Understanding the importance of search engine optimization isn’t easy if you don’t understand all the jargon used to describe it. Good search engine optimization services will be able to break down what all these terms mean if you’re new to the industry, but here’s a quick look at some of the terms you’ve probably already heard:

• Anchor text: The text that you see when you click a hyperlink. Search engines analyze anchor text as a way of determining if the link is relevant. Your website’s name should be one of the top five anchor texts used in any links that go to your website.

• Bot (robot, crawler, spider): These terms refer to the programs that “crawl” through the Internet, index webpages, and analyze the information on those pages so that search engine results can be ranked based on relevancy and authority.

• Domain authority (link juice): The term used to describe how much authority Google believes your webpage has; this is a major factor in your SERP rankings. Your website’s DA is a number from zero to 100, with 100 being the best possible score (Google’s own website is the only one that ranks at 100). Your DA is fluid and changes constantly.

• Inbound link: A link from another website that leads to your website. This can help or hurt your DA depending on the other website’s DA.

• Outbound link: A link on your website that leads to another website. This has no affect on your website’s DA.

• SEM: “Search engine marketing.” SEM and SEO are closely related and often used interchangeably, but they’re slightly different. SEM can include SEO services, but it’s not necessarily focused so much on the technical aspects of search engine listings.

• SEO: “Search engine optimization.” You probably already know what SEO means if you’ve begun looking into SEO services, but it’s worth talking about briefly. The ultimate goal of SEO is to get a high rank on Google searches for keywords that are relevant to your business. The SEO process includes everything from website optimization and link building to content creation and social media outreach.

• SERP: “Search engine results page.” This is the page you see when you type a keyword query into Google or Bing. It contains both organic and inorganic page results. Businesses aim to get on the first SERP for a relevant keyword because 75% of Internet users never scroll past the first page.

It’s estimated that around 93% of all online experiences start with a search engine (usually Google). If you aren’t making sure that your business’s website is doing well on search engine queries, you could be missing out on more potential customers than you realize.