure. Maybe they became distracted and simply left. Maybe they didn’t
like the offer. Maybe the offer was outside of their budget range. Maybe they are just browsing
now, but plan to purchase in a few months. Whatever the reason, retargeting/remarketing is a
great way to keep your business or brand at the front of their minds. Keep giving them reminders
and reasons to come back. Eventually, they might! Then you’ll be on your way to generating
more leads, conversions and sales for your business.

The Bottom Line: Remarketing Costs

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

Remarketing is an effective and cost-efficient way to attract customers. This is mainly due to the
fact that you are targeting people who have already shown interest in what you have to offer.
With the right targeting and budgeting, you can achieve good results with your KPIs.
Remarketing typically works on a cost-per-click (CPC) model, as well as CPM (cost per
impression) and CPA (cost per acquisition). This gives you the control to manage your spend and
adjust your bids according to the specific remarketing list or campaign. Feeling more confident
about retargeting now that you’ve read our “dummies” guide? Check out these advanced
remarketing tips and take your retargeting campaigns a step further.

Google Shopping Ads

Shopping ads – advertise to shoppers ready to buy: Google Shopping Ads are product-based
ads. They’re displayed specifically for product searches on Google. Unlike regular search ads,
Shopping ads show an image of a product along with its product title, price, store name, and
reviews. Essentially, they provide shoppers with important product information before they even
visit an online store.
Best used for: Boost traffic to your e-commerce store and increase sales.
There are three types of shopping campaigns:
• Product Shopping ad. These are created using the product data provided in your Google
Merchant Center account.
• Showcase Shopping ad. These can be made by grouping together a variety of similar products.
Customers will be able to compare a few of your products and choose the best one. This allows
people to explore your inventory without even going to your store.
• Local Inventory Shopping ad. These ads are useful if you have a physical store. They use
product feed data from your local inventory to display your products from a physical store to
nearby Google shoppers.
Best practices of Google Shopping ads: Here’s the list of best practices for running Google
Shopping ads to boost sales.

• Your product details should be keyword-rich: Google will use your product data to determine
whether your products match a search query by a potential shopper. Make sure your product titles
and descriptions contain keywords that describe your products the best.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com

 • Always double-check your product info: If your prices are not 100% accurate, Google won’t
show your product ads, especially if you have different international currencies. Make sure you
have a foolproof process to update your product info, pricing change, and availability. You can
check your product info manually, for example, using Google spreadsheets. However, if you have
a lot of products, it may be wiser to look for specialized software. This way, you’ll save time and
be sure that your product data feed is correct.
• Use high-quality images: Product images can be the leading factor in your ad campaign’s
success, so take good care of them. They should be of high quality and taken in a clear
background.

MODULE IV:
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
1. Introduction: Definition of social media, Types of social media, How Social Media is affecting Google
Search, Integrating social media into website and blogs
2. Using Facebook: What Can You Do With Facebook, Facebook Features, Facebook Fan Pages,
Facebook Pages. How to promote your Facebook page, Creating Facebook Application / Widget, Linking
with YouTube, Creating Events, Building content calendar
3. Using Twitter: Following and Listening, Tools for managing your Tweets, Finding People and
Companies on Twitter, Twitter Tools, Reputation Management | Keyword Research | Hashtags & Trends
Tools Influence on Twitter: TweetDeck, Klout, PeerIndex
4. Using LinkedIn: Lead Generation through Individual Profiles, Lead Generation as Enterprise:
Company Page, Ads, Developer API, Groups
5. Using Blogs: How Blogging can be used as a tool.

Introduction: Definition of social media, Types of social media, How Social Media is affecting Google
Search, Integrating social media into website and blogs

Definition of social media: Websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to
participate in social networking.

Dr Hanif Lakdawala www.haniflakdawala.com