Want to optimize your site? Having difficulty in understanding the industry jargons? Don’t worry, here we come up with a list of 50 important search engine optimization terms (with simplest definitions) which every marketer is required to know.
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404 Redirects:
It is quite often seen status code which demonstrates a user that requested page is “not found”. It should be changed to 301 or 302 redirects keeping in view of the fact it isn’t good for Search Engine Optimization and provide web users bad experience about a site.
302 Redirects:
It is also named as a temporary redirect, is required to be put in place if you desire to redirect your website users into another page however you plan to take the redirected page back after for a time. From SEO’s perspective it is used so that Google should understand it is not permanent and not shows 404 errors.
301 Redirects:
It is also named as a permanent redirect, is required to be put in place if you desire to permanently redirect a webpage. A 301 redirect completely takes over the former one. The former one will be de-indexed by Google and your user will land to the new page.
A
Alt Image Text:
Google is not able to read images (until now) so if want your image to be showed in Google search results, all your images should be given alt text (so that Google can read it).
Anchor Text:
It is a hyperlink which is clickable. A good anchor text is relevant text (not generic) to the page you are linking to.
B
Blog:
It is the place of your site where you can post your content which can be images, videos, articles, events, etc. From SEO’s perspective having a blog on your site is considered a fine practice since uploading a blog post is viewed as refreshing content by Google (which gives ranking benefits).
Bookmark:
A site’s link which you saved in your browser for afterward reference. Social bookmarking websites such as Reddit and Twitter allows users to share sites with people having common interests. These “social signals” provide SEO benefits as well.
Broken links:
A link which possesses no object or that goes nowhere. Broken links are bad for SEO and blow the rankings of a site.
C
Canonical URL:
It also termed as the search-engine friendly URL which you desire Google to consider as authoritative. To put simply, it is the URL (the best URL) which you desire web users to see. For example technians.com, www.technians.com, technians.com/home.asp, to the matter of fact is that these are different URL’s and can confuse Google, specifying the canonical URL averts this confusion of search engines and help them select the best URL.
Conversion form:
A conversion form is a form via which you gather info (contact info) of your website visitor, it helps you to transform your visitors into leads.
CSS:
Cascading Style Sheets or CSS is a language utilized for defining elements of your website (look and formatting) within your markup language.
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Directory:
Directories for sites are akin to phone directories. Submitting your website on directory sites enhance your web appearance and provides backlink to your sites. There are thousands of directories present over web, in which some are free and some are paid. Examples of directories are A1 web directory, web links directory, etc.
Domain:
Domain is the prime web address of your website (for instance: www.technians.com). Talking from SEO’s perspective, a domain which is registered for 10 years is considered “better” by search engines in comparison with a domain that is registered for 1 year.
E
Duplicate content:
It mentions to the content which is copied or is very similar to another website. Content duplicating is considered as a spammy practice by search engines. You can use www.copyscape.com to check the duplicate content.
F
The Fold:
It is the point on site from where the webpage gets separates by the bottom of a visitor’s monitor. Higher priority is given by Google to the content above the fold rather than the content below the fold as content below the fold not be viewed straight away by visitors without scrolling. Placing too many ads above the fold is penalized by Google.
H
Headings:
Text which is given in H1 & H2 headings. It is written in bold and capital letters.
HTML:
It is the most basic markup language to make web pages which search engines read. Make your HTML coding clean. Utilize the correct HTML element at the correct place to make a semantic content structure.
Homepage:
The main page of a site, usually it contains the table of contents of the whole site. Generally it comprises the most weightage.
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Inbound links:
Often known as backlink which your site got from another site. Having quality inbound links will enhance your SEO.
Internal link:
A link of a page to another page on the same website. Internal linking is important from SEO’s point of view.
Indexed pages:
The web pages which get stored by Google. It has been seen that high PR sites and wordpress blogs get indexed very soon by Google.
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Javascript:
A programming language generally utilized to make interactive effects in web browsers.
K
Keywords:
Words or phrases which user type in search engines to find their relevant results on their search results. Sprinkle the keywords on your web pages “rightly” to propel visitors to your website.
Keyword density:
It defines no. of keywords in proportion to the no. of total words in a particular piece of content. It shouldn’t be more than 3%.
Keyword proximity:
A search query is a blend of keywords or keywords phrases. This term points to the distance between the search term’s independent keyword.
Keyword prominence:
It is described as the placement of a specific keyword in a web page. The higher the keyword is the more SEO benefit it will relish.
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Link building:
The procedure of getting quality backlinks to your site for enhancing your SEO.
Long tail keyword:
Keywords that have 2 to 4 or more words in the phrase and often unusually searched by the users. SMEs can take advantage of targeted long tail keywords as they are relatively cheap to target instead of keywords which are difficult to target such as “search engine optimization”.
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Metadata:
Data which is in your source page and which demonstrates Google what your webpage signifies.
Meta Description:
A description which views by the user which comes under the title tag of a site’s link. A best description is of 155-165 characters.
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Nofollow:
A link which is used not for SEO benefits. WordPress blogs comments have nofollow attribute by default. When you are using no-follow you are not relishing link juice. It is used not for endorsing a website which you are given link to.
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Page title:
Each page possesses its own title. It is in your HTML code & comes out in the title bar of the browser.
PageRank:
Also know as toolbar pagerank. It defines the quality of your SEO and rank between 0-10 by Google.
Panda:
It is the continuous updates released by Google to discourage the work of business owners and marketers who use “overly optimized” content to manipulate its rankings. It is mainly for content. Google has released 29 Panda updates so far.
Penguin:
It is also the series of updates released by Google to blow the rankings of violators of Google webmaster guidelines to create backlinks. In this update Google penalizes sites which have low-quality and irrelevant inbound links. It is mainly for inbound links. Google has released 6 Penguin updates so far.
PPC:
Pay per click or PPC is a promotion method in which an advertiser places an online ad in a venue (for instance Google Adwords) and has to pay every time a visitor clicks on that ad.
R
Ranking factor:
It is the component on which Google defines where to rank a web page. It has been said that Google has more than 200 rank determining factors. Classic examples of rank determining factors are quality inbounds links and content.
Referrer String:
Info drives by a visitor’s browser when they steer from one webpage to another webpage over web. It assists inbound marketers from where the visitor came from.
RSS Feed:
Really simple syndication or RSS. It’s kinda content delivery vehicle. It’s the format utilized when you desire to syndicate web content.
Relevance:
When coping with search engines, the term ‘relevance’ demonstrates the extent to which a site’s content match up to the search term utilized. Google give close attention to relevance.
Robots.txt:
It is a text file which can be stored to a site’s server. It keeps out Google to index a particular page on your site. For example may be you don’t want Google spiders to crawl your “privacy policy” page so you can use robots.txt file to hide it from crawlers.
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SERP:
Search engine results page or SERP is the listing of results given by Google or other search engine when you search a query.
Sitemap:
Also known as navigation map. It’s a list of web pages of a particular site. It can be in a special document or in software to comprise a list of pages of a website. It helps Google spiders for crawling and indexing the site.
Social media:
Social media refers to sites & apps that allow users to produce as well as share content. Popular social media sites are Facebook, Twitter, etc. Having links on social media improves your SEO and increases your sales.
Spider:
Also known as crawler, a computer program which gathers info about sites after browsing the web.
Spam:
Wrong activities intended to manipulate search engine rankings.
Search engine:
It is a site via which you can search web content. Examples of search engines are Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN, etc.
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Title tag:
Title tag it’s the title of a web page and appears in the search results. It greatly defines CTRs. From SEO’s perspective it should be not more than 60 characters long as Google will curtail it if it is.
Traffic rank:
It is defined as the traffic (no. of visitors) coming to your website.
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URL:
Uniform research locator or URL is the web address of a webpage on a website (for instance: www.technians.com/contact/)