Hey noob! Do you want to expand your knowledge of SEO terms but don’t know where to start? Start here! This little SEO for Dummies tutorial will go over the most basic, fundamental terms that will help you get started on boosting your web presence. Grab a pen and paper, and take notes—there just might be a quiz at the end!
SEO for Beginners: 5 SEO Terms You Need to Know
After launching your web presence campaign, you might come across words that are a bit foreign at first: analytics, target keyword, meta description, etc. Unfortunately, you can’t just gloss over these words and expect anything more than confusion. Start your SEO dictionary with these words—they’re not going anywhere!
Not only will you see these words every day, but by learning their meaning, you’re actually learning all about important SEO tips and tricks that are vital for a successful digital marketing campaign. Without further ado, let’s dive right in with some of the more important ones.
Analytics
Analytics is a very cool sounding word. It’s also a word that refers to the online ability to track several aspects of your marketing campaign. Say, for example, you want to know how much traffic (online visitors) your website or blog is getting. You would sign up for analytic software, likely Google Analytics.
Without knowing how things are reaching people and how well things are performing, marketing blindly is shooting off into the dark. It offers you no opportunity to revamp and fix your web presence campaign. So, get Google Analytic and pay attention to what your audience is doing!
Backlink
Backlinks happen when two websites shake hands. You ever go to a website and find specific words highlighted with links that take you to another website like this? If you write a blog, you need to source your information somehow. The solution is backlinks.
You know what’s so great about backlinks? Let us tell you what’s so great about backlinks: the more the merrier. (Well, the more quality of backlinks, the merrier.) That means, the more directories (that aren’t you) containing backlinks to your website, the more credible you are in the eyes of the almighty Google. “Link juice,” as we call it here in the industry. The more credible the website that links to you is, the more credible you’ll become.
That doesn’t mean linking your own content from your website will suffice. Nope, they need to be from other websites, credible websites preferably. So linking to other SEO for beginners type blogs on your own site for reference won’t give you any “Link juice.” Sorry.
Target keywords
For your beautiful optimized content pieces, you’ll be using keywords and plenty of them. Let’s say your target keyword is “SEO terms.” That means “SEO terms” is a specific phrase you think people will be typing in their search engines. What are they searching for? They don’t know it yet, but they’re looking for you. Make sense?
Whenever you Google something, check the results for the specific keyword you typed in. The specific word might be there or it might be something similar, but someone optimized their onsite or blog pages, lining them with keyword-rich longtail phrases, with the intent of being more visible in search results.
Basically, if you want to rank, use keywords. Find out what the top search results are in your relevant field and use those keywords wherever you can.
Meta description
You know those short snippets of information beneath the blue text on your Google search results? Those 160-character keyword-optimized bits of information make it easier for users and the Google robot gods. It summarizes the web page’s content, as well as offers yet another opportunity for splicing in those fantastic keywords.
We’ll let one of our meta descriptions sum it up for ya.
Can you spot the target keyword?
Organic search results
There are many kinds of website traffic. There’s paid traffic, like PPC (Pay-Per-Click), there’s referral traffic, social traffic, but the one that just feels the best is organic traffic. This is the result of organic searches, which is when someone searches for you specifically or at least something similar to you.
When they stumble on your website, Google will let you know that it was a 100% GMO-free, totally organic search result. Google will then reward you by sending a fresh organic pear in the mail. Why a pear? Because they’re the rich man’s apples.
The best way to harvest these organic treats is optimize, optimize, optimize. With all the keyword-rich content on your website, you’ll be much easier to find, resulting in more organic traffic. If there’s anything to be taken away from this, it’s that if your website is optimized, good things will happen.
Congrats! You’re no longer a noob, but a regular old dork… and there’s no quiz.
How to Do SEO, the Post Launch Way
It isn’t all about learning SEO terms, but that’s an excellent start. Take some time, familiarize yourself with Google, SEO, and the principles of online marketing, as told by Post Launch, Las Vegas’ number one digital marketing consultants.
