In the never-ending battle to reach Page One of Google (and stay there), you’ll need long-term local SEO strategies. That’s because 75% of searchers never reach the second page of search results. Fortunately, unlike other aspects of web development, you don’t have to become a master of coding languages like HTML and CSS to get started. But you will need to master a lot of new terminology.
So here are the most important local SEO terms for beginners:
Google: The search engine so important, it transcends alphabetical order with at least 70% market share. With sincere apologies to Bing, Google is the only search engine local SEO companies care about.
AdWords: Another Google term, AdWords is Google’s HUGE advertising network. If you want to place PPC ads (see below) on Google, you’ll need local SEO experts certified to use AdWords.
Black-Hat, White-Hat: Black-hat techniques are illegal, or at least unethical, coding techniques, such as spamming and buying links. White-hat refers to above-board methods.
Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave your site immediately after opening the page.
Content Marketing: Content is anything published on the web, like blog posts, videos, and infographics. In local SEO, content marketing involves creating and sharing original content to improve your search rankings. But with 27 million pieces of content published every day, you don’t just need quality content, you need a strategy for sharing it with the world.
Remember: 92% of marketers report that content creation is an effective SEO strategy.
Dead Links: Links that lead to a dead page, often known as a 404 result, which hurt your search rankings.
Domain Authority: Developed by search marketing company Moz, it’s a 0 to 100 point scale that estimates a website’s power in search rankings. The higher a site’s domain authority, the more valuable links from that website will be in search rankings.
Google+: Google’s social media site. If you want to show up on Google Maps and other Google products, then you’ll need a Google+ business or brand page.
Keywords: The search terms you hope to target with a local SEO campaign.
Keyword Density: The number of times a unique keyword appears in a piece of content. If density is too low, you’ll have trouble ranking. Too high, and you could get flagged for spam.
Link Sharing, Link Building: The practice of gaining and sharing links to your website. Google says intentional link building violates their rules.
Meta Description: An HTML tag that summarizes a website’s content and keywords. Some meta descriptions appear in search results.
Mobile-Friendly Websites: Websites optimized for readability on mobile devices. One in two local searches involves mobile devices, and a site that isn’t optimized for mobile fails a basic local SEO test.
Organic SEO: Generally, organic local SEO refers to white-hat techniques that improve your search ranking, as opposed to illicit link buying or legitimate advertising campaigns.
PageRank: Google’s algorithm that measures the relative importance of a site; Google ranks each site on an exponential scale from one to 10.
Panda and Penguin: Google periodically updates its search algorithm. Panda updates generally try and weed out sites with low quality content, while Penguin is designed to catch sites using black hat techniques.
Pay-Per-Click: A form of digital advertising. The advertiser is charged every time the ad is clicked.
Social Media Marketing: A crucial component of local SEO; the use of sites like Twitter and Facebook to promote your brand, content, and links.