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At its most basic, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In an age when people are searching for everything online to the point that Google has become a verb, improving your SEO means ensuring both that your website is set up to rank well on relevant web searches from potential customers and that it displays on the search engines in such a way that makes a customer likely to click on the link to your website.
SEO covers a wide variety of aspects of your website. Much of it is content based. You need to have robust content and it needs to be focused on the topic you want the individual page to rank for — although thankfully Google no longer rewards the sort of keyword-stuffed monstrosities that formerly might have driven traffic to your site but hurt the user experience once they were there. Helping inform this topic is semantic SEO, which goes beyond focusing on one keyword to improving content by looking at questions and other searches related to the keyword.
But there is also a technical side to SEO. Aspects such as page load speeds can impact rankings and broken links can decrease credibility. Some coding can also provide search engines with additional information about your business that it can show along with search results.
There are a lot of terms related to search engine optimization and digital marketing. Here is an overview of several of them broken down into categories.
Channels – The method in which a business reaches out to potential customers in digital marketing.
Content Marketing – A form of marketing in which a business will produce online content, such as blog posts, ads, and videos, in order to promote the business.
Keyword Research – The act of looking up and studying keywords in order to pick the one that will complement and benefit your website the best. These terms are words and phrases people would use to find your website on a search engine. You then implement the keywords on the website to increase traffic to your website.
Local SEO – This is SEO work performed on and off your website to improve your search results for a local service area. The desired result for local SEO is to show up in a Google 3 pack or map listing in the first three positions. This search result lets searchers know you are in their local area and will increase local search volume to your website.
Offsite SEO – Actions that are done outside of your website, such as someone adding a backlink to your website, that affects your SERP presence.
Onsite SEO – Improvements to your own website, such as to the design or content, that can improve your search engine ranking.
Optimization – The adjustment of an online campaign in order to try and produce the most beneficial results possible.
UX (User Experience) – A person’s emotions, attitudes, and responses to the design of a website and its various pages. Typically you will want a positive UX meaning people find your website easy to use and enjoyable to interact with.
Algorithms – Complicated mathematical formulas and processes used by search engines to pull specific information from their index. Among these is the algorithms used to determine in what order websites are displayed on the list after a user initiates a search.
Crawlers/Spiders/Bots – Search engines use these programs. They follow certain links on the web and gather information to create entries for a search engine index. If the crawlers cannot get to a page, or if there is coding on a page telling them not to put it in the search engine index, that page won’t show up in search results.
Hummingbird – Updates to the Google search algorithm that resulted in an increase in the speed and accuracy of search results, by taking into consideration the keywords as a whole instead of individually.
Knowledge Graph – A knowledge base used by Google to pull different pieces data together, such as people, places, and things, in order to create more relevant search results.
Panda/Penguin Updates – Updates to the Google Analytics algorithm that resulted in websites with low-quality links and content to receive a lower ranking.
SERP (Search Engine Results Page) – When a user searches for a word or phrase, this is the list of results that a search engine will display.
B2B (Business to Business) – A type of transaction in which one business will sell its goods and services to other businesses.
B2B2C (Business to Business to Consumer) – A type of transaction in which one business will sell its goods and services to other businesses, however, those goods and services will then be sold to consumers.
B2C (Business to Consumer) – A type of transaction in which one business will sell its goods and services directly to consumers.
Branded Keywords – Certain keywords or phrases, with little variations, used by search engines to identify different companies and brands.
Goals – A specific action/objective that betters a business.
Persona – A made up idea of what you would consider the ideal customer/target audience for your website that you can use base your research and campaign on.
These are bits of code or other items added to a page to provide information to the search engine.
Alt Text – A line of text which describes an image. This will appear if the image doesn’t load on the website.
Anchor Text – A clickable piece of text displayed as a hypertext link.
H1 Tag / H2 Tag – HTML tags used to define web page headers and organize them, starting with H1 as most important and then going on to H2 and on down through the numerals.
Meta Description – A short summary of the content of a webpage used by search engines to know what the content is about. Search engines also sometimes use the summary on their result pages.
Meta Tag – A form of HTML coding used to label webpages and their content. It directs search engines to certain pages websites.
Structured Data – Information arranged with a high degree of organization in order to process and analyze it more efficiently. Structured data added to websites can provide search engines with additional information about the site and its content.
Title Tag – A form of metadata that describes the contents of a page. Search engines use this as the “headline” for the page in search results.
UTM Code – A piece of coding attached to your custom URL can track different aspects of your website’s traffic — like source, medium, and campaign name — for analytics purposes.
These are terms related to statistics about website visits and if those are driving sales or leads to the business.
Analytics – The analysis of large sets of data typically used to help a business prosper.
Average Time on Page – The average amount of time a single user spends on given page or set of pages.
Bounce Rate – The rate at which people enter your website through one page and leave without visiting any others.
Conversions – A meaningful action that occurs when a visitor interacts with your website, such as filling out a form or purchasing a product. These interactions give you valuable information about your website.
Customer Segments – The process of dividing customers into groups based certain traits such as age, gender, interests, demographics, lifestyle, geography and spending habits
Entrances – A Google Analytics term used to describe the number of people visit your website through specific pages.
Exits (%) – The percentage of people who leave your website after visiting certain pages.
Goal Completion (Rate) – The rate at which people complete a specific marketing goal for your website.
Lead Source – The main source of where a lead originated from. This is not the way in which a business is informed about a lead.
Organic Traffic – People who find a website on their own and not through means of paid advertisements.
Page Views – The amount of visits a page or set of pages receive.
Pages per Visit – The average amount of pages visited by a single person on a visit to your website. You find this by dividing a site’s total pageviews by the total number of visits to the site.
Pages/Session – The number of times visitors who interact with your website within a given amount of time.
Reach – The number of people who have seen your website or one of your advertisement campaigns.
Referral Traffic – Visitors to your website from an outside source other than a search engine, such as an external link.
Return on Investment (ROI) – You calculate return on investment by dividing the value of a campaign by its cost.
Returning Visitors – Visitors to your website who visited your website in the past. Google tracks these either through a Google Analytics Cookie or other means.
Session – A collection of actions a user takes during one visit to a website. A session ends when a user leaves a webpage or after a specific period of inactivity.
Source – Where a website’s traffic initially started, such as from search engines or other web domains.
Time on Site – The average amount of time a visitor spends on a webpage while still being active.
Total Abandonment Rate – The rate at which a user started a conversion but did not complete it. You find it by dividing the total abandoned funnels by total goals started.
Traffic – The amount of people who visit a website within a given amount of time.
Unique Pageviews – The number of sessions in which users visit a specific webpage on a site.
Unique Visitors – The number of visitors to a website. Each visitor is only counted once over the period measured.
User Flow – A set of tasks users must follow on a website or app to complete some process.
Call Tracking – A form of software that allows companies to gather valuable information from incoming calls, such as the location the call originated from.
Domain Authority – A search engine ranking score developed by Moz that measures the power of a domain name. It affects which websites rank higher than others on search engine result pages.
Google Search Console – A service that allows a business to monitor its website’s performance as well as its status on Google Search results. It includes data on which pages are generating the most traffic and other useful data points.
Google Tag Manager – A code management platform used by digital marketers that allows them to easily update tags and piece of code for your website in one place. These tags then track interactions that users have with your website
Google Webmaster Tools – A tool provided by Google that allows users to identify issues that may be affecting your website.
Page Authority – The probability that a certain page on your website will be found in a search engine search result. It measures the relevance of the content on the page compared to other like pages.
Page Rank – A search engine ranking score developed by Moz that measures the authority of a domain name. It determines how a webpage will rank on a search engine compared to other web pages.
Backlinks or Inbound Links – Links from outside websites that link back to pages on your website.
External Links – A hyperlink used to take users to a different website. For example, an online store might have links to suppliers’ websites.
Link Building – This is the process of adding backlinks to your website from other websites that relate to your business or are relevant to your website in order to potentially improve your website’s ranking and increase traffic to your website.
Natural Link – Links that you did not ask for to your website put on other websites or blogs.
Outbound Links – A hyperlink on your website that leads to an outside website.
Black Hat SEO – SEO practices deemed unethical. They are used to try and trick search engines into giving you better results.
Keyword Stuffing – The practice of adding a large number of keywords to a webpage to improve a site’s ranking. This is no longer an acceptable way to optimize your website for search.
At team WTI, we know SEO. Contact us today for more information about how we can help improve your website’s search engine rankings.
Andy Snyder | Mississippi Valley Fair
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