Important SEO Terms to Know
The trades are in demand more than ever, and there’s not doubt you’re battling your competition for business.
Internet search engines provide many channels of information and getting your website seen in local searches can mean the difference between failure and success. This week, I’ll cover some important SEO terms that business owners should know in order to be successful online.
Conversion Rate
A conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website that take a given action. Let's say you have 100 website visitors, and 40 take the desired action. Maybe it’s to call your business or fill out an online inquiry form. If 40 out of 100 take that action, your conversion rate would be 40%.
This number can help determine how successful your online marketing campaigns or website strategy are overall since it shows if people who visit your site actually want to do business with you!
Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs)
SERPs are the pages that show the results of a search engine query. There can be anywhere from one to thousands of these pages, and they are ordered by how relevant the search engine believes they are to the user's query.
Understanding how SERPs work is important because it will help you determine where your website should rank for certain keywords.
Title Tags
The title tag is an HTML element that gives web browsers information about the contents of a webpage. It is visible in the tab bar of most browsers, and it also appears as the blue link in a Google search result. The title tag should accurately describe what your page is about while also being keyword-rich so that your site will appear more relevant to search engines.
Heading Tags
A heading tag is an HTML element that gives browsers a hierarchy of the pages on your site from most important to least important. There are six levels of headings, and they should be used in the order as you go down the page so that web crawlers can see how each section relates to another. The first-level heading (largest) should represent your entire website or business while lower-level headings give more information about individual products and services.
Meta Descriptions
A meta description isn't actually visible on your webpage, but it does show up under some Google results as well as other search engine result pages. Think of the field like a very short paragraph that tells the user what your page is about in 160 characters or less.
Since meta descriptions aren't actually required, a lot of people forget to fill them out. This is a huge missed opportunity because these descriptions tell Google what your website or webpage is about, so they can get you better connected with web searches. Make sure to take advantage of optimizing these descriptions including common keywords that would lead people searching on the web to your site.
Inbound Links (Backlinks)
An inbound link is simply a link from another website that points to your own. Google sees these links kind of like "votes" for your website and will rank you higher if you have more high-quality links coming in.
There are many ways to get inbound links, but the best way is by creating great content that other websites will want to share with their readers. Offsite backlinking strategies are a great way to boost your website rankings on Google and other search engines.
Phew, that was a crap ton of information…
And I get it…it sounds overwhelming, super technical, and out of your comfort zone. That’s why I’m here to help you through this process. As a web designer and local SEO expert, I do these things every day. They are MY trade and area of expertise.
So give me a call. I’d be happy to chat with you about your company’s SEO efforts and help you get to the top of search results!
