Ch. 11: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), SEM, and Display Ads

what keywords to include

-what are people searching for when they want to find you -search for the keyword in the major search engines -buy a sample campaign for the keyword at Google Adwords or Bing Adcenter -Determine the value of the keywords

In the lecture, I linked to some tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner on Slide 11. The "Google Ads Keyword Planner" text that is used to describe the link is called_____.

Anchor text

According to the lecture, which of the following terms is used to explain how search engine bots collect information online for indexing purposes?

Crawling

According to the lecture and readings, what is the key difference between SEO and SEM?

SEO is for organic search, while SEM is paid for

Suppose you want to provide some examples of poorly designed websites on your page, but you also want to carefully manage your own page's reputation for search engine rankings. According to the lecture, which of the following should you do to tell the search engine to ignore the links to the bad websites?

Use the nofollow meta tag

According to the lecture and readings, bidding for SEM happens on _____.

ad auctions

display ads

bought and sold online via real-time bidding on ad exchanges -most social media platforms have ad exchanges so you can do display ads on social

Google Ads

can be used on Google search, Youtube, and Google's network of sites -includes a suite of tools to help you reach your target audience and manage your budget

According to the lecture, social media like Facebook has the option to target a _____, or a set of people that have shared characteristics with a target market that has worked well for your advertising in the past.

lookalike audience

According to the lecture, if you wanted to choose keywords with less competition for the first SERP, what kind of keywords should you choose?

more specific keywords

According to the lecture, on social media, ads that appear in a user's feed or stream and are designed to look like surrounding content are referred to as what kind of advertising?

native

According to the readings, part of your SEM strategy should be to set up _____ to indicate things that are irrelevant to your business or won't lead to conversions.

negative keywords

meta tags

tell crawlers what kinds of things to pay attention to -follow/nofollow -noarchive -nosnippet

SEO

the process of modifying content, site characteristics, and content connections to achieve improved search engine rankings

Google ads search campaigns (SEM)

-search ads can appear around results on Google Play, google shopping tab, google images, google maps, google search partners -format: text or dynamic

queries people make

-"do" transactional queries: I want to hear a song -"know": informational queries: where can I order a pizza? -"Go" navigational queries: I need a link to MSU Blackboard

tools for choosing keywords

-Google Ads Keyword Planner -Google trends -Moz Keyword Explorer

website best practices

-content should be in HTML format -use SEO-browser.com to see how your page looks to the crawlers -create a crawlable link structure

two major functions of SEO

-crawling and indexing -providing answers

native advertising

-designed to look like surrounding content -offer less disruption for the audience -must be properly labeled to avoid deception

"best" pages are:

-easy to navigate -are relevant to the query -professionally designed and accessible to modern browsers -deliver high-quality, legitimate, credible content

measuring quality

-engagement metrics -machine learning -linking patterns

what impacts SERP

-engagement metrics -machine learning -linking patterns -global popularity -local popularity -anchor text -trust rank -link neighborhood -freshness -social sharing

google ads keyword planner

-find relevant keywords for your business -get bid estimates -Missouri state marketing major example

keywords

-how search engines know how relevant your page is to a particular query -more specific keywords = less competition for top results -use keywords in titles, text, and metadata -keyword stuffing does NOT work

advantages of native advertising

-improved targeting: member profile data; custom audiences; lookalike audiences

Moz recommendations for using keywords

-in title tag at least once; once prominently near top of the page -at least 2-3 times, including variations, in the body copy on the page -at least once in the alt attribute of an image on the page -once in the URL -at least once in the meta description tag

link building

-natural links -manual link building -self-created link building *a more diverse link portfolio is better

meta description

-not used for rankings -used for snippets in search results

providing answers

-relevance -popularity

crawling and indexing

-robots: crawlers or spiders -read the documents and save them (indexing) -links are how the crawlers get from place to place

telling the crawler how to read your site

-sitemaps -robots.txt -meta robots

Which of the following does Google use to determine your ad's relevance, click through rate, and quality of your landing page, and is used along with your maximum bid to determine if your ad wins a place on the SERP?

Quality Score