Basic SEO Terminology : What you Need to Know

Terminologies and abbreviations like DA(Not District Attorney 😂) and CTR have become quite common today. If you are someone who interacts with websites and social media management content, you must have come across these and many other terms.

In today’s article, we look at some of the commonly used SEO terms. Read through to understand a few.

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I am sure you already know this one. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the process of working on your website to make it more appealing to search engines (like Google or Bing, more on search engines here), so they rank it higher in search results.

Think of SEO as your website’s way of saying, “Hey Google, notice me!” It’s like dressing up nice before going to a party and hoping you catch some attention!

2. Keywords – These are the words or phrases people type into search engines to find what they’re looking for. For example, if you’re searching for a time management AI tool, you might type “Time management AI tool”, which is a keyword.

Imagine your website as a billboard and keywords as flashing neon signs. They shout, “Pick me!” “I’m what you’re looking for!” Don’t worry, in SEO, it’s okay to be a little needy 😁.

3. SERP (Search Engine Results Page) – You see the list of content that appears when you type a word in Google? That’s it, SERP. This is simply the page you see after entering a search term. It’s where all the possible links related to your search pop up, including paid ads, organic results, and sometimes videos or images. On Google, the paid ads appear first, followed by the best optimized pages that rank on page 1.

SERP is like a competitive reality TV show for websites. Everyone’s trying to be on top, but only a few can claim the prime spots.

4. Organic Search Results – These are the listings that appear naturally in the search engine results, not because someone paid for them, but because they’re relevant and well-optimized. If SERP were a restaurant, organic search results would be the customers who get in based on their reservations (and good looks😅). The rest are still paying for a table upfront (ads).

5. Backlinks – These are links from other websites that lead back to yours. They’re like SEO “votes of confidence” , the more you have from credible sites, the more search engines think you’re trustworthy.

Think of backlinks as popularity points in high school(Never had those🙁). The more popular sites that link to you, the cooler you look to search engines.

6. Meta Tags or Meta Descriptions – Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a page’s content; they don’t actually appear on the page itself but are in the page’s code. They include the meta title and meta description, which show up in SERPs.

7. Alt Text (Alternative Text) – Alt text is a description added to images on your website. If an image doesn’t load, this text helps users understand what they’re missing. It also helps search engines “see” your images, which can improve SEO. They play an important part if the webpage visitor has a poor network or the elements on a page are heavy.

Alt text is like explaining a funny meme to your friend when they have no internet – it’s there to help make sense of what they’re missing.

8. Crawling and Indexing – Crawling is when search engines send out little “spiders” (or bots) to scan your website’s content. Indexing is the process of storing and organizing the content so it can be retrieved for search results. Indexing is done using free tools like Google Search Console.

9. On-Page SEO – This involves optimizing elements on your own website, like headings, keywords, images, and meta tags, to improve rankings.

Think of on-page SEO as decorating your living room before having guests over. You want it to be clean, appealing, and easy to navigate so they stick around!

10. Off-Page SEO – This part focuses on building your website’s reputation outside of your site, primarily through backlinks and social media mentions.

11. Bounce Rate – Have you ever visited and website and left either because you didn’t find what you were looking for or the page took too long to load?

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate means people aren’t finding what they want and are clicking away fast.

12. CTR (Click-Through Rate is the percentage of people who see your link on the SERP and click on it. A high CTR means your title and meta description are doing their job of attracting visitors.

13. Domain Authority (DA) – Domain Authority is a metric that predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine result pages. It is simply the strength of a domain name. It’s scored from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating stronger authority.

14. Sitemap – A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your website. It helps search engines find and index your content more easily.

15. Algorithm – This is a complex set of rules and calculations that search engines use to determine which pages should appear for a search query. These algorithms are constantly updated to improve search quality.