Search Engine Optimisation (Optimization), Search Engine Marketing and Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

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Ever wondered what your web design or SEO company is actually taking about when they use abreviations, acronyms and plain old gobbledigook?

Here are a few terms that are often used when discusing Website Optimisation and Pay Per Click Campaigns.

Website Optimisation Terms

ALT Tag
An ALT Tag is text the is put in place of an image if it cannot be displayed on screen. ALT Tag also appear if you roll your mouse over an image.

Anchor Tag
An Anchor Tag is a tag that can be placed in a any part of a web page. When the name of the Anchor Tag is appended to a URL linking to that page the browser will scroll down to display that section of the page first.

Back Link
A Back Link is a link on an external website that links back to your website.

Black Hat SEO
Black Hatting SEO or 'Black Hatting' is the process of undertaking unacceptable methods in order to influence a website's position. If a search engine believes you have used Black Hat methods your website's position will be dropped without warning.

A Blog
A Blog is a diary of events or ideas kept online for public browsing. Comments can generally be left on a blog allowing a discussion to take place.

A Bot
A Bot or Robot is a script that searches the internet and follows certain proceedures based on the content it finds.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
Cascading Style Sheets are used by web designers to format how a web page should be displayed.

Google Page Rank
Google Page Rank is a number that Google assign to a web page based on how important they feel it is to people browsing the internet.

Keywords
Keywords are the words or phrases that are most likely used by people searching for your website.

Keyword Density
Keyword Density is the number of times a given keyword appears on a web page. A good figure to aim for is around 12%.

Link Building
The process of increasing the number of external websites that link back to your website

Meta Data or Meta Tags
Meta Tags are pieces of information embedded within a web page that describe to a search engine what the page is about.

Organic Search
Organic Search are the non-paid search results that are displayed when a user searches for a product or service. Because you don't have to pay when a user clicks on a link to your website found in this way it is the best form of driving traffic to your website.

Reciprocal Link
A Reciprocal link is a link placed on a website in return for a link back to the originating website.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
Search Engine Marketing is the process of marketing a website to improve its Page Rank and to drive traffic towrds it. This can be done through Link Building, releasing Online Press Releases, Directory Listings and Banner Advertising.

SEO (SEarch Engine Optimisation)
Search Engine Optimisation is the process of adjusting parts of a website to make it more relevant to search engines and end users.

Title Tag
A Title Tag is the tag given to a hyperlink in order to better describe where it is linking to. It is also used to provide a title, or description, for a web page which can be seen at the top of the browser.

White Hat SEO
White Hat SEO is the process of increasing a website's position in organic search results through acceptable methods

Pay Per Click Terms

Ad Group
An Ad Group is a group of adverts that are triggered (displayed) by a single set of keywords.

Ad Ranking or Positioning
The position on the screen the advert will take is dependent on its ad rank. This is determined by a number of factors including the CPC figure attributed to it and its relevance to the search and content on its landing page.

Ad Scheduling
With Ad Scheduling you can determin times throughout the day and week when the Ad Group will run. You can also set your Ad Group to run at a percentage of the CPC you have set for your keywords.

Average CPC (Cost Per Click)
Average Cost Per Click is the average price you pay for multiple clicks on your advert during a given period.

Average Position
Average Postion is the average position on the users screen that your advert has been displayed.

CPC (Cost Per Click)
Cost Per Click is the amount that you actually pay when someone clicks on your advert

CPM (Cost Per Thousand)
Cost Per Thousand is the amount you will pay when your advert has been displayed one thousand times. You either opt for CPC or CPM delivery, they don't operate together.

CTR (Click Through Rate)
Click Through Rate is a percentage of the number of times your advert has been clicked against the number of times it has been displayed on screen.

Cost Per Conversion
Cost Per Conversion is the total amount you have paid in order to convert a user.

Daily Budget
The Daily Budget is the maximum amount you set each day to spend on your PPC campaign.

Destination URL
The Destination URL is the URL the user is taken to when clicking on your advert.

Display URL
The Display URL is the URL that is displayed in your advert.

Landing Page
In PPC terms the landing page is the page of the website the user is taken to when they click on your advert.

Multivariate Testing
Multivariate Testing is the process of running two or more pieces of similar content on your website at the same time and testing which combination of content produces the best results from your users.

Negative Keword
You can add Negative Keywords to a campaign if you DO NOT want your advert to be displayed if they are present in a search term.

PPC
Pay Per Click. A web based advert that costs the advertiser each time a visitor clicks it and goes through to the website.

Quality Score
The Quality Score is the score attributed to a keyword. It is determined by multiple factors which all point towards its relevance to the users search query. The higher the score the lower the CPC and the better the Ad Position.

RIO (Return On Investment)
Return On Investment is the ratio of cost of advertising against the profit it generates.