Definition of Search Engine Optimization
SEO is the application of best practices in copywriting, linking, outreach, design and development that helps propel your website to the first search result pages served up by Google and other search engines. i.e. how to get found online.
Learn SEO with our Glossary of Terms
Maybe you’ve heard of SEO but you aren’t comfortable flinging around all those Internet marketing terms yet. If so, we offer the following glossary to help you get started.
Anchor Text: The words that are hyperlinked to another web page (your site or another site); anchor text is the display copy that appears on your page, usually underlined or appearing in a different color than rest of the text. (E.g. the anchor text in this paragraph is: “hyperlinked to another web page”.)
Black Hat SEO: Bad, unethical ways to drive traffic to your site - which Google and the other search engines hate and will penalize you for. Stick with credible SEO providers who know what they’re doing.
Blogging: The now practice of posting opinions and news to a simple web platform, for which software is available for free. Corporate blogging is beginning to gain momentum as a way to reach potential customers, foster loyalty/retention in existing customers, for crisis communications and as a powerful way to increase one’s search engine rankings.
Domain name: Also known as the URL or website address. In the case of the site you’re on right now, the domain name is WritingSEO.com.
External Links: Hyperlinks out to other websites and/or blogs. Good best practice to have at least one external link per web page, with a focus on “authority sites” that Google deems worthy (e.g. sites that end in org, .gov and .edu).
Extranet: A website that is accessible to external parties - business partners, clients, distributors, suppliers - generally organized in “silos” so that each party cannot see the content of the others’ extranets.
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions - Google considers the FAQ page an indicator of a credible website.
Forums: Also known as chat rooms and news groups. Users register/login and leave comments in discussion ‘threads’ about various topics. Forums are a powerful way to get customer feedback, but requires moderation to keep out crackpots.
Google AdWords: The practice of buying traffic to your site by bidding on various keywords (search terms) so that your site appears in Google search results. Effective marketing spend IF complimented by efforts to boost organic traffic, which SEO does.
Google Analytics: Free web-based metrics tool that tracks number of visitors to your site along with other data such as referring links, exist/entry pages to your website, etc.
Google Juice: The amount of ‘love’ the biggest search engine give you based on the number and quality of inbound links, regular addition of content and other factors. Google represents its “juice” with its Page Rank ( 0 to 10) for each of your web pages.
Inbound Links: Those links that are coming into your website from other sites; also known as “trackbacks.”
Internal Links: Those links on your web pages that click through to another page on your own website. Excellent way to drive traffic deeper into your site and learn more about you.
Intranet: A website that is accessible only to a select group of people, usually employees at a company. An intranet may be supplanted by a wiki (see definition below).
Keywords: Words or phrases that people are using as search terms when looking for a specific topic. Extensive keyword research is of vital importance before writing a website.
Keyword Mapping: A written plan of which keywords will be used on each page of a website, and all the variations of those keywords to be used on that page.
Keyword Stuffing: Bad practice of adding a long list of keywords/phrases into your meta-content (in source code of the website) in the hopes of getting more search engine traffic. It does not work; Google will penalize sites that practice keyword stuffing.
Link Building: The practice of building relationships with other bloggers, website administrators and forum moderators to get your site noticed and, ideally, have them create inbound links to your website.
Meta-content: The technical details behind each page of a website (source code); items such as title tags, meta-descriptions, H1, H2, etc.
Microblogging: The fairly recent trend of posting very brief content online; best example is Twitter (which is more fully described below).
Organic Traffic: People who find your website ‘naturally,’ i.e. they have chosen to visit and have found you by either Googling, clicking on one of their bookmarks, or typing in your URL after a word-of-mouth referral. Organic, or natural, traffic are the ideal type of visitors since they will stick around your site and more likely turn into sales leads.
Paid Traffic: People who are driven to your website because you’ve bought keywords (see Google AdWords above), so that whenever someone types in those keywords, your website is placed among the first offerings. Not as successful as organic traffic since these visitors rarely stick around and spend time on your site.
Page Rank: A numerical value that Google assigns to each page of your website that indicates whether it is a strong or weak page (0= no one links to it and/or content is poor; 10= love it!)
RSS: Also known as ‘news feed,” subscription feed (acronym is “really simple syndication” referring to the ease with which one can receive updates from websites). RSS feeds are commonly offered, but sadly not yet fully embraced by business yet. (Email notifications remain more popular.)
RSS Feed Readers: These are free online services that let you easily add the subscription feed from a website or blog to your own personal collection of updates. The most popular RSS feed readers include Google Reader and Bloglines.
Site Stickiness: The qualities and level of interactivity that encourages visitors to “stick” around a website. (e.g. videos to watch, podcasts to listen to, blogs to comment on, PDFs to download, items to review, vote on, etc.)
Social Media: The burgeoning area of online activities that involve community and social networking. Biggest examples are Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogging, forums and wikis.
SMO: Social Media Optimization. The application of best practices in social media (blogs, wikis, Twittering, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and other social-networking sites) to optimize your website for increased traffic and engagement. Also a form of online marketing by tapping into the grassroots movement online, and maximizing “crowdsourcing” (using the collective wisdom and power of the masses to promote your brand).
SERPs: Search Engine Result Pages, served up to online seekers by Google and the other search engines. You want to be on SERP #1, definitely never farther back than the 3rd SERP. (Beyond that, forget about it. Nobody’s going to scroll through that many websites to find what they want.)
SEM: Search Engine Marketing. This term generally refers to the practice of buying traffic - via Google AdWords - to come to your site. Your marketing department pays a price for the keywords (search terms) they expect people will use to find their information. The cost of those keywords depends on demand by competitors buying traffic.
Site Map: The taxonomy of all the pages of a website, hyperlinked and laid out in a clear fashion that maps out your content. A site map is useful for website visitors navigating their way around your site, and it is a feature deemed critical by Google and other major search engines.
Technorati: Website that measures the popularity of blogs, based on how many other blogs link to them; a good resource for finding blogs related to specific topics. (Also try Google Blog Search.)
Twitter: An increasingly popular form of microblogging: basically, to “twitter’ is to put very short blog posts online via a form of IM (instant messaging). Useful tool for crisis corporations for educational institutes and businesses under siege.
Vertical Search Engines: Industry-specific search engines that, although with smaller databases than Google, can bear excellent search results for B2B and B2C information seekers.
Web 2.0: Trendy buzzword for all things online that are beyond Web 1.0 - the first 10 years of the Internet best described as “electronic brochure.” Web 2.0 is all about community, interaction, engagement, conversation, collaboration, personal empowerment.
Wiki: A form of communication that allows everyone with access to add content and edit each other’s content. Most famous example: Wikipedia.
White Hat SEO: Ethical practices to advance search engine optimization that Google smiles upon; you will be the “good guy” and granted top rankings as a result.
Don’t really understand another SEO or Web 2.0 term that’s not listed here? Please email writingSEO so we can help.
