SEO Glossary
Search Rankings - What Does It All Mean?
In today's world, a good website is not enough. As services rely more and more on being at the top of a search query, our websites and content have to do a large amount of work to remain at the top of sites like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. A Search Engine Bot, or a website crawler, is deployed multiple times a day so that search query websites can bring customers to the best website possible in just a matter of seconds.
These Search Engine Bots rely on a variety of factors to decide if a website is worthy enough to send their customers (the person searching for a product or service) to. These include, but are not limited to, bots and crawlers, user experience, backlinks, keyword stuffing, search engine ranking pages, local packs, and much more!
So, what do all these terms mean? Below is a glossary of SEO terms that have an affect on your website rankings.
Alt Text (Alternative Text)
A website image has an alt tag associated with it. The alt tag provides a textual description of the image. Used by screen readers to help people who are visually impaired and by search engines to determine which websites appear at the top of search results.
Anchor Text
A text link that points to another page on your website or to another website. Anchors can be used in different ways, including for navigation within your own site, linking to other websites, internal bookmarks, and so on.
Backlinks
When a website links to your website, Google's algorithm considers it a sign of confidence. The level of authority of the linking website determines the amount of link equity passed on to your website. Backlinks are a significant factor that affects search engine optimization rankings.
Blog Posts:
Having a blog post area of your website is more important than ever.
Bots (Crawlers or Spiders)
A bot is an automatic program that reads web pages to gather information for proper indexing by search engines. Bots may also be used to test whether a website works properly when accessed through a certain browser or device.
Bounce Rates
Bounce rates are a way to calculate how often users come to a certain page (or your website) before leaving immediately. In short, a high bounce rate at your website is not what we want to see. Search engine crawlers will note that if a page has a high bounce rate, that users are coming to that page and not finding what they are looking for. With more content and high impact videos, you can keep users at your website for longer, which makes your website look better!
Branded Keyword
When a user‘s query includes an exact or similar match of a specific company or product name.
Breadcrumb
A navigational element used to help users navigate through a website.
Broken Links
Broken links are links on a website that do not lead to any specific page or destination. This looks, more often than not, like some sort of "Oops, this page doesn't exist anymore!" type of error message. User experience is very important when it comes to website rankings. If a search query leads a user to pages on your website, and then they are unable to navigate due to broken links, website crawling bots are going to pick up on that.
Business Listings and Directories
The online equivalent of the Yellow Pages. Each business listing directory contains an index of companies listed alphabetically by industry. Individual entries are linked to the corresponding company website.
Business Listing means a business entity detailed by but not limited to: name, address, phone numbers, email, website address, hours of operation, description texts, images, video, deals, possible service links and such related information as related to a Business Listing of the YP Customer.
Ultimate List of 50 Local Business Directories
Online Classifieds
Websites that have advertisements offering services or products to others. In this way, people can benefit from both the sides of the transaction by logging in to online classifieds, reading the classified and replying to it
Disavow Bad Links
If your link profile contains a large number of spammy, unnatural, or low-quality backlinks that may be hurting your rankings, and you don't have the ability to remove them for a legitimate reason. Google's Disavow Tool can assist in removing these links
Domain Authority
DA, or Domain Authority, is a search engine ranking algorithm created by Moz. It is used to forecast the probability of a page ranking for particular keywords. The score ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating a greater potential for your site to rank.
Domain Authority (DA) and link equity are interchangeable terms that refer to the authority a website gains through backlinks.
Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is content that is repeated across multiple URL's on a single website. Search engine bots can confused as to what pages to rank higher for certain search queries. This means that internet users could end up at the wrong page and not find the proper service that you provide.
External Links
A link that directs users to a different website than the one they were viewing.These links improve ranking by improving link equity based upon trustworthiness, relevance, popularity, and anchor texts used.
Featured Snippet
A featured snippet is an excerpt of text that appears at the top of a search results page. It's called "position zero" because it appears in the first position on the page.
Google Business Profile (GBP)
Formerly known as Google My Business (GMB) - Optimizing your GBP/GMB listing, a vital component of local SEO, can increase your chances of appearing in the Google Local Pack, gaining prominent visibility in local search results.
Internal Links
On the same site, internal links link pages to each other. Internal linking is important because:
They help users navigate a site
To help search engines find every page on your site
For search engines to be able to understand the structure of your site, they need to know what each page is for.
Spreads link equity across a site
Keywords
Also known as a search keyword or keyphrase, refers to a specific word or phrase that represents the main idea or topic of a web page's content. In the context of search engine optimization (SEO), keywords are the terms or phrases that users enter into search engines when looking for information, products, or services.
Keyword Stuffing
An outdated SEO practice in which webmasters or content creators excessively and unnaturally use keywords or phrases in their content, with the sole purpose of manipulating search engine rankings. It involves overloading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to deceive search engines
Link Equity / Link Juice
Domain Authority (DA) is a metric used to determine a website's reliability. The quantity and quality of links from authoritative and relevant websites directly impact the site's link equity or domain authority. This concept is also referred to as 'link juice'.
Local pack
Typically, three local business listings that appear before the organic search results for local-intent queries such as “car batteries near me.”
Long-tail keywords
Search terms typically having more than two or three words. These terms have a low search volume, but they're specific and more likely to turn into sales.
Meta Description
Appears at the bottom of a webpage's search result listing, describing the page and enticing visitors to click. It's usually between 150 and 160 characters long.
Mobile-First Indexing
Due to the increase in mobile traffic, Google focuses on crawling and indexing the mobile version of websites. Failure to optimize your site for mobile devices may result in lower search engine rankings.
The best way to optimize a website is to use responsive web design. This means that every page has its own unique URL, but if someone visits the site via their phone or tablet, they’ll see everything in one place.
This also makes it easier for you to track your audience and measure how effective your content is at driving traffic and conversions.
Plus, mobile users are more likely than desktop users to share content on social media. So having a responsive website will help you increase engagement with your brand.
Off-Page SEO
An important part of SEO is building links to your site.
Examples of Off-Page SEO tactics include:
Creating valuable content that other sites would want to link to
Outreach to relevant & authoritative sites to promote content
Guest blogging
On-page SEO is a crucial aspect of search engine optimization that involves optimizing various elements on a webpage, such as the copy, title tags, meta descriptions, heading tags, URLs, and image alt text, to integrate target keywords effectively.
Online Classifieds
Websites that have advertisements offering services or products to others. In this way, people can benefit from both the sides of the transaction by logging in to online classifieds, reading the classified and replying to it
Organic Search
Search engine algorithms analyze and rank unpaid listings to provide users with relevant results based on their query in organic search results on a SERP.
Page Speed
The loading time of a web page is crucial for a positive user experience, and is also a significant factor in search engine rankings. A fast loading time is recommended for inbound links to avoid customer wait times.
Query
Online search terms refer to the words, phrases, or questions used to find information.
SERP
Search Engine Results Page.Displays website ranking on a (SERP) for a particular keyword
Search Engine Results Page.Typically, search engines show about 10 organic search results, sorted by relevance. Depending on the query, other search features may be shown, including:
Ads (above and below the organic search results)
Featured snippets (a.k.a., Position Zero)
Images
Knowledge panels
Local Pack (with map)
News
Related questions
Related searches
Shopping results
Sitelinks
Tweets
Videos
Short-Tail Keywords
Search terms with one word or two words. The terms are very general with low search intent and highly competitive, and are hard to rank for.
Target Keywords
The words or phrases a webpage is meant to rank for. When optimizing a web page for search engines, it is best to focus on a few target keywords.
Title Tag
The title tag of an HTML webpage provides both search engines and users with the page's title, and appears as a clickable blue link in search results. To achieve optimal results, it is recommended to optimize title tags with relevant keywords.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The web address of each page on a website