SEO Terms

XML Sitemap

An XML file that lists every page on a site by their URLs. XML sitemaps are submitted to the search engines to inform them of the pages on your site.

Domain Authority

An estimate by Moz of how likely a site is to appear high in search engine rankings. It takes into account over 40 factors including MozRank and MozTrust scores.

Website Visits

Number of visits on a website in a set period of time. Not to be confused with Visitors Google Analytics calls them "Sessions"

Search Ads

Paid ads that appear in search engines along side, above and/or below non-paid search results

SERP Rank

SERP = Search Engine Results Page. The SERP Rank is where a website appears in the SERP when a specific keyword is searched. Also called SERP Position.

SERP

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page. SERPs are the Web pages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. They contain a ranked list of websites that the search engine deems relevant to the search query and typically contain 10 results/page.

External No Follow Linkbacks

A linkback to your site that does not allow search engines to follow it. No Follow links do not pass link equity.

Browser

A software program that displays HTML files that is used to browse the Web.

Robots Txt File

A text file that stops search engines that recognize the file from crawling the pages listed in the file.

Native Sitemap

A web page on a web site that lists and links to all pages on that site. This sitemap is meant for humans (not search engines).

Img Alt Attributes

An attribute for the IMG tag in HTML that provides alternative text for an image if a user for some reason cannot view it. It is intended for users with a screen reader which assists people with low or low vision. It's important for SEO because it tells search engines what the images are about.

Press Release Distribution Service

An online service that distributes an uploaded press release automatically to thousands of subscribing news sites.

Internal Links

Any Link between pages on the same site (same domain). These help search engines crawl a site to find all of its pages.

Linkbacks

Any instances of another site (a different domain) linking to your site. Google considers linkbacks to a site as votes of confidence and uses this information to rank sites.

Average Monthly Search Volume

The average number of times a keyword is searched each month. The average is taken over the previous 12 months.

Referred Visits

Visits to the website that occurred because the visitor clicked on a linkback on another site (different domain).

Site Speed

Average time between when users submit a request for a page until it's rendered in their browser.

Keyword Map

The final result of keyword research, this is a list of the pages on your site and the keywords assigned to each page. For each page on your site, choose the most highly-searched keywords that are relevant to the page. The intention is to optimize each page with its assigned keywords.

Website Visitors

The number of people who have visited a website in a given timeframe Not to be confused with Visits Google Analytics calls them "Users"

Site Indexation on Google

The Number of a website's pages that are indexed by Google. If a page is not indexed, it means that Google does not know about it and it won't returned in Google SERPs.

Master Keyword List

Derived from the Keyword Map, this is a simple list of all the keywords that were included in the keyword Map. This provides you with a list of the keywords for which you are striving to rank.

SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is the process improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's non-paid (or organic) search results.

Inbound Marketing

Promoting a company/brand/product through any form of content marketing. The content attracts customers, bringing them in to your site or conversation as opposed to going out and interrupting the customer to get their attention.

AdWords Keyword Tool

A free tool provided by Google in AdWords that returns synonyms for keywords you enter along with their corresponding search volume. This tool is used in keyword research for both Paid Search Ads and SEO.

Google Webmaster Tools

A free tool that gives web developers critical information on the performance of their sites including, crawl errors, broken links, number of linkbacks, number of keywords queries.

External Followed Linkbacks

A linkback to your site that allows search engines to follow it or not ignore it. Followed linkbacks pass link equity to the linked site

Search Engine

A program that searches documents on the World Wide Web that correspond to keywords searched by the user.

Content Marketing

Any marketing that involves the creation and sharing of content in order to attract customers.

Time on Site

Average amount of time a visit on the website lasts.

Flash Video

Flash Video is a file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player. Its use is not recommended for SEO because search engines cannot crawl the content in a Flash file.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free Web analytics program that provides comprehensive data about visitors' activity on your Website.

Google Algorithm

Google's algorithm is the program created and used by Google for determining where websites relevant to a search query rank in the SERPs. Over 200 hundred factors are coded into the algorithm.

Keyword Research

The process of finding the keywords your target audience is ACTUALLY using to find your services. The goal is to find the most relevant and most highly-searched keywords.

Keywords

The words or phrases users search in search engines. These are the words/phrases websites want to be found for.

Meta Tags

Title Tag, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, H1 Tags used in HTML or XHTML documents that provide information (structured metadata) about a Web page to search engines.

Direct Visits

Visits to the website that occurred because the visitor typed in the domain name in the search engine address bar.

Paid Search Visits

Website visits that result from the visitor searching keywords in a search engine and clicking on the Paid Search results (such as AdWords Ads).

Organic Search Visits

Website visits that result from the visitor searching keywords in a search engine and clicking on the non-paid results Also called: Non-Paid Search Visits

Pages/Visits

Average number of pages viewed in a visit.