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Simple Glossary of SEO Terms
Alt text: Also "alternative text". An HTML attribute that's used to describe an image for Google and other search engines. Search engines don't have the ability to "see" and recognize images (photos, videos, clipart, etc.) the way people do. By including alt text in the HTML, search engines can interpret that alt text and "understand" what the image is. Providing good alt text is an SEO ranking factor.
Backlink: Also "inbound link". A link pointing to your website from another website. Three major criteria for backlinks are quantity, quality, and relevancy. In this context, quantity refers to the number of backlinks pointing to your site, quality refers to the "quality" or "importance" of the page or site providing the backlink, and relevancy refers to how relevant that page or site is to your page or site. Backlinks should be manually-placed, permanent, and a mix of "dofollow" and "nofollow". Backlinks can play an important role in your site's SEO.
Black hat: SEO techniques that violate Google’s rules and can result in penalties for your site. Google and others (including search engines and other types of sites) have rules prohibiting SEO techniques intended to "trick" or "fool" them into ranking you higher. Examples include "keyword stuffing", "content cloaking", "content scraping", "mirror sites", and many more.
Blog: A blog can be your entire website, or simply a section of your site where you post original articles on a reasonably regular basis (once per month can be plenty). Posting regularly can help get your site crawled more frequently by Google and other search engines for increased SEO benefit. And sharing your posts on sites such as Facebook ─ although not necessary ─ can possibly help increase awareness for your business and visitors to your site.
Citation: Also “local citation”, “business listing”, or "local business listing". An online reference (such as your Google Business Profile and your Yelp Business Listing) that includes the name, address, and phone (NAP) of your business. Citations can help your SEO.
Click-through-rate: Also "CTR". In Google Ads and other pay-per-click (PPC) online advertising, the number of clicks, calls, and other desired actions compared to the number of ad impressions (an ad impression is an occurrence of the ad appearing in a search result).
Heading tag: An HTML element used to designate various levels of titles and headings (h1 through h6) on a webpage. Using heading tags is an SEO ranking factor that helps Google understand the intended hierarchy and organization of your site's content, as well as showing Google that you're providing that structure for the benefit of your site's visitors.
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. The primary programming language used to create web pages. Most software that's used for the development and design of websites creates the corresponding HTML.
Image compression: Also "file compression". Making image file sizes smaller so they load faster, while retaining appropriate image quality. Typically more important for photographs than for clipart and other types of images, as photos are frequently taken at high resolutions that can result in very large files sizes. Because page load speed is an important SEO ranking factor, keeping image file sizes reasonably small is a good idea.
Here's an example of image compression to improve SEO:
Uncompressed: 116KB
Compressed: 17.6KB
These are two versions of the same photograph. Each measures 450 pixels wide by 300 pixels high. The picture on the left is uncompressed, and its file size is 116 kilobytes (116KB, or 116 thousand bytes). The picture on the right is carefully compressed, with a greatly reduced file size of 17.6KB. The human eye sees the compressed version on the right as being virtually identical to the uncompressed version on the left. Using compressed images for faster page load speeds can help improve your site's ranking.
(Note: Please don't confuse (1) file size, (2) image size, and (3) image quality. Image compression is used to reduce an image's file size (measured in bytes), not its physical size (measured in pixels, inches, etc.) ... image quality refers to how good the image looks to the human viewer.)
Internal link: Any link on your site that points to another location or page on your site. "Broken" internal links can harm your SEO, so it can be a good idea to occasionally test all of them to be certain they're working as they should.
Local query: A search query in which the searcher is looking for something in a nearby location, such as “coffee shop near me” or “auto repair san francisco.” As you might surmise, these types of queries ─ and their results ─ can be especially important for a local business.
Long-tail keyword: Longer search queries, typically containing three or more words. Many people tend to use more words than necessary in their queries. If, for example, you're searching for a motor vehicle repair shop in San Francisco, you might use something like "find an auto repair shop in San Francisco". However, for a search like this there's no need to include words like "find", "an", or "in", and there's no need to capitalize the "S" and "F" in "San Francisco". And it doesn't matter whether you use "auto", "automobile", "car", "vehicle", etc. Any reasonably synonymous word works just as well. So keep it simple with something like: "car repair san francisco" or "car repair shop san francisco". If you're looking for a place reasonably close to your location, replace "san francisco" with "near me". As you might imagine, if your business is auto repair, these ─ and more ─ long-tail keyword variations can be important for the content and SEO of your site.
Meta description: An HTML element (tag) that describe the contents of a web page. Google can display this in search result snippets to provide people with additional information about a site or page.
Organic: Unpaid placement in search results, as compared to paid advertising such as Google Ads. This is where good SEO really helps your site and your business.
Outbound link: Any link pointing to another website from your website. Google rewards you for including outbound links on your site, because doing so demonstrates that you're open to sharing other resources and more information with your site's visitors.
Page speed: How fast a web page loads. Page load speed is an important SEO ranking factor.
Query: Also "search query" or "search term". Words entered into a search box.
Ranking: Search results sequenced by their relevance to a query, or by the effectiveness of their SEO.
Relevance: How well a search result matches what the searcher is looking for.
Responsive design: A website that adapts to the screen size of whatever device it’s being viewed on, from desktop displays to handheld smartphones.
Rich snippet: A snippet is the title and description preview that Google and other search engines show of URLs on its results page. A “rich” snippet is an enhanced version of a standard snippet.
Scraped content: Taking content from a website you don’t own and republishing it on your own site without permission. This practice is unethical and can even be considered plagiaristic, depending upon the source of the content, how ─ and for what purpose ─ the scraped content is being used, and whether ─ if necessary ─ appropriate credit is being given. Using scraped content can be very harmful to your site's SEO and ranking.
SERP: “search engine results pages”. The pages that appear as results for a search. By default, most web browsers display ten organic site results per page, plus other items such as organic local listings and pay-per-click (PPC) ads.
Sitemap: A list of URLs on your site that search engines can use to discover and index your site’s content. Some website design software automatically creates a sitemap for your site.
SSL certificate: A “Secure Socket Layer” encrypts data passed between the web server (where your site resides) and the searcher's browser. Having an SSL certificate for your site is an important SEO ranking factor.
Thin content: Content that provides little-to-no value for the visitor. Google doesn't penalize you for having this on your site, but you're not rewarded for it, either. Which means, of course, that it does nothing to help your site's ranking.
Thumbnail: A smaller version of a larger image, with a smaller, faster-loading file size. If your site has a number of relatively large images, and you want to provide smaller "previews" of them, use thumbnails as the previews. Your site loads faster, which ─ all other things being reasonably equal ─ is good for your SEO.
For example, let's say you're describing a picture of delicious, nutritious, healthful foods in a location on your site that's not convenient or appropriate for displaying the full-size image. If your site's visitor wants the richer, fuller, more immersive experience of the larger photo, she can simply click on the smaller thumbnail version:
Clicking on the thumbnail brings up a full-size image that's 950x352 pixels, compressed to 44.6KB, while the thumbnail version of the same picture is only 237x133 pixels, compressed to just 12.8KB.
The SEO advantage of using thumbnails is that if you have larger images on your site and want to provide smaller previews of them, you're not loading the larger images twice: once at full-size and once that you simply resize for the smaller preview ("resizing" an image is not the same as "compressing" it). The larger version and the thumbnail are two separate files, each designed for its own intended purpose and location.
Title tag: An HTML element that specifies the title of a webpage. Each page on your site must have a unique title tag that provides page-specific information, written in accordance with Google's guidelines. Title tags are one the most important SEO ranking factors.
URL: An acronym for "uniform resource locator". The unique web address of a web page.
White hat: SEO practices that comply with Google’s rules and quality guidelines.