ABCs of SEO

We hope you enjoy this whimsical fusion of an SEO glossary and internet marketing! We’ve tried to combine our favorite parts of SEO with the ABCs to clear up some confusion on the subject. Here it goes!

Alt text is descriptive text used to allow images to contribute to page ranking. Images have a tough time ranking without content therefore, a verbal depiction of the photo allows spiders to understand it better.

Bounce rate describes the instance when a viewer leaves a website after visiting one page (usually just the homepage).

Content Is King, the phrase that many claim was coined by Bill Gates has continued to echo throughout creative agencies to remind the world that copy is a key factor in the search engine optimization process.

Domains are labeled by the IP address. All devices sharing a mutual part of the IP address are considered to be in the same domain.

Error pages are the equivalent of a fire breathing dragon stomping around in hopes of ruining your entire day.

Fold. On a website, a fold is usually placed at the 600px mark from the top of the page. Before the fold, sites include their navigation bar, a slider or important image relevant to their purpose, and content.

Google, the knight in shining armor for all SEO damsels in distress. Two-thirds of all searches are performed on Google, totaling out to more than one billion searches per day. Google has continued to provide inbound marketing professionals with useful resources to improve client traffic and online awareness i.e. Google Business Solutions including AdWords and Analytics, Google+, and Webmaster Tools.

Headings are used to format content as a means of creating an appealing, lively body of text. Headings range from h1’s to h2’s and can be found as paragraph separators or as titles.

Incognito allows you to creep on your tiptoes around the web as an unbiased surfer. A swift Ctrl+Shift+N opens a new window and you’ll notice a trenchcoated fellow lurking around the top of the browser. This tool is helpful when performing a keyword analysis, when you’re interested in seeing how your keywords perform in a clean browser.

JavaScript is a scripting language used to create interactive websites.

Keyword analysis is a crucial step in the optimization process. Keyword research helps eliminate poor ranking and irrelevant words a client may currently have on their site. The analysis, which can be administered through Google AdWords includes the competition level for words (Low, Medium, High) and the monthly searches performed for the keyword.

Long tail keywords are less searched words whose combined search volumes prove to be a potentially high ranking outcome for a site.

Meta descriptions are a hit or miss. Any inbound marketing professional will tear apart a poorly written meta description or commend an intelligently constructed one. These descriptions can be found underneath the site URL on a SERP. They are intended to persuade viewers to click on the URL and visit the page.

Navigation bars can be found horizontally arranged at the top of a website or vertically on the left side. This system is used to navigate page visitors throughout the site and to direct crawlers to the site’s important, ranking content.

Organic search results are those that are not paid advertisements and appear based on their relevance to the performed search. Organic searches are highly sought after.

Pay Per Click (PPC) are the type of advertisements that a company pays the hosted website for every “click” initiated by a page visitor.

Query, a search query is an inquiry typed into search fields (or search boxes) intended to retrieve answers or information from the web.

Robots or spiders are used to index and catalog websites i.e. search engines using it to provide webs surfers with relevant websites.

SERP (Search Engine Results Page) refers to the page pulled up after a search query is performed. In SEO, clients strive to be found on the first SERP as one of the first URL’s.

Title tags are defined as the given title for a web page. An example can be found on URL’s; the title of the webpage is in blue above the metadescription.

URL is a formatted strand of text used by browsers, email clients and other software to identify a network resource. Also known as the address of a resource.

Very certain that you’ve stopped reading this. Am I right?

White Hat SEO consist of the strategies used to create a quality website by focusing on the target market rather than focusing on robots.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away
A writer declined an invite to play,
Instead she planted herself under a tree
Along with paper, a pencil, and hot oolong tea.

There she hid for the remainder of the day,
Whistling, humming, and scribbling away.
She pronounced herself finished, her face in a glow
“It’s alive, it’s alive I say. My ABC’s of SEO!”

(And in that tree
the writer lost X, Y, and Z.)