Digital marketing is a broad and complex field, but a few key concepts are essential for beginners to understand. These include search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and paid advertising. These basic terms can create a solid foundation for a successful digital marketing strategy. With the right approach, you can reach your target audience and achieve your business goals.
Here is a term which every digital marketing and SEO beginner must know, and it is divided into alphabetical sections:
A
Algorithm – An algorithm is a set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps. Search engines use complex algorithms to determine the relevance and importance of web pages.
B
Backlinks – Backlinks are inbound links to your website from other external websites. The more relevant backlinks a page has, the higher it ranks in search results.
C
Crawl – When search engines scan through websites to find new and updated pages. Search engine bots regularly crawl websites to gather information for indexing.
D
Domain Authority – A metric from Moz that estimates how likely a site is to rank well in search results. Domain authority considers factors like backlinks and the trustworthiness of referring sites.
E
Engagement – How users interact with and consume content on your website. Metrics like time on page, scroll depth, and shares indicate user engagement. High engagement helps improve SEO rankings.
F
Followed Links – Links on external pages that point directly to an internal page on your site. These links pass link equity and can positively impact the ranking of that page.
G
Google Analytics – A free tool from Google that provides detailed website traffic and engagement statistics. Used to track organic and paid search traffic, conversion rates, and more.
H
Header Tags – HTML tags that define headings and subtitles in web content. Header tags like <h1>, <h2>, etc. tell search engines what a page is about and how important each section is.
I
Indexing – The process of adding web pages and other content to a search engine index. For a page to rank, it must first be discovered and indexed by search engines.
J
JSON – JavaScript Object Notation. A lightweight format for storing and transporting data. Used by search engines to retrieve and parse structured data/schemas like JSON-LD.
K
Keywords – Specific words or phrases related to a topic that someone might type into a search engine to find relevant information. Keyword research is a core part of SEO strategy. Read the keyword research guide to understand more about this.
L
Link Equity – The ranking authority that a website passes to linked pages. The higher a site’s ranking and domain authority, the more link equity its outbound links contain.
M
Meta Description – An HTML tag that provides a summary or description of a webpage. Meta descriptions show up in search results snippets to help users decide if a result is relevant.
N
Natural Search – Also known as organic search or “free” search results. Displaying relevant web pages in a search engine’s algorithms-based order. The goal of most SEO efforts.
O
On-Page SEO – Techniques that improve ranking factors directly on your own website pages. Includes things like keyword optimization, URL structure, page speed, and schema markup.
P
PageRank – Google’s original algorithm for measuring the importance of websites. PageRank considers the quantity and quality of backlinks when assigning a ranking score from 0 to 10.
Q
Quality Score – A measure used by Google to determine the usefulness of an AdWords ad. Factors include ad relevance, landing page experience, and click-through rate.
R
Reciprocal Link – When two websites have pages that both link to each other. While beneficial, reciprocal links are less valuable for SEO than one-way, natural backlinks.
S
Schema Markup – A vocabulary that structures website data to make it easier for search engines to understand. Schema helps improve rankings and shows enhanced search results.
T
Tags – HTML elements that provide additional information about contents. Popular semantic tags include <h1>, <strong>, <em>, <ul>, <li>, etc. Properly used tags aid SEO and accessibility.
U
URLs – Uniform Resource Locators. The text-based web addresses that identify specific web pages, files, or services. Well-structured URLs can benefit SEO rankings.
V
Voice Search – Using spoken requests with a voice assistant like Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, etc. Requires a different SEO approach focused on long-tail keywords.
W
Web Crawlers – Also known as spiders. Programs that surf the web by following links from page to page and downloading their content. Used by search engines to discover and index web pages.
X
XML Sitemap – A file that contains URLs for a site’s pages and tells search engines about a site’s structure, important pages, and how frequently pages are updated.
Y
YMYL – “Your Money or Your Life” content. Google considers topics like health, legal, or financial information more important, so they are held to a higher standard.
Z
Zero-Click Searches – When searchers find what they need directly in the main search results page without clicking through to an actual website. Search engines aim to show the most relevant results for zero-click potential.