March 12th, 2010 by Nick

The problem with the information available about search engine optimization is that it often seems to assume that everybody understands all the jargon and terminology associated with it. So, to redress the balance, here is a quick run down of some of the most common terms.

The Basics
If you’re a total newbie to the world of SEO, then here are a few of the basics:

SEO – Search engine optimisation uses keywords that are picked up by the search engines in order to list your website in the right searches.

Keywords – these are the words and phrases that people search for on the Internet and which the search engines pick up on in your content. It is important to research your keywords or employ an SEO company to do it for you, to make sure they are effective in attracting the right audience and achieving a high ranking in the search engine listings.

Blog – This is a website that is updated with news and information on a regular basis. On a personal level, SEO blogs can also be an online diary while for businesses it can be used to publish news and for marketing purposes

Social media – online communities such as Facebook and Twitter where people can network and interact

SMM – This stands for social media marketing, which uses social media sites such as MySpace, YouTube and Facebook to promote your website

SMO – This is the very similar to SEO, but is targeted at the social media sites.

Online reputation – This is how you are viewed by the search engines in terms of the content your site contains and the links you have with other sites. The same as in the real world if you are connected with the right people you will be viewed as a high calibre site and therefore move up the page rankings

Link building strategies – links are an important element of your web presence and can be internal (on your website) or external (inbound links on other people’s websites to yours or outbound links from your site to others). This means your presence on the Internet increases significantly and is effective in online reputation management if you’re linked to other respected sites.

The Tech Terms
When talking to an SEO company or reading their sites and blogs, they often use technical terms. Here are a few explanations of the most common|:

Algorithms – Complicated mathematical formula, which are used by the search engines to organise the rankings of websites based on their content, authority, perception of quality, usefulness and popularity.

Meta tags  - Codes that are added into web page titles to provide search engines with information about the content of the site so they can be listed in the right place for relevant searches

Spiders – Also often called a crawlers or bots, they are types of software used to gain information about a website for indexing on search engines.

Black Hat SEO – “Unethical” techniques used by some people to gain a higher ranking in the search engine listings.  Ethical SEO techniques are referred to as white hat.

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