Just like any specialised industry, there are a diverse range of terms used that you may not be familiar with unless you’re around them all of the time. To help give you a clearer understanding, we have put together a small list of common terms and definitions to help ease you into the world of SEO.
Keywords / Key terms
Keywords are the important words and phrases used to help link your content to a particular search query. Selecting keywords allows us to optimise content so that when someone types in a related phrase, they discover our optimised pages.
Search Queries / Search Intent
A search query is a combination of words or phrases users put into search engines. Search queries can be split into several categories, including informational, navigational, transactional, and investigational search queries.
Keyword Research
Keyword research will enable us to pinpoint what and how users are searching and ensure you are being found for relevant queries. Keyword research is critical in finding the right words to optimise your content for search engines.
SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
Search Engine Results Page, in short SERP, is the page a search engine returns after a user makes a search query. The page displays results according to what is most relevant to the phrase. SERPs can also display more than just the top websites ranking for a particular keyword, they can also include business listings, ads and much more.
Indexing
Indexing is the process used by search engines to collect and organise information on the internet. Search engines are constantly crawling the internet in search of new and/or updated content to add to their database. This information is then indexed so users can find the information when searching for a relevant keyword.
Crawling
Crawling simply refers to search engine bots (also known as crawlers and spiders) going through a website and discovering new pages and changes to existing pages. It’s essentially the discovery process used by search engines.
Crawl Budget
Crawl budget refers to the number of pages search engines will crawl and index on your website within a given timeframe.
Link Profile
A link profile refers to the characteristics of inbound links pointing to your domain. Search engines examine inbound links for their authority, relevancy, anchor text, how they were acquired etc. Maintaining a healthy and natural-looking link profile is essential for modern SEO.
Inbound Links
Inbound links (also known as backlinks) are links from one website which then point back to yours. Inbound links are a vital element to SEO and are more important than outbound links and are often viewed as a good indicator that your website has high-quality and relevant content.
Outbound Links
Outbound links conversely are links from your domain to another website. While not as important, these links are often used within content to provide more context by linking to an external resource. Within reason they can help, although anchor text should be carefully considered.
Internal Links
Internal links can be found on and within your website. These types of links can be found in the navigation, within content and call to action buttons amongst others. Having a well-developed internal link structure helps both users and search engines navigate effectively through your website.
Meta Tags
Meta tags are a snippet of code within a site which let search engines know important information about your website. Some of the most important meta tags used are the page titles, descriptions and instructions for robots.
Title Tag
HTML title tags, sometimes called ‘page titles’ are essential for SEO. They help provide a brief insight as to what the page is about and its purpose.
Meta Description
A meta description usually comprises of a sentence or two which briefly describes what a particular page is about. The meta description can help with click-through rate (CTR) and will also be displayed in the SERPs under the page title.
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These are just some of the most commonly used terms used in SEO, but of course, there are many more spanning over various other categories which we will touch on in future posts.
If you need any help or support with your business’s SEO efforts, then please get in touch with our experts at the South African SEO Agency.