Glossary of SEO Terminology
backlinks
A backlink is any hyperlink from an external website linking to your website. Good quality backlinks are an important part of the search engine optimisation process.
blackhat seo
The opposite of White Hat SEO. This term refers to dishonest, illegal or unacceptable methods of fooling a search engine in order to gain high rankings. Long term this will result in your site being heavily penalised. Some examples of Black Hat SEO techniques include page cloaking and keyword stuffing.
blog
A blog is simply a web log or online journal typically updated by one person or group but published for public consumption. A blog that allows the public to submit postings starts to resemble more of a forum.
conversion goal
A conversion goal is any page that you wish to designate as a end point within a process. For example a conversion goal may be to get the user to reach the "Thank you for your order page" or simply to have filled out and submitted the "Contact us". Once reached we can consider our aim as having been achieved.
conversion tracking
A conversion occurs when conversion goal is reached. For example, a click on your pay per click advert leads directly to user behaviour you deem valuable, such as a purchase, signup, page view, or lead. Tracking such conversions allows you to calculate a return on your investment (ROI), in this example for the amount spent on ppc advertising versus the value of sales derived from that advertising.
forum
An online discussion website which allows multiple users to post entries onto a website about different topics. Each topic usually has it own thread within the forum.
funnel pages
Funnel pages are pages that represent a step in a process to achieving a conversion goal. For example to get from A to E you have to first go through funnel pages B, C and D. Funnel pages are useful for analysing drop out rates especially on an ecommerce website and help identify if there are any issues in the shopping process causing abandonment at any particular step.
google analytics
Google Analytics is an advanced website statistics and conversion tracking tool that monitors and analyses the activity of your website and provides sophisticated reporting.
keyword stuffing
A black hat SEO practice of trying to blatantly fill a web page lots and lots of keywords in an attempt to achieve a higher ranking.
keyword efficiency index
Keywords and phrases can be rated using KEI by analysing the total number of searches compared to the the total number of results pages for those keywords and phrases.
(the) long tail
Long tail keyword phrases typically contain more than 3 words in length and are more specific in nature than frequently searched generic phrases. These types of phrases are usually used by people searching for a specific product of service and are more likely to convert into a sale or enquiry because the user intentions are already more specific.
on page seo
On Page SEO refers to the controllable internal factors which affect the ranking of your web site such as the coding and accessibility of your website. For example, the correct use of titles, headings and copy writing.
off page seo
Off Page SEO refers to the external factors which affect the ranking of your website such as the analysis of keywords and external links pages. Off-Page SEO is difficult to establish and maintain but is critical in order to achieve top rankings on all of the popular search engines.
page cloaking
A black hat SEO technique of serving up different content, usually raw text, to a search engine crawler to that which would be served normally be served up to a standard website visitor. This practice can get you banned from some search engines.
pay per click (ppc)
Pay per click refers to paid for adverts and listings such as Google AdWords. The costs associated with PPC far out-weigh those of SEO, however PPC produces guaranteed instant results whereas SEO is more of an ongoing long-term strategy which cannot ever be guaranteed.
PageRank
The foundation of Google's search algorithm. PageRank is a measure of your sites credibility and is increased by adding more quality one-way external links to your website.
really simple syndication (rss)
RSS is an XML format for syndicating (publishing) web content. A website that wants to allow other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS document and registers the document with an RSS publisher. A user that can read RSS-distributed content can use the content on a different site. Syndicated content includes such data as news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project updates, excerpts from discussion forums or even corporate information.
search engine optimisation (seo)
Search engine optimisation or search engine optimisation is the process of maximising the visibility of your published web information so that when a user queries a search engine using specific keyword and phrases your site will appear highly ranked within the natural listings or search engine results pages (SERPS).
search engine results pages (serps)
Search engine results pages are simply the natural or organic pages displayed by a search engine for any given query on a keyword or phrase.
White hat seo
The opposite of Black Hat SEO. This term refers to the use of ethical optimisation techniques, i.e. those which are deemed to be honest, legal, and acceptable methods for both On Page and Off Page SEO. Failure to adhere to ethical optimisation will ultimately result in your website being penalised or even worse blacklisted from search index databases.