What is SEO in Digital Marketing?

Basics of Online Marketing/ Digital Marketing

I have been running www.inlinguabangalore.com for the last 15 years and www.Languagestation.org for the last 2 years and have been investing in Digital marketing for more than 10 years now, without fully understanding the specific analysis metrics and just going by the generic market information, until a colleague recently asked me what is the ROI and what are the measurement metrics that we are using for our business . It got me thinking and I realised its high time, that I started measuring the results and understanding the metrics behind it. So here’s a beginners guide to understanding online marketing. In this post I have given a brief insight of my understanding into SEO segment. SMM and SEM will be covered in the next posts.

Any Digital marketing covers 3 parts:

1.    SEO – Search Engine Optimisation

2.    SMM – Social Media Marketing

3.    SEM – Search Engine Marketing or Paid Marketing – Google ads, Social media ads, PPC(Pay per click)

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation

SEO is the process of increasing traffic to the website by completely natural, organic or unpaid methods which excludes paid or direct visitors to the website. In order to do this the Search Engine will scan or crawl different websites online to better understand what your website is about.

SEO uses key words(terms people use to search your product online) to attract a user to the website. For ex., “German language classes” is a keyword that is commonly used in searches for our website www.inlinguabangalore.com

There are 3 types of SEO. By breaking down your strategy and thinking into these 3 parts, it will be easier to execute the plans:

1. On-Page SEO (Content Optimisation)

2. Technical SEO (Crawling and Indexing)

3. Off page SEO  (Website Promotion)

Before you start, identify the keywords/ terms used most commonly by people who are searching for your services. Based on the search volume, relevance and competition you can come up with a list of keywords that you want to optimise. Google’s own key word tools can help here to decide which keywords are better performing in searches.

On-Page SEO:

While the search engines look at the website as a whole, ranking is performed on a page level basis. That’s why it is important to pay attention to the optimisation of each and every page on your website.

Optimising the page titles, tags, images, headings, page formatting helps.

Content SEO is a subset of on page SEO. Identifying the right keywords and including them and other related words onto the content of your page/website.
Publishing great content (Blogs, online PR etc) on various forums which users love and search engines pick up.

Technical SEO:

As the name indicates it means the technical parameters that affect the visibility of the site. The goal here is to ensure that search engine crawlers can crawl and index a website without any problems. Apart from the technical fixes on the site like the site and URL structure, the XML sitemap, optimising your robots.txt, specifying preferred domain name, fixing crawl errors, SEO friendly web design that loads fast on the desktop and mobile devices help.

Off Page SEO:

Is all about how your website is promoted on the Internet. Websites that are popular, rank higher on Google searches.  The methods used here are:

·      Link Building – It is the process of getting SEO backlinks from other websites. These links from other websites to your website increase the authority of your website.

·      Brand Promotion: The more you promote your brand and the more conversations people have in various social media channels and forums, the more Google rewards you by ranking you higher because people trust your brand.

Other SEOs:

Local SEO – Suited for local business only

Mobile SEO – Optimising your site for searches from mobile phones by ensuring the site is mobile friendly.

E-Commerce SEO – For E-commerce business.

White Hat SEO V/S Black Hat SEO:

All the above listed are White hat SEO techniques. Black Hat SEO is when you artificially create links to improve the rankings of a website on google. These methods are against google guidelines and needs to be avoided or else it could lead you to loosing your google rankings.

Measurement Metrics for SEO:

Reports Used:

Google Analytics Reports – Free report provided by Google

Webmaster Analytics report again by google.

Keyword Ranking: Looking at where your website ranks for a particular set of keywords can let you know if your SEO is working. The target here is to rank your website higher than your competitors. The top 3 slots on the first page of the site are considered the prime slot. There are some free tools which can give you a report on your rankings for various keywords.

Organic Traffic: Looking at the number of visitors to the website and where they are going can be a much healthier way of measuring the SEO work. Google Analytics report which Google provides for free can you give you the complete data. The report even gives you the number of organic searches from the search engine.

Organic Leads and Sales: The actual leads, sales, revenues and profits of the business should be the primary indicator. The Google analytics report can help you track the number of visitors landing on your website from organic source versus paid ads or any other channels.

More on SEM and SMM in the next posts!

References:

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/04/30/seo-basics

https://www.reliablesoft.net/types-of-seo/

Kundalini

What is Kundalini?

Kunda in Sanskrit means pit, cavity, pot. Kundal means coil and kundalini means that which is coiled.

Kundalini is the divine cosmic energy in our bodies. It is symbolised by a coiled and sleeping serpent. Snake is the symbol of kundalini.

This latent energy has to be awakened and made to go up the spine to the brain through Sushmna nadi, a channel through which the prana or the energy flows

Where is kundalini located? 

Seat of kundalini is a small gland at the base of the spinal cord. It is located at the base of the spine at the Mooladhara chakra.

In the Feminine body it is located at the root of the uterus in the cervix. In the masculine body, it is located in the perinium between the urinary and excretory organs.

How is Kundalini awakened?

It can be awakened by the regular practice of asanas, pranayama, kriya yoga, meditation. There are different ways to awaken it:
1. By Birth - in some people it is awakened by birth

2. Mantras, healing sounds, Music

3. Tapasya

4. consuming certain type of Herbs

5. Raja yoga, Hatha yoga
6.Pranayama
7. Kriya yoga
8. Tantric initiations
9. Shakthipat – initiation by guru
10. Self surrender

What happens when it is fully awakened?

Although kundalini is said to reside in mooladhara chakra, we are all at different stages of evolution and in some of us kundalini may have already reached swadhishtana, manipura or anhata chakra. Once it is awakened in Sahshrara a new consciousness, super consciousness emerges, experience and knowledge becomes completely independent and different parts of the brain gets activated and the person becomes fully conscious and reaches Samadhi.

 How was Kundalini discovered?

Man realised that in every individual there is a special form of energy. In some people it was dormant and in others it was evolving and in a very small minority it was actually awakened.

Originally man named this energy after gods, divinity, angels etc and then when he discovered prana and called it prana shakthi. In Tantra yoga it is called Kundalini.

How do Mudras, Bandhas and Granthis help in awakening it?
Mudras and Bandhas trap the prana and helps unblock the nadis and allows the prana to flow upwards.

Moola Bandha – When moolabandha closes the lower opening and traps prana and this helps to unblock the central sushmna channel allowing kundalini to rise.

Jalandhar Bandha – This closes the wind pipe and traps prana

Kechari Mudra – Closes top of sushmna trapping bindu.

Granthis are psychic knots in the physical body which are obstacles on the path of the awakened kundalini. The 3 granthis are Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra granthi. And they represent levels of awareness where the attachment to material things,  ignorance, power of maya,  is specially strong. Each aspirant must transcend these barriers to make a clear passageway for the ascending kundalini.

What is the link between Nadis, Chakras and kundalini?

It is only when the energies in the Ida and Pingala nadis are completely balanced, Kundalini energy starts moving upwards in the central sushmna nadi. Ida and Pingala are like intertwined serpents and they intersect each other at 7 points along the spine and these intersection points are called Chakras.

If all the Chakras are awakened, can the Kundalini raise to Sahasrara?

It is not just the awakening of the chakras. The first step is to discipline the Ida and Pingala nadi. Only when both these nadis are disciplined and balanced, the prana can flow up.
The second step is that the chakras have to be awakened, meaning, there are no blockages in them and they are open.

The third step is the awakening of the suhmna nadi.
Only when all these 3 are disciplined and awakened, the Kundalini energy starts moving upwards.

Why does the serpent symbol of kundalini have 3 and half coils?

3 coils signify:

3 Matras of OM – past, present and future

3 Gunas – Tamas, Rajas, Satva

3 states of consciousness – waking, sleeping, dreaming

3 states of experience – subjective, sensual and absence of experience

3 coils signify the total experience of universe and the half coil which is opened up signifies the experience of transcendence.

Who can awaken Kundalini?

It is not only the saints and sadhus who have awakened kundalini. Poets, painters, warriors, writers, scientists and many others have awakened it. Kundalini is the creative energy. It is the energy of self expression. Awakening Kundalini is the prime purpose of human incarnation.