You may be hesitant to step into the world of SEO and SEO. Fear no more. Today’s post will help industry newcomers, small business owners, and other audiences understand the common jargon you may hear from an SEO consultant. Sure, there may be some slight disagreement to some of the descriptions, but that’s not uncommon for such a detailed subject matter. We encourage you to post your comments or questions below this post, and we’ll get back to you with engaging conversations and answers. Without further ado, here are some words we found to be most important:
algorithm- A set of complex mathematical formulas a search engine uses to determine a website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERP).
alt text- A description of a graphic, which usually isn’t displayed to the visitor. Alt text is important because search engine spiders can read images, they can only read the alt text (or description) of the image. Alt text also helps visually challenged individuals to gain information about the layout of a webpage.
analytics- Data gathering and analyzing software focused on website usage. There are many analytics platforms on the market, and one of the most popular analytics platforms is Google Analytics.
anchor text- Usually hyperlink text used to link to another website, page, or section of a page. Anchor text is used in link building efforts and keyword placement in search engine optimization strategies.
authority- Also known as link juice, authority is the amount of trust a website is credited for a particular search query. Inbound links from trusted websites is a common way of building authority.
blog- A weB LOG that ideally presents authentic and original content to its end user, the reader. Blogging effectively for business can attract visitors to your site, improve your site ranking on SERPs, and build communities with similar interests. SEO Book is a great example of a blog for the SEO industry.
content- The text or copy that ideally has value and interest to the user.
conversion- Or goal, is an achievement made of a quantifiable goal on a website. Common types of conversions are contact form submissions, purchase on an ecommerce site, or phone call to a particular business.
crawler- A search engine algorithm, robot, or spider that “crawls” the Internet with the use of links.
directory- Ideally a site that allows web site submissions that are categorized and edited by humans, not automated scripts. Two of the most popular web directories are Yahoo! and DMOZ.
impression- Quantifiable data and event where a user views a webpage one time.
inbound link- Inbound links are links on related pages outside of your website; they are fed into your webpage and are most commonly the source of authority and PageRank.
indexed pages- Pages on your website that have been indexed or crawled by search engines.
keyword- The keyword or phrase that a user enters into a search engine. Keyword value in website optimization has a heavy weight in ranking factors. Your website’s content should contain keywords that are relevant to what you’re selling. Keywords are also very important in search marketing or PPC marketing.
landing page- The page that the users lands on when they click on a link in a SERP.
latent semantic indexing (LSI)- A factor considered by search engines to determine relevancy in a website. Search engines catalog words on your website that have common themes, like “movies” and “films,” and factor that into PageRank.
link building- Actively cultivating incoming links to a site.
long tail- These are keyword phrases that contain 3 or more words. Long tailed keywords are effective for ranking higher on phrases with less competition or cost.
meta tags- These are statements in the HEAD section of an HTML page are used to describe content of a webpage to a user or search engine. Although meta data isn’t heavily weighted by search engines, there is an importance of meta tags because it helps users that are searching for products and services that your company offers.
metric- A standard of measurement used by an analytics platform.
natural search result- Also referred to as an organic search result, these are search engine results which are not sponsored, or paid for in any way.
outbound link- A link on a webpage that goes out to a different website’s webpage
pagerank- A value assigned by the Google algorithm, which quantifies link popularity and trust among other factors.
search engine- A program that searches a document of group of documents for relevant matches of a users keyword phrase. The engine then returns a list of the most relevant matches to the user. Some common search engines are Google and Yahoo!.
search engine optimization (SEO)- The process of increasing the traffic to a particular website by achieving high rank in the SERPs. The higher a website ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that users will visit the site. Users are accustom to clicking listings that are high on SERPs, therefore high ranking in results is essential for obtaining traffic for a site. SEO consultants help to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the sire will be indexed and favorably ranked by search engines.
serp- Search Engine Results Pages
site map- A page or structured group of pages which link to every user to an accessible page on a website. An XML sitemap is often kept in the root directory of a site so that crawlers will have an easier time finding all of your web pages.