Cut through SEO Jargon with this Ultimate Glossary

July 26, 2019

Kerrie Ashall

At Fibre, we pride ourselves on knowing our stuff when it comes to executing ethical SEO strategies.

But, for many, learning SEO can be an extremely complicated exploit that – like most skills – takes time, patience and a whole lot of perseverance. (This is why it’s worth hiring an SEO specialist who dedicates the time to do it for you.)

However, you can make significant headway by first expanding your knowledge on key SEO terms and understanding where they fit into the SEO space.

We’ve compiled a basic glossary to help you get up to speed.

SEO from A to Z

Alt Text: Also referred to as alt tags and alt descriptions, an alt text is the copy inserted within the code of a webpage that describes an image should the user be unable to view it in its original form i.e the HTML. It’s also for Google, as it provides context for them to crawl the page accurately.

Anchor Text: As one of the key pillars of SEO, an anchor text is the written keyword that the user will click on and then be referred to another webpage. An anchor text can take many forms, such as:

  • Exact-match: An exact-match anchor will directly reflect the page it is linking to, for example, ‘anchor text’ will link to a page about ‘anchor texts.’
  • LSI (latent semantic indexing): LSI keywords will be similar keywords to the one you are targeting and used to increase the relevance of your site.
  • URL: This is a naked URL that appears anywhere on the webpage that links to your site.
  • Branded: A branded anchor text will include the exact name of your brand, such as, ‘Fibre Marketing’ within the webpage content.
  • Long-tail: Long-tail keywords will usually involve a more specific search query consisting of three or four word phrases. 

Backlink: A backlink is an incoming link from one webpage to another. How a backlink is implemented can have a huge impact on your webpage visibility as this is a key factor Google uses to rank a page on the SERP.

Black Hat SEO: This strategy works against ethical SEO methods to improve site visibility and better your rankings on Google. This can involve, keyword stuffing and using private link networks and can often result in Google penalties to your site.

Conversion Rate: A conversion rate is the volume of users who fit the desired action of your new business goals. This could be buying a product, subscribing to a newsletter or calling for a quote.

CTR (Click-Through-Rate): This metric measures the volume of users who click on a link within the webpage, compared to those who simply view the page.

Domain Authority: Often abbreviated to just DA, domain authority will give you an indication as to how well your website will rank on the SERP.

Deindexing & Indexing: When you add another webpage to Google, Google will crawl this page and index it in its search system. Deindexing is the opposite of this, where the webpage is removed from the index. 

EAT (Expertise, Authority and Trust): Expertise, authority and trust are the three core values Googles’ search algorithm uses to determine the level of trust accountable to each website.
Crawling:
In laymen’s terms, crawling (or spidering) is the process by which Google bots will scan and analyse the information on a webpage.

Featured Snippet: A featured snippet is a highly coveted format positioned at the very top of the SERP, but below the paid ads. Also referred to as a ‘direct answer,’ it’s the text box that usually answers your search query immediately, or prompts you to click through to the site to which the information originated.

GMB (Google My Business) Listing: A GMB listing will likely appear on the right hand side of the SERP when you search for a specific service and will be local to you. This is a crucial factor to any local SEO strategy if you want to improve your business visibility and rankings on a concentrated level.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): HTML is the text-based approach used to describe webpages.

Internal Link: Within the same domain, internal links can be used on one webpage to link to another. This will make it easier for Google to understand the structure of your site.

Keyword Research: This is probably the most important task you’ll execute for your site. The goal is to get into the minds of the consumer and uncover alternative search terms to those entered into Google to find a specific service or offering.

Keyword Stuffing: Often resulting in penalties from Google, keyword stuffing is the process by which a webpage is over-optimised for specific keywords.  Too many of the same keyword on one webpage is detrimental to the fluidity of the content and can lower your rankings.

Link Building: Quality links indicate to Google that the content on your site is worthy of citation. Link building is a core SEO technique that involves building both internal links and backlinks to authoritative websites.

Meta Descriptions: When you review the search results on Google for a key term, below the blue URL text will be a description of the webpage’s content – this is the meta description and it is an essential factor to on-page SEO.

Mobile Indexing: In 2018, Google started rolling out mobile indexing on a broader spectrum. This meant that Google would determine rankings in organic SERPs from the information collected from mobile-friendly sites, before the desktop version. As of yet (25 July), mobile first indexing has kickstarted but we are still waiting for the full roll out.

Off-Page SEO: Off-page SEO includes all SEO measures that take place outside the walls of your own domain used to impact your rankings, such as building backlinks, guest blogging and social media marketing.

On-Page SEO: On-page SEO includes all SEO measures performed on individual webpages used to impact your rankings such as, keyword optimisation, building internal links and editing the title tag and meta description.

Referral Traffic: Referral traffic is the volume of traffic reported by Google that visited your site from an external source outside of a search engine.

SERP (search engine results page): This is the list of search results that appear on your screen when you hit the enter key on Google. It is estimated that 75% of users do not scroll past the 1st page of Google.

Trust Flow: This metric measures the ‘trustworthiness’ of a particular site.

White Hat: The opposite of black hat SEO, white hat techniques refer to all ethical strategies used to increase search visibility and rankings that remain in line with Google’s code of conduct.

YMYL: This is acronym for, ‘your money or your life’ is the term Google assigns to webpages that impact the future of users’ happiness, i.e. health or financial stability sites.

Recent Work

  • Glide

    The Glide group is the UK’s market-leader in household utilities, broadband, connectivity and communications.

  • The Fry Group

    Established in 1898, the experts at The Fry Group assist expats based in the UK, Europe, and the Far East with all aspects of their financial planning.

  • Helping Hands Home Care

    The team at Fibre are absolute experts in SEO. Working together we have dramatically improved SEO performance particularly at a local level.

GET IN TOUCH

Ready to get started?