Here is a basic Glossary of SEO terms you should know to increase the ranking of your website on search engines such as Google.

The 12 most important SEO terms for small businesses

Below you will find a brief introduction to the most important and basic SEO terms to improve your understanding of SEO.

Organic Search:

When you search for a word or phrase in Google or another Search Engine and click on a non-sponsored link, you are essentially performing an organic search. Google provides two types of information: paid search results (links labeled "Ad" or "Sponsored") and organic search results (everything else). The higher a page is in an organic search, the more likely the searcher is to visit it.

Google Rich Snippets:

Sometimes as labeled excerpts or "Rich snippets", the answer box is a small box containing an excerpt from a page near the organic search results that link to that page. Selected snippets usually answer a question or share some basic information on a topic that Google believes will be useful to you. Typically, in addition to the snippet, Google also has a separate link to the website in the snippet box on page one.

The Ranking for a Google snippet is great for getting your Traffic (and you don't have to be at the top to grab a snippet - you just need to provide an answer to the question that Google thinks is best).

Keyword:

A Keyword is a word or short phrase that corresponds to a Search Engine shows what your website is about. When you perform a search, Google looks for pages that contain keywords that are relevant to your search. This doesn't always mean that it will return results that contain the exact phrase you are looking for, but Google is smart enough to return results that match the intent of your search, if relevant.

However, be careful not to overdo it. Many SEO marketers used to use "Keyword stuffing" to get Google to place a page in the top positions just by overusing keywords. But Google has gotten a lot smarter, which is why this technique hasn't worked for a long time. To rank for a key phrase, you need to write an article that actually provides information that people are looking for.

However, you should still use keywords - and you should spend time finding the best target keywords for the content you are writing.

This article is intended, for example, for the Keyword "SEO terms" optimized and kept accordingly basic and simple, since the Search Intention implies that the searcher has little prior knowledge about SEO.

Search query:

The terms you enter in the search box are a search query. The boundary between search query and Keyword is a bit blurry. For example, if you google, "what is the best electric guitar", websites will appear in the top 10 trying to rank for "electric guitar", "best electric guitar" or even the whole search term "what is the best electric guitar?".

You can also rank for the above search queries with titles like "The 10 Best Guitars" or "The Best Guitars for Beginners". Because Google is smart enough to understand that these articles will provide the information you're looking for, even if they don't use the exact same terms.

HTML tags:

"HyperText Markup Language" (HTML) tells browsers how to display your website. HTML tags divide your page into different sections that are formatted in different ways. From an SEO marketing perspective, the three most important types of tags are headers, title tags and Meta descriptionen.

Headings (H-tags):

On a web page, the parts in larger, bolder letters are usually headings or heading tags. For example, the title you see at the top of this article is a <h1>-tag. Among them are <h2> Tags used for important subsections of the article. Headings go down to <h6>, but most articles use only the first two or three.

Headings help your website visitor find what they need and also help search engines understand what your article is about. Using specific keywords for <h1> and <h2> Tags helps you improve visibility, and they are especially useful for SEO optimization of small businesses.

Title tags:

When a website appears as a result of a search query, the bold letters at the beginning are the tag <title>. Title and <h1> tags often use the same text, but it's actually better to make your titles and <h1> headings different. For example, if your article has a very long <h1>, it's usually best to shorten it for the title so that it shows up properly in search results (about 55-60 characters is just right).

Meta descriptions:

A meta-description is a short piece of text that both the potential reader and the Search Engine says what the page is about. In the Google results you can see the Meta description directly below the link and the meta title. They need to be short (160 characters or less) to fit in the search results and aim to get the searcher to click on your article. You should also usually include a few keywords, as the keywords that are also included in the search query will be more prominent for the searcher. bold Font displayed what the Click Through Rate can improve.

Internal and external links: 

Links are clickable text blocks that take you to another website. The part of the link you click on (usually underlined and in a different color) is the Anchor text. Links are useful for SEO in several ways:

Internal links:

The internal links that connect a page of your website with subpages can help to improve new pages in your ranking positions, or show search engines how your different pages are connected to each other. You can also set internal links with specific keywords as anchor texts, which can help to optimize rankings and links.

External links:

External links lead to pages outside your website. Make sure they open in a new tab so that users don't leave your website for good! Furthermore, links are considered recommendations for search engines, which is why you should pay attention to which pages you give a "recommendation".

Backlinks:

When a website links to your website, it's called a backlink, and it's basically the gold standard of SEO. Not only do you benefit from the TrafficIn addition to the traffic that the website sends you, when Google sees that reputable websites are linking to you, this often improves your search ranking.