By Dan Duke — Let’s face it; search engine optimization has a language all its own. Understanding and using these SEO terms effectively, however, empowers businesses to create content that connects with potential clients and customers.

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So how can you unlock this unique vocabulary and recharge your online content marketing? In this guide, we'll review the terms, their meanings, and the power of the tools and practices they describe. We'll focus on essential SEO terms that can lead to a successful content strategy.

Essential SEO terms

Keywords

Keywords are the words or phrases that people type into a search engine to find what they are looking for. (Or, for voice search, the words they speak into a smartphone or smart speaker.) If a website wants to boost traffic, it needs to use the right keywords in the right spots in its content. Some examples of where to place them are:

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• Early in the text, to indicate the relevance of the content.
• The meta description, to give users a quick summary.
• The page title and headings, to help readers and search engines quickly assess the content.
• Any alt text, which is placed with photos to describe what they show for the benefit of sight-impaired users as well as search engines.

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Keywords are essential to SEO strategy because they signal to search engines that the content will address a searcher’s question. Content marketers employ a variation called long-tail keywords. These are phrases people use when searching for specific information. Long-tail keywords have lower search volume, but the searchers using them tend to be more intent on taking action based on the search results.

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Content marketing managers, editors, and writers strive to create keyword-rich content that will be relevant in search engine algorithms. They must not overdo it, however.

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A blog post with too much keyword density might be flagged as keyword stuffing or spamming and can result in punishment by Google or lower rankings in Google SERPs. This is an example of black hat SEO.

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Thorough keyword research will identify a focus keyword (possibly a long-tail keyword), keyword phrases, keyword questions, and a list of must-have keywords. Using platforms and services such as Rellify helps a business post SEO-friendly content that will rank high in organic search results.

SERPs

A Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) is what appears on your screen when you do an online search. On Google, the top of the page might offer a paid ad, sponsored content, or a featured snippet. These SERP features are the search engine’s attempt to answer the query before the searcher clicks into a web page. Common features are:

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• Knowledge cards. A box that answers a simple question, such as “Who won the Super Bowl in 1979?”
• Featured snippets. An excerpt from one of the top organic results that succinctly answers a query.
• Shopping results. A roundup of paid ads.
• People also asked. A list of questions related to the query with organic links to answers.

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The first organic search result — the content with the best ranking — shows a web page that should best answer the user's question. It also gets the most clicks. One of the main goals of content creation is to claim one of the first three spots for the right keywords. About 75% of all clicks go to the top three results. Web pages that appear on the second page or beyond receive relatively few clicks, if any.

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That’s why relevance is so important in creating content.

Ranking factors

Ranking factors are the criteria applied by search engines when indexing web pages to decide where a page will fall in the SERPs. Google uses algorithms, which are complex formulas or sets of rules, to crawl web pages. These crawlers, or bots, constantly go from site to site, and revisit sites, using algorithms to analyze websites and decide which ones provide relevant content.

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Google doesn't provide a comprehensive list of the ranking factors built into its algorithms. SEO experts agree, however, that ranking factors include the quality of content, backlinks, user friendliness, technical SEO, mobile optimization, social media links, and keyword optimization.

One of the best things you can focus on with your content strategy is having relevant content that helps answer searchers’ questions and stands the test of time. And remember, Google and other search engines are constantly updating their algorithms, which affects the ranking factors. This is why it is good to stay in tune with future-facing SEO tools and update content regularly.

Meta description

A meta description summarizes a web page’s content in one or two sentences — about the length of a tweet. It usually appears on SERPs along with the URL and the title.

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It's not a direct ranking factor, but a well-crafted meta description can improve the chances that someone will click on the link to your web page. That, in turn, can boost your rankings. Google might also use a meta description as a featured snippet, which also will boost your traffic. These summarizations are marked with HTML coding to make it easy for web crawlers to find and assess them.

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A content marketer can improve the click-through rate by writing a meta description that:

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• Includes keywords. Using the focus keyword at the beginning of the text helps, too.
• Uses active, engaging language.
• Emphasizes the relevance of the content.

User experience

User experience, or UX, refers to users’ interactions and impressions during their time on a web page. This is an element of on-page SEO.

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Website developers must keep this in mind, because Google certainly does. Some crucial factors when creating a quality user experience are:

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• Easy-to-read text
• Clear call-to-action buttons or designs
• High-quality images and graphics
• Pages that load quickly
• A home page that's easy to navigate
• A mobile-first website

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A website owner should dig deep into the mindset of its target customers when considering what bells and whistles — if any — to include on a site.

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A satisfying user experience can have long-term positive effects on the success of a website in search results. Essential signals that indicate a positive user experience are click-through rate, visit duration, return-to-SERP rate, and the highly coveted conversion rate.

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You don’t want a clunky website to overshadow your great content. Instead, your great work should make the audience feel welcomed and comfortable.

On-page SEO

We just mention page speed as part of a good user experience. That's also an element of on-page SEO — the optimization of individual web pages to improve their search engine rankings and attract the target audience. It also involves things like:

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• Relevant, authoritative content
• Keyword usage
• Meta tags
• Alt tags
• Internal linking  

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Its effectiveness can be measured through metrics such as keyword rankings, organic traffic, and  the bounce rate — the percentage of visitors who leave the site after viewing just one page.

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO involves factors outside of the website itself that affect its search engine rankings. It primarily focuses on building high-quality backlinks (also called inbound links) from other reputable sites. When web crawlers see that reputable sites link to pages on your site, it gives you more credibility for providing good answers. Social media marketing and online brand mentions are other important factors. The effectiveness of off-page SEO can be measured through metrics like link building, domain authority, referral traffic, and social signals, which collectively indicate the website’s credibility and popularity on the internet.

Local SEO

Local SEO is part of off-page SEO. It focuses on search results for location-specific queries, helping businesses attract customers from their geographic area. It involves strategies like optimizing Google My Business listings, using local keywords, and acquiring customer reviews. How do you measure the effectiveness of local SEO? Through metrics such as local search rankings, online reviews and ratings, local citation volume, and the amount of traffic from local searches.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to the optimization of a website’s infrastructure to enable search engines to crawl and index it effectively, boosting overall performance and user experience. Key elements include:

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• Configuring the robots.txt file to guide search engine bots.
• Creating and submitting an XML sitemap to outline the website’s structure.
• Implementing canonical tags to avoid duplicate content issues.
• Setting up 301 redirects to the primary version of a given URL. If, for example, your preferred version is https://www.abc.com, any other versions should 301 redirect to that version.
• Migrating your website to HTTPS protocol. Hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS) protects your visitors’ data in the exchange between their web browser and your website. 
• Using structured data to give bots information about your pages and their content. One of the most common types of structured data is called schema markup.

Domain authority

Domain authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz, a provider of SEO tools. It indicates how likely a website is to rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). A Domain Authority score can range from 1 to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank. For example, Wikipedia.org has a domain authority of 94 and Facebook.com is scored at 96.

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In general terms, it is an assessment of the overall authority and trustworthiness of a domain. It's heavily influenced by backlinks. However, things like age, history, formatting, and quality of content count, too.

SEO tools

Dozens of web analytics tools are available. Many of them have a free, beginner's level. Look for the right balance of price, features, and usability. Here are a few examples:

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• Ahrefs. A comprehensive SEO toolset that includes features such as site audits, keyword research, backlink analysis, and rank tracking.
• SEMrush. Another all-in-one website analytics tool that offers features like keyword research, competitor analysis, site audits, rank tracking, backlink analysis and content optimization.
• Google Search Console. A free tool provided by Google that helps monitor and maintain your site’s presence in Google Search results. Its dashboard provides insights into search volume, indexing status, and keyword performance.
• Google Analytics. While primarily a web analytics tool, Google Analytics offers valuable insights for SEO, including organic search traffic analytics, user behavior data, and conversion tracking.

Integrate more SEO terms into your strategy

SEO covers multitudes of terms and tactics. Some businesses find it overwhelming to keep up. To make the most of your marketing resources, you can rely on Rellify.

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We remove the guesswork from content creation and enable you to decide what topics to cover by furnishing you with a Relliverse™. Your custom-AI subject-matter expert is generated by deep machine learning that's attuned to your business sector and target audience.

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And you can use our detailed AI guidance to optimize your content for search engine results. That, along with our built-in monitoring dashboard, means you never miss an opportunity to improve your content.

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Curious about how Rellify can revolutionize your content strategy, production, and monitoring? Schedule a free demo with one of our experts today!