50 SEO Terms Explained: Brighter Vision’s SEO Glossary for Therapists
Just as the mental health industry has its own unique set of terms, acronyms, and definitions, so does the online world of website development and search engine optimization. There are so many, in fact, that learning the meaning of all these “tech terms” can begin to feel like you’re learning a foreign language. To help bridge this gap and tear down the language barrier between our development teams and our amazing clients, we’ve compiled a list of the top 50 SEO terms you’re likely to hear when talking about the online visibility of your private practice website.
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SEO Glossary
Click on any of the terms below to jump to its definition.
Or, if you prefer, you can view the entire list of terms below.
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SEO Glossary
| Algorithm | The set of rules used by search engines to scan their index and deliver the most relevant results for a query. |
| Alt Text | This text is found only in a web page’s source code and was originally created for screen readers used by the blind and visually impaired. It is now also used by search engines to “understand” the contents of an image. Also known as an “Alt Attribute”. |
| Anchor Text | The clickable text in a link intended to provide users with information regarding the content of the page you’re linking to. SEO-friendly anchor text uses keywords that are relevant to the linked page. |
| Authority | The total combination of all signals used by search engines to assess a website (or web page) to determine its ranking in search results. |
| Backlink | A link from another trusted website pointing back to your own web page. For example, if you were to link to this post from your own website, that would be considered a backlink for Brighter Vision. However, if we happen to mention your website and link to it within one of our other blog posts, that would be considered a backlink for you! |
| Black Hat SEO | Risky search engine optimization tactics that explicity defy Google Webmaster Guidelines in an attempt to deceive or manipulate search engines and immediately increase a website’s ranking in search results.
Among the most common Black Hat tactics are:
Although Black Hat SEO methods may boost a site’s ranking for a short period of time, they could also result in the site being severely penalized or being banned from search engines altogether. |
| Click Bait | A spam tactic that uses content that is specifically designed to attract attention and entice visitors to click on it, typically by overpromising or being intentionally misleading.
For example, at the end of an article you’ve just finished reading, you see a photo of 3 of your favorite celebrities with a headline that says, “You’ll never believe what these Hollywood heartthrobs look like now” but the article itself doesn’t include any of those 3 pictures celebrities. |
| Crawler | See Google Bot. |
| Crawling | The process by which search engines discover and gather information from web pages. This information is then added to their index. |
| Duplicate Content | Any content that has already been indexed by Google as belonging to another web page – whether the other page is yours or not. Google bots cannot decipher whether you’ve copied your own content or someone else’s, and frankly, they don’t care.
Google has become the most-used search engine in the world for one reason – it’s the best at giving users the most relevant results for their query. If they returned 10 different web pages all containing the same (or very similar) content and that content didn’t answer the searcher’s question, those results wouldn’t be very helpful, and that user would probably turn to a different search engine for help. For this reason, search engines only index a specific piece of content for one (usually the original) web page. After that, they simply skip over any additional pages using the same content and those pages are not added to the index, and therefore not included in search results. |
| External Link | A link on your web page that directs visitors to a page on another website when clicked on.
For example, a link from your Couples Counseling service page that takes visitors to the Wikipedia page on The Gottman Method would be considered an external link. |
| The world’s most-used search engine founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In addition to search engine services, it also specializes in online advertising, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, computer software/hardware, and much more. |
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| Google Analytics | A free service offered by Google that tracks and reports your website traffic. While the Google Analytics dashboard can be difficult to navigate, it can also be a very powerful tool to gain a better understanding of your clients’ behavior.
To start using Google Analytics on your Brighter Vision website, check out this link: How do I get Google Analytics on my Brighter Vision website? |
| Google Bot | The generic name for Google’s 2 web crawlers – 1 simulates a human user on a desktop and 1 simulates a human user on a mobile device – that are constantly searching the web for new content, pages, and sites to add to its index. Also known as a “Googlebot”, “Crawler”, or “Spider”. |
| Google Sandbox | A metaphorical term used to describe the “waiting period” that prevents new websites from being indexed and listed on a SERP right away. This is most commonly experienced when a new website tries to immediately start ranking for highly competitive short-tail keywords, and these sites can only overcome this by building up their website authority. |
| Google Search Console | A free service offered by Google that allows website owners to measure search engine traffic and performance, fix any issues, and request to have a new page added to its index. This is also how you find out if any manual actions (also known as penalties) have been taken on your website.
To start using Google Search Console on your Brighter Vision website, check out this link: How do I get Google Search Console on my Brighter Vision website? |
| Google Webmaster Guidelines | A set of optimization practices and general guidelines that – when followed correctly – will help Google find, index, and rank your website or page. It also covers the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behaviors that can result in a manual action, also known as a penalty.
Simply put, these guidelines state:
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| Gray Hat SEO | The alleged “gray area” between tactics that are in compliance with Google Webmaster Guidelines but, at the same time, also bend the rules in one way or another. |
| Index | The master database that search engines use to store, organize and retrieve all information gathered during the crawling process. |
| Internal Link | A link on your web page that directs visitors to another page that is also on your website.
For example, a link from your Couples Counseling service page that takes visitors to a blog post you’ve written on your website titled, “How to build a strong relationship” would be considered an internal link. |
| Keyword | A single word, or phrase of words, that is used to optimize a web page for the purpose of matching the queries people are using on search engines. The keywords used on web pages help search engines determine which pages are the most relevant for a particular query.
For example, the best-choice keyword for this very article would be “SEO Glossary” because we hope this article will be shown when people search for “SEO Glossary” on Google. |
| Keyword Density | The number of times a keyword appears within the content of a web page expressed as a percentage. To calculate this, divide the number of times your keyword appears in a piece of text by the total number of words in that piece of text, then multiply the result by 100. To ensure that you’ve used your keyword enough but not too much within a page’s content, try to aim for a keyword density of 0.5% to 3%. |
| Keyword Stuffing | A spam tactic made up of adding irrelevant keywords to your page’s content, URL, or headings and/or repeating keywords beyond what is considered natural – all in an attempt to artificially increase their ranking.
For example, listing multiple nearby cities in your page’s content or meta tags when you only have one office location in one of those cities is considered keyword stuffing. |
| Link | A word or phrase that directs visitors to another web page or document when it is clicked on. Also known as a “Hyperlink”. |
| Link Building | A White-Hat SEO tactic designed to get other trusted websites to link to your own site in an attempt to improve your ranking in search results.
Among the most common link building methods are:
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| Link Farming | A spam tactic involving a group of websites all linking to each other, usually via some sort of an automated program, in an attempt to artificially increase their ranking. |
| Long-Tail Keyword | A search phrase of multiple words – usually 3 or more – that very specifically represents the content of a web page. These typically have a much lower search volume which means they are usually easier to rank for immediately. Also, see Short-Tail Keyword. |
| Meta Description | The text that appears in a web page’s source code to let search engines know the description of that page’s content. While less important than the title tag in determining a page’s ranking, this text is often displayed as the “snippet” that appears underneath a page’s title and URL in a SERP. This is generally what human visitors look at to decide if a page is worth clicking on from a SERP, so accurate descriptions that include relevant keywords will lead to more clicks, more time spent on your page, and therefore a higher ranking. |
| Meta Tag | The text that appears in a web page’s source code to explain its content to search engines. The most commonly used meta tags in SEO are the title tag and meta description. |
| Off-Page SEO | Website optimization, marketing, and other promotional practices that take place outside of the website itself, including link building, social media marketing, email marketing, etc. |
| On-Page SEO | Website optimization practices that take place on the website itself, including writing meta tags for your pages and keeping your website updated by regularly posting relevant high-quality content. |
| Organic SEO | The listings that have been naturally earned on a SERP. Also known as “unpaid” listings. Organic search results have been analyzed and ranked according to algorithms in order to give users the most relevant results based on their query. |
| PageRank | This is the algorithm, named after Google co-founder Larry Page, Google uses to rank pages in their search results.
In the words of Google, “PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.” Also, see Ranking. |
| Paid Search | The concept of paying search engines for their users to take a specific action. The most common form of paid search advertising is pay-per-click. However, other forms exist as well, including Pay-Per-Call, Google Shopping Ads, etc. |
| Pay-Per-Click (PPC) | The most common type of paid search advertising in which you are charged a certain amount every time someone clicks on your Ad from a search results page. These results are generally placed at the top of a SERP above the organic results. |
| Quality Content | Quality content is original to your web page, helpful, and 100% relevant to its title and meta tags. |
| Query | The text a user types into a Google search box (or any other search engine). Also more simply known as a “Search”. |
| Ranking | The numbered position in which a web page is listed in organic search results. Also, see PageRank. |
| Ranking Factor | A unique component within an algorithm that helps search engines determine where a web page should be listed in comparison to other similar pages. Google has reported that its algorithm uses more than 200 unique signals to determine each page’s ranking in its SERPs. |
| Relevance | The standard definition of this term pretty much sums up its SEO-specific definition as well: “the quality or state of being closely connected or appropriate.”
Search engines use a relevance score to measure how close the content of a page is aligned to match up with the context of a query. It is also one of the leading factors used by Google to determine your ranking. For example, let’s say a user types “how can I get over my divorce?” into a Google search. A blog post or web page titled “How To Get Over Divorce & Move On With Your Life” with plenty of tips and tricks on how to do just that will likely rank very high on this SERP. It will certainly rank much higher than a page with a similar title that only contains 300 words, or worse, goes to a page with content similar to but not directly about that topic. |
| Search Engine | A highly complex digital information retrieval system used for finding answers to questions online. When asked a question, it searches its database for web pages containing the most relevant information to match the request input by the user. Examples include Google, Baidu, Bing, Yahoo, etc. |
| Search Engine Marketing (SEM) | A tactic that combines both organic SEO and paid search methods to improve a website’s ranking on a SERP. |
| Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | The process of optimizing a website so it will appear in a prominent position on an organic search results page (SERP). Successful search engine optimization consists of a combination of technical (on-page SEO) and marketing (off-page SEO) to make a website equally appealing to both its human users and search engines. |
| Search Engine Results Page (SERP) | The page users are taken to after conducting an online search. These pages consist of approximately 6-10 organic results, sorted by relevance, as well as a combination of the following additional search features:
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| Short-Tail Keyword | A search phrase of only 1-2 words that more vaguely represent the content of a web page. These popular keywords typically have a much higher search volume, making them much more difficult to rank for. Also, see Long-Tail Keyword. |
| Sitelink | Anywhere from 1 to 6 links shown below the main listing of a top-ranked organic search result. These are algorithmically-chosen and displayed by Google. Website owners no longer have control over whether these are displayed or which links are included. |
| Sitemap | A hierarchal representation of a website’s entire architecture that includes all pages published to that site. It is typically based on the site’s navigation menu, and vice versa. |
| Title Tag | The text that appears in a web page’s source code to let search engines know the title of the page. Typically this is also the title used for a web page in a SERP, so it should include keywords that are relevant to that particular page’s content.
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| Website Authority | Refers to the “strength” of your website as a whole, and its likelihood of ranking for certain keywords. It’s essentially your website’s reputation – the type of content it’s known for. |
| White Hat SEO | Search engine optimization tactics that adhere to Google Webmaster Guidelines. |
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