100+ Important Terms Related to SEO and Digital Marketing

important terms seo digital marketing techhyme

SEO is something that many webmasters are now obsessing over. SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimizing and refers to a set of good practices that teach you how to improve your website so that it would be easily tracked, indexed and ranked by search engines. Getting your site indexed by Google and other major search engines will help you attract visitors and increase traffic.

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Many web site owners are spending countless hours tweaking and modifying their web sites, adding keyword rich content, and spending hours obtaining back links, so that their site will rank higher in search engines.

Below are some of the most common SEO-related terms which you need to know:

1. Affiliate Marketing

An online marketing strategy that involves revenue sharing between online advertisers and online publishers. Compensation is typically awarded based on performance measures such as sales, clicks, registrations, or a combination of factors.

2. AI – Artificial intelligence

Google is now using artificial intelligence and natural language programming to improve search results.

3. Alt tag

The alternative tag that the browser displays when the individual does not want to or cannot see the pictures present in a web page. Using alt tags containing keywords can improve the search engine ranking of the page for those keywords.

4. Alt text

Short for alternative text, it is used with an image and has a number of purposes. Primarily it is a placeholder for an image, so that if the image is slow to load or not shown, there will be an indicator of the content.

5. Anchor

Refers to a link on a web page, often found at the top or bottom of the page that allows users to move to specific content on the web page.

6. Anchor tag

Code determining the destination of a link.

7. Anchor text

The text part of any link, and of vital importance to any SEO effort. Instead of a link being displayed as www.techhyme.com, for example, using anchor text will allow the same link to be displayed as Marketing Expert. The search engines will then index the page based on this keyword.

8. Backlink

A link from one site that points to another. When getting backlinks, always ask the person linking to you to use anchor text.

9. Banner ad

A graphic Internet advertising tool. Users click on the graphic to be taken to another website or landing page. Banner ads are typically 468 pixels wide and 60 pixels tall, but the term can be used as a generic description of all online graphic ad formats.

10. BERT

Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers is a technique for Natural Language Processing pre-training developed by Google.

11. Black hat

The use of unscrupulous methods to optimize a website. Discovery of these methods being used will often lead to a site being banned from major search engines.

12. Blog

A contraction of the term weblog, it is a form of Internet communication that combines a column, diary, and directory with links to additional resources.

13. Blogroll

A term used to describe a collection of links to other weblogs. Blogrolls are often found on the front-page sidebar of most weblogs. Various weblog authors have different criteria for including other weblogs on their blogrolls.

14. Browser

An individual searching the Internet for information. Also, a software package (Internet browser) used to view pages on the World Wide Web.

15. Caching

A computer process that stores web files to your computer for later access. These web pages are displayed without the need to re-download graphics and other elements of the previously visited page.

16. Canonical page

The preferred version of a set of pages with highly similar content.

17. Canonical tag

HTML used to specify a canonical page to search engines. This is done by adding a <link> element with the attribute rel=“canonical” to the <head> section of the non-canonical version of the page.

18. Cascading style sheets (CSS)

Used to manipulate and easily manage the design of a website.

19. Click

Each time a visitor clicks on a website or website link.

20. Click fraud

A form of theft perpetrated against advertisers who are paying per click for traffic, in which fraudsters may use automated means to click on your ads from spoofed IP addresses over random periods of time.

21. Click-through

A term used to measure the number of users who clicked on a specific Internet advertisement or link.

22. Click-through rate

The number of click-throughs per online ad impression, expressed as a percentage or exposure; a click on a link that leads to another website.

23. Click tracking

The use of scripts in order to track inbound and outbound links.

24. Cloaking

One of the most popular black hat methods, in which the visitor to the site is shown a page optimized to his search request, while the search engine spiders see a completely different set of pages designed to rank well.

25. Conversion rate

The percentage of targeted prospects that take a specified action within a given time frame.

26. Cookie

Computer code that is embedded in your Internet history file, allowing websites to recognize you as a returning visitor.

27. Cost-per-click

A specific type of cost-per-action program where advertisers pay each time a user clicks on an ad or a weblink.

28. Cost per thousand (CPM)

A simple and commonly used method of comparing the cost effectiveness of two or more alternative media vehicles. It is the cost of using the media vehicle to reach one thousand people or households.

29. Crawler

A program that goes through websites and gathers information for the crawler’s creator.

30. Dead link

A link that produces a 404 error, page not found.

31. Deep linking

Connecting to a web page other than a site’s homepage.

32. Deep submitting

Submitting all of your website’s URLs – in other words, every page of your site—to a search engine. Most search engines forbid this practice.

33. De-listing/de-indexing

If search engines detect that you are using unscrupulous methods to get your site ranked, or if they regard your site as “spammy,” they will remove your site from their index and it will no longer appear when users search for it.

34. Directory

A database of websites. Yahoo! and Open Directory are major examples. They are similar to search engines, except that the database is organized in a meaningful way by human beings. Many search engines use a directory as well as their own robots.

35. Domain name

The name assigned to a particular website (e.g., Techhyme.com).

36. Doorway page

A web page with content that’s meaningful or visible only to the search engines; also called a bridge page or a gateway page.

37. Dynamic page

A page that generates content “on-the-fly” as a user requests the page.

38. eCommerce

An Internet-based business model that incorporates various elements of the marketing mix to drive users to a website for the purpose of purchasing a product or service.

39. Gateway page

A method once used to enable a site to rank well for a variety of keywords. It is frowned upon by the search engines and is no longer useful, as the search engines now base much of their algorithms on linking strategies.

40. Google

One of the most important spidering search engines by far, Google plays a dominant role in the search engine market.

41. Googlebot

The crawlers that index pages into Google.

42. Google Panda

A change to the Google’s search results ranking algorithm that was first released in February 2011. The change aimed to lower the rank of “low-quality sites”, and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results.

43. Google Console

Google Search Console is a web service by Google which allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites.

44. Google My Business

A company profile available from Google allowing businesses to promote and engage with customers.

45. Google Penguin

A Google algorithm update that was first announced on April 24, 2012. The update was aimed at decreasing search engine rankings of websites that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines by using black-hat SEO techniques, unnatural link profiles or anchor text, participating in link schemes, deliberate creation of duplicate content, and others.

46. Google Places

Previously referred to as Google Local. A search that produces local results based on proprietary google maps algorithm.

47. Google Preview

The ability see a website thumbnail image from the primary search page of a Google search result.

48. HTML

Stands for hypertext markup language. The coded format language used for creating hypertext documents on the World Wide Web and controlling how web pages appear.

49. HTML e-mail

An e-mail that is formatted using hypertext markup language, as opposed to plain text.

50. Header tag

An HTML tag that is commonly used for page headers.

51. Hidden text

Text that is invisible to the human eye because it is the same color as the background.

52. Hit

When a person visits a web page, that web page receives a number of hits—one hit for the page itself, and one for every graphic on the page. The number of hits is not regarded as an accurate measurement of a website’s popularity.

53. Hit rate

Also considered the conversion rate, it is the percentage of the desired number of outcomes received by a person relative to the total activity level.

54. Homepage

The main page of a website.

55. Hummingbird Update

Google algorithm update integrating natural search language into their rankings calculation and further devaluing certain types of websites.

56. Impressions

The actual number of people who’ve seen a specific web page. Impressions are sometimes called page views.

57. Inbound link

A link from another website to your website.

58. Indexing

Behind-the-scenes creation of an ever-changing database based on the contents of web documents; search engines and filtering software use indexing to find and/or block documents containing certain words or phrases.

59. IP address

A unique number that identifies a computer or system.

60. ISP

Short for Internet service provider, an ISP is a company that provides access to the Internet.

61. JavaScript

A scripting language developed by Netscape and used to create interactive websites.

62. Keyword

A word that is entered into the search form or search “window” of an Internet search engine to search the web for pages or sites about or including the keyword related to it.

63. Keyword density

Keywords as a percentage of text words that can be indexed.

64. Keyword marketing

Placing a marketing message in front of users based on the keywords they’re using to search.

65. Keyword stuffing

Placing excessive keywords into page copy and coding such as meta tags; this may hurt the usability of a page but is meant to boost the page’s search engine ranking. Hiding keywords on a page by making them the same color as the page background and loading tags with repeated keyword phrases are examples.

66. Keyword weight

Refers to the number of keywords appearing in the page area divided by the total number of words appearing in that area. Weight also depends on whether the keyword is a single word or a multi-word phrase.

67. Lead generation

The process of collecting contact information and identifying potential sales leads.

68. Link checker

A tool used to check web pages for broken links.

69. Link farm

A series of websites linking to each other in order to increase rankings.

70. Link popularity

Often used as one of the criteria to determine rank on search engines, the measure of the quantity and quality of sites that link to your website.

71. Meta search engine

A search engine that displays results from multiple search engines.

72. Meta tags

HTML coding that is used to describe various features of a web page and appears in search result listings.

73. Navigation

Elements of a website that facilitate movement from one page to another.

74. Online marketing

A term referring to the Internet and e-mail-based aspects of a marketing campaign, which can incorporate banner ads, e-mail marketing, SEO, eCommerce, and other tools.

75. Open Directory Project (DMOZ)

A large directory of websites run by volunteers. Their database is used by many websites across the Internet.

76. Opt-in

A program where membership is restricted to users who specifically request to take part.

77. Opt-out

A program that assumes inclusion unless stated otherwise. The term also refers to the process of removing one’s name from a program.

78. Optimization

Fine-tuning a website or web page with the ultimate goal being to ascertain a higher position in all or a specific search engine’s results.

79. Organic listings

Listings that appear on a search engine solely because of merit, applicability, etc. In other words, listings that are not paid for; also called natural listings.

80. Page Rank

Part of Google’s search algorithm, it measures a page’s popularity and is calculated in part by analyzing the number of links to a page from other sites and factoring in the importance of those pages. The highest rank is a score of 10 out of 10.

81. Page view

A request to load a single HTML page. Indicative of the number of times an ad was potentially seen or gross impressions. Page views may overstate ad impressions if users choose to turn off graphics (often done to speed browsing).

82. Paid inclusion

Paying to be included in a search engine or a directory index. May not improve search rankings but guarantees inclusion of pages a spider might have missed and “respidering” of pages periodically.

83. Pay-per-click

An online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying click-throughs.

84. Pay-per-sale

An online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying sales.

85. Pop-under

An online advertisement that displays in a new browser window behind the current browser window and is seen when an individual closes his current browser window.

86. Pop-up

An online advertisement that displays in a new browser window without an overt action by the website user.

87. Public relations

The form of communication management that seeks to make use of publicity and other unpaid forms of promotion to influence feelings, opinions, or beliefs about the company, its products, or services.

88. Query

A search phrase submitted to search engines.

89. Ranking

The position of your website within the search engine indexes for a particular keyword.

90. RSS

Stands for really simple syndication. A lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other web content. Typically, an RSS newsreader or aggregator is used to subscribe to syndicated RSS feeds.

91. Reciprocal links

An agreement where two website administrators agree to link to each other’s websites.

92. Refresh tag

A tag that defines when and to where a page will refresh.

93. Robot

Any browser program that follows hypertext links and accesses web pages but is not directly under human control. Examples are the search engine spiders, the “harvesting” programs that extract data from web pages.

94. Robots.txt

If you wish to control which parts of your site a search engine spider indexes, you can use a robots.txt file to prevent the spider from indexing certain parts. Not all spiders will follow it, but it can be a useful tool if parts of your site are not ready for indexing.

95. SEO

Stands for search engine optimization. The process of developing a marketing and technical plan to ensure high rankings across multiple search engine results lists.

96. SERP

Stands for search engine results placement. Essentially, where your website is ranked on a given search engine for a chosen search term.

97. Search engine

A server or a collection of servers dedicated to indexing Internet web pages, storing the results, and returning lists of pages that match particular queries. The indexes are normally generated using spiders.

98. Search engine submission

The act of supplying a URL to a search enginein an attempt to make a search engine aware of a site or page.

99. Shopping cart

Software used to make a website’s product catalog available for online ordering, allowing visitors to select, view, add/delete, and purchase merchandise.

100. Site search

A program providing search functionality across a single website or blog.

101. Skyscraper

A type of online ad that varies from a traditional banner size (468 x 60) and is significantly taller than the 120 x 240 vertical banner.

102. Social Media

Online resources developed for interaction among individuals using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses web-based technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogues.

103. Spam

Unwanted, unsolicited e-mail, typically of a commercial nature.

104. Spider

A program that visits and downloads specific information from a web page.

105. Splash page

A branding page before the homepage of a website.

106. Stickiness

The amount of time spent at a website, often a measure of visitor loyalty.

107. Submission

Putting forward a site to a search engine or directory.

108. Thumbnail

A rough sketch or snapshot, usually of a website, that provides a small view of what a web page looks like in the form of a .jpg, .gif, or .png file.

109. Title tag

HTML code used to define the text in the top line of a web browser; also used by many search engines as the title of search listings.

110. Traffic

The visitors and page views on a website.

111. URL

Stands for uniform resource locator; an address that specifies the location of a file on the Internet.

112. Unique visitors

A measurement of website traffic that reflects the number of real individuals who have visited a website at least once in a fixed time frame.

113. Universal search

The integration of various media types into search result listings, including but not limited to websites, blogs, video, news, etc.

114. Viral marketing

A phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message about a specific product, service, or company.

115. Web analytics

The process of using web metrics to extract useful business information.

116. Web browser

A software application that allows for the browsing of the World Wide Web.

117. Web design

The practice of selecting and coordinating available components to create the layout and structure of a web page.

118. Web directory

An organized, categorized listings of websites.

119. Web metrics

Statistics that measure different aspects of activity that transpire on a website.

120. Website

A site (location) on the World Wide Web. Each website contains a homepage, which is the first document users see when they enter the site. The site might also contain additional documents and files. Each site is owned and managed by an individual or company.

121. White hat

A reference to proper SEO methods that are approved by the search engines. Using these methods increases your chances of your site being permanently indexed in the search engines.

122. Whois

A utility that returns ownership information about second-level domains.

123. World Wide Web

A portion of the Internet that consists of a network of interlinked web pages.

124. XML feed

Simplified version of HTML that allows data (including product databases) to be sent to search engines in the format they request.

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