Search engine optimisation (SEO) is essential for any business with an online presence. You see it’s all about getting your website to rank ahead of the competition for the search terms your customers and prospects will be using. To help you optimise your website and strengthen your online presence, we’ve put together a dictionary of search engine optimisation fundamentals to help you stay on top of all the phrases, abbreviations and acronyms being used in the SEO world today.
Your A-Z of Basic SEO Lingo
Algorithm
This is a computer program used by Google and other search engines to determine exactly which pages to show for each query.
Backlink
Simply an incoming link from one website to another.
Content
This is the copy or text on your web pages that aims to capture the interest of your site visitor and add value.
Duplicate content
Content that is similar or identical to that of another website or page (whilst a site may not be penalised for this, original content will always be trusted more by search engines).
Ecommerce sites
Websites devoted to retail sales.
Feed Content
Content delivered to each user through special websites or programs e.g. news aggregators.
Gateway page
A Gateway or Doorway page refers to a web page designed to attract traffic from one search engine and redirect it to another site or web page.
Hub
A highly trusted page with quality content linked to other related pages.
Impression
This refers to the page view i.e. the time where a user views a webpage once.
Keyword research
The process of using online tools to research which keywords should be targeted for a certain webpage.
Landing page
The exact page a user arrives at (lands on) when they click on a link in their search engine results page (SERP)
Meta description
A short description about a particular site page that appears in search results underneath that page’s title.
Natural search results
Genuine search engine results i.e. not sponsored or paid for in any way.
Organic links
Links that are published because the webmaster believes they add value to the user.
PPC
Stands for pay-per-click which is an advertisement scheme where advertisers pay add agencies (such as Google) whenever a user clicks on their advertisement e.g. Adwords
Reciprocal link
Two sites which link to each other (also known as link partner or link exchange) that search engines don’t always place high value on due to the reciprocal nature of the link.
Sitemap
A sitemap helps tell search engines how a site is organised by acting as a list of all the pages on your website that are accessible to users and the search engine crawlers
Time on page
Time on page stats help you assess the quality and relevance of your page content as it refers to how much time a visitor spends on a page before clicking off.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator i.e. your website address.
Webmaster Tools
This free tool from Google lets you monitor which keywords have been used when your site shows up in search results and lets you see how your website is performing in Google searches.
Zero match anchor text
This is referring to anchor text, for example, learn more or click here.
For help making sense of SEO for your business, speak to the Web & Digital experts at your local Kwik Kopy today.
