Glossary

If you aren’t familiar with search engine optimization, some of the terms used may be unclear. Hopefully our glossary will shed the light on the true meaning of a few words that could turn your online business around.

Alt tag – An alt tag allows search engines to understand the function of an image by providing a text equivalent for the object.

Analytics – tracking your visitors, page views, and conversion statistics based upon interpreting your log files or through a tracking code, called JavaScript, placed on your site.

Banner ads – advertisements placed on other websites with a link back to your website

Blog – the word blog is a derivative of web log; an online publication in the form of a log or journal that is periodically updated in reverse chronological order.

Browser – the tool that one uses to view the web. Examples are Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, and Opera.

Conversion – when a desired goal is completed by a visitor to your website

CPC – cost per click; the dollar amount an advertiser agrees to pay in sponsored search each time a visitor “clicks” on an ad. This is usually a bid price.

CPL – cost per lead; the number of leads divided by the dollar amount spent to acquire them.

CTR – click through rate; the percentage of people who click on an ad they viewed.

Directory – a categorized catalog of websites.

Fresh Content – Changing content often in order to keep people interested in your website and show new content to spiders

Header Tag – headings describe the subject they introduce. Headings are assigned an H tag in the HTML code. H1 is the most important, and each page should have a unique header tag.

HTML – HyperText Markup Language is the language in which pages on the World Wide Web are created.

Index – a copy of a web page stored in a search engine. When you search the web, you are not really searching on the web, but on the files in the search engine indexes. Also referred as ‘cached’ pages, these are files of data that have been stored.

Keyword – a word or phrase that targeted prospects are likely to type in when searching for information.

Link – a word or graphic imbedded in your HTML code that once clicked, transitions from one web page to another. Links can be inbound, meaning it resides outside of your website and points to a page within your site. Internal links are within your website, linking one page to another.

Link Baiting – The art of creating, and formatting information that provokes the target audience to point high quality links at your site.

Link Building – The process of building links from highly valued sites. Search engines will evaluate to trust your website is authoritative and relevant.

Meta Description Tag – The meta description is typically a few sentences that describe the content of the page. Meta descriptions often appear in search engines below the page title.

Meta Keywords Tag – The meta keywords tag is a tag which can be used to highlight keywords and keyword phrases which the page is targeting. Search engines used to index these, but don’t give them much weight any longer.

Meta Tags – people often refer to the meta descriptions and meta keywords as meta tags. Some include the page title as well.

Organic – the unpaid algorithmic results that appear in search engine results, organized by relevancy.

Paid Inclusion – a method for websites to buy relevant exposure on search engines; websites must pass editorial quality guidelines to be included.

Paid Placement – a method for websites to buy relevant exposure on search engines; websites must pass editorial quality guidelines to be included.

PPC – pay-per-click; the pricing model that search engines sell contextual ads through. PPC ads only charge the advertiser when a visitor clicks on an ad.

PPC Fraud – clicks on ads to drive up costs for the advertiser.

ROI - return on investment; an measure of how much return you gain for marketing dollars spent.

SEM – search engine marketing; marketing a website online, often by paid advertising such as PPC or paid inclusion.

SEO – search engine optimization; the art and science of formatting information so that search engines interpret your website as relevant to search engine queries.

SERP –Search Engine Results Page - the page that search engines show results on.

Spider – search engine crawlers that search web pages in order to be indexed.

Title tags – the name used to describe each page; title tags are what appear in search results as the links searchers click on.