GLOSSARY - SEO for Small Business: Easy SEO Strategies to Get Your Website Discovered on Google (2015)

SEO for Small Business: Easy SEO Strategies to Get Your Website Discovered on Google (2015)

GLOSSARY

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ALGORITHM

A process or set of rules used to process data; SEO algorithms determine the ranking factors of a site.

ANCHOR TEXT

A highlighted word or group of words that, when clicked, link to a relevant article or media.

ATTRIBUTE

A command used in HTML that defines a tag’s function.

AUTHORITY SITE

A site that is informative, popular, easy to use, and well-respected within its niche market.

BACKLINKS (ALSO INBOUND LINKS, EXTERNAL LINKING)

Links from the sites of others that lead traffic back to your own site; they are a contributing factor in gaining high search engine rankings.

BLACK HAT SEO

Unethical SEO practices that improve search results, but corral users into viewing ads or visiting spam sites or virus-infected pages.

BOT

An autonomous program, usually running on a network, that can interact with computer systems or users.

CLEAN CODE

A reader-focused page development style, generally written in HTML, that produces software that’s easy to write, read, and maintain.

CONTENT DISTRIBUTION NETWORK (ALSO CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK, CDN)

Servers used to speed up the delivery of site content and financial transactions within a specific geographic range.

CONVERSATIONAL SEARCH

When a search engine takes into account the entire context of a query, not just the keywords; conversational searches answer questions.

CMS

Content management system (such as WordPress).

CRAWLING

When a search engine moves through the Web, following links from site to site.

CSS

Cascading style sheets; a way to manage the design and layout elements of a Web page.

DYNAMIC CONTENT

Content that is variable, changes often, and may even be slightly different from visitor to visitor.

EVERGREEN

Media that maintains its utility and relevance over time, information for which people have a long-term need.

GIF

Graphics format for simple images with limited color schemes.

HEAD TERMS

Keywords comprised of three or fewer words.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language, a coding system used to write the commands necessary to build and maintain a website.

HUB SITE

A site with a multitude of outgoing links that are related by theme and topic; think of a hub as a type of Internet switchboard that directs calls across the Web to many different offices.

JPG

Graphics format for colorful photos, detailed graphs, and complex designs.

LINK FARMING

Exchanging links with other sites for the sole purpose of improving your SEO status.

LINK JUICE

Value assigned to a site based on links from external or internal sources.

LONG-TAIL PHRASES

Keywords composed of more than three words.

MALWARE

Software that is written to intentionally damage or disable computer systems.

METADATA

Basic, summarizing information coded into a website, including when the site was built and updated, and by whom; Web page metadata describes what is on the page through use of meta tags.

META TAGS

Tags that carry keywords detectable by search engines and hold important clues as to the SEO value and relevance of site content.

PIPE SYMBOL ( | )

The symbol used to separate terms in title tags.

PLUGIN

A software component that adds features and interactive elements to an existing piece of software.

PNG

Graphics format for images that is versatile and works for both simple and detailed graphics, but can have a slow load time due to larger file size.

RSS

Rich site summary, also known as live web; a format for delivering constantly changing Web content directly to users who subscribe to a particular feed.

SEMANTIC SEARCH

A search based on natural language questions or phrases users type into a search bar.

SEO (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION)

Practices site owners and webmasters engage in to increase search engine rankings.

SERP

Search engine results page.

SITEMAP

A blueprint of a site’s hierarchical structure; frequently used as a planning guide when designing a website.

SPIDER

A bot sent out by search engines to read and detect useful content and linking.

STATIC CONTENT

Content that stays the same no matter who views it, until it is manually changed.

TAGS

Keywords assigned to individual bits of information to help spiders and human users determine what is included in a site’s content.

TITLE TAG (ALSO PAGE TITLE)

A heading featuring 70 or fewer characters (including spaces) that shows up on a page preview of a SERP.

WEB 2.0

User-generated content, including social networks, file-sharing sites, forums, blogs, and message board communities.

WEBSITE POPULARITY

Determined by how often a site is clicked on, how long users typically spend looking at the site, and how often links are shared elsewhere on the Web.

WEBSITE VALUE

Determined by both search engines and human users; value means useful, relevant information about a specific topic.

WHITE HAT SEO

SEO practices, such as those outlined in the Google Webmaster Guidelines, that seek to improve search engine results in an ethical manner.

WIDGET

An application that can be embedded into a site to provide interactive features.

WORDPRESS CATEGORIES

A general overview of the types of topics covered in a WordPress blog.