Glossary

We know everyone loves a good SEM and SEO glossary – let’s be honest, there are just so many words out there in the search marketing universe! So we’ve collated all the main search terms together in the one spot so you can easily find what you’re looking for. Come on, don’t be shy, have a look through.

Acquisition
When a potential customer becomes a qualified lead/customer. Common acquisition points include the customer buying a product, registering for a newsletter or giving their contact details.

Ad Copy
Also known as Creative CopyThe words that form an advertisement that is displayed to searchers on the results page of a search engine.

AdWords
Google’s paid search marketing program. The program allows you to create your ad to display on the Google search network through paid placement and helps you target your audience through the use of keywords. This is also an effective tool to monitor and measure the performance of your advertisements and provides the flexibility to amend your advertisements at any time.

AdSense
Google’s marketing program which allows website owners to generate income from displaying relevant Google ads on their websites. AdSense matches the content of the website to ads within their AdWords program and displays the relevant ads on the website. When these ads are relevant and clicked on then website owners will generate income from Google.

Click through rate (CTR)
Generally expressed as a percentage, this is the number of times your ad is clicked on compared to the number of times your ad is shown. For example if your ad is shown 100 times and out of those 100 times, 20 people click on your ad, then the CTR is 20%.

Clicks
The number of times your ad is clicked on when displayed to searchers on the results page of a search engine.

Cloaking
Involves misleading and re-directing search engine spiders to websites that are different to the website the searcher is supposed to land on. Results will then be returned based on the alternative website rather than the actual website and there may not be any relevance to the specific search. This technique may be used by some to increase the ranking of their website. This technique is considered to be deceptive and is a serious offence.

Content Optimisation
Developing or refining website content to improve ranking in search engines.

Conversion rate
The number of users who visit a website and then perform a desired action. For example, if your goal is to obtain newsletter subscriptions and for every 100 visitors to your site 40 people subscribe to your newsletter, then the conversion rate is 40%.

Cost per click (CPC)
This is the amount the advertiser pays per click on their advertisement

Cost per thousand (CPM)
This is the amount the advertiser will pay for every 1000 times their ad is shown. CPM is frequently used in print, media and online banner advertisements. The M in CPM comes from the Latin M meaning thousands.

Creative Copy
Also known as Ad Copy

Gateway Pages
Pages which are specifically created to achieve high rankings in search engines. Gateway pages may include specific keywords and phrases that will attract a higher ranking. These keywords and phrases have the potential to be completely irrelevant to the actual website and are used deceptively to attract traffic.

Impressions
The number of times your ad is displayed to searchers on the results page of a search engine.

Keywords
Also known as Search Terms
The words that the searcher enters into the search engine. These terms are the terms search engine marketers then use to develop a search marketing campaign.

Landing Page
The page the user will be delivered to after clicking on a search listing. During the search marketing process, optimisation of the landing page is undertaken to improve conversions.

Meta tags
A part of HTML coding on a website that is hidden from the viewer and provides a description of the content of a website. Search engines may display the website content description on the results page of a search engine. Meta tags could also be used to attract search engine spiders that control the indexing of a website (i.e., whether the page is relevant enough to appear for various keyword searches). The abuse of meta tags with keyword stuffing (placing unrelated popular keywords within the meta tags) has rendered this form of distinction by search engine spiders almost obsolete.

Natural Search
Also known as Organic Search ResultsThese are the search results that are returned to the searcher that have not been paid for. Natural search results are developed by search engines through the process of crawling websites. It is possible to optimise a website to have it appear in a higher position in the natural results. This process is referred to as search engine optimisation.

Organic Search
Also known as Natural Search.

Paid Placement
Paid placement is where an advertisement is guaranteed to appear when a given keyword is entered into a search engine. To determine the price advertisers will pay per click, typically search engines use an auction model. The advertisers paying more appear higher in the paid placement search results. The most popular paid placement search marketing programs are Google Adwords and Overture (Yahoo7).

Paid Search Marketing
Any advertising that search engines sell to advertisers is referred to as paid search marketing. Paid search marketing can take a number of forms, the most common being paid placement.

Pay per click
Pay per click works on the premise that you pay for your advertising only when someone clicks on your advertisement. To determine the price advertisers will pay per click, typically search engines use an auction model. However, there are other factors that determine your cost per click with Google but overall it’s decided on the number of advertisers for any given keyword. The advertisers paying more appear higher in the paid placement search results.

Ranking
This refers to the position in which websites are displayed on search engines. Websites with higher rankings are considered by the search engine to be the most relevant and are displayed at the top of the list.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
The process of marketing your website using search engines. Search engine marketing can take two forms; paid search marketing and search engine optimisation.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
The strategic process of improving website ranking by changing various aspects of a website. The aim of search engine optimisation is to improve the website’s ranking in the search engine’s natural or organic search results.

Search Engine Results Page (SERPS)
The page that is displayed after the user enters a search query in a search engine. Commonly referred to as a results page.

Search engine spider
Also known as a Web crawler or bot
An automated program which scans websites to provide information to search engines often for the purpose of indexing (ranking) websites.

Search Marketing
Search Marketing is the art and science of allowing people to find you online. Think broader than just search engines. If a customer is online and looking for you through any online channel including social, local, video, search engine – a robust search marketing strategy will allow you to be found.

Yahoo!7 / Overture
A paid search marketing program provided by Yahoo!7 which allows you to create your ad to display on various sites through paid placement within their distribution network. The program allows you to target your audience through the use of keywords and is also an effective tool to monitor and measure the performance of your advertisements.