Here is some SEO lingo so that you can understand what is going on with your website. These are the ABC’s of SEO.
A n c h o r T e x t
The anchor text is the clickable part of a link. The words
contained in the anchor text can contribute to higher rankings
in search engines, which means that using optimized keywords
in your website’s anchor text is an important part of SEO.
A L T T a g s
Alt tags are used in HTML in place of an image when, for
whatever reason, the user is unable to view the image. The tag
should not be a description or a label, but the text equivalent
of the image. It also serves a more basic purpose- search
engine spiders can’t read images. Using ALT tags are an
important step when optimizing the images on a website,
since optimized keywords can and should be used in the ALT
attribute when possible.
B l o g
Blogs are typically a type of website or part of a website
maintained by an individual. Many types of blogs exist, but
their primary purpose is to offer commentary, descriptions of
events, or offer artistic, musical, or video materials. Blogs are
an important tactic for SEO, because updating a site by
blogging keeps the site fresh, something that helps with
rankings!!!!!!!!
B l a c k H a t S E O
This is the phrase used to describe unethical SEO practices.
Common forms of these practices include keyword stuffing,
hidden text, hidden links, and cloaking. While these practices
obviously can improve one’s rankings on search engines, they
disobey search engine guidelines and can seriously jeopardize
a website’s ability to be ranked in the future.
C a l l t o A c t i o n
A call to action is a marketing tactic utilized on websites to
solicit an action from the user. Whether this is signing up for
an enewsletter, filling out a contact form, or simply checking
out a certain page of the site, having appropriate call to action
at the bottom of each webpage of a site is a great way to
ensure you’re maximizing your website’s utility.
E x t e r n a l L i n k s
External links, also called outbound links, are links within a
website that point to another page or website outside of that
domain
G o o g l e A n a l y t i c s
Google Analytics is a Google service that offers statistical
analysis about the visitors to your website. Tracking visitors,
the pages they visit, how long they stay on the site, and where
they exit are among the tools included in the service. This
enhances the search engine optimization process by providing
valuable feedback.
I n b o u n d L i n k s
Inbound links, also known as backlinks, are links anywhere on
the internet that point to a website. The more inbound links a
website has, the better its ranking on search engines, and the
number of inbound links indicates the popularity of a website.
For this reason, link building is a very important part of the
SEO process.
I n t e r n a l L i n k s
Internal links are links within a website that point to another
page within the same domain. These links can be a reference
or a navigation element
K e y w o r d D e n s i t y
Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or
phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number
of words on the page. This is actually less important for SEO
reasons as it used to be, since the overuse of keywords (called
keyword stuffing) by webmasters became widespread and
search engines looked to other factors to determine ranking.
K e y w o r d R e s e a r c h
Keyword research looks at the words and phrases that a user
types in when they are searching the Internet for a product or
service your company offers. The research is often intensive,
with hundreds or thousands of variations of words being
checked out. Knowing the keywords is necessary for SEO and
the first step in the process. Adding keywords to website copy
and important tags increases a website’s rankings in search
engines when that keyword is searched.
L i n k B u i l d i n g
Link optimization is ensuring that your website has a network
of other places on the internet that link directly your site. Link
building is the process of creating this network. The more links
there are to your site, the higher your search engine rank. Also,
the more links there are to your site, the more likely your
traffic will increase! For small businesses, this is one of the
easiest ways to improve traffic
M e t a D a t a
Meta data provides a description of a website to search
engines, helping them categorize a website. Visitors to the site
cannot view metadata, since it’s contained in the markup of
the site. It is an area of less importance to SEO today, although
some search engines still do use metadata to determine
rankings.
Meta Description- this metadata is used by Google as the
webpage description when the website is shown on
Google results.
Meta Keywords- these keywords are used by search
engines to determine what your website is about. There
is much debate about whether Google uses keywords in
its ranking algorithms, but most people agree that
utilizing meta keywords is the safest option for SEO.
N a v i g a t i o n
The navigation is the internal system of links that are on your
website. Ad Astra will analyze your site and make
recommendations to improve your site’s links. Your website’s
internal linking structure is crucial for search engines to find
and properly crawl all of your pages. It can also improve an
individual pages’ relevancy to its keywords
O r g a n i c S E O
Organic SEO is the process of improvising the visibility of a
website through unpaid search results instead of paid listings.
This is different from search engine marketing (SEM) in which
websites are optimized using paid listings such as Google
Adwords.
O u t b o u n d L i n k s
Outbound links, or external links, are links that point to a
website or page outside of that domain.
P P C
Pay per click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used on
websites, where advertisers pay their host only when their ad
is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on
keyword phrases relevant to their target market.
S o c i a l N e t w o r k i n g
Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the primary social network
sites on the internet. Utilizing these social network sites will
improve your small businesses’ online presence, create new
paths to your site, provide a way for you to communicate easily
with your customers, and allow you to stay in touch with
consumer needs
T a g O p t i m i z a t i o n
Tag optimization is using the researched keywords to write
tags for your website. Header (H1) tags, title tags, and ALT tags
are the most important tags that should be optimized. These
tags are very important for search engines to rank your
website. Having well written, optimized tags will improve your
site’s search engine rankings.
U n i q u e V i s i t o r s
Unique visitors are the total number of people who have
visited a website, regardless of how many times the website
has been visited.
W h i t e H a t S E O
White hat SEO is used to describe the ethical
standards of the search engine optimization industry. SEO is
said to be ‘white hat’ if it conforms to the guidelines and
standards of the SEO industry.
X M L S i t e m a p S u b m i s s i o n
The XML sitemap lists all of the URLS for your website and
informs search engines about them, so that they are included
in the search engine’s database. Submission includes
information about how often a web page is updated and its
importance in the overall site, which helps the search engine
crawl the page more intelligently. This improves your site’s
search engine rankings
