I was talking to a client the other day and we had a long conversation on SEO and I noticed he had a hard time understanding what I was talking about because of the terms I used. I was trying hard to explain these terms to him but I thought for a newbie investigating SEO a glossary term would be a good idea, so here goes.

SEO
Search engine optimisation is the art of improving the amount of traffic to your web site through the search engines IE Google Yahoo and MSN to name but a few.

SEM
Search engine marketing is the art of promoting you website around the Web though the many different form

Keyword
keywords are words or phrases placed within the content of your web site that identify the topic of you website to the search engines. Keywords are tricky…put too many on one page and you will suffer a ranking penalty. Have too little and they won’t have the desired effect.

Off page
This is all the SEO work which is not done by direct change to the code base of the site. Off page tactics can include such things as link building, directory submissions and social media linking as well as many other methods.

On page
These are changes done to the code base of a given web site to improve its ranking within a search engine.

Anchor text
This is the text contained within a link Ie Pay Per Click Management. The text in blue is the anchor text and should relate to your keywords.

Hidden text
This is where keywords are place on a website which have the same font colour as the background they are not thus hiding them from the user but not the search engines. You can get an instant ban if Google pick this up.

Ranking penalty
This is were the search engine drops your ranking within the search engine results page for a misdemeanour, such a keyword stuffing. A harsher penalty can be involved depending on the nature of the misdemeanour; things like hidden text on the page will get you an instant ban when Google picks it up.

Their are two many term to go in one blog so next week i will finish the collection in SEO Glossary Part Two. If you would like to know more in the mean time click here.

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