Google SEO Glossary

Here is a list of terms that were either used in this book, or represent terms in the
Internet marketing industry that you may encounter.

Aging delay. Term describing a set of filters applied to new websites whereby the
site cannot rank well (or at all) for any competitive keywords for 6 – 24 months. Also
called the Sandbox.

Algo, Algorithm. A specific mathematical process for achieving a desired result.
Google uses a proprietary algorithm that contains over 100 different criteria to rank
Web sites in a specific order based on a specific search request.

Algorithmic listing. Any search engine listing that is on the “free” or unpaid section
of a search results page. These listings are obtained using SEO techniques without
the use of paid advertising. Also called organic, natural or editorial listing.

Anchor text. The clickable portion of text displayed (usually as blue, underlined
text) for a link. Also known as link text.

Authority. Site with a high number of incoming links and a relatively low number of
outgoing links. Opposite of hub.

Backlinks, backward links. Links from other sites that point to your site. Also
known as inbound or incoming links.

Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). Code that defines the visual appearance, style
(size, color, font), or positioning of text on a Web page. This code can be located
either on the page it is used on or can be stored in a separate (.css) file.

Conversion rate. The percentage of visitors to a website that end up performing a
specific action that leads to a sale. Such actions can include the purchase of a
product, the submission of a form, or an email requesting more information.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC). See Pay-per-click (PPC).

Crawl. The operation of reading or analyzing pages of a website by an automated
program called a spider or robot. Spiders crawl your site by following links on each
page of your site. After crawling, the spider will return the results back to the search
engine for later inclusion into it’s database for indexing. See also Index.

Appendix B - Linking Do’s and Don’ts DO

•   Do submit your site to the Open Directory Project (ODP or DMOZ). A listing in
         the ODP is considered golden as the ODP feeds so many other directories.

     •   Do exchange links all sites that offer similar or complementary services to
         yours, with specialized directories, and with industry associations.

     •   Do include a link to your site in your “signature” line when you post in forums,
         blogs, or newsgroups. This also applies when submitting articles or sending
         out newsletters.

     •   Do link to each page on your site from your home page or sitemap page and
         back again. This will help funnel PageRank to your most important pages.

     •   Do include inline links on your site. Inline links appear in the body of a
         paragraph rather than in a navigation menu. Google likes the neighboring text
         that surrounds inline links.

     •   Do use simple A HREF format links rather than JavaScript to generate the
         link. Google may have a harder time deciphering your link otherwise.

     •   Do actively monitor who links to you. You need to track this on a regular basis
         to make sure your link is added on sites you have agreed to trade links with.


DON’T

     •   Don’t use “click here” as the text for your links. Otherwise, Google may
         decide your page is about “click here.”

     •   Don’t exchange links with link farms, link free-for-alls (FFAs), or other sites
         that are obvious spam.

     •   Don’t exchange links with unrelated sites simply to boost the number of links.
         Your customers won’t be on these sites and it won’t help with Google.
     •
     •   Don’t have your Links page automatically generated by a program. Google
         has been known to penalize sites that generate Links pages using “cookie-
         cutter” template pages.

Appendix A - Website Do’s and Don’ts

This is a general list of SEO do’s and don’ts for your website. Adhering to this list will
not only improve optimization of your site, but will make it easier on visitors in terms
of faster pages and better navigation.

DO
• Do create relevant, timely, and useful content on your site – particularly for your
   home page. This may be obvious, but often is overlooked.

•   Do update your content frequently – particularly your home page. Sites that
    frequently update their content get visited by Google more often. This also gives
    your visitors a reason to return to your site regularly.

•   Do create lots of relevant content and pages on your site. It is better to have 50
    short pages than to have 10 long pages, all else being equal. It's also easier to
    optimize a page tightly focused on a single keyword. Make sure each page
    contains a minimum of 200 words of content.

•   Do use your keywords in the page title, headings, first paragraph, and in link text.
    These are the main places that Google looks – the page title is extra important.

•   Do keep your page size small. Both your customers and Google like smaller
    pages. They download (and are crawled) faster and are easier to read. For every
    second it takes your page to load, you lose 10% of your visitors.

•   Do create unique titles and META descriptions for each page. Unique titles are a
    must. Don’t skimp on this.

•   Do use a shallow site structure. If you can manage it, keep all your web pages in
    the same folder on your server as your home page.

•   Do create a “Related Links” page for adding links to other sites as part of your
    link exchange campaign. Try to add some content on this page too.

•   Do put JavaScript code in a separate .js file and link to it. This makes pages load
    (and get crawled) faster.

•   Do create a stylesheet .css file and link to it from your pages. This makes pages
    load (and get crawled) faster.

    Don’t use page redirects on your site. Google has been known to penalize
        sites that use fast redirects.

   •    Don’t use "doorway pages" hosted on free servers, or create one-page “mini-
        sites” as such pages usually have very low PageRank. Spend time adding
        new content to your main site instead.

   •    Don’t repeat your keyword over and over again throughout a page, otherwise
        Google may consider it as spam - as might other search engines.

   •    Don’t use hidden text on your site, such as using white text on a white
        background. Search engines consider this as spam.

   •    Don’t use tiny text with extremely small font sizes. Search engines may
        consider this as spam.

   •    Don’t use hidden image links on your site. Hidden image links are 1-by-1
        pixel sized images inside a <A HREF> link tag.

   •    Don’t use frames. Although Google can crawl framed sites, they are
        problematic in other areas. Most sites don’t use frames.

   •    Don’t use elaborate image maps, gratuitous animations, or Flash on your site
        if possible - especially on your home page. Google needs to see actual
        textual content on your pages!

End-to-End SEO Checklist

Here is the simplistic and summarized process you need to undertake to achieve a
top ranking on Google. Print this page out where you can refer to it.

1. Determine the best keyword phrases for your site. Use KeywordDiscovery or
WordTracker to come up with a list of at least 100 2 to 4-word phrases for your site.

2. Create content-rich pages. It’s better to have 20 short pages than 5 long pages
on your site, all else being equal. Each page should contain at least 200 words and
discuss one topic only. Optimize for at most two keyword phrases per page.

3.   Optimize each page for it’s best keyword phrases:
•    Include keywords in the <TITLE> of each page. This is a must.
•    Include keywords in the <H1> headings for each page.
•    Include keywords in the first paragraph of each page.
•    Include keywords in the text of links. Never use “Click here”.
•    Read Appendix A - Website Do’s and Don’ts.

4. Link to each page from your sitemap page, and from each page back to
your home page. Also link between pages that discuss the same topic.

5. Submit your site to search directories. Submit your site to the Open Directory
Project (DMOZ), Yahoo Directory, GoGuides, and other general and industry-specific
directories. Stagger your submissions over time, don’t submit them all at once.

6.   Setup and maintain a link-building & exchange campaign:
•    Create a “Related Links” page on your site for exchanging links.
•    Create “Link to Us” code can be copied by your link partners.
•    Determine the best sites to exchange links with. This is important.
•    Read Appendix B - Linking Do’s and Don’ts”
•    Submit articles, write online press releases and post in blogs and forums.
•    Actively manage your link campaign. Always strive to get more links!

7.   Regularly monitor your progress and modify your efforts:
•     Monitor your site traffic often – it contains a wealth of information.
•    Check to see that all new pages are indexed in Google.
•    Check your site’s ranking on your chosen keywords once a month.
•    Regularly check your incoming links as part of your link campaign

Type in allintitle:"your keyword phrase

and see how many pages are displayed in the search results. These are
pages that use the exact phrase in the <TITLE> tags of their pages - the first
important step to optimizing a site.

2. Next, type in allinanchor:"your keyword phrase "

and count the results. These are sites that have incoming links that contain these
keywords - the next important step to boosting one's ranking.

3. Next, type in allinurl:"your keyword phrase "

and count the results. These are sites that use the keywords either in their
domain name or in a file name. Although by itself not an important factor, Google
does give slight weight to keywords used in domain names and file names.

4. Now combine everything by typing:
intitle:"keyword" inanchor:"keyword" inurl:"keyword"

to see how many sites do all three things together. The resulting number is an
accurate indication of how many true competitors you have that are doing SEO for
their site for your given keyword phrase.

Using Pay-Per-Click to Augment SEO traffic

Every year it is getting harder to rank well in Google, as well as Yahoo and MSN.
This is due to the following factors:

1. More new sites are coming online all the time.

2. More sites are incorporating SEO tactics.

3. The search engines are devaluing tactics that used to work fine in the past.

4. The search engines are more aggressive at penalizing sites that use black-hat and
spammy tactics, and often unfairly penalize legitimate sites as well.

All the more reason you may need to implement a PPC strategy like Google
AdWords. A targeted Google AdWords campaign is an ideal way to supplement your
website traffic anyway, and is crucial for new sites in the Sandbox. For more
information, see my book The AdWords Edge at http://www.adwordsedge.com.

After all, you are in business to make a profit. I use AdWords all the time because
the advertising much more than pays for itself and the traffic is immediate.

How To Reverse-Engineer Your Competition

Do you have a site in a competitive market and want to determine how your top-
ranked competitors are doing so well. This involves reverse-engineering the linking
structure of the top 3-5 sites in your keyword space and emulating what they are
doing right. Here is how to go about doing it:

1. Use Yahoo's backlink command, or software such as SEO Elite
(http://www.seoelite.com) find every site that is linking to the top 3 sites in your
chosen keyword in Google.

2. Obtain links from those exact sites that your competitors are getting links from.
This takes time so be patient.

3. Use the same anchor text that is pointing to the competition’s sites for your own
incoming links. Try to duplicate the percentage of different anchor text variations
used – this is important.

4. Look at the page titles of the #1 site and duplicate them for your site. You don't
need to do this for all your pages, just your most important ones - home page,
important category/product/service pages.

Why reinvent the wheel? Your competition has already figured out how to rank well,
so you should emulate their strategies.

Bear in mind that site age and link age is a factor, so even if you duplicate your
competitor's link-building strategies 100%, it is going to take time for you to rank well
as the new links to your site won't be as good as the old links that your competitors
have.


How Much Competition Do You Really Have?

Some people are confused about the true number of online competitors for a given
keyword phrase, particular when using keyword research tools or looking at the
number of returned pages in Google. Many such "competing pages" are what are
called "accidental competitors" - they aren't necessarily trying to beat you in search
engine ranking, they just happen to use the term somewhere on a page.

If you want to get an accurate number of other sites that are optimizing their
pages for a given search term, follow these steps. Open Google and follow these
steps using your keyword phrase:

Low-Competitive Site

Keyword phrase: “Redmond Reflexology Services”

On-site factors keyword contribute heavily to rankings. Often all that is needed is a
handful of links and solid SEO methods used on the site. Most competitors won't
even know what SEO is. Good rankings can be achieved with relatively little effort
within 3 months.

Medium-Competitive Site
Keyword phrase: “Seattle Plastic Surgery” or “Seattle Dentist”

An equal combination of on-site factors and off-site factors contribute to good
ranking. For such sites, 100 or so quality links are needed (this is a generalization).
About half of your competitors will know what SEO is and of those that do, a fair
percentage will be doing a good job at it. Good rankings can be achieved with
moderate efforts within 6 months to a year.

Medium-to-High-Competitive Site
Keyword Phrase: “House Plans” or “Limo Service”

On-site factors contribute little toward ranking, unless you have a large site, in which
case they count for some. Such sites need an aggressive link-building campaign and
typically have hundreds or thousands of incoming links that use effective anchor-text
strategies. Most if not all of your competitors will be using SEO tactics, some quite
aggressively and spending a fair budget on it. Good rankings can be achieved only
with steady, continual, focused efforts after 12 to 18 months, and assigning (and
paying) a dedicated SEO person for it. Most if not all will use PPC advertising like
Google AdWords to augment traffic, especially in the near-term.

Very-High-Competitive Site
Keyword Phrase: “Used Cars” or “Discount Travel” or “Home Mortgages”

Such markets are ripe with spammy, black-hat techniques and on-site factors count
for extremely little. For such sites, a very aggressive link-buying, link-building
strategy is needed, along with analyzing exactly what the competition is doing and
copying their methods. Such sites have many thousands of incoming links. Tactics
used need to be monitored and changed in case of penalties applied. All of your
competitors will be throwing lots of money on every trick in the book because so
much money is at stake. Good rankings may never be achieved unless you are
ready to spend the time and money for it, are dogged, and be willing to take risks. All
will use PPC advertising like Google AdWords to augment traffic and spend a lot of
money (like $100K or more a month) doing it.