SEO Glossary
Index Chapter 1 1 4 A - G 2 5 3 6 2
1 SEO Glossary of Terms The arcane world of SEO is one of the easiest to be bamboozled for the unsuspecting small business owner. The stakes are high, there s no official university courses in SEO and the rules change every 6-months so it really is buyer beware. Unfortunately, its hard to know what you re buying most of the time. So we ve created a frequently asked questions to help explain some of the more difficult buzz words used in the world of SEO. 3
2 Internet Marketing Glossary Explaining Domain Authority Domain authority is a nominal measure of the power of a website out of 100 and is one of many search engine ranking factors. Domain authority is based on three factors: Age, Popularity, and Size. A new website will have a domain authority of 1, whilst huge websites such as The GAge newspaper have a Domain Authority of 91. Most small businesses generally have a ranking between 12-25. Once an SEO campaign has been running for 3 months or so the domain authority should increase to 25+. If a small business website has a domain authority over 35+ they are a well regarded website with a solid online profile. What are Google Mobile Search Rankings? As of August 2015 Google now treats people searching on a mobile phone different from visitors searching on a desktop computer. Often mobile search rankings are similar if a website is mobile responsive. However if a website is not mobile responsive rankings for Google mobile search will be significantly worse than the standard desktop search rankings. Google Analytics: Pages per session How many pages did each visitor go to when they visited your website. This is on a per session basis reset every 30 minutes if that user is idle on your site. Google Analytics: What is a Session? A session represents the number of individual visits all users have made to your website. Each session is reset every 30 minutes. Therefore a visitor viewing your website at 9am and then revisiting it at 3pm is counted as having 2 sessions. What is a Pageview? The number of different pages a visitor goes to when viewing your website. If a visitor goes from your homepage to your pricing page then your contact page this is registered as 3 pageviews. XML Sitemap XML Sitemap A list created in standard XML format of the pages you want search engines to find. White Hat SEO White hat SEO increasing your site s popularity and ranking through the use of ethical SEO practices. Webmaster Tools Webmaster Tools you can get additional information about your website status with tools such as Google Webmaster Tools or Bing Webmaster Tools. Traffic Generation Traffic Generation a marketing activity designed to increase the amount of traffic on a website. Target Audience Target Audience the demographic or group of people who would be interested in your product or service. 4
2 A - E Article Spinning Article Spinning taking an original or seed piece of content and spinning through the use of alternative words and sentences to produce new articles. This practice is not advisable. Site Audit Site Audit performing a review and analysis of site data to ensure smoother user experience and check for problems such as broken links. Search Engine Optimisation Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) optimising your site to gain a higher ranking in organic search engine results. Search Engine Marketing Search Engine Marketing (SEM) involves using search engines to reach your target audience. Rich Snippet Rich Snippet tags that are used to mark up specific data that Google uses to display in search results, such as a reviews and ratings and addresses and phone numbers. Return On Investment Return On Investment (ROI) percentage of profit made above your initial investment. If you invested $100 and earned $150, you would have a 50% return on your investment. PopUp Popup an obtrusive advertisement, banner or webpage that automatically triggers on top of the current web browser. Popunder Popunder an unobtrusive advertisement, banner or webpage that automatically triggers underneath the current web browser. Penguin (Google) Penguin Google Penguin update and penalty was introduced in April 2012 to target unnatural backlink profiles, g., purchased backlinks. Google Penalty Google Penalty a search engine penalty that may be applied either from an automated audit or manually after a site review. Pay Per Click Pay Per Click (PPC) the advertiser pays an amount for every click the advertisement receives, regardless of the outcome. Pay Per Action Pay Per Action (PPA) the advertiser pays when an action such as email subscriptions confirmed sales or inbound inquiries are completed. Panda (Google) Panda Google Panda update and penalty was introduced in February 2011 to target low-quality sites engaging in content duplication and negative SEO. Page Rank Page Rank this metric determines the authority ranking of a site or webpage based on incoming backlinks. Page Rank ranges from 0 (least important) to 10 (most important). Organic Link Organic Link a naturally created backlink from another website. 5
3 F - L Opt In Opt In when a user joins your mailing list or newsfeed. NoFollow NoFollow a tag that tells search engines to not follow or weight a link when calculating rankings. All paid, or affiliate links should have a nofollow Meta Title Meta Title the webpage title that is seen in the browser taskbar or search engine results. In this image it is the title : Make Your Mark. meta-description-example Meta Tags Meta Tags a collection of tags that serve different purposes, including Meta Title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords & Meta Robots. Meta Description example Meta Description the webpage description that appears in search engine results. meta-descriptionexample In this image it is the text At we love building, designing and promoting websites for all kinds of organisations. Made For Adsense Made For Adsense (MFA) websites purpose-built to make money through the Google Adsense program. Link Pyramid Link Pyramid a backlink structure in the form of the Pyramid with your website considered the peak. For example your website may have 50 links pointing to it; each of those 50 may have 100 pointing to them, and each of those 100 may have 200 pointing to them. Link Bait Link Bait a piece of content created to attract backlinks from other websites. Click Bait Click Bait a piece of content with an enticing header posing a question, created to make people click on a social media link to read an article elsewhere. Keyword Stuffing Keyword Stuffing overusing a keyword or phrase increase keyword density falsely. This type of SEO is bad practice and should be discouraged. Keyword Density Keyword Density this refers to the number of times (percentage) a keyword occurs within the text on a page. If you have 100 words and 5 are your keyword your keyword density is 5%. Keyword Keyword an important word or search term that you use to optimise and rank your website. See our indepth article on Keywords here... Inbound Link Inbound Link a backlink that points users to your website from another site. Hits Hits every time a user visits your site, a hit is recorded. Google Bot or Spider Google Bot search/ crawler software that indexes the web. 6
3 M - S Sales Funnel Sales Funnel usually involves multiple calls to action to encourage users to interact with a site and buy products or services. A predefined funnel will have multiple calls to action, g., navigate to internal pages > join newsletters > take a quiz > buy products, etc. Digital Footprint Digital Footprint every web user leaves data behind, and this data or footprint can be either active or passive. Passive footprints are collected without the user s knowledge tracking a user s IP address and web movements is the most common form. Active footprints are the result of actively sharing personal data on websites or social media. RSS Feed RSS stands for really simple syndication and is basically a simple way to view news and blog posts. RSS feeds are used regularly in automation programs. ebook Digital books that can be accessed in a variety of formats including PDF and for ebook readers like Kindle and Kobo Duplicate Content If two or more of your webpages feature duplicate or very similar content, this is classified as duplicate content and will earn your site a Google Panda penalty. Deep Linking A link created by you to an internal page of your website (excluding the homepage). Conversion A user is converted when they take up a CTA on your site. Conversions include a range of activities such as signing up to a newsfeed or email list, buying a product or downloading ebooks. Click Through Rate (CTR) measures the percentage of users who view and advertisement compared to the percentage who click on it. If your ad were seen 100 times and clicked on 80 times, you would have an 80% click-through Call To Action CTA words or buttons designed to encourage the site user to perform a particular For example, clicking on a link, leaving a comment or making a purchase. Broken Link- 404 Error A link that points the user to a nonexistent page and returns a 404 error. All links on your site should be regularly checked to avoid broken links. Black hat SEO Is a form of search engine optimization that often involves unethical practices and automated tools. Bounce Rate Bounce Rate is the percentage of people who leave a site without visiting other pages. The lower your bounce rate percentage, the better! Backlink When a website provides a link back to your site, or vice-versa. Only use backlinks from authoritative sites. 7
4 T - W Authority Domain Authority is the authority of your website is based on the analysis of data such as popularity, traffic, social media shares and so forth. A site with high volume traffic and a low bounce rate will have a high authority ranking. Analytics The collection and analysis of data from your website, including the number of visitors, time spent on pages etc., using Google Analytics. Affiliate An affiliate is a company or service that is connected/ affiliated to you. Affiliations usually involve commissionbased sales or advertising of goods and services. What s the difference between branding and a logo? Logos are a stand alone graphic interpretation of your business. Logos are vital as they will be used on your website, letterhead and business cards but branding is the full picture of your business. Effective branding ties your advertising, marketing and image together so clients understand wha your business is about what you stand for. Adwords A Google network that allows advertisers to place ads across Google products. Adsense An ad serving platform run by Google. You can use Adsense to create an income stream through ad placement on your site 8
Who we are We re a boutique digital agency based in Melbourne & Castlemaine, Australia. Over the last 8 years we ve worked with organisations big and small designing, building and marketing Australian businesses to the world. If you are a positive, driven person that loves what you do... then we want to work with you. hello@wepushbuttons.com.au (03) 9111 0042 0431 217 618 Level 17, 31 Queen St Melbourne 3000 PO Box 567 Castlemaine 3450 VIC www.wepushbuttons.com.au 9