Anchor Text: The Visible Text containing a Link. The text should be relevant to the page you are linking to.
Back Links: A Link directed to a site from another site. Having Links coming from High Authority sites will give a website more Authority thus helping it rank higher.
Citations: Is any mention of your Business on the web, so for instance when you are in Directories that is a mention of your Business in the internet world.
META Data: The title of a page. This informs search engines of who you are, what you do, and where you are.
META Description: A brief description of what is the content on the web page the user is on. So, for example when you do a Search on Google it is under the Web Site’s Title.
Directories: Local Listings like Yellow Pages, Facebook, etc. These Listings will list your Business Name, Address, Phone Number, and a Link to your Web Site.
SERP: Search Engine Results Page
Algorithm: The program used by all Search Engines to crawl sites and decipher where they belong in the search world.
Analytics: Google has the best program for analyzing and getting any data you need to be able to view your websites action. For A Free Video On How to Set This Up Click On the Following Link: Click here
Authority: The amount of trust a site has. The higher the Page Authority gives a site a better chance of Ranking well.
Robots, Spiders, Crawlers, Oh My! : These “bots” find new websites and pages added to sites and then they Index them to their search engines.
Content: Text and words that add value to your website. This gives users a better experience while visiting your website.
Duplicate Content: Text that has been copied and pasted onto another website. After the last Google Update this was one thing they penalized for. It’s always in your best interest to just use original content to avoid any penalties.
Conversion: Your website essentially gets you jobs and money. Whether it’s clicks or phone calls. *At times websites Rank high but are not receiving phone calls. This is when you should reevaluate your site and find what’s not working. Here’s A Free Cheat Sheet if you’re having this Issue.
Conversion Rate: The percentage of users that call, e-mail, and click.
Landing Page: The page that a user goes to when they click on a Link on a search engine results page.
Link Building: Having external pages linking to a page on your site. Over time as these Links build up and increase it will give your website more Trust and Authority which will in return increase your Rankings.
Keyword Stuffing: Basically, you add as many keywords as possible to improve your Rankings. When Google rolled out the Penguin update site became penalized for this because it looked Spammy.
Over Optimization: SEO gone overboard. Doing too much of everything and giving a user a poor experience because things on the site look spammy, content is poor, and everything is done for ranking purposes only. Search Engines what websites to offer something of quality to a user rather than a site geared only towards Ranking #1.
Organic Search Results: Results from a search that is not an Ad and is not in Google My Business (MAPS).
Algorithm? Say What? When Ranking Became Harder . . .
In the beginning it was simpler to Rank a site because you could just put in some code on sites using the meta keywords and it usually ranked. The algorithm in the past didn’t change much but not updates and changes happen more frequently.
In 2010 it all started with “Caffeine” and this update basically makes changes in Rankings happen daily. Google does 600 or more changes to its algorithm a year.
Panda Updates
The first Panda Update was in 2011 and its focus was to show high-quality sites higher in the results. The Panda Updates target on site issues such as duplicate content, does the content offer value, keyword variations, are there a lot of ads, and does the site feel spammy? Google now will refresh their Panda algorithm monthly. They do not announce this any longer. Some updates are minor and some like Panda 4.0 are major and cause significant changes across the web.
Penguin Updates
The first roll out of the Penguin algorithm was in 2012 and the whole idea of this was to target those who cheated with unnatural backlinks. For instance, let’s say you bought a ton of links from some guy in the Philippines and they were all linking to your site in Ohio then Google said, “ok these links mean nothing and are fake” and your site dropped.
What Google wants is a site with a high authority with a lot of trust to link to your site. And to go further into this they also want that site to be talking about something close to your industry. For instance, they don’t want a site all about wrestling adding a link suddenly about a carpet cleaning company.
Google also wants to see a variety of Anchor Text. This tells Google what you are and where you belong in the Internet world.
After the last Penguin Update things were hit hard with this. A lot of companies used tactics like the disavow tool and removed the spammy links. This process could take a site 6 months to recover. Google is rolling out a new update that would make things like these much faster.
Hummingbird
Basically Hummingbird was created to be more effective on finding out what a user wants. So, when you say into your phone, “Best Carpet Cleaning Company in Missoula Montana” the search engines gets that you are searching for a carpet cleaner. Basically, the best practice to get in good with this is content. Having content on your site and having Reviews across the Internet help search engines to pull from that and know where to place you and if you fit what they’re asking.
If you can provide content to users that answer users questions then you’re staying on top of this.
Bottom Line:
The more you try to cheat the system the more risk you are taking. Black Hat SEO is not the way to go. Being honest and legit will always make you stay ahead of your competition.