Search marketing glossary

SEO jargon English
AdWords Google's PPC advertising programme; the current market leader.
Backlink A link to your website from another website. Also known as 'inbound link'. Some search engines use the number of backlinks to determine how popular your website is (see link popularity).
Bid management Monitoring and optimising the amount you are willing to pay for each click gained through PPC advertising.
Black hat Describes unethical or dishonest SEO techniques that attempt to force a website to the top of search results regardless of relevance. These include the use of spamglish, link farms and spamdexing, all of which carry the risk of being banned by search engines. See also white hat.
Click What happens when a web user uses a link within a PPC ad to reach the advertiser's website.
Clickthrough rate (CTR) The number of clicks that a PPC advertisement generates as a proportion of the total number of impressions it receives. Usually expressed as a percentage. Not to be confused with conversion rate.
Content Website content is information presented in web pages, usually in the form of text but also encompassing pictures, audio or video.

'Content' is often loosely used to refer to non-essential parts of a site added to appeal to visitors, such as news pages, as opposed to more central, business-critical functionality such as e-commerce functionality.

Conversion A sale or enquiry resulting from a click. See also conversion rate.

Conversion rate The proportion of clicks that leads to sales or enquiries, often expressed as a percentage. Not to be confused with clickthrough rate.
Cost per action (CPA) Describes a pricing model for internet marketing. Rather than paying a fixed fee or a CPM price, the advertiser pays each time a user takes a specific action (such as following a link or making a purchase). Contrast with CPM.
Cost per click (CPC) The amount paid each time someone clicks on a PPC advertisement. Also used as a synonym for 'PPC', as in 'CPC advertising'. A form of CPA marketing.
Cost per mille (CPM) Cost-per-mille ('cost per thousand') advertising is charged based on the number of impressions delivered (rather than by the number of clicks generated). The term originated in print advertising, where CPM is the only possible pricing model. Contrast with CPA.
CPC See cost per click
Crawler See spider.
Daily budget A spending limit imposed on a PPC advertising campaign, designed to allow advertisers to control costs. Once enough clicks have been generated to use up the daily budget, the ads are not shown until the following day.
Findability See visibility.
Functionality Anything that allows users to 'do things' rather than just 'see things'. In other words, any aspect of a site that facilitates two-way interaction or communication with users, rather than simply allowing them to view content. Examples include website search, e-commerce and discussion forums.
Google The world's leading search engine.
Grey hat Sometimes used to describe the work of SEO companies who combine both white hat and black hat approaches.
Hit A request made by a web browser for a single file within a website.

Note the difference between a hit and a visit: one visit can involve many hundreds of hits.
HTML The language in which web pages are written. Stands for HyperText Markup Language.
Impression A single appearance of an advertisement on a web page. Statistics reflecting the number of impressions indicate how many people are seeing the ad.
Inbound link See backlink.
Keyword A word (or short phrase) that reflects the content of a website or web page, and is therefore likely to be used by those searching for it. Website owners hope that their keywords will match up with search text.

Keywords embedded in the meta tags of web pages tell spiders what the pages are about.
Landing page A page within a website that is tailored to the interests of a specific subset of the website's visitors. For example, an online bookshop might have a landing page devoted to school textbooks.

Landing pages allow for more carefully targeted SEO and PPC campaigns.
Link farm A set of highly interlinked websites created with the aim of artificially boosting link popularity and/or page rank. A black hat technique.
Link popularity A measure of the number of backlinks leading to a particular website, used by some search engines to gauge the popularity of the site.
Meta tags Special parts of an HTML document that indicate to spiders what the content is about.
Natural traffic The visits that a website receives as a result of appearing 'naturally' in search results, as opposed to being promoted via PPC advertising.

Although search results and PPC ads are integrated into a single page viewed by the user, it's important to remember that they originate in completely different ways.
Negative keyword A keyword used to exclude a subset of search results, or to restrict the exposure of a PPC ad.

For example, an optician might want to attract users looking for 'glasses', but not those looking for 'wine glasses'. To avoid paying for irrelevant traffic they might use 'glasses' as a normal keyword in conjunction with 'wine' as a negative keyword, so they only receive clicks from users who have not entered 'wine' as a search term.
Page rank A number representing Google's evaluation of a particular web page's popularity, calculated primarily on the basis of link popularity.
Paid traffic, paid search The visits that a website receives as a result of PPC advertising, as opposed to its presence in search results.

Although search results and PPC ads are integrated into a single page that is viewed by the user, it's important to remember that they originate from very different sources.
Pay-per-click (PPC) A method of internet advertising where advertisements are displayed when users enter certain search terms into search engines. Advertisers pay a fee each time someone clicks on their ad.
PPC See pay-per-click.
Ranking The position that a website holds in search results (usually Google's), counting from the first result as number one. SEO is one way of improving ranking.
Relevant In search marketing, relevance describes the degree to which content and user interest coincide. Applied to website content, 'relevant' means 'likely to interest users'. Applied to users or traffic, it means 'likely to be interested in content'.
Return on investment (RoI) In search marketing, the financial benefit of running an advertising programme, calculated as revenue generated minus costs.
Robot See spider.
Search engine A website that allows web users to find pages related to specific words and phrases, such as Google, Yahoo or Ask. Strictly speaking, 'search engine' refers to the technology behind the website; the website itself should properly be called a 'search engine website'.
Search engine marketing (SEM) 'Search engine marketing' or simply 'search marketing' refers to the full range of techniques used to increase the amount and quality of traffic received from search engines and (as a result) drive sales. SEM includes both SEO and PPC.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) A range of techniques aimed at improving a website's visibility and ranking with search engines, thereby boosting traffic and (where applicable) increasing sales. SEO focuses mainly on optimising a website's HTML code and the cultivation of backlinks.
Search engine ranking See ranking.
Search results The page(s) of website links and descriptions that appear in response to a user entering their chosen search term into a search engine.
Search term, search text Word or phrase entered by users of a search engine, reflecting the type of website or content they are looking for.
SEO See Search Engine Optimisation.
SERP Acronym for either 'Search Engine Ranking Position' or 'Search Engine Results Page'. Rarely used, and easily confused with the UK State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme (SERPS).
Share of voice The level of exposure received by an advertiser in a particular channel, often expressed as a percentage of the total. In search marketing, 'share of voice' typically refers to the number of links to an advertiser's website visible on the first page of search results, as a percentage of the total. For example, 'we doubled our share of voice on Google from 10% to 20% by running a PPC campaign'.
Spamdexing Attempting to improve a website's ranking by 'spamming' the index created by a search engine, for example by constructing a link farm or resorting to spamglish. A black hat technique.
Spamglish Keyword-rich gibberish included on websites in order to attract search engines rather humans. Often features meaningless sentences and heavy repetition of keywords. A black hat technique.
Spider A program run by a search engine that automatically inspects and indexes the contents of web pages. The process of inspection is sometimes called 'spidering'. Until a website has been 'spidered', it will not appear in search results.
Splash page A page at the 'entrance' to a website that contains eye-catching imagery or animation but almost no relevant content. Splash pages are generally regarded as a missed opportunity in terms of SEO.
Sponsored links Another term for pay-per-click advertising.
Traffic The number of visitors to a website.
Visibility, online visibility The ease with which a website can be discovered by its target audience using search engines.
Visit A series of website pages viewed by a user in a single session. Visits can be defined as a continuous series of pages viewed without leaving the site, or as all the pages viewed within a certain time window, e.g. an hour.

Note the difference between a visit and a hit: one visit can involve many hundreds of hits.
White hat Describes ethical, technically sound SEO techniques that carry no risk of being banned by search engines, in contrast to black hat approaches.

Spamglish, clicks, black hats and spiders… search marketers love their jargon. Nick McClagish, Account Director, brings you up to speed