This section goes over everything you should know about the technical terms of optimization
- On-Page SEO: This refers to all of the actions taken within a website to improve its position in search rankings. This includes optimizing content, HTML code lines, and the structure of the website. To implement it, you need to focus on valuable, high-quality content, proper keyword placement, meta tags, and URL structure.
- Meta Tags: These are snippets of text in a page's code that help to describe the content of the website. Implement these to your webpage by including relevant keywords in your title tag, meta description, and header tags.
- Meta Description: This is a brief description of a webpage’s content. It appears on the search engine result pages (SERPs) below the title tag. To implement it, include a clear, concise summary of your webpage content and include your target keyword.
- Title Tag: These are HTML elements that specify the title of a web page and are displayed on SERP as a clickable headline. Make sure your title tag is unique, includes your primary keyword, and accurately describes the content of the page.
- Header Tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.): These are used in HTML to differentiate between the headings and subheadings of your content from the rest. Use header tags to identify and organize your content, making it easy for users to navigate. Your H1 should contain your most important keywords.
- Keyword Optimization: This is the act of researching, analyzing, and choosing the best keywords to drive targeted traffic from search engines to your website. Target keywords are to be included in title tags, URLs, meta descriptions, header tags, and content.
- Internal Linking: This refers to any links from one page on a domain, which lead to another page on the same domain. It helps to improve the user experience and aids in website navigation. Implement this by naturally linking relevant content across your website.
- URL Structure: This refers to how the website or page URL is formed. URLs should be user-friendly, and ideally, include your target keyword.
- Image SEO: This refers to optimizing images so that they can be easily found by search engines. To implement this, use relevant file names for your images, reduce file size for faster load times, and use alt text with keywords.
- Alt Text: The alternative text used to describe images to search engines and visually impaired readers. Always provide insightful alt text to enhance accessibility and SEO.
- Site Speed: This refers to how quickly a website loads. A slower site speed can negatively affect your search engine ranking. You can improve this by optimizing images, using browser caching, and minifying JS and CSS files.
- Mobile Optimization: This ensures that visitors accessing your site from mobile devices have an experience optimized for their device. Make sure your website is responsive and loads quickly on mobile devices.
- Schema Markup: This is code that helps search engines to understand your content and better represent it in the search results. You can implement schema markup using various online tools that generate the necessary code, which you can then place on your website.
- Robots.txt: This file tells search engine crawlers which pages or files the crawler can request from your site. It should be used to avoid crawling of duplicate or low-value content.
- XML Sitemap: This file helps search engines understand the structure of your site and find all the pages on your site they might not otherwise discover. Implement it by generating a sitemap through a tool or plugin, and submit it via Google Search Console.
- Anchor Text: This is the clickable text in a hyperlink that links to another location or document on the web. To use anchor text effectively, make sure it is relevant to the linked content.
- SERP (Search Engine Results Page): This term refers to the page displayed by search engines in response to a query. Understanding how your website appears on SERPs and how to improve its appearance can increase click-through rates.
- 301 Redirect: This is a status code that informs search engines a page has permanently moved to a new location. 301 Redirects should be used when deleting pages or changing URLs to maintain search ranking.
- Canonical Tag: Also known as "rel=canonical" , it tells search engines that a specific URL is the master copy of a page. This helps to prevent duplicate content issues.
- Cloaking: This is a deceptive SEO practice that presents different content or URLs to human users and search engines. It is considered a violation of Google's guidelines and should be avoided.
- Alt Attribute: It’s a specification used in HTML to attribute a text field to an image on a webpage, helping search engines understand what the image is representing.
- SSL Certificate (Secure Sockets Layer Certificate): This is a digital certificate providing authentication for a website, enabling an encrypted connection. Websites with an SSL certificate begin with HTTPS instead of HTTP. SEO best practice recommends using SSL.
- Long-Tail Keywords: These are usually keyword phrases that have at least three words. They are easier to rank for due to less competition and can attract more qualified traffic.
- LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) Keywords: These are synonyms or closely related words to your main keyword. Use these in your content to help search engines understand your context better and boost your ranking.
- Bounce Rate: This is the percentage of visitors to a website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. High bounce rates can have a negative effect on your SEO rankings. Improve this by enhancing user experience, page load speed and providing high-quality, relevant content.
- Google Analytics: A free Google tool that provides insights into how users find and use your website, which can help you identify areas of your site that need improvement.
- Google Search Console: This free service from Google helps you monitor and troubleshoot your site's presence in Google Search results.
.svg)