What’s That Again?: De-Mystifying SEO Terms
Keeping with our theme, we’re moving on to search engine optimization key terms – and de-mystifying the real meaning behind the jargon. Thought to be less analytical than pay-per-click advertising, SEO is actually very quantifiable; but the trick is to know what the data means and how to translate that data into useful information for your business. If you’re jumping into SEO for the first time, or have been a regular player, we’re hoping that our top ten SEO terms below will clear up any confusion behind the terms.
1. Algorithm
Appropriately enough, we’ll start with the foundation of search engine optimization. Algorithms are the formulas that search engines use to rank websites. What is the algorithm? Well, that remains proprietary to each search engine, but SEO Specialists know the contributing factors that go into algorithms, and, juggling the factors just right, can lead websites to top ranking success.
2. HTML
This stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. HTML takes plain text and adds special formats that give the text web functionality. HTML is considered to be the foundation of web development.
3. Spider
Aka “Bot” aka “crawler”, these can be a verb or noun. A spider is a robot that is used by search engines in order to find, and index, website pages for its directory or index. A site with indexed pages has been “spidered”, or “crawled”.
4. Index
Another verb/noun combo. To index is to add a website page into a search engine’s database. An index is a search engine’s collection of website pages.
5. Landing Page
A specific, targeted page that a user will be sent to when they click on your link from the SERP. Landing pages are used to deliver targeted traffic to the appropriate page in efforts to deliver the most relevant content (and products and services) to potential customers.
6. Authority
Used as a synomym for trust, search engine authority is built from building relationships with other websites using link building strategies. By having other, relevant and trusted, websites linking to your site, search engines understand your site to be credible. Lots of authority = good rankings!
7. Link Building
Developing, and deploying, a strategy that promotes link sharing. Best done with a cautious step, link building is like associating yourself with particular crowds. Like your mom always said “your friends represent you, choose wisely!”. On the internet, your links represent your website, so you want to be selective.
8. Bounce Rate
The percentage of people who land on your website, don’t visit any pages, and then leave. Bounce rates can tell you a lot about the page that you are sending website traffic to; a high bounce rate can mean that you need to use landing pages to funnel traffic around your website to relevant pages.
9. CMS (Content Management System)
This refers to the system that manages your website’s information. Your webmaster and SEO Manager will move and manipulate the data within your website’s CMS when making changes, publishing pages, and editing the code for your site.
10. Black Hat
Refers to super-sneaky search engine optimization tactics that go against industry-accepted best practices. Black Hat tactics range from keyword stuffing, spamming, and deploying all sorts of nasty tricks in order to get high SERP rankings in a quick fashion. The problem is, search engines are on guard for these tricks and trusting your website to a SEO manager who engages in black hat techniques can carry huge consequences like permanent low rankings and even banishment from search engines. The best defense against black hat SEO users? Know your SEO pro!
There are a host of other SEO industry terms that can really seem like a futuristic foreign language. When you’re investing time to optimize your business’ website using SEO, take the time to educate yourself with the most common industry terms, and build your knowledge base. The best SEO managers will break down the jargon into digestible concepts, but when you’re on your own reviewing the analytical reports for your SEO strategy performance you’re going to want your own internal dictionary to pull from. Want more SEO education? NetSearch Direct has a lot of options for you: our website is chock full of SEO-themed newsletters and blog content, we host FREE seminars which help you get the most out of SEO for your business, and we have in-house experts who are glad to take your questions via email or phone call. Don’t get lost in a sea of SEO words – let us help!