Glossary for Essential SEO Terminology: 25+ Concept Cheat Sheet:

Feeling a bit lost in the heavy jargon when trying to learn the essentials of Search Engine Optimization? Want to realistically improve your viewership of your website? This glossary of terms will guide you through an essential understanding needed for Search Engine Optimisation terminology:

Backlink:

When another website has a link towards your own website. As an example, a person compiling a “Top 10 Hairdressers In Sydney” links towards your own website. This is important in terms of search engine optimisation as Google sees backlinks as a “vote of confidence” for the authority of a website. Backlinks are one of the key factors used to decide how high a page rank.

As an example, the website Hairdressers.com writing a “Top 10 Hairdressers in Sydney” page links towards your own website as part of the rankings.

Black Hat SEO:

Search engine optimisation techniques that circumvent Google’s search engine terms of services. This is to distinguish that are considered “bad practice” to apply, such as keyword stuffing and link farms. Google heavily penalises websites that apply Black Hat SEO techniques, as they violate their own terms of services and does not reflect actual authority of the website.

Crawler:

A third-party program that searches a website, collecting data such as pages, page speed, status codes and parts of the webpage, including meta-tags, titles, and text.

Deadlink:

A hyperlink that has errors connecting to a page or links to a webpage that is not active.

H1:

Also known as a heading, it signifies the largest text on a given web-page. Often, this is similar to the name of the actual website.

Hyperlink:

A word, phrase or image that links to any external media. For instance, clinking on a “Create Account” image of a webpage is a hyperlink from a front page to the “Create Account” page.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML):

The programming language used to specify the placement of text, images, media and links on a webpage.

Internal Link:

Any hyperlink that links to content that is part of the same platform.

Keyword:

A word or phrase that is relevant to a specific Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Keywords help identify what Google should show towards a webpage. An example of a keyword would be, on a pet shop website, the phrase “Guinea pig cage” is a keyword towards SERPs that come from searching “Guinea pig cage” and “small pet cage.”

Keyword Competition:

How difficult it is to rank in the top results of a Search Engine Results Page (SERPs). Typically, more common phrases are more competitive to rank it, as more webpages are moving to obtain the top position.

Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI):

An index that compares a specific keywords’ volume against its competition, to pick the most effective keyword for a website. Typically, KEIs are calculated are by dividing a keywords volume by it’s competition.

Keyword Relevancy:

How relevant any keyword has to the overall context of any webpage, especially regarding business activities. For instance, the keyword “renovation” to a construction business may be relevant due to offering services of renovation.

Keyword Stuffing:

Artificial placement of keywords that exist to boost placement in certain keyword searches on Google. An example, to rank in the term “barramundi,” you write the phrase “Doing barramundi fishing is the best way to catch barramundi. To catch barramundi, you must look at this guide specifically to catch barramundi.” Keyword stuffing is considered a form of “Black Hat SEO,” since it violates Googles terms of service by the way of increasing search ranking without improving overral quality of wordcount.

Keyword Volume:

The amount a specific word or phrase is searched on a search engine. More common phrases, such as “dog”, have higher search volume, than say “Labrador.”

Link Building:

The process of gaining links from other websites, in order to establish authority of a site includes link-for-link agreements, forums, blogger outreach.

Link-for-Link Agreements:

Link-for-link agreements involve agreements between two web-pages to link to each other, based on past relationships. For instance, asking a page displaying a custom-made car to link towards the mechanical shop responsible for it, and vice versa.

Long Tailed Keywords:

Keywords that specifically have low volume and low competition, when compared to relevant search terms. These long-tailed keywords maybe targeted for Search Engine Optimisation as they have less competition, when compared to other keywords.

Organic Traffic:

Any traffic to a webpage outside of artificial traffic results that may occur from Black Hat SEO. Organic traffic represents an estimate of real users travelling to a specific webpage.

Rankings:

The position of website on a search engine results page (SERP)>

Search Engine:

A website dedicated to searching for internet content based upon a criteria.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO):

Techniques for digital marketing to increase web traffic, visibility and conversion to sales of any specific webpage. SEO practices typically optimises for relevant keywords,

Search Engine Results Page (SERP):

A webpage that displays results of a search engines query. The goal of Search Engine Optimisation is to rank more highly in SERPs.

Search Query:

The process of typing a keyword into a search engine in order to find specific results, in the form of a Search Engine Results Page.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL):

An unique website address used to identify and access a specific website.

White Hat Search Engine Optimisation:

Search engine optimisation techniques that align with the interest of search engines. The search interests of showing the highest quality content without manipulation aligns with a range of SEO techniques.

To apply the most effective techniques for search engine optimisation, it’s always good to consult with a professional agency such as SocialMindr. Whilst this page has given SEO relevant terms to understand parts of it, proven professionals with a track record of success will mean that there is less stress and effort required to create an engaging and authoritative page.