You guys were so excited about 18 Blog Metrics I thought I would throw you a bone and share some 20 even more titillating SEO terms.

These SEO terms are all about auditing. The list basically boils down to the parts of your website you can fix in order to have the best SEO possible.

So, here go 20 SEO terms to keep you up at night. And don’t worry if you really can’t sleep because you can always pass the extra time catching up on the ANNACOLIBRI posts you may have missed!

20 SEO terms

1. 1. What is a Title Tag? The title tag is an HTML element that shows up on the top bar of search engines as well as in search results. This simple phrase is most people’s introduction to your site as well as a key factor in the Google Page Rank algorithm. The one for my website, ANNACOLIBRI, is “ANNACOLIBRI | tech savvy coaching for women.”Why you care: There are four key issues to consider when dealing with title tags.They are:
      1. Duplicate: Each page of your site should have its own unique description. This will increase the chances that search engines will direct users in your target audience to your website.
      2. Missing: If the title tag is missing, you are missing a key factor in search engine optimization and probably losing traffic as well.
      3. Long: 70 characters is typical. If you write longer titles, they will be cut off, which looks unprofessional.
      4. Multiple: Anyone with any tech experience knows what a glitch is. Best to make sure that you don’t have multiple title tags on your site.

1. 1. What is a Crawler? Sounds icky, huh? Well, it’s a bunch of code written by Googlers and Yahoos that searches websites for keywords.Why you care: Without crawlers there would be no search engine optimization. And that’s all we care about, right?
   2. What is Reachability? Reachability is a measure of how many links a crawler must follow to locate pages on your site.Why you care: You care because you know that crawlers already work hard, day and night. Why make things harder for them when, the easier you make it for them the higher your page will rank?
   3. What is a Redirect? A redirect is another little piece of code that makes it so people go from one page to another, often without even knowing it!Why you care: Redirecting too many of the pages on your site to other pages wastes crawler resources and may result in a smaller number of pages being crawled. In other words, too many redirects makes for cranky crawlers. Yikes!
   4. What is Anchor Text? You know when you click on a on part of a website to get to another article or post? Sometimes it says, “click here” and it is either underlined or a different color, depending on how the website was styled.Why you care: You care because anchor text is another Google algorithm heavyweight. No one is searching for “click here.” But let’s hope someone is searching for “ANNACOLIBRI.” So, your anchor text could be “click ‘ANNACOLIBRI’ to find out more,” with ANNACOLIBRI being the actual anchor text.
   5. What is a Broken Link? You know what a broken link is. It’s that annoying situation in which you “click here” and get an error message.Why you care: A broken link irritates users, makes you seem unprofessional, wastes search engine crawler resources and can affect your placement in search engines. Double yikes!
   6. What is a Dead End Page? A dead end page is a page with no links.
      Why you care: You are missing an opportunity to at least link, using great anchor text, to another part of your website. Or, you can offer links to other awesome websites, making you seem more awesome, too.

1. 1. What is a 404/Page Not Found message? This is the message you get when a link is broken, for example. It may not always be your fault, but it pays to be prepared.
      Why you care: A good ‘404’ or ‘Page Not Found’ error message can be turned into a good, or at least not that bad, thing. You can code the page to say something funny like, “Sorry, Dude, you are 404’d.” And, you can put your brand and message on the page as well as provide links to get back to your site. So, instead of an error, you can think of it as an opportunity.

1. 1. What is a Long URL? You know when you try to email a friend a link and it takes up a paragraph? That is a long URL!Why you care: For one thing, they look messy and unprofessional. For another, they are missed opportunity to present your content using compelling keywords. Worst of all, they might get automatically shortened by search engines, thus making people less likely to click through to your valuable content. You worked hard. Make it pretty!
   2. What is Duplicate Content? Duplicate content is republishing the exact same content in several places either on your site or on the web.Why you care: Remember those busy crawlers? They see duplicate content and they report it to Google and then, I’m sorry to say, your site can actually lose Page Rank. Triples yikes! P.S. Images count as content!
   3. What is a (Duplicate) Meta Description? Well. A meta description is usually limited to 160 characters and provides a short description of your content.Why you care: Meta descriptions, like page content, should be unique.
   4. How Many Links are Too Many Links? So, we already said you should avoid dead end pages. The more the merrier, right? Up to a point.Why you care: Having too many links could confuse visitors and may also create suspicion amongst your crawlers. Who needs a suspicious crawler? Don’t we have enough to worry about? So be generous with links but don’t get too crazy!
   5. What is a Server Error? A server error, or 500 error, means that your site’s server is broken.Why you care: Server errors mean no one can get to your site or part of your site, and that includes crawlers. Quadruple yikes!
   6. What is a Robots.txt file? Now we are getting pretty darn techy! Robots.txt files help you block certain content from the crawlers. Do not attempt this at home! Find a 24 year-old to help you!Why you care: Robots.txt files that are set up incorrectly can block crawlers from valuable content. You can use a validator to help you find errors in Robots.txt files but you will probably still need help fixing them and making sure they are situated correctly within your code. Best, in this case, to get help.
   7. What is a Session ID? This is another super techy term, but it is basically code that is created to measure length of time of a given visit to a website.Why you care: Problem is, when session IDs are formulated as URLs, they make duplicate content. And that makes crawlers mad. And angry crawlers lower your Page Rank. No fair!
   8. What is an On-Site Link? This is also known as an internal link.Why you care: These kinds of links encourage people to stay on your site longer and provide yet another opportunity to create high quality anchor text.
   9. What is a Hostname? A hostname is what you put into your browser to get to a specific place on the internet, for example: www.annacolibri.com or http://www.annacolibri.com or .Why you care: Most search engines treat these as separate sites, so it is important to have one redirect to the other or you risk splitting your Page Rank across the three versions of your site.
   10. What is Low Word Count? Low word count means that you don’t have very much content on your site.
       Why you care: If you have very few words on your site, the crawler has nothing to do! And bored crawlers, just like bored boyfriends, don’t stick around.

1. What is Alt Text? Alt text is text with an HTML alt tag that allows you to optimize your photos and other images with keyword terms.Why you care: Using alt text helps search engines index the non-text content of your pages, and, along with descriptions (that may also be crawled) makes your site more accessible for people with vision problems.
2. What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)? SEM is a form of internet marketing that relies on increasing the findability of your site using SEO.Why you care: Your work is valuable to you, and others. After everything you put into it, it pays to be findable. SEO is one part of SEM, and SEM is part of the ensemble of your marketing and outreach efforts.

Nervous?

These top SEO tips can seem a little daunting. If you’re a bit nervous understanding and applying all these details, I can see why. In fact, SEO and SEM are so complex that outsourcing these tasks often makes sense.

To be truly tech savvy, you need to understand SEO. My suggestion: go ahead. Dig in. Make sure you understand the basics and then outsource.

Your Turn

Have any SEO top tips or terms you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments.

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