SEO Terminology

SEM (Search Engine Marketing) – The act of marketing products and/or services through the various internet search engines in hopes of increasing sales and awareness of the products or services offered by the web site owner. There are two types of SEM. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising. They both have advantages and disadvantages. SEO is the art of optimizing a web site so that the search engines find and then rank that web site high in the search results. PPC is paying the search engine to place you high on the search results pages.

SERP (Search Engine Results Page) – When a user types in a search query in any search engine, the results are displayed on the search engine results page (SERP). This is what most internet marketers strive to be at the top of. The higher the ranking, the higher the trust factor and the more likely that a large number of searchers will visit your site.

Organic Search Results – The results produced in the SERP’s that are the result of SEO and not PPC. These results typically garner the most traffic and are the most sought after by web site owners. These results can be highly competitive depending on the popularity of the keyword you wish to rank for. Some keywords are so competitive that they can take over a year to rank for on the first page, even with lots of investment in time, money and resources being deployed to try and rank for it.

Backlink – A backlink is a hypertext link from one web site to another. In the terms of SEO a backlink is considered gold. The search engines use the number of and quality of backlinks to a particular site as a voting mechanism and assign SERP ranking based on them (and other factors). Not all backlinks are created equal. There are all types of backlinks and some are better to have then others. Don’t worry too much about bad backlinks to your site. Contrary to some rumors on the internet, bad backlinks cannot hurt you too much. The search engines realize that you cannot always control who links to you.

Anchor Text – Anchor text is the text that is used to build the hypertext link from one site to another. If you have ever seen a “click here” link on a web site, then you know that “click here” was the anchor text. Be sure to use relevant keywords in your anchor text whenever possible. This greatly helps your SEO program.

Keywords – Keywords are words that are used to identify the content and information within a site so that the search engines can index and rank the site. Keywords are also the words used by search engine users to search the internet for relative topics. So use keywords in your HTML programming, content and anchor text to increase your SEO profile.

Meta Tags – Meta tags are descriptor tags in HTML programming that help to indentify the web site to visitors and search engines. These tags are often over looked by web designers or brushed off as “not necessary”. Don’t be fooled. A good title tag and description with well written content and keywords can totally change a web sites position in the SERP’s.

Duplicate Content – Duplicate content can exist in two forms, onsite duplicate content and off site duplicate content. Both can be devastating to your SEO program . You should always be aware of and looking for duplicate content on your site and throughout the internet. A good way to check your site for duplicate is to use a service that indentifies and sources it for you. Copyscape is a good free service any site owner can use to check for duplicate content. They also have a paid service for those with a lot of content that needs to be checked on a regular basis. With Google’s recent Panda update, checking for duplicate content is more important than ever before!

Search Engine Algorithm – A mathematical formula designed by the search engines to find, rank and place web sites in the SERP’s. This “magic formula” is under strict guard by the search engines and is the topic of much speculation and debate in the SEO community. The algorithms are constantly being updated and changed to help ensure that the search engines are providing their users with the best possible search results available. If you have not been around search engine marketing long, get ready to experience the Google roller coaster ride…otherwise known as the Google Dance!

White Hat SEO/Black Hat SEO – White hat SEO is a term used to describe the practice of search engine optimization by means of accepted and approved practices only and in strict adherence to the respective search engines web master guidelines. As you can presume, black hat SEO is the practice of working outside those guidelines and trying to find a way to rank a site higher without having to follow some or any of the accepted practices. A word of caution: Black hat SEO is alive and well in many places in this industry. However, if you engage in or hire someone who engages in black hat SEO you also have to be willing to suffer the consequences of a search engine penalty or banishment. If you get caught your site may disappear for a very, very long time!