Introduction
SEO is one buzzing term in the web world. But how much do you really know about it? Here we will try and get you familiarized with all the basic terminologies related to SEO.
SEO or search engine optimization includes the tactics, techniques or strategies which are used so as to increase the number of visitors to a particular website. This is done by achieving a high ranking place in search results page or what is called the SERP. Examples are Google, Yahoo, Bing and others.
How it works
The basic concept of SEO sounds very easy, but a lot needs to be done to make sure that your website makes it. You have to make it favorable to the visitor and meet all the standards set out by the search engines. This essentially means that your website needs to be usable, fast, informative and clean; then comes in proper marketing as well as public relations to make your content interesting.
Crawling
Crawling or web crawlers are kinds of software which are used to discover web pages that are publicly available. The most popular web crawler is Googlebot. These have a look at web pages and follow the link to those related pages – pretty much how an individual would browse through any particular content on the web. These crawlers go from one link to another and bring back the data about these web pages back to the servers.
Caching
The cache status suggests the participation of the web crawler on your website. If a crawler is regularly visiting your website and is updating its database with whatever updates show up on your website, this means that your website is being cached. However, if your website is not shown in cache; this means that there is something that you are not doing right. Your website needs to be cached so as to have effective SEO.
Indexing
After a search engine is done with processing each page that it has crawled, it composes an index of everything it sees and the location on every page. It is basically like a database of web pages. This is stored, organized and the algorithm then measures the importance as compared to like pages. Both Google and Microsoft have about a million servers.
On-page and Off-page SEO
On-page SEO is the method by which individual web pages are optimized so that they rank higher and get more meaningful traffic on the search engines. On-page generally refers to the content as well as the HTML source code of the page whereas Off-page points towards the external signals and links.
There are numerous on-page factors. Of these the content is the most important. This is what brings a page the results it is looking for. Good content needs to be linkable and also be able to supply to a demand. Title tags are the next most important factor. Next we come to the URL – the URL needs to show the hierarchy of the categories of the website.
As opposed to on-page; off-page SEO points to the activities that are performed outside the website like social media marketing, social bookmarking and link building.
Evolution of SEO
As far as SEO is concerned tactics that were once working in the earlier years are not longer fruitful. Strategists have been pushed into developing new techniques and solutions so that clients are served better.
Content specific – There was a time when all you had to do was flood a website with keyword based content. It didn’t matter whether it really made sense. But now, people need a site for the people; something that they would be eager to stick with maybe really read and comprehend and relate and possibly link to as well. It is now said that quality content is like being the King.
Quality Link specific – Links were always a key factor in getting search engine rankings. But this has also changed over the years. Earlier the entire concentration was on the quantity of links. It is no longer like that. It is now all about quality. Sites that are related to your own site and links from convincing and commanding sites are given more weightage. Search engines also prefer natural link profiles. This should have a proper combination of link types like follow as well as no follow.
Equity pass and Passing the juice concept
Equity links are kinds of links which basically pass on value from one page to another page. These links can be external or internal. Link juice is a slang used in the SEO world which relates to the equity or power which is passed on to a particular site through links from internal or external sources. This is basically construed as a recommendation for your site and is probably ‘the’ most important aspect which determines the ranking of your site.
Page rank
Google is pretty much the king of search engines and it is the leader which determines which website is most pertinent for terms and search words. So if you are looking to get noticed then you should aim at improving your Page Rank. The Page Rank is ascertained by a mathematical formula which counts each link to a particular website in the form of a vote. This basically means that your website is matched up against other websites which have similar keywords or content like as in a popularity contest. The website which has the most valuable links naturally gets a higher ranking.
Pogo sticking
Pogo sticking refers to the act when a user searches for something, clicks on his find and then quickly goes back to the search result page and goes on to another result. This happens as he finds that the site that he opened is not what he was really looking for and moves on to another link or search result.
Bounce rate
Most confuse Bounce rate with pogo sticking. However, bounce rate refers to the fraction of users who visited one page on a website. A high bounce rate doesn’t necessarily mean that it is bad. It just means that the user did not go in more detail into your site. But he did spend some time.
Google panda Updation – In Feb 2011, a search filter called Google Panda Update was introduced. This was brought in to stop sites which had poor quality content from making their way into top search results. The Panda is updated regularly.
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