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ALT Tags – These HTML tags allow for the embedding of text into pictures, videos and flash animation that is readable by the search engines. Always use ALT tags with your website objects, especially when you have a graphic banner or all-Flash homepage. Otherwise, the search engine spiders won’t be able to glean anything useful from your objects. Also, if you don’t use ALT tags, you’re going to miss out on traffic from a lot of people who use specialized software to read web pages because they are blind or have other disabilities.
Backlink – A link that comes from another site to your site. Backlinks establish your site as an authority to the search engine. You want as many backlinks from sites that are relevant to your site as possible. It is even better if the embedded text contained in the link is a key phrase you want to show up in the search engines for.
Bleeder Terms – In the PPC/SEM world, these are the keywords or phrases that are costing you a lot of money by generating a lot of clicks without a significant return on investment (ROI). Identifying bleeder terms and pausing or removing them from your campaigns can boost the overall effectiveness of your paid marketing campaign.
Content Network – A form of marketing where you pay the search engines directly to syndicate your ads over their content affiliate network. Ads are served along side pages of content that are relevant to the key phrases you bid on.
Domain Name – A name that you have to register in order to set up a website on the internet for your business. To an online marketing professional, the best domain names contain relevant keywords, have a .com extension, are easy to remember, and contain a few characters as possible.
Embedded Text – Links are often represented in a browser as snippets of blue underlined text. Embedded text is the text that sits inside of HTML link tags and allows them to be presented that way on screen. Text can also be embedded into picture or flash links through use of an ALT tag. Website marketing specialists make the embedded text of their site links contain key phrases that they want to show up in the SERP for.
HTML – A popular programming language used to create web sites. SEO consultants ensure that proper coding methods are used to minimize the load time of a site, standardize the way a site is displayed across different types of browsers, and to reduce the number of visitor-bouncing errors that occur.
Inbound Linking – Links that establish a one-way relationship from another site to yours. One of the most important things to generate a lot of in order to make your site climb up in the SERP. Also one of the most difficult things to acquire. Inbound links that come from highly relevant websites to your business present your website as an authority on the phrases your business needs to show up for in the search engines. Linking experts know how to build inbound links to your site without sacrificing its reputation.
Key Phrase – A phrase of words that a search engine user submits to find highly relevant websites. Identifying which specific key phrases are relevant to a business is a crucial step in any SEO or SEM marketing campaign.
Link – The basic way that websites are connected to each other. SEO professionals can use links to establish authority and reciprocal relationships between websites. Links work best when their embedded text contains key phrases.
Natural Results – See “Organic Results.”
Organic Results – Also known as “natural results.” These are what are returned by search engine algorithms as the most relevant pages for whatever search query is submitted. These typically appear in the SERP on the left-hand side in the form of a list of website links.
Paid Search Marketing – Also known as “search engine marketing.”
Parked Domain – A domain name that has been registered but not yet developed. Most often, the best available domain names for a new business are either already in use or parked. Many under-utilized domain names are parked by individuals and companies looking to profit off of a resale of the domain itself. It is often worthwhile to find a willing seller of a valuable domain instead of picking an unregistered one that has no history or existing inbound links.
Search Network – Major search engines have affiliate search networks that basically re-brand their engine. If you are running a SEM campaign, you can choose to opt into having your ads not only served on the major search engine you have an account with, but also on their affiliate search network. The traffic on search networks is typically of reduced quality since it comes from lower-quality search sites (for example, many parked domains have an affiliate search feature built in).
SEM – Stands for ‘search engine marketing.’ A form of online advertising that involves paying search engines directly for placement either in the SERP or in their content networks.
SEO – Stands for ‘search engine optimization.’ A systematic approach to configuring websites so that they rank higher in the search engines results pages (SERP).
SERP – Stands for ‘search engine results pages.’ This is the page of results that is returned by a search engine after a user enters in a search phrase and hits ‘submit.’ The SERP usually contain a mixture of organic (natural) results or sponsored (paid) results that are relevant to the search phrase submitted.