SEO novices have to learn these basic SEO terms

Learning about search engine optimization (SEO) is something that will take a long time and it is a good idea to learn at least some of the basic terms in the sector, even if you want to let a professional agency handle your for you!

If you work with anything related to the internet then it is likely that you will come across terms of the trade that are not easy to fathom their meaning!

If you are already an SEO expert then consider this a good time to refresh your knowledge and if you are a novice, get your pen and paper out:

1. SEO: The process of improving the visibility of a website through the application of backlinks and keywords
   




2. Backlink:  A link on another website that directs traffic back to your website and how many you have as well as their relevance will affect your rankings and Google PageRank.




3. PageRank: This algorithm is used by Google to show how well a website ranks in terms of how relevant the backlinks are, how strong your site is and more.




4. PPC: or Pay-Per-Click is the practice of buying clicks from search engines. It is basically a marketing channel that charges an advertiser every time a customer clicks on their ad.
   




5. Search Algorithm: The process of finding websites in response to a search
   




6. Keyword Stuffing: This one is fairly self explanatory and it is the process of using too many keywords on one page and while it used to work a long time ago; it will now get you penalized BIG time.




7. SEM: a.k.a search engine marketing is the way that we market services and products through a search engine and it is split into two main categories: SEO & PPC




8. SERPs: What you see when you search on Google or other search engines - a.k.a Search Engine Page Results
   




9. Linkbait: The content of a website that is trying to gain more backlinks to boost website traffic i.e. defined in its name as you are bating for new links.




10. Link Farm: This is now a black hat SEO technique but in the early days of SEO it was one of the most popular ways to buy backlinks that point to your website. It is literally a place to visit and buy links from useless sites.
    




11. Meta Tags: are for the sole purpose of search engines and are rarely seen by humans and they work by giving information to the search engines about the primary description of your website.




12. Web Crawler: A web crawler is what a search engine uses to find new websites, pages and links and it is sometimes referred to as a spider or bot.
    




13. Anchor Text: Anchor text is the part of a backlink that can be clicked on and it should always be keyword rich to encourage better rankings.
    




14. White Hat SEO: This is the technique of optimizing websites legitimately and organically and is the only way to optimize.
    




15. Black Hat SEO: As the name would suggest, this is the technique of optimizing websites illegitimately and black hat techniques should be avoided.




16. NoFollow: This is a link attribute that tells Google that it should not count that particular link when ranking pages. For example, if you want to advertise your friend’s pet shop on your seafood restaurant’s website without trying to create a non-relevant backlink you can ask the search engine to ignore it.
    




17. Keyword Density: This is a mathematical term that refers to the amount of times that a keyword is used on a page. To get the keyword density you have to count the number of times a keyword is used and then divide that number by the number of words on the page.




18. Title Tag: is exactly what the name suggests and it is literally where you write the title of the web page. A title tag should be keyword rich and unique.




19. Duplicate Content: is website content that is copied from other domains or other pages on your website and should always be avoided. Remember, unique content is king!




20. Cloaking: This is a spamming technique and again, should be avoided at all costs. It involves creating a webpage that shows different content to human users and the search engines in order to get a page ranked for high ranking keywords that are irrelevant

What commonly used terminology would add you add to this list?

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The DoubleClick Benchmarks Report evaluates the performance of online advertising campaigns within the US in order to assist agencies, publishers and advertisers to see how well each ad campaign is performing. The statistics are derived from solid data from campaigns, advertisers and ad impressions ensuring that the statistics provided in the Benchmark Report are acutely accurate. DoubleClick is an ad management company that provides ad serving solutions to the top companies that sell, create and buy online advertising space. The information found in the below report represents the activity from ad formats in the US from January 2009 through to December 2009.

You can view the full report here.

If you want to be successful then you have to be consistent

In the practice of good SEO, there are so many factors to consider that unless you are a professional; it is easy to get confused as what was used yesterday may soon be considered a no-no!

While including obvious things such as a title tag, backlinks and unique web content is vital; these factors only work well when you throw in lots of consistency!

Creating a website with unique content and a whole array of backlinks is great, but unless you continue to create new content and add new backlinks; all your efforts will be considered futile! You have to be consistent or your keyword-rich website will not be able to keep up with new competitive keywords or ranking algorithms.

So, how can you be more consistent?

There are a few things that you can do to make sure that your website remains competitive and here are some of the easiest:

1. Add new content on a regular basis
2. Create new web pages
3. Update old web pages that look tired
4. Create new backlinks
5. Do keyword research and apply new keyword rich content

An example of consistency…

For example, let’s say you are launching two separate websites (website 1 and website 2) and they both target the same keyword. On website 1, you put 100 articles online in the first 24 hours, which organically draw in 1000 backlinks via social media and viral marketing efforts. On website 2, you start off with just one article in the first 24 hours and you add one every day that slowly attracts 10 backlinks a week. As long as you continue to do this, website 2 will fair far better in the rankings war because you are consistently adding and changing the content.

Google has admitted that the speed at which websites create new content and links does play a part in how the algorithm ranks a website.

Slow and steady wins the race!

You should think about a SEO campaign as being similar to the popular children’s novel about the hare and tortoise race. Sprinting along at the start will only see you slowly run out of pace in the near future but a slow and steady approach will soon see you winning the rankings race as your consistency prevails!

How do you ensure that you are consistent with your SEO?