Web SEO Glossary

A/B testing: A strategy for measuring the success of a marketing campaign in which two landing pages are created and incoming traffic is split between them to compare the conversion rates of each.

AdWords: Google’s advertising services allow your business to appear at the top of the search results page.

AdWords Impression Share: The proportion of impressions a business received relative to the number it could have potentially received. (See also impressions)

Aggregation content curation: A form of content curation in which content on a given topic is collected and synthesized in one post.

Algorithm: This is a formula that calculates the rank of search engine results. It is simply a set of rules a computer is programmed to follow to solve a basic problem or issue.  These algorithms evolve with the goal of providing a searcher with the most relevant content based on their specific search.  SEO is essentially about understanding Google’s algorithm among other large search engines as well.

Alternative Text: Tags placed on images that provide the search engines with a written description of an image. Also known as “alt text” or “alt tags.” Including alternative text is, first and foremost, a principle of accessibility, but alt text also helps the search engines derive meaning as well.

Alt tags: HTML code that enables you to tell the search engines what words to associate with an image. Also known as “alternative text”.

AMP: AMP stands for “Accelerated Mobile Pages”. It makes a page load lightning-fast on mobile devices. AMP is most often used by publishers (news websites).

Anchor links: Also known as page jumps. A hyperlink that when clicked brings you to a specific section of a webpage.

Anchor text:  The text of a hyperlink which, when clicked, will bring you to another webpage. This actual text of a link to a web page. On most websites, this text is usually dark blue and underlined, or purple if you have visited the link in the past. Anchor text helps search engines understand what the destination page is about; it describes what you will see if you click through.

Attribute: A description of an image in your site’s HTML. Unlike humans, search engines read only the ALT text of images, not the images themselves. Add ALT text to images whenever possible.

Authority: A measurement of a website’s strength, which gets built up over time via backlinks. Software company’s like SEMRush, Alexa, and Moz have a measurement tool for “domain authority,” which acts as a proxy to calculate your website’s authority in the eyes of Google. A website with stronger authority will get its content to rank more quickly and easily.

B2C:  Business to customer selling, as opposed to selling to other businesses.

B2B:  Business to business selling, as opposed to selling directly to customers.

Backlinks: Links on an external webpage pointing back to your own.  These links point from other websites to yours. These links are valuable because of their ability to pass authority (ranking power) from one website to another. In the simplest terms, links act as votes of confidence between websites. The higher the authority of the website giving the link, the more authority that link will pass to the website to which it is pointing.

Black Hat SEO:  Black Hat SEO are practices that try to increase search engine rank by violating Google’s quality guidelines. It is an aggressive and outdated SEO practice. Thus, it tries to manipulate search engines in order to elevate a website’s rankings. These violate SEO guidelines and, if caught, will be penalized by Google.

Blog:  A frequently updated section of a website (sometimes it is the entire site) which is typically written in a more conversational or informative manner. A place to publish your expert content.  A webpage with multiple entries called posts, which is updated often and usually displayed chronologically. They vary from personal styled content to informational styled content.

Blog Articles: A part of your website where you should regularly publish content (e.g. commentary on industry/company topics, descriptions of events, photos, videos, etc.). Each blog post on your website is a new page that a search engine sees, and therefore a new opportunity to get found online. Make sure you keep your blog within your own domain.

Bookmark: A link to a website saved for later reference in your web browser or computer. Social bookmarking sites (example: Delicious.com) let users share websites they like with each other. Having links to your site in social bookmarking sites is a sign to crawlers that your website content is interesting to people.

Bots: Another name for search engine spiders or web crawlers.

Bounce rate: Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors to a web page or website who leave after viewing just one page on the website. Bounce rate is a measure of interaction with your site. A “good bounce rate” varies from industry to industry and also depends on the traffic source. So the bounce rate’s percentage is always based on the visitors who leave a website after arriving on the landing page rather than clicking through to more pages.

Branded anchor text:  A brand name or website name used as the text for a hyperlink which, when clicked, will take you to another webpage.

Breadcrumb: A navigation element that shows your current location in relation to the structure of the website.

Broken Link: A link on the web that points to a moved or non-existent page. Broken links are frowned upon by the search engines because the crawlers are being directed to dead ends, which wastes resources.

Cache: Technology that temporarily stores website content in order to improve the load time of web pages.

Call to action: A marketing term for words designed to get the audience to take a specific action. For example, “Click here to find out more.”

Canonical URL: The canonical URL is the best address on which a user can find a piece of information. Sometimes you might have a situation where the same page content can be accessed at more than one address. Specifying the canonical URL helps search engines understand which address for a piece of content is the best one.

Cascading Style Sheets: The part of your code that defines how different elements of your site look (examples: headers, links). Also known as CSS.

Chronology content curation:  A form of content curation in which the writer provides a historical timeline to organize prior content.

Closed-circle content loop:  An inbound content strategy in which content is recycled, updated, modified, and reused — rather than neglected — once it has been published.

Citations: Business listings that include your business’ name, address, and phone number. Think Yellowpages.com, Yelp.com, Google My Business, MapQuest, or Apple Maps.

Click-Through Rate: This is a ratio of people who click on your link when they see it appear in the Google search results.  Higher click-through rates mean more clicks or visits. The closer your website is to the top of Google, the higher its click-through rate.  It is also known as CTR.

CMS:  A CMS provide the structure and power to websites. The most common content management systems include WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace. These software platforms help you create and manage digital content. It is also known as Content Management System.

Competition: Other websites that are also trying to rank based on — and drive traffic from — your keywords. Other websites that are trying to reach the same audience as you are.

Content Farm: A website that contains exceptionally large quantities of content, typically of low quality or aggregated from other sites, generated solely to manipulate search engine rankings.

Content is King: An often-used phrase that emphasizes the importance of content to search engine optimization. The search engines value content because it is proof of your relevance and expertise.

Content management system: The system used to manage all aspects of publishing a website’s content, including creation, modification, formatting, publication, revision, index, search, and removal. It is also known as a CMS.

Content curation insight: A technique for content creation in which the writer collects relevant content on a particular topic, summarizes each piece in 2-3 lines, and adds an authority opinion.

Content marketing:  A modern marketing strategy in which sellers provide potential customers with relevant, valuable, and consistent content in order to establish authority and a trusting relationship in the hopes that it will eventually lead to sales.

Conversion: A marketing term for an audience member taking the seller’s desired course of action. A website visitor who completes a desired action on your website — such as filling out a form or making a purchase. But it can anything from clicking on a link, providing contact information, or making a sale.

Conversion Form: A form through which you collect information about your site visitor. Conversion forms convert traffic into leads. Collecting contact information helps you follow up with these leads.

Cookies: Cookies are files used by websites to track your movements on the site and remember you after you leave.

Cookie values: The data in cookie files.

Cost-per-click: In a pay-per-click system, Cost-per-click is the price a business pays each time a user clicks on its ad. It is also known as CPC.

Cost-per-thousand impressions: The price paid for every thousand views of an ad. It is also known as CPM.

Crawling: How the search engines explore the web and index (keep track of) web pages. Generally, this done by a search engine bot.

CTR: The percentage of times an ad was clicked on out of the number of times the ad was shown. It is also known as a Click-Through Rate.

CSS: Cascading Style Sheets make websites look good (or bad) by controlling fonts, colors, etc. independent of the content itself.

Deep Link: A link on your own website that points to pages deep within your site (not to your homepage, for example). These links act as votes of confidence for individual pieces of content, such as blog posts.

Demand capture: A modern, inbound marketing strategy that attempts to attract customers already on the purchase path to a specific brand or business.

Demand creation: A traditional, outbound marketing strategy that attempts to create demand for a company’s products or services among potential customers.

Digital marketing strategy: The goal-driven approach a company takes to market its products and services online.

Direct traffic: Users who reach your website by clicking a direct link.

Directory: Just like directories for people and phone numbers, there are directories for websites. Submitting your site to a directory gives you more than just an inbound link; it helps people find you. The most popular web directories are Yahoo! Directory, Yelp, and Moz.

Display advertising network: A network of over a million websites, videos, and apps where ads can appear when using Google AdWords.

Distillation content curation:  A form of content curation in which original content is built from other content written by many others.

Domain: The main web address of your site (example: www.yoursite.com). It’s good to renew ownership of your domain for several years. Search engine rankings favor websites with longer registrations because it shows commitment.

Domain Authority: A system devised by SEO software company’s such as SEMRush, Alexa, and Moz to estimate how a website will rank in search engine results. Points are awarded for each factor they independently believe search engines use to rank any domain (i.e., your URL or website address), and the cumulative score, out of 100, is a site’s Domain Authority.

Domain Name Registrar: This is the name of the company that holds your web address (domain) for you. GoDaddy, Open SRS, Tucows, HostGator, and Network Solutions are examples of popular registrars.

Elevation content curation:  A form of content curation in which the writer provides insight on a batch of posts.

Featured Snippets: Answer blocks that appear at the top of a search engine results page, featuring content pulled from another web page and displayed on Google.com.

Generic anchor text: Anchor text that uses generic keywords, such as “click here,” or “visit this site.”

Google Ads: An advertising platform from Google which powers the paid listing space on www.google.com and so much more. Google Ads are sold on a cost-per-click basis and can be utilized for businesses of all sizes.

GA: A free, enterprise-level web analytics tool from Google which allows you to monitor your website’s performance. Also known as Google Analytics.

Google Analytics: A tool Google provides to help you analyze your website’s traffic and learn key information about your audience, allowing you to tailor your content toward your readers and gauge the success of your marketing techniques. Also known as GA.

Google My Business: Google’s free tool for managing your Google Maps listing. It took over elements of Google+, which was discontinued by Google.

Google Search Console: A communication channel with Google allowing you to understand which keywords are driving traffic to your website, and how well the search engines are crawling and indexing your content. Also known as GSC.

GSC: Formerly Google Webmaster Tools, this is a free service Google provides to help track, monitor, and maintain websites’ presence in its search results. Also known as Google Search Console.

Google Webmaster Tools: see Google Search Console or GSC

Graphic display ads: Also known as banner ads. Ads appearing at the top of web pages usually consist of a logo, image, and text.

Gray Hat SEO: SEO strategies that toe the line of search engine guidelines. They are questionable, but not as clearly in violation of guidelines as black hat SEO tactics.

Heading Text: Text on your website that is placed inside of a heading tag, such as an H1 or H2. This text is often presented in a larger and stronger font than other text on the page.

H1 – H6: Tags within a page’s content that define the header of a page and organize sections of content. Headers provide structure to your pages, and Google rewards structure.  Headers are also important to website visitors since they break your content into easy-to-read parts.

Holistic SEO: Forward-thinking, long-term SEO practices which position your website for success today and years down the road.

Hyperlink Building: The activity and process of getting more inbound links to your website for improved search engine rankings.

Hypertext Markup Language: This is the programming code used to create web pages. It is known as HTML.

HTML: The code part of your website that search engines read. Keep your HTML as clean as possible so that search engines read your site easily and often. Put as much layout-related code as possible in your CSS instead of your HTML. It is known as HyperText Markup Language.

HTTPS: Secure Sockets Layer encrypts the data that gets passed between a server and a web browser. It makes your website appear as HTTPS, which is more secure.

Image Compression: Making image file sizes smaller without losing image quality. Often used to speed up a web page, a little like magic.

Inbound Link: A link from one site into another. A link from another site will improve your SEO, especially if that site has a high PageRank.

Inbound Marketing: Marketing techniques that bring potential customers into your company by providing them with valuable content. Contrasted with outbound marketing.

Index: A database of all of the content the search engine crawlers have collected. Think of it like an old-fashioned Rolodex or a library.

Indexed Pages: The pages of your website that are stored by search engines.

Impressions: The number of times a webpage comes up on a search result page that a user has viewed.

Internal Link: A link from one page to another on the same website, such as from your homepage to your products page.

Infographics: Information presented in graphic or image form to make it readily accessible and understandable.

Internal Links: Links on your website which point to other pages within your website.

Internal linking: Also known as page-to-page linking. Links between one page on a given website to another page on that same site. E.g., links between similar stories on ESPN.com.

JavaScript: A scripting language that allows website administrators to apply various effects or changes to the content of their website as users browse it. Search engines often have difficulty reading content that is inside of JavaScript, but they are getting better at it over time.

Keyword: A word that a user enters in search. Each web page should be optimized with the goal of drawing in visitors who have searched for specific keywords.

Keyword anchor text: Links whose anchor text is made up of relevant keywords.

Keyword density: The number of a keyword (or phrase) that appears on a webpage as a percentage of the total number of words on the page.

Keyword Research: The process of identifying the words and phrases your audience uses to search for your products, services, or expertise.

Keyword phrase anchor links: Links that use keywords or phrases as anchor text.

Keyword stuffing: The practice of overloading a webpage’s content and/or tags with keywords. An old-school tactic of placing too many keywords on one page. It makes for a poor reading experience and this practice violates search engine guidelines.

Keywords: The words and phrases which users enter into the search bar. Keywords are also known as “search queries.” The search results for these words and phrases will direct people to your brand, products, and services.

KPI: A Key Performance Indicator is a measurement of how well your marketing initiative met the overall campaign goal.

Landing Page: The webpage a potential customer reaches after following a search engine result or advertisement. Any page on your website that serves as the first page a person will view. Some landing pages have specific purposes, like supporting pay-per-click advertising.

Lead capture page: A lead capture page is a specially designed landing page whose sole purpose is to capture information about your leads: name, email, phone number, etc. This information is collected through a lead capture form and used to help you build a relationship with your leads.

Lead generation: The practice of getting leads interested in your company’s products or services.

Lead generating asset: Valuable content designed to assist a company in generating interest in its products or services.

Link building: The process of acquiring backlinks to your website.

Link juice: A link to a webpage that provides SEO value to that page.

Local Pack: A group of (typically) three Google Maps listings representing local businesses and appearing on the search engine results page.

Local Search: Anything you do online to promote a business with a physical presence, such as a salon or an electrician. Local search begins with Google Maps.

Long-tail keywords: A keyword phrase containing at least three words, often used when searching for something specific.  Multiple-word phrases are entered into the search bar for a specific reason. These phrases make up 70% of the total online searches! For example, long-tail keywords such as “what are the best headphones for kids” or “wireless headphones for swimming laps” imply that the user wants to buy something. These keywords are often less competitive than shorter phrases and tend to have higher conversion rates.

Manual actions: Penalties that Google imposes on websites engaging in practices it does not condone.

Marketing automation software: Software that automates marketing tasks and allows for the tracking of desired data.

Mashup content curation:  A form of content curation in which different pieces of content are combined in new ways to get a fresh perspective on a topic.

Metadata: Data that tells search engines what your website is about.

Meta Description: A brief description of fewer than 160 characters of the contents of a page and why someone would want to visit it. This is often displayed on search engine results pages below the page title as a sample of the content on the page.

Meta Descriptions: A tag in the header code of each web page. The search engines often use these to display these in the description portion of the listings you see on a search engine results page. Meta descriptions directly contribute to the likelihood of a person clicking (or not clicking) on your listing in the search results.

Meta Directive: Code snippets that live in the header code of each web page. These directives aren’t visible to website visitors, but they provide search engine bots with page-by-page instruction on how to index a page’s content.

Meta Keywords: Meta keywords were used by search engines in the 90s and early 2000s to help determine what a web page was about, the meta keywords tag is no longer used by any major search engines.

Mobile-First Indexing: In 2018, Google started crawling and indexing your pages based on the mobile version of your website instead of the desktop version.

mozRank: A logarithmic ranking provided by SEOmoz from 0-10.0 of the number and quality of inbound links pointing to a certain website or page on that website. A 10.0 is the best linked-to page on the internet, and a 0 has no recognized inbound links.

Nofollow: When a link from one site does not pass SEO credit to another. Do not use no-follow when linking to internal pages on your website. Use it when linking to external pages that you don’t want to endorse.

Nofollow links:  A link to a website that does not add any search engine value, such as paid advertisements.

Online review profile: The totality of online reviews of your business.

Organic Search: The free listings displayed on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Organic search results: Listings that are the natural result of a search engine inquiry, as opposed to those that are sponsored (i.e., paid for).

Organic traffic: Clicks through to your website that does not result from paid search engine results.

Outbound marketing: Traditional marketing techniques that “interrupt” a medium, such as a television program, with non-associated ads.

Page Jumps: Page jumping refers to clicking a link and instantly getting moved to a specific part on a web page. Also called jump links or anchor links, it is a smart and convenient way to link website visitors from one part of the content to another.

Page Segmentation: Where keywords are placed on a webpage.

Page Speed: The amount of time it takes for a web page to load. There are many additional measurements within page speed — like First Contentful Paint (FCP), which measures perceived load time.

Page Title: The name you give your web page, which is seen at the top of your browser window. Page titles should contain keywords related to your business. Words at the beginning of your page title are more highly weighted than words at the end.

Page Titles: Also known as title tags. Page Titles are tags in the header code of each web page. The search engines use these to craft the linked titles of the results you see on a search engine’s results page. Page titles influence the likelihood of a person clicking on your listing (the click-through rate).

PageRank: A number from 0-10, assigned by Google, indicating how good your overall SEO is. It is technically known as ‘Toolbar PageRank.’ Note: PageRank relevancy is everchanging.

Pay-per-click: An internet marketing system in which you place an ad on a website and then pay each time a visitor clicks on that ad. Advertising method in which an advertiser puts an ad in an online advertising venue and pays that venue each time a visitor clicks on his/her ad. Google AdWords is a classic example of this.

People Also Ask Block: A block displayed on some search engine results pages, featuring questions and answers relating to the search query.

Personalization: The ability of the search engines to customize the results you see based on factors such as your location or your past search history.

Pixel: Tracking pixels sent information directly to servers, so they do not rely on the user’s individual browser.

Podcast: Digital audio files that are usually part of a series, like radio shows.

PPC: Also known as Pay-Per-Click. A model of marketing where a marketer pays for website traffic on a cost-per-click or cost-per-visit basis.

Private blog network: A group of websites that are centrally controlled and used is gray hat SEO to generate backlinks.

Query: A word or series of words entered into the search bar.

RankBrain: A machine learning aspect of Google’s algorithm which rewards the most relevant search results.

Ranking: The order of the search engine results, with #1 being the best and located at the top of the page.

Ranking Factor: One element of how a search engine determines where to rank a certain page, such as the number of inbound links to a page or the contents of the title tag on that page.

Raw URL text: Links that use the URL as anchor text.

Referrer String: A piece of information sent by a user’s browser when they navigate from page to page on the web. It includes information on where they came from previously, which helps webmasters understand how users are finding their website.

Rel=Canonical: A tag in the code of a web page that tells the search engines which version of the page is the original, and which are duplicates or copies.

Relevancy: The relevance of the content on your website to search queries. The more relevant your content, the more likely your web page will perform well (appear higher) in the search results.

Responsive Design: A method of building website layouts with content blocks that seamlessly reassemble depending on the size and orientation of the visitor’s screen.

Rich snippets: The sample of content from your website that appears in search engine results.

Robots.txt: A file on your website that tells the search engines where they are not supposed to go. Also known as the robot’s exclusion standard or robot’s exclusion protocol. A standard website uses to give instructions to web robots, such as search engine crawlers.

RSS Feed: RSS stands for ‘really simple syndication.’ It is a subscription-based way to get updates on new content from a web source. Set up an RSS feed for your website or blog to help your followers stay updated when you release new content.

Sales conversion cycle: The process by which a lead is turned into a customer. It starts with attracting a lead to your website, then converts leads into prospects and prospects into customers.

Schema: Code that tags elements of your website with structured information that the search engines can then extract and display on the search engine results pages. For example, schema powers the recipes that show up directly in the search results.

Search engine algorithm:

Search engine crawlers: An internet bot that systematically scans the World Wide Web so that it can be indexed.

Search Engine Marketing:

Search engine optimization: Tools, techniques, and best practices related to improving a website’s ability to be found on the Internet and ranked highly among search engine results.

Search Engine Ranking Page: The page that you are sent to after you run a query in a search engine. It typically has 10 results on it, but this may vary depending on the query and search engine in question.

Search engine rankings: The ordered listing of organic search engine results.

Search engine strategy:  A company’s goal-driven plan for ranking well in search engine results.

Search engine XML sitemap:  A code-level file that assists search engines in locating and tracking your pages and lets them know how often they should check your site for updates.

Search Volume: The estimated average number of monthly searches completed using a search engine like Google. Search volume is measured separately for each keyword.

SEO: Search engine optimization is the art and science of getting your website found using the free (organic) keyword space.

SERP: A Search Engine Results Page is what you see after you enter something in the search bar on Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

Semantic Distance: How closely related words are in terms of meaning.

Short-Tail Keywords:  A more common or frequently searched keyword term, typically with two or three words in the phrase. Targeting short-tail keywords are more difficult and often has a broad search appeal. Common keywords such as ‘roofing’ are more competitive and extremely hard to rank high for them in search for newer websites.   Approximately 30% of the searches performed online use short phrases — keywords like “tree removal” or “tree removal now.” This is called “the short tail of search” and the keywords used are called “short-tail keywords.” These keywords tend to be high in both volume and competition, so these phrases are often out of reach.

Slideshare: A network for sharing presentations and infographics online. 

Site Speed: A measurement of how quickly a sample group of your web pages loads.

Site Structure: How your website content is organized. For example, the homepage is the top (most important) page, followed by those located in your main navigation. Often described by the number of clicks away from the homepage a particular page is located.

Sitemap: A special document created by a webmaster or a piece of software that provides a map of all the pages on a website to make it easier for a search engine to index that website.

Social Media: Online media created by and shared among individuals. Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter are popular social media websites. Links from many social media sites now appear in searches. It’s important to have links to your site spread throughout social media.

Spider: A computer program that browses the internet and collects information about websites. Also known as a bot.

Split testing: Split testing (also referred to as A/B testing or multivariate testing) is a method of conducting controlled, randomized experiments with the goal of improving a website metric, such as clicks, form completions, or purchases.

SSL: An encryption protocol that renders a website safer for users. SSL-encrypted websites have an “s” added in their addresses; i.e. HTTPS://, rather than just HTTP://.

Structured Data: Snippets of code that give search engines precise information about a web page’s content. Structured data allows search engines to easily organize web pages in the search results. Did you ever wonder how Google quickly displays recipes, movie times, or concert information? Structured data (Schema Markup) gets the credit.

Structured data and schema: Special website code that gives search engines extra information about the content on your website; that information is sometimes displayed in search results, such as star ratings.

Term frequency-inverse document frequency: A measurement used by Google to determine how important a keyword is on a webpage by comparing its frequency and usage on other web pages. This is also called TF-IDF.

The Fold: The “fold” is the point on your website where the page gets cut off by the bottom of a user’s monitor or browser window. Anything below the fold can be scrolled to but isn’t seen right away. Search engines place some priority on content above the fold since it will be seen right away by new visitors. Having too many ads above the fold can be seen as a negative issue, too.

Title: The title of a page on your website. This is enclosed in an <title> HTML tag, inside of the head section of the page. It appears in search engine results and at the top of a user’s web browser when they are on that page.

Traffic: Visits to your website. It is visitors to your site.

Traffic Rank: The ranking of how much traffic your site gets compared to all other sites on the internet. You can check your traffic rank on Alexa.

Unique selling proposition: The key factor distinguishing a service or product from its competitors. This is also known as USP.

URL: The web address of an individual web page. The web address of a page on your site (example: www.yoursite.com/contact).

User experience: A person’s overall experience using a product or service, including a website. This is also called UX.

Value proposition: A company’s statement explaining the benefit or feature it offers uniquely well.

Warm leads: Someone who has already shown a measure of interest in a company’s products or services, such as by following it on social media.

Webpage template: A predesigned webpage that one can purchase and use as a design for their own content.

White Hat SEO: SEO practices that are in line with Google’s quality requirements.

WordPress: The leading online content management system platform for websites.

XML Sitemap: A file on your website that tells the search engines what to explore. Similar to your website’s resume.

301 Redirect: A signal to the search engines that a web page has moved. A person attempting to reach the original page gets taken to a new page that is the closest match.

301 Redirection: A way to make one web page redirect the visitor to another page. Whenever you change the web address of a page, apply a 301 redirect to make the old address point to the new one. This ensures that people who have linked to or bookmarked the old address will automatically get to the new one, and search engines can update their index.

404 Error: A type of technical SEO error that signals the web page could not be found (often because it’s been moved or deleted).