Summer Internship Report on

Digital Marketing and Brand management of

Playnlive.com through the blog Fit-o-Play, New Delhi
In partial fulfillment of
FMG PGDM XXIII

Under the guidance of

Prof. Ambrish Gupta
Faculty, Finance Area
FORE School of Management, New Delhi

Prepared by
Rohit P L
FMG 23C, Roll No 231122
FORE School of Management, New Delhi

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Certificate

This is to certify that Mr Rohit P L Roll No. 231122 has completed his summer
internship at Playnlive Sports India Pvt Ltd. and has submitted this project report
entitled Digital Marketing and Brand management of Playnlive.com through the
blog Fit-o-Play, New Delhi towards partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
award of the Post Graduate Diploma in Management (FMG--23) 2014-2016.
This Report is the result of his own work and to the best of my knowledge no part of
it has earlier comprised any other report, monograph, dissertation or book. This
project was carried out under my overall supervision.
Date:
Place:

Prof Ambrish Gupta

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Contents

Certificate......................................................................................................................2
Table of figures.............................................................................................................6
Executive Summary......................................................................................................7
1.

Introduction............................................................................................................9
1.1

Background.....................................................................................................9

1.1.1

About the sports and fitness industry.......................................................9

1.1.2

About the company.................................................................................12

1.1.3

Competitors............................................................................................14

1.2

Relevance......................................................................................................15

1. Browser...........................................................................................................23
2. Search Engine Results Pages........................................................................23
Compelling Ad Copy............................................................................................26
Recommended Length........................................................................................26
Avoid Duplicate Meta Description Tags...............................................................26
Not a Google Ranking Factor..............................................................................27
Quotes Cut Off Descriptions................................................................................27
1.3
2.

Objectives......................................................................................................29

Literature Review................................................................................................30
2.1

Introduction....................................................................................................30

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3.

2.2

Internet Marketing.........................................................................................31

2.3

Sports Online Marketing................................................................................32

2.4

Social Media..................................................................................................34

2.5

Search Engine Optimization..........................................................................36

2.6

Conclusion.....................................................................................................36

Methodology........................................................................................................37
3.1

Research Design...........................................................................................37

3.2

Data collection methods................................................................................37

3.3

Sampling........................................................................................................37

3.4

Analysis.........................................................................................................38

3.4.1

Users.......................................................................................................38

3.4.2

Bounce Rate and average session duration..........................................38

3.4.3

New sessions..........................................................................................39

3.4.4

Demographics.........................................................................................39

3.4.5

Location..................................................................................................41

3.4.6

Acquisition..............................................................................................43

3.4.7

Device.....................................................................................................44

4.

Results.................................................................................................................45

5.

Conclusion and suggestions...............................................................................46

6.

Limitations...........................................................................................................47

7.

Further scope......................................................................................................47

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8.

Annexure.............................................................................................................49
8.1

General Tables..............................................................................................49

8.2

References....................................................................................................50

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Table of figures
Sl num

Figure name

Page
num

1 SEO and sports

20

2 Browser details

23

3 SERP

23

4 Meta description

26

5 Users

38

6 Bounce rate

38

7 New sessions

39

8 Age group

39

9 Gender

40

10 Interest category

41

11 Location

41

12 City vs users

42

13 Top channels
Social media
14 acquisition

43

15 Device

44

16 Mobile OS

45

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44

Executive Summary
Sports and fitness is becoming an important part of any normal persons life, some of
them prefer joining the gym as they find that their hectic corporate life is leaving their
body with out a proper shape, and most often people do not find relevant information
about any sports and fitness facility near them. To fill this gap of information
Playnlive.com was started with a vision to make the information available to
everyone easily and make this country a fit one. Since it is a start up with limited
resources and manpower it is quite straight forward that the company would rely on
digital marketing for brand building and other promotions. Digital marketing involves
various parameters out of which SEO is the most important one. SEOs are the most
inexpensive way to put your site on the first few SERPs. Content plays a vital role in
SEO, as the parent site is basically a discovery platform, a huge amount of unique
content is not a present, to cover up for this all such sites start off with their blogs.
The blog Fit-o-Play was started for this purpose and later became a good platform
for brand building and brand promotion for other corporate partners. This blog was
not only used for content purpose but also to draw traffic from the blog to the parent
website, a platform for promoting the corporate partners that are featured in the
websites like their various events, promotional events etc. The blog was written on a
platform called Word Press. Wordpress provides the blog developer with various
plugins for better user engagement, for SEO and many more. Now with the help of
Google analytics and webmaster tools we were able to find out the actual data
regarding the traffic details and also real time analysis. From the data received from
Google analytics it was found that most of the users were from Delhi and later other
metro cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad followed the suit. With the
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help of analytics result we were able to find out that most of the traffic comes from
Facebook when social media is considered. Not only this it was found out that the
bounce rate was around 69% which is pretty high, and it was also noticed that the
percentage of new users was higher which is good for a new blog. All this data
collected helps in formulating marketing strategies with minimum investment. Since it
was found out that Facebook draws a lot of traffic to the blog, it would be wise to
promote posts through Facebook by boosting five posts every week for some money
per day, generally the money spent is Rs 100/day/post. Coming to twitter where the
information is spread in a more viral way. To have a good impact in twitter the
number of followers play a very important role. Apart from these, there are various
user engagement applications online that can grab users attention either through
pop up or any other way. The applications like Notify Visitor which provides analysis
as well can be used. The importance of content in brand building is something which
every website has to take seriously as it is very effective, cost effective and can be
evaluated easily with out any errors.

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1. Introduction
1.1 Background
1.1.1 About the sports and fitness industry
According to a recent report on the Indian sports sector by KPMG and CII, the
global sports industry is estimated to be worth around USD 620 billion, while in
India, sports is yet to be recognised as a sector and there is no comprehensive
study on the industrys estimated size in the country. According to experts in this
field, times are changing now, and awareness about sports is spreading. They
even say that there may be a direct link between this sector and the health and
fitness sector, which may nurture the growth of sports startups in India. It has
been found out that the Fitness & Slimming service sector is valued at $2 Bn
which is growing at 25-30% CAGR. This market is just a subset of the estimated
$17 Bn health and wellness market of India. The health and wellness space
seems to be heating up a lot.
Driving forces of this startup:
Awareness that playing a sport can help in fitness

Overall ecosystem push toward health and wellness

More people become members of sports clubs or sports centres
New residential projects give importance to sports infrastructure
Corporate employers encourage sports for team building and fitness

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Kinds of Indian startups in this sector:

Globally, the sports ecosystem comprises a range of associated businesses such
as sports manufacturing, retail, e-commerce, tourism, sports medicine, venues &
infrastructure, media & hospitality and merchandising.
The Indian ecosystem is seeing a lot of activity in the following categories:

Overall ecosystem push toward health and wellness

More people become members of sports clubs or sports centres
New residential projects give importance to sports infrastructure
Corporate employers encourage sports for team building and fitness

Today in this modern world more and more Indians are hitting the gym every
year. The industry, which probably belonged to the elite and select few many
decades ago, has now consumed the middle class and entered fringe villages
which are on the periphery of urbanization. Today, fitness industry accounts to
over $24 billion franchise industry which is waiting to be expanded and exploited
to achieve the complete potential.
In the last decade or so, Indian fitness industry has come a long way from being
a non-existent upper middle class dominated industry that only reached a certain
category of people. In the recent years, the middle class with its highly disposable
income and newfound consciousness about health is now working hard to keep
predominant health conditions at bay.
Diabetes, cardiac problems, osteoporosis, arthritis are common among Indians
who are rushing to occupy the world's number one slot in many health conditions
that invariably become a part of their existence by the time they enter the post-40
lifespan. Fitness industry isn't banking on this newly dawned realisation alone. It

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is also working on ensuring Indians realize the importance of 'looking good,

eating right and feeling good'.
Earlier, it was only sports persons who endorsed directly or indirectly, the
importance of fitness. Today that isn't the case. Fitness has as many champions
today in various fields. Fitness is considered to be the lone solution for so many
psychological and physiological problems that medical intervention can be
minimized by just hitting the gym alone. The middle class has now latched on to
it. Among the first few gyms in the country, which have now gone on to create a
niche segment for self is Talwalkars, VLCC, Golds etc must have been pretty
stumped at the idea of having to sell punishment as a lifestyle to people. But,
decades later, the fruits have paid off. These brands are not only the leaders in
the segment, but also sole drivers of this economy that is bound to see brighter
days ahead. The market of fitness is still in its nascent stages today, with a lot of
potential to see an unabated growth in the coming years. Obsession with great
bodies has now turned into an equal sport for both men and women. Though
there is not much of a visible disparity, commodification of fitness is as much as
pornografication of a beach body too. Fitness today is a product that is packaged
and sold in gyms with the promise of reaching a perfect body with constant
workout.
This is exactly where the experts come in to warn against setting up unrealistic
expectations. It is okay to desire to have a body that's perfect and aim at it, but
it's altogether another factor to obsess over a photo-shopped picture that shows
an unrealistic body that cannot be achieved. The message is somehow going
missing while the crucial aspects about fitness are being shared by nutritionists
and doctors.
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Fitness Industry, according to experts, holds only 8% of the total wellness

industry's share with ample space to grow and coexist. The industry is anticipated
to grow at a good 20% every year, with some prominent international brands
making headway into the country.
1.1.2 About the company
PlaynLive founded by Nakul Kapur along with his friend Rahul Wadhwa, is an
aggregator of information related to sports and fitness facilities. Playnlive Sports
was born out of a vision to make information related to sports across the country
at your fingertips. Their service is basically providing accurate and updated
information about sports clubs, complexes, coaching academies, fitness centers
and studios. With an aim to be the worlds largest platform for sports enthusiasts,
PlaynLive have more than 9000 listings of various sports establishments (clubs,
complexes, academies) and fitness centers across 5 cities in India. Visitors can
log on to Playnlive.com, select their city, select a sport and search for a facility
near their place. The users will be able to find complete relevant information
related to any sports facility.
Playnlive lists all sports facilities for free but charges for featured or promoted
listings and ads. The website has also signed up merchants for online bookings,
cash management and online ticketing for sports events. The website was
launched on 1st February 2014, however it started its operations for Delhi NCR
in September 2013. They started out with listings for Delhi initially and later on, as
traffic grew, scaled to other metro cities as well.
Products of Playnlive:

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Uniqueness of the service: The accuracy of data and aggressive check

controls help people get reliable information from our platform. This is one
of the main reasons to why this company has been growing at 3x levels for

the past few quarter.

Free listing: Playnlive lists all sports facilities for free but charges for
featured or promoted listings and ads. The website has also signed up
merchants for online bookings, cash management and online ticketing for

sports events.
Book a trial: It often happens that you would like to try out a particular
sport or fitness facility before you purchase the membership but all the
facilities might not provide it. So Playnlive started a feature called book a
trial where the user can book for a free trial and check out his desired

facility.
Advertising: Advertisement by sports goods seller, sports facility owners
and sports event organisers is one their primary source of revenue. They
work on a fixed and variable fee model with the sports establishments

where they get the variable part on every referred sale from their platform.
Corporate Listing: They provide sponsored listing for our corporate

partners who are giants in their own respective fields.

Playnlive Pass: They are also building Playnlive Pass where people
would be able to pay for the service they want to avail. It will be like a
virtual sports stadium and gymnasium. The user will have to pay only for
the service they want to avail eg a Zumba class, daily gym pass,

swimming class, court booking etc.

Fit-o-play: This blog was basically started to provide related and updated
information about sports, health and fitness. Here the users can access
the information related to their interest and provide their views through
comments and ratings section.

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1.1.3 Competitors
The online sports and fitness discovery space is scattered sector as there not many
players in the market. The exact market share values cannot be found out as a
detailed study of this sector has not yet been done. Though Playnlive enjoys a first
mover advantage, there are few firms which are competing in this space. Some of
these firms are as follows:

Qurlo: a Delhi based startup, has entered into this space with aim to provide
you with all information about various physical wellness centres falling into
broad categories of ayurveda, yoga, beauty clinics, body care, spas, bridal
make up, dermatology, face care, fitness centres, skin care, gym, hair care,
yoga, weight loss and so on. With the power of social media, digital
consumption of content and information is growing at accelerated rates. Every
brand, every service and any idea that seeks to connect with the end user
must have a digital address. Qurlo reviews any outlet in the city with a brief
description about the centre, services offered and contact details along with

pictures and advertisements about any discounts and offers available.

Fitho: After struggling from weight management issues at some point of life,
Prachi Gupta (Founder) and Dhruv(Co-founder) realized that for anyone
looking to lose weight, finding a good solution that was convenient, affordable,
and one that works around their lifestyle wasnt easy. And there is no doubt
that rising disposable incomes, sedentary lifestyle, is coupled with growing
awareness of health & fitness & internet/mobile penetration. Having a look at
all this, and coupling it with their background in the digital industry, the two
saw an opportunity for digital weight management services which made them
launch Fitho. Fitho is a technology based weight management service, that

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provides its member a personalized program with nutrition & exercise and
helps them manage their weight, or lifestyle disorders like diabetes, heart

health, etc.
Fitraq: Fitraq is anther start up in this space which caters to the fitness sector
by providing a discovery platform for gyms. Currently it is available in DelhiNCR. The company claims to have over 1,200 fitness centres on its platform
as of now. However, users need to register on the site to contact the centres.

1.2 Relevance
Digital Marketing is a term that encompasses modern marketing techniques used
online, for example, Social Media, Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Pay
per Click Management (PPC), Branding, Content Marketing, Video Marketing and
App creation. As for the Sports Industry, well, this really is as broad as it gets. From a
performance point of view, this could be the marketing of a sports event, an athlete,
a club/team, as well as sporting professional such as psychologists,
physiotherapists, nutritionist, etc. Then there are the businesses and retailers
offering sporting goods and services who also rely on Digital Marketing as a key
driver for their business.
Whether its your favourite football team, sports event, retailer or competitor, being
seen online, as well as engaging with supporters and customers is now a vital aspect
for effective sports marketing. In this case, it is worth highlighting individual examples
to explain how Digital Marketing is helping to change the sporting world.
The biggest change to the sports industry has been the advent of social media. With
platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, there are millions of users for sports brands
to promote themselves to. This is by no means a recent thing either, as sports
people and their respective clubs and teams utilise such platforms to harness
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branding as well as engagement to make their fans online experience all the more
rewarding.
For the average sports fan, affording expensive tickets to see an event is often
extremely challenging, both in financial and often geographical terms. What social
media does is bridge the ever increasing gap between the expense of live fandom
and the free exposure of social media. In effect, this has created a new form of
fandom, one which takes advantage of the new digital age.
In addition, Econsultancy recently ran a story regarding Manchester Citys social
media strategy, which focuses on engagement. Whilst this is a bit of a no-brainer,
after all, social media is a fantastic way of building your online branding through
quality user experiences; it is possible to also drive additional traffic to your website
from social media, if thats your goal.
For many, this came across as a desperate attempt for the fans to decide who the
club should sign, rather than a competent and well-run hierarchy. Whilst Liverpool
FC protest that this was taken out of context as they were just running a poll to see
who their fans think should be the next manager, it came across as if they needed
suggestions. In any case, it was a rookie mistake.

So, when it comes to writing updates or sharing information, remember, whilst it

needs to be interactive and engaging, you also dont want to harm your brand image,
otherwise this could be a very costly mistake.
Google considers these important parameters to provide better search results and
good page rank, they are as follows:
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SEO title:
Meta description
Backlinks
Content
Focus keyword
Meta keywords

Since content is one of the most important parameters blogging becomes a vital
aspect for any dot com company or any website per say.
Blogging:
Teams and clubs across a variety of different sports have used blogging as a great
way to showcase more of a human and real side to the trials and tribulations of
supporting a particular team or club. Even national and local newspapers now have
dedicated blog sections, where supporters can write down their thoughts of their
Saturday or Sunday afternoon endeavours (or midweek evenings too for that
matter). Sports fans now have huge numbers of followers and are part of a much
larger online sports community. In addition to forums and chatrooms, many
dedicated and die-hard fans set up and populate their own blogs with relevant and
engaging material.
Some clubs hardly engage with their bloggers not only is this doing little to garner
their support, theyre missing a trick too. Other clubs, for example Arsenal Football
Club, have a strong following when it comes to the online community. Thousands of
different blog owners all like to share their views on whats happening with the club
both on and off the pitch, and Arsenal FC worked with blog owners to get a particular
story out to their community of followers.
In short, the club had received negative press regarding the quality of medical care
for its players. After launching a new state of the art medical centre, they utilised a
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blogger outreach programme to help generate positive publicity amongst their online
community and it worked too.
This example provided the required boost to start a blogging platform called Fit-oPlay for Playnlive.com which helped in filling the gap of good amount of content
required for Google to index the website as the parent website is discovery platform
where a good amount of rich data cannot be found hence this blog became very
important. This blog was not only used for content purpose but also to draw traffic
from the blog to the parent website, a platform for promoting the corporate partners
that are featured in the websites like their various events, promotional events etc.
The blog was written on a platform called Word Press. Word Press is a very
prominently used blogging platform across the globe. There are various plugins
available in this particular platform to design the look of the blog, user engagement
plugins like rating widget, comments widget etc, SEO plugin which helps the blog
developer to decide for the focus keyword, SEO url, Meta description for that
particular blog and meta key words.
Though lately, according to Googles new semantic algorithm Meta keywords are not
given much of a weightage. The reason being that people in order to improve the
page rank show their respective page on the first pages of Google search used meta
keywords that were most searched on the internet irrespective of these keywords
featuring in the article or not. This reduced the quality of the search results of
Google. The new algorithm of Google which is Semantic algorithm is an improved
version of the previous algorithm to show better search results. The semantic
algorithm uses structured data to for each page/blog, where there is a cap of 160
characters for this structured data. Here the developer has to type in the structured
data and update the page so whenever a user searches for anything on Google then
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the structured data is also searched along with the url, Meta description, focus
keyword, and meta keywords. Even though Meta keywords are not very important
according to this new algorithm but still developers feel that each page must have at
least 4-5 Meta keywords. In word press the cap on Meta keywords is 16.
SEO and Sports
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has taken on huge prominence in the sports
industry. Social media and blogging can be used to engage with the fans on a much
more personal level, its SEO that is been used to improve and enhance exposure
and generate additional traffic to the websites by showing the pages of the websites
on the first few search results. Generally two types of SEOs are involved, namely onpage SEO and off-page SEO. My project was more towards the on-page SEO as it
was directly involved with the content and the keywords and other aspects of SEO.
Many people like retailers, sports professional sports persons, nutritionists etc who
have an online presence through websites or blogs focus on SEOs. They either
outsource there SEO part or do it in house. Generally off-page SEO is outsourced as
it involves lot of skill and experience to show better search results by being visible on
the first few search engine results page (SERPs).

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Figure 1.1

As you can see from the above image, when searching for a term as competitive as,
sports shoes, you can see the advantages of achieving that number 1 spot. Within
the annotation I have just highlighted the Meta, and how well it has been optimised.
However, any SEO specialist will tell you that a lot more goes into SEO campaigns
like this. Even such optimised Meta description and keywords is no longer an actual
ranking factor, but another way to enhance Click through Rate (CTR), which in the
example above would work effectively, given that the user was searching for
Running Shoes.
Brand Management within Search Engines

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Another way in which I used SEO in my project for digital marketing purposes was
for Brand Management. Traditionally, brand management or reputation management
within the search engines refers to the way in which the listings can be manipulated,
so that only positive listings appear with the results. That means when someone
searches for a brand, they will only see quality on-brand links, with anything negative
or potentially harmful listings pushed down the results page.
PPC and Sports
Pay per Click (PPC) listings within search engines are for those businesses that are
looking to increase revenue through the sale of tickets, merchandise, clothing or
services for sport and sporting events via the search engines.
With this in mind, this type of Digital Marketing activity isnt exactly exclusive to the
sports industry. However, what I have noticed is the way that certain paid listings can
be quickly updated to piggyback off any recent sporting achievement, associated
with what is being sold with the paid advertisement.
Content Marketing and Video Marketing
With reference to the creation and distribution of unique content whether its written,
pictorial or in video form which can be optimized giving it a greater chance to be
seen online. Such marketing techniques have their own benefits. From a technical
point of view, it builds brand awareness, creates additional links as well as traffic to
ones website. From a sporting perspective, such content keeps fans, followers and
potential customers interested and engaged all the time.
Apps

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Today in this modern day of smart phones mobile applications have become a must
for any dot com company. Consider Zomato which started of with an online discovery
platform for restaurants now has its own applications and most of the users use the
applications when compared to the traffic drawn on the website. The same is the
case with Playnlive.com where the mobile applications are in the development stage
and will be soon available on all the three most prominent platforms i.e. ios, Android
and Windows.
Now coming to other important parts of SEO
SEO title: Title tagstechnically called title elementsdefine the title of a
document. Title tags are often used on search engine results pages (SERPs) to
display preview snippets for a given page, and are important both for SEO and social
sharing.
The title element of a web page is meant to be an accurate and concise description
of a page's content. This element is critical to both user experience and search
engine optimization. It creates value in three specific areas: relevancy, browsing, and
in the search engine results pages.
Optimal Length for Search Engines
Google typically displays the first 50-60 characters of a title tag, or as many
characters as will fit into a 512-pixel display. If you keep your titles under 55
characters, you can expect at least 95% of your titles to display properly. Keep in
mind that search engines may choose to display a different title than what you
provide in your HTML. Titles in search results may be rewritten to match your brand,
the user query, or other considerations.

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A title tag is the main text that describes an online document. Title elements have
long been considered one of the most important on-page SEO elements (the most
important being overall content), and appear in three key places: browsers, search
engine results pages, and external websites.
1. Browser
Title tags often show up in both the top of a browser's chrome and in tabs.

Figure 1.2

2. Search Engine Results Pages

When you use keywords in the title tag, search engines will highlight them in the
search results if a user has performed a query including those keywords. This gives
the user greater visibility, and generally means you'll get a higher click-through rate.

Figure 1.3

Optimizing the titles

Because title tags are such an important part of search engine optimization,
implementing best practices for title tags makes for a terrific low-effort, high-impact
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SEO task. Here are critical recommendations for optimizing title tags for search
engine and usability goals:
Be Mindful of Length:
As stated above, search engines will truncate titles in search results that exceed a
certain length. For Google, this length is usually between 50-60 characters, or 512
pixels wide. If the title is too long, engines will show an ellipsis, "..." to indicate that a
title tag has been cut off. That said, length is not a hard and fast rule. Longer titles
often work better for social sharing, and many SEOs believe search engines may
use the keywords in your title tag for ranking purposes, even if those keywords get
cut off in search results. In the end, it's usually better to write a great title that
converts and get clicks than it is to obsess over length.
Place Important Keywords Close to the Front of the Title Tag
The closer to the start of the title tag a keyword is, the more helpful it will be for
rankingand the more likely a user will be to click them in search results.
Leverage Branding
Many SEO firms recommend using the brand name at the end of a title tag instead,
and there are times when this can be a better approach. The differentiating factor is
the strength and awareness of the brand in the target market. If a brand is wellknown enough to make a difference in click-through rates in search results, the
brand name should be first. If the brand is less known or relevant than the keyword,
the keyword should be first.
Consider Readability and Emotional Impact

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Creating a compelling title tag will pull in more visits from the search results. It's vital
to think about the entire user experience when you're creating your title tags, in
addition to optimization and keyword usage. The title tag is a new visitor's first
interaction with your brand when they find it in a search result; it should convey the
most positive message possible.
Meta description
Meta descriptions are HTML attributes that provide concise explanations of the
contents of web pages. Meta descriptions are commonly used on search engine
result pages (SERPs) to display preview snippets for a given page.
Meta description tags, while not important to search engine rankings, are extremely
important in gaining user click-through from SERPs. These short paragraphs are a
webmasters opportunity to advertise content to searchers and to let them know
exactly whether the given page contains the information they're looking for.
The Meta description should employ the keywords intelligently, but also create a
compelling description that a searcher will want to click. Direct relevance to the page
and uniqueness between each pages meta description is key. The description
should optimally be between 150-160 characters.
SEO best practices that were followed in my project are,
Compelling Ad Copy
The meta description tag serves the function of advertising copy. It draws readers to
a website from the SERP and thus, is an extremely important part of search
marketing. Crafting a readable, compelling description using important keywords can
improve the click-through rate for a given webpage. To maximize click-through rates
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on search engine result pages, it's important to note that Google and other search
engines bold keywords in the description when they match search queries.

Figure 1.4

Recommended Length
Meta descriptions can be any length, but search engines generally truncate snippets
longer than 160 characters. It is best to keep meta descriptions between 150 and
160 characters.
Avoid Duplicate Meta Description Tags
As with title tags, it is important that meta descriptions on each page be unique. One
way to combat duplicate meta descriptions is to create a dynamic and programmatic
way to make unique meta descriptions for automated pages.
Not a Google Ranking Factor
Google announced in September of 2009 that neither meta descriptions nor meta
keywords factor into Google's ranking algorithms for web search. Google uses meta
descriptions to return results when searchers use advanced search operators to
match meta tag content, as well as to pull preview snippets on search result pages,
but it's important to note that meta descriptions do not to influence Google's ranking
algorithms for normal web search.
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Quotes Cut Off Descriptions

Any time quotes are used in a meta description, Google cuts off the description. To
prevent meta descriptions from being cut off, it's best to remove all nonalphanumeric characters from meta descriptions. If quotation marks are important in
your meta description, you can change them to single quotes rather than double
quotes to prevent truncation.
Although conventional logic would hold that it's universally wiser to write a good meta
description, rather than let the engines scrape a given web page, this isn't always the
case. Use the general rule that if the page is targeting between one and three
heavily searched terms or phrases, go with a meta description that hits those users
performing that search. If the page is targeting long-tail traffic (three or more
keywords)for example, with hundreds of articles or blog entries, or even a huge
product catalogit can sometimes be wiser to let the engines extract the relevant
text, themselves. The reason is simple: When engines pull, they always display the
keywords and surrounding phrases that the user has searched for. If a webmaster
forces a meta description, they can detract from the relevance the engines make
naturally. In some cases, they'll overrule the meta description anyway, but a
webmaster can not always rely on the engines to use the more relevant text in the
SERP.
When choosing whether or not to add a meta description, also consider that social
sharing sites like Facebook commonly use a page's description tag when the page is
shared on their sites. Without the meta description tag, social sharing sites may just
use the first text they can find. Depending on the first text on your page, this might
not create a good user experience for users encountering your content via social
sharing.
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Backlinks: Backlinks enable you to keep track of other pages on the web that link to
your posts. For instance, suppose Alice writes a blog entry that Bob finds interesting.
Bob then goes to his own blog and writes a post of his own about it, linking back to
Alice's original post. Now Alice's post will automatically show that Bob has linked to
it, and it will provide a short snippet of his text and a link to his post. What it all works
out to is a way of expanding the comment feature such that related discussions on
other sites can be included along with the regular comments on a post.
Focus Keyword: A focus keyword is the main keyword that you are hoping people
will look for and find your post. If your blog is in a competitive niche then chances are
that you will be competing with many other established and reputable publications for
popular keywords. In such situation, you can get more organic traffic by using long
tail keywords. Always remember that your audience is humans not search engines.
People dont just type one keyword in search engines, they use phrases. Your focus
keyword can be a phrase.
A good SEO friendly post title is human readable, contains your focus keyword and
is within the 70 characters limit. However, it also needs to be catchy. When your
page appears in the search results, a user will decide whether or not they want to
click on it based on the SEO title and the description in the search snippet. The
description part may change as search engines display the most relevant part of
your article as the description. But the title will remain the same. Make sure your
SEO title describes exactly what people will get if they clicked on the link.

1.3 Objectives
The objectives of this project are as follows:
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Understand the sports and fitness discovery sector.

Understanding the business model of Playnlive.com
Understanding the important aspects of digital marketing and practicing

them on a real time basis.

Understanding the importance of SEO for any website and parameters of

on-page SEO and implementing on the blog.

To increase the number of users on the blog by generating unique content

and promoting the content in order to draw traffic.

Importance of social media marketing and drawing the traffic to the
website and the blog through social media promotions specifically through

Facebook and Twitter.

Indexing of the website in order to provide better search results.
Application of different online marketing tools like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck

and Notify visitors to monitor the promotion campaigns.

Concept of Google analytics and strategizing the promotion campaigns
based on the results from Google analytics.

2. Literature Review
The papers considered for the literature review are as follows

The Role of Internet Marketing: Sports Business and Social Media by

Jamaal Brown
Understanding social media use and its marketing implications by David
Malerick

2.1 Introduction
The goal of sports business is to create the communication and online marketing
strategy for the consumers who seek products, services, brands, or the games.
Online sports business has seen explosive growth and become a viable means
of accomplishing marketing strategies (Youngjin, Ko, & Claussen, 2011). Social
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media in sports has changed the style of communication and internet marketing.
The fans connection to sports is changing and social media is creating a whole
new channel for the fans to interact and be a part of the action that they may not
get at the stadium or the ballpark (Reed, 2010). Sports business organizations
provide the consumers with Internet and social media usage in order to boost
reputation and relationships with the sports organizations.
The level of understanding the consumers need and want through the utilization
of online and social media marketing is relevant to sports business. The
population of online sports consumers has increased and most sports
organization have utilized their websites as a marketing tool for their achieving
business objective (Youngjin, Ko, & Claussen, 2011). With the increase of online
and social media usage, the sports organizations aim to increase new and more
customers into the sports world. The bottom line is that the sports organizations
use online and social media to develop the relationship with the consumers.
The study about the role of internet marketing with the usage of social media in
sports organizations is limited. The purpose of this study is to examine and
understand how the role of internet marketing has changed the role of sports
business and social media. The study focuses on sports business (or
organizations) using online marketing, relationship marketing and social media in
the process of developing the relationship with the consumers.

2.2 Internet Marketing

Understanding internet marketing is important to succeed in business. The
customers purchase products through social media. Researchers claimed that
todays consumers are more empowered than ever before; social networking,
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blogging, and the availability of digital devices such as tablets and

smartphonesallow consumers to connect with another, discuss brands and
products, and interact with brands quickly and easily (Powers, Advincula, Austin,
Graiko, & Snyder, 2012, p. 480). Moreover, leading online brands have raised
expectation that brands are accessible and willing to engage with consumers
(Powers, Advincula, Austin, Graiko, & Snyder)
The brands influence consumers decisions because it is convenient to assist the
consumers to identify the brands they are interested in. Lipsman, Mud, Rich, and
Bruich (2012) stated that brands increasingly are interested in establishing a
social presence and engaging with their fans, helping shape their customers
experiences, and even leveraging their voices for greater marketing impact
(Lipsman, Mud, Rich, & Bruich, 2012). The brands bring social media to keep up
with the consumers; therefore social media have the opportunity to create
connections with their consumers in order to build affinity and loyalty. (Powers,
Advincula, Austin, Graiko, & Snyder, 2012). When it comes to dealing with the
relationship with the customers, the organization needs to understand how to
use social media for marketing strategy for the customers.
It is significant to understand the organizations objectives and what it takes to be
Successful in internet marketing. The organizations are using social media for
marketing purposes in order to satisfy the customers wants and needs. In order
to be successful in marketing, the organization needs to create social media to
develop the objectives and relationship with the customers. Schlinke and Crain
(2013) offer the goals of the organization for social media initiatives should be
one or more of the following: (1) to establish a reputation as a thought leader in a
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subject area, (2) to be the source of current relevant news around a topic, (3) to
make the members of the organization more accessible and create stickier
relationship with existing clients, and/or (4) to extend the current brand as one
serving a specific demographic. In addition, Schlinke and Crain (2013) include
content, branding, tools and implementation, blogs, and websites as a part of a
social media strategy.

2.3 Sports Online Marketing

Online marketing has impacted the sports business. According to Brown (2003),
the sports organizations objective was to provide information about the
organization to the visitors or to generate awareness of the organizations
(Brown, 2003). The sports organizations want to help customers to understand
about the sports organizations objectivities (Brown, 2003). In order for the
customers to understand the sports organizations objectives, Brown (2003)
emphasized that the online consumers need to continue developing the medium
as an effective marketing tool (Brown, 2003). Sports online marketing creates
money through customers who use Internet. Without the use of Internet, the
sports marketing will be ineffective. Before the existence of social media, sports
organizations consider Internet as an important marketing tool. The customers
have the ability to purchase the sports products online or through the Internet.
Brown (2003) claimed that it is important for marketers to develop new methods
of how to reach the targeted audience in order to enhance the sports
organizations reputation. The sports organizations can make the money when
the customers purchase the sports products they need. Due to Internet, the
customers purchasing products through online has enhanced new economic
opportunities for business (Madsen, 1996). The customers receive information
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about sports online. With the increased utilize of online, the sports organizations
offer various websites to share, communicate, and interact directly with the
sports customers. If the customers are looking for news, online provides the
information for them. The sports organizations allow the sports customers to visit
a sports website and search for sports information because they are interested in
or committed to a certain sports team, player or issue in sports (Youngjin, Ko, &
Claussen, 2011). Moreover, the online marketing allows sports organization to
communicate information, updates, and events (Filo, Funk, & Hornby, 2009). If
customers want to purchase the tickets to watch the game, they are able to
make the ticket purchase through online. The sports organizations utilize the
Internet as a main resource in connecting and communicating with the fans
throughout the world (Filo, Funk, & Hornby, 2009). The key for sports marketing
is fan loyalty. Bee and Havitz (2010) emphasized that loyalty to a sports team is
more extreme than loyal to any typical product because it tends to be more
intense and long term (Bee and Havitz, 2010). Sports organizations seem to
understand about the customers. The customers are the sports fans. In order to
satisfy the customers, sports organizations have the ability to serve them by
bringing products (athletes) to perform on the stage in front of customers (fans).
When the customers have their athlete favorites, they tend to purchase products
such as team jerseys. According to Meir and Scott (2010), they described the
loyalty of fans as a tribal tendency. Meir and Scott (2007) mentioned that a tribe
is a group of people who are united by a shared passion, similar to a family
community. The sports marketers understand that the sports fans are in turn
marketing to them as a whole to increase loyalty (Meir & Scott, 2007).

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2.4 Social Media

The organizations utilize two-way communication such as social media platforms
to share, interact, and communicate directly with the customers. Kaplan and
Haenlin (2010) add that all social media divide into six different categories:
collaborative projects (e.g., Wikipedia), blogs, content communities (e.g.,
YouTube), social networking (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), virtual social worlds (e.g.,
Second Life), and virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft) (Kaplan and
Heanlin, 2010).
Kietsmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, and Slivestre (2011) claim that social media
are comprised of mobile and web technologies that provide interactive platforms
for the public to share, create, discuss, and modify content (Kietsmann,
Hermkens, McCarthy, and Slivestre, 2011). The researchers create the
framework of a social media honeycomb. The researchers define social media
honeycomb framework as social media platforms through the level of emphasis
on seven functional building blocks: identity, conversation, sharing, presence,
relationships, reputation, and groups (Keitsmann et. al, 2011). With the
combination of social media into current business tasks, Li and Bernoff claimed
that firms can now more efficiently listen, talk, energize, support, and embrace
their audience and their ideas (Li and Bernoff, 2011). The traditional method of
advertising has been decreasing. According to Mangold and Faulds (2009),
effective marketing and communications are navigating away from traditional
methods of advertising, resorting to social media as a trustworthy source
(Mangold and Faulds, 2009). The company or organization begins to understand
that their communication and marketing ability through old traditional media is
declining. There is an amplified increase in consumer conversations and a
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decrease in a companys direct control over its brands conversation (Mangold &
Faulds, 2009). The scholars believe that it is significant for companies or
organizations to remain active in monitoring and participating in the social media
dialogues (Mangold & Faulds, 2009).
The organizations need to create the methods of how to use social media to
communicate with the customers. With the effort of communicating with the
customers, Mangold and Faulds (2009) categorize nine methods that business
uses social media successfully: (1) provide networking platforms, (2) use blogs
and other social media tools to engage customers, (3) use both traditional and
Internet-based promotional tools to engage customers, (4) provide information,
(5) be outrageous, (6) provide exclusivity, (7) design products with talking points
and consumers desired self-images in mind, (8) support causes that are
important to consumers, and (9) utilize the power of stories. These are the
communication methods that customers want and need from the organizations.

2.5 Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of
your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like
incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they
could have a noticeable impact on your site's user experience and
performance in organic search results.

2.6 Conclusion
Internet marketing becomes very important tools for sports consumers. The
findings assisted us to understand the importance and role of utilizing Internet
marketing, relationship marketing, and social media to interact and communicate
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with the sports consumers. Today, sports organizations have the ability to access
social media for marketing purposes such as promoting products, services, and
brands to sports consumers. In addition, sports organizations utilize social media
for marketing strategy. Social media provides sports organization the opportunity
to enhance relationship marketing with sports consumers. Therefore sports
consumers would be delighted and satisfied with sports organization that
provided consumers need and want.

3. Methodology
3.1 Research Design
The research undertaken by me was basically a descriptive research. I was given
the task to analyse the behaviour of the users visiting our website and based on
the conclusions, different marketing strategies were to be implemented.

3.2 Data collection methods

Primary data: Primary data was available from the Google analytics tool both for
the website as well as the blog. The data available contained both historic data of
the blog and also the real time data.
Secondary data: Before implementing any promotion campaign or starting to
publish articles for the blog a detailed secondary research on behaviour of the
general users was done with help of Google analytics, a detailed research on
most searched keywords was done in order to provide the content on the blog
with better focus keywords and Meta keywords.

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3.3 Sampling
The total number of users visiting the blog in the time period between April 6,
2015 and June 5, 2015 were considered as a sample and this data was readily
available from Google analytics.

3.4 Analysis
3.4.1 Users

Figure 3.5

The total number of users during the tenure of the project was around 30500
users. Generally in a one weeks period a spike in number of users was observed
on Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays. The highest spike was observed on
Wednesday but that was due to a paid promotion campaign on social media and
the other spike in the number of users was generally observed on the above
mentioned days.
3.4.2 Bounce Rate and average session duration

Figure 3.2

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From the above figure we can see that the bounce rate is 69.52%. Here bounce rate
means the number of users who leave the page immediately after entering the page.
The average session duration is around 1:58 min which is decent considering its a
fairly new blogging site. But coming to the bounce rate, it is too high for a blog which
was a matter of concern.
3.4.3 New sessions

Figure 3.3

Since the blog was a fairly new blog percentage of new visitors is expected to be
high. And we were able to draw around 73.4% new visitors in the given period of
time. The percentage of new sessions was also around 73.16% which is again
expected from a new blogging site.
3.4.4 Demographics
Age

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Figure 3.4

It was observed that around 61% of the traffic came from the age group 18-34.
This particular data was helpful in deciding the target audience for the promotion
of blogs on Facebook for paid promotion.
Gender

Figure 3.5

Here we can see that the percentage of male users was dominating not by much
though. The reason behind this was that most of the male users are both interested
in fitness and sports hence the number of male users is dominating here. The gap
between male and female users is less because of the presence significant number
of female users looking for content related to fitness.
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Interest
From the following figure we can see that the interests of the users varied over a
large number of varieties. Some of the significant percentages can be seen in the
following figure.

Figure 3.6

Here we can see that about 5.5% of the people interested in sports were visiting
the blog. This number started off with around 2% during the beginning stages of
the project but later on the number increased to 5.5% which means the targeting
for the promotion on social media especially from Facebook was showing positive
results though not a significant increase.

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3.4.5 Location

New users (%)

New users (%)

42.41

26.77

7.13
0.85

2.09

1.93

1.41

1.34

1.01

0.92

Figure 3.7

The highest number of users was from India which was the target location. Here
the term not set means that particular data is not from one specific region but
from a collection of regions. The percentage of Indian users was around 42.41
which are twice that of from US. Now looking at the distribution of users across
different parts of India.

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New users (%)

New users (%)
27.77

5.86

New Delhi Bangalore

5.18

Chennai

1.46

0.89

Hyderabad

Pune

3.36
Mumbai

Figure 3.8

It was observed that most of the traffic was drawn from Delhi with Bangalore and
Chennai drawing almost same percentage of traffic. Hence there was a need to
increase traffic from other regions as well and strong promotion was required for
this purpose in these regions.
3.4.6 Acquisition

Figure 3.9

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Acquisition means how the users get to any website. Here the blog has been
considered. For any website/blog users coming directly to the site are valued
more as that shows that the site has a good presence in the minds of the users.
Over here the direct acquisition is 47.7 % which can be considered as decent as
the blog is fairly new.
The second highest is through social media, the break up of social can be seen
in the next figure. Here organic means that users have visited the site based on
search results in Google. Here the on-page SEO plays an important role as it is
responsible for the visibility of the site on Googles search results.
Referral is basically through the backlinks created on the other websites.

Users (%)
Users (%)

85

Facebook

7.8

3.5

3.3

Twitter

Quora

Google+

Figure 3.10

Here we can see that the highest traffic through social media is from Facebook.
Hence Facebook was the primary option for promotion and to attract users to the
blog.

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3.4.7 Device

Share (%)
Share (%)
67.72

30.38

1.7
Desktop

Mobile

Tablet

Figure 3.11

This particular statistic helps in designing the blog. Here we can see that majority
of the users prefer desktop over mobile and tablet, it should also be noticed that
mobile has a 30.38% share which is a significant number. This shows that the
blog has to be designed in such a way that it easily viewed on a mobile screen
and desktop as well. The figure below shows the share of the mobile operating
systems.

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Share (%)
Share (%)
64.64

29.21

2.82
Android

IOS

Windows

Figure 3.12

4. Results
The following results were achieved at the end of the project.

A direct traffic of about 47% was achieved.

A significant number of 30000 users were achieved in the course of two

months.
A better understanding of the behaviour of the users visiting the site has
been attained which helps in targeting the users online through different
social media platforms.

5. Conclusion and suggestions

Digital marketing is an umbrella term for the targeted, measurable, and
interactive marketing of products or services using digital technologies to reach
consumers. The key objective was to promote the brand Playnlive through the
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blog and develop a huge user base. As already mentioned content is one of the
most important factors for increasing the visibility of the site on Google search
results. It is a very effective way of segmenting and targeting the users as
Google analytics gives us the historic data and the marketing plans can be made
accordingly.
Its clear then that whichever Digital Marketing tool we use will depend on your
overall marketing goals. For high profile brands and athletes, engaging with fans
and being on-brand is of paramount importance, whilst for smaller teams, clubs,
retailers and sports businesses, social media as well as search engine marketing
seems to be a no brainer if you want to enhance brand awareness and exposure
within the search engines.
Since Playnlive.com is a start up most of the promotion activity was to create
brand awareness among the online users.
Suggestions:
The following changes and additions to the site can bring in more users:

Increasing the number of links within the site as Google ranks the sites

higher with many unique links.

Submitting the articles in Stumbleupon as it is trending worldwide for

users who read random stuff.

Promoting the blog through emails. Send mass emails and try to attract

the users to the site.

Submitting the posts to reddit will also bring in a lot of traffic.
Creating a top 10 post. Selecting the best articles and write a blog about

it.
Creating viral posts will help generate traffic.

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6. Limitations
The following are the limitations:

This particular sector is highly unorganized hence it becomes difficult to

market the product online.

Since Playnlive.com is a start up, theres always a limitation on budget

and other resources.

Any blog requires around 3-4 months generating a huge user base but
due to the time frame of only 2 months a significantly large number of
users could not be attracted.

7. Further scope
Looking at the increasing number of health conscious people in India, the
company has good scope as more and more people would like to get into
various fitness activity and as the site provides easy access to the information
and a booking option it wpuld work out in an amazing way. People also like to
read a lot about health and nutrition, keep themselves updated about different
sporting events around the world and this can be fulfilled by the blog and the
traffic from blog can be driven towards the parent website.

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8. Annexure
8.1 General Tables

Country vs New users

Sl
num
1
2
3
4
5
6

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Countr
y
India
US
not set
Russia
UK
Germa

New users
(%)
42.41
26.77
7.13
0.85
2.09
1.93

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ny
7 China
8 France
9 Japan
Indone
10 sia

1
2
3
4
5
6

New users
(%)
27.77
5.86
5.18
1.46
0.89
3.36

Social
Media
Facebook
Twitter
Quora
Google+

Users (%)
85
7.8
3.5
3.3

Device
Desktop
Mobile
Tablet

Share (%)
67.72
30.38
1.7

Device vs New user

Sl
num

City
New
Delhi
Bangalor
e
Chennai
Hyderab
ad
Pune
Mumbai

Social media vs New user

Sl
num

0.92

City vs New user

Sl
num

1.41
1.34
1.01

Mobile OS vs New user

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Sl
num

OS
Android
IOS
Windows

Share (%)
64.64
29.21
2.82

8.2 References

http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article=1049&context=sport_undergrad accessed on April 16, 2015.

http://www.jamaalbrown10.com/files/73465703.pdf accessed on April 16,

2015.
http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//webmast
ers/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf accessed on April

18, 2015.
http://www.koozai.com/blog/branding/how-digital-marketing-is-changing-

the-sports-industry/ accessed on April 18, 2015.

http://www.businessinsider.in/Fitness-Industry-Perched-For-A-Soaring-

Take-off-In-India/articleshow/45907784.cms accessed on April 19, 2015.

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/indias-fitness-and-wellness-industry-

is-blossoming/1/201850.html accessed on April 25, 2015.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-0719/news/32747359_1_sports-equipment-apparels-online-retailers

accessed on April 30, 2015.

http://yourstory.com/2015/04/sports-startups-in-india/ accessed on May 3,

2015.
http://boostblogtraffic.com/ accessed on May 3, 2015.
http://inc42.com/startups/playnlive/ accessed on May 9, 2015.
http://inc42.com/startups/fitho-startup-helps-knock-extra-poundscustomised-diet-plans/ accessed on May 11, 2015.

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http://www.vccircle.com/news/technology/2015/03/10/gym-fitness-centresdiscovery-site-fitraq-raises-150k-nccbs-tarun-arora accessed on May 11,

2015.
http://indianbizparty.com/startup-stories/playnlive accessed on May 13,

2015.
https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag accessed on May 13, 2015.
http://www.webconfs.com/importance-of-backlinks-article-5.php accessed

on May 15, 2015.

http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/properly-seo-functionswordpress-posts/ accessed on May 19, 2015.

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