As all our clients know, data is critical to improving a website’s performance, delivering value to customers, and awareness and sales to the brand. To help you gain a better understanding of the data that drives your website’s performance, we’ve created an SEO glossary. The SEO glossary explains all the terms you will see in our monthly reports, which give you a comprehensive picture of your website’s SEO performance.
SEO basics
Search engine optimisation (SEO)
The process in which website owners can make their content vi
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
The page that you see after entering a query into a search engine. The SERP displays all the pages, ranked in order of expertise, authority, and trust, as determined by the search engine’s algorithms.
Organic search
Unpaid listings that appear on the SERP when a user searches for a keyword or phrase.
Search volume
The average number of monthly searches for a keyword averaged over a 12 month period.
Keyword difficulty
How hard it would be for the page to be ranked organically in the search engine’s top 10.
Metadata
Basically metadata is data about data. In the case of search engines, the metadata tells the search what your website is about and the content that it contains. Metadata encompasses page titles, search engine description (what you see in the SERP when your page comes up), headings (H1 for major headings, H2 and 3 for sub headings), alt tags for images, copyright, and event dates. It is critical to SEO that metadata uses keywords in a way prescribed in the SEO Guidelines (link).
What our reports show
Tracked keywords
The total number of keywords that google ranks and that we track on behalf of a client, Ouer reports highlight the upwards or downwards movement of the number of keywords during the month.
Focus keywords
The keywords and phrases that have been determined to be most relevant to the target audience with strong search volume and low to moderate keyword difficulty (competition). Our reports track the position of these focus keywords and their ranking movement during the month.
Average ranking
This metric indicates the ranking in the search engine results page (SERP) was that achieved during the month across all focus keywords. Our reports track the upwards or downwards movement of these keywords in contrast to the previous month.
Organic traffic
This metric indicates the total amount of traffic across all tracked keywords achieved through organic search. Our reports track the upwards or downwards movement of this traffic in contrast to the previous month.
Organic conversions
This metrics tracks the total number of goals, for example form submissions, phone calls, emails, clicks on a call to action (CTA) that were achieved during the month. Our reports track the upwards or downwards movement of these keywords in contrast to the previous.
Onsite strategies
Activities that took place on the website during the month to improve its SEO performance. These may include: fixing broken links; revising metadata, page titles, and headings; retrofitting old posts with new keywords; or revising image data.
Onsite technical strategies
Technical activities that took place on the website during the month to improve its SEO performance. These may include: optimising javascript, CSS files, and coding issues; optimising source code in broken external and internal links.
Offsite strategies
Activities that took place off the website during the month to improve its SEO performance. These may include: listings in authoritative and trusted directories that link to the website; backlinking from authoritative and trusted relevant to the website and associated search terms.
