SEO glossary
Whether you are a beginner or an experienced SEO professional, having a good understanding of SEO terms can help you to stay on top of the latest trends and best practices in the industry. Below are some of the most important terms you should know:
SEO: Search engine optimisation, the process of optimising a website or content to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive more organic traffic.
SERP: Search engine results page, the page that appears after a user types a query into a search engine and shows the results for that query.
Keyword: A word or phrase that is used to describe the content on a website and is targeted to rank higher in SERPs.
Backlink: A link from one website to another. Backlinks are important for SEO as they signal to search engines that other websites consider the content on the linked website to be valuable.
Anchor text: The clickable text that is used to link one web page to another.
Meta title: A title tag that appears in the SERPs and describes the content of a web page.
Meta description: A brief description of the content on a web page that appears in the SERPs.
Alt text: The text that appears in place of an image if the image cannot be displayed. Alt text is important for accessibility and also helps search engines understand the content of the image.
Crawling: The process by which search engines scan websites to find and index new content.
Indexing: The process of adding web pages to a search engine’s index so that they can be returned as search results.
Sitemap: A file that lists all the pages on a website and helps search engines to find and crawl them.
Robots.txt: A file that tells search engine crawlers which pages on a website to crawl and which to ignore.
Duplicate content: Content that appears on multiple web pages, either within the same website or across different websites. Duplicate content can harm SEO as search engines may penalise websites for it.
Canonical URL: The preferred URL for a web page, used to avoid duplicate content issues.
Keyword density: The percentage of times a keyword appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page.
Page speed: The time it takes for a web page to load. Page speed is an important ranking factor in SEO.
Mobile optimisation: The process of optimising a website for mobile devices to provide a better user experience and improve SEO.
Local SEO: The process of optimising a website to rank for local search queries.
Organic traffic: Traffic that comes to a website from unpaid search results.
Conversion rate: The percentage of visitors to a website who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form.
Understanding these terms is essential for anyone who wants to succeed in the world of SEO. By familiarising yourself with these concepts and using them to guide your optimisation strategies, you can improve your website’s visibility in search results and attract more organic traffic to your site.
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