Kicking Off SEM Month: Terminology
ByOk, so SEM month kicks off today and I want to start with the basics. I bet you all saw that one coming. This month we will go through what you need to do when building a site from the ground up and how to run SEM on a current site.
Like advertising, SEM has its terminology, its hot zones, its tools, its rules of success, and its rules for failure. Also there are a billion articles on these things on the Web and if you have the time you can check each and everyone of them. Or you can read my semi-brief summary of as many things as I can cram together.
Terminology
Traffic Terms
Inorganic Traffic: Inorganic traffic is traffic that is pushed via marketing campaigns. Banner ads, search engine ads, etc generate inorganic traffic. Generally speaking this form of traffic is semi-immediate depending on how much you blanket the Web with your advertising and slowly dies out over time unless more money is spent to build a new marketing campaign.
Organic Traffic: Organic traffic is any traffic that comes to your site without being paid for. This includes people who visit via links in forums and blogs, traffic from search engines, traffic from word of mouth, or traffic from bookmarks. Organic traffic generally comes to a site naturally and is not driven by marketing campaigns.
Search Engine Terms
Authority: Authority is the value given to site based on their relevancy to the keyword. Authority is given to sites that have good content that is rich in the keyword phrase and have links from other sites targeting them for that keyword phrase. The higher the authority a site has the higher up in the search engine results it will be.
Analytics: Software or service that aides the user in gathering and analyzing data about their site. This includes referrals, keywords used to get to the site and more.
Click Fraud: The process by which a PPC advertisement is clicked fraudulently. With Google Adwords click fraud is used to remove the deposit amount from a competitor so their ad is no longer being shown on the Google search engine results page. Or a webmaster may click their own site’s adwords to fraudulently gain money from the PPC contract.
Google Bomb: Although Google said it removed the ability to make Google Bombs the recent attack on the Church of Scientology have shown this not to be the case. A Google Bomb is when multiple sites link to a page using targeted keywords that increase that page in the ranking on an unfavorable keyword phrase. A few years back if you looked up waffle you would get John Kerry and if you looked up miserable failure you would get George Bush. These sites were Google bombed.
GYM: Refers to the top three search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN. Oddly enough, the formed this anagram in order of importance as well.
Page Rank: Page Rank or PR is a common means of gauging a site’s search engine strength. Page Rank is a Google invention and can be found by using the Google Toolbar or any bar that presents it ( I use the Search Status toolbar). PR changes only a few times a month so it is not a very accurate measurement of search engine success, but it can be used for general assessment.
Sandbox: The, as yet, unproven practice of Google to slow the growth of ranking fast on brand new web sites. If a site is in a sandbox phase it will not gain on searches for a length of time no matter how hard you try.
SE: Search Engine. SE has replaced search engine for its ease of use and well, when you type out a 4k word article on search engines this makes the article a little less menacing.
SEO: Search Engine Optimization. The process by which we optimize our Web sites to score higher on search engines.
SEM: Search Engine Marketing.
SERP: Search Engine Results Page. When you click search on a keyword on any search engine you will get a SERP listing all the keyword’s results.
Spider: Search engines use automated programs that scour the Internet weaving their way through page after page of every site. These programs are called spiders and are the basis of all SEO.
Long tail: When you say long tail you are referring to the most common of searches on the Internet. Long tail means a search that uses more than 3 words. Though these keyword phrases are uncommon by themselves, if you add them all together you will find that they surpass more common keyword phrases. “find a dedicated web host” is an example of a long tail.
Keywords
Keyword: A single word used in searches. “Web” is an example of a keyword.
Keyword Phrase: Two or more words strung together in a single search. “Web Hosting” is an example of a keyword phrase.
Keyword Density: A ratio from the amount of times the keyword is found in the body text of a page in relation to how many total words a page has. If a page has 500 words and you find “web host” in it 10 times this would be a keyword density of 2%.
Keyword Research: All things relating to finding keywords that are relevant to your page. From the obvious, a Web Host wanting to target the Web Host keyword; to the not so obvious targeting “find good dedicated web host.”
Keyword Spam or Keyword Stuffing: Keyword spam or keyword stuffing is when you have too high a keyword density in your page. Though there is no set boundary, having a keyword density of 80% would be bad and considered keyword spam.
Links
Backlink or Inlink: Backlinks and Inlinks are any links that go to your site from another site.
Link Bait: A web page designed to attract links. Often used in web 2.0 and social media sites. Saying something is good link bait is saying that that page will do well on search engines because it will attract a lot of inlinks.
Link: A name for any element that connects two web pages together.
Link Exchange: When two or more parties swap links to each other to gain authority. Link Exchange sites are directory sites that trade links and normally add very little authority to the site that they link to.
Link Farm: A group of like sites that link to each other.
Link Popularity: The measurement of a site based on how many links link to it. This value also factors in the quality of the sites that link in.
nofollow: An HTML attribute placed in a <a href> (link) tag or in the HEAD section that makes spiders not follow a link. By doing this, search engines will not use that link when tabulating a sites link popularity. Wikipedia now uses nofollow tags so any site that Wikipedia links to will not get an increase in link popularity.
Non-Reciprocal Link: A link given to a site and that site does not link back.
We are halfway done with our terminology primer. We will finish off this list on Monday and continue on with SEO Month. Until then happy hosting.