By its very nature, the world of content marketing and SEO can feel like a minefield to those with little experience. The industry is littered with SEO jargon, including acronyms and turns of phrase that are often difficult to pick through – particularly without a solid understanding of how content and SEO work together.
Drawing from our experience in both content creation and technical SEO, we’ve drawn up an A-Z of a few of the most common terms out there. From B2B marketing to XML sitemaps, here’s just a small selection of our most-used jargon terms and a brief overview of their meanings.
Analytics – A term most commonly used when talking about Google Analytics, a free tool that measures user data. Analysing and reporting on the success of content can help to enhance your content strategy moving forward.
B2B/B2C – Acronyms for ‘Business to Business’ and ‘Business to Consumer’. Determining which category your content falls under gives a clearer idea of its purpose, who it’s directed towards and the level of existing knowledge you can expect the user to have.
CTR – An abbreviation of ‘click-through rate’, most often associated with Google Adwords. It’s calculated by measuring the total number of users that see an advert, versus how many of those actually click on it.
DA – Short for Domain Authority, DA is a good indicator of how powerful your own domain is, or that of your competitors. The higher the DA, the more likely a site is to rank well in search.
Evergreen content – Any content that isn’t time-sensitive can be described as evergreen. This content stands the test of time and is still relevant weeks, months or years down the line – even in fast-moving industries.
Formats – Long-form copy, short-form copy, text, images and video are all examples of possible content formats to consider when developing your content marketing strategy.
Guest posts – Referring to the publishing of blog or web content written by an outside source. Often guest posts are written by other bloggers, brands or industry experts.
Hub content – Typically categorised by topic, a content hub hosts related content in one easy-to-navigate ‘hub’. That way readers can find all the relevant information they want in a variety of formats, such as branded, user generated, or curated.
Influencers – Defined as an individual or group that has the power to sway the behaviour of others, such as encouraging them to share content or make purchases. Bloggers and celebrities typically fall under this category.
Jargon – Specialised words and industry-specific language that is unlikely to be understood by those working outside of the sector. Although it depends on your target audience, jargon should often be avoided as it can alienate readers.
Keywords – The words or phrases entered into search engines, as users look for content to satisfy their query. Content should be optimised with relevant keywords in order to perform well in related web searches.
Link profile – Both inbound and outbound links associated with your site are gathered to form its link profile, which can have a direct impact upon search engine rankings.
Micro-moments – These occur when a user accesses digital content with a specific intent in mind, whether to watch, listen to, learn, discover or purchase.
Native advertising – Referring to paid advertising that resembles the style and tone of the channel’s own content. For example, native Facebook advertising may take the form of a Facebook status or image post.
Owned media – Any digital media which you’re in control of. For instance, your company website and social profiles are examples of owned media.
Page title – Title tags define the overall title of your webpage. While these don’t have any significant impact on rankings, they are the first thing users will see when your site appears in SERPs (see below).
Quality assurance – The process of ensuring that every piece of content presented online is of the highest quality possible. This process generally involves editing and proofing written content, as well as ensuring image and/or video files are of a high resolution.
ROI – An acronym for Return on Investment, ROI is a financial term that measures the relationship between the investment in an activity and the revenue generated from it.
SERP – Short for Search Engine Results Page, this is the page that users land on once they’ve submitted a search engine query. The higher your webpage places in SERPs, the more likely it is to drive organic search traffic.
Tone of voice – Every brand should have a clear tone of voice, or a particular way of expressing itself. Tone of voice is particularly important when writing copy for external sources.
UX – Otherwise known as User Experience, UX is a blanket term that covers the quality of interaction between the user and the site. If you want your audience to return, you’ll need to deliver a positive user experience.
Viral content – Content that breaks through the clutter and gets shared numerous times online is often deemed to be ‘viral’. This essentially refers to sensationalised content that takes the web by storm.
White hat SEO – Playing by the rules and following appropriate guidelines is perhaps the best way to define white hat SEO. These tactics are often the most time consuming but safer and more reliable in the long run.
XML sitemap – A little like your website’s navigation model, an XML sitemap helps both users and search engines to understand the structure of your site’s hierarchy.
YOY – An acronym for ‘year on year’, this is a common way to measure a site’s performance comparatively. Other options are to take a MOM (month on month) or WOW (week on week) view.
ZZZZ’s – Okay, so this isn’t an industry term but, if you snooze, you might miss the next one. Hiring a content marketing agency means we stay up to date with the latest acronyms and buzzwords for you.
As the landscape of the industry evolves, there’s a need to consistently coin new words and phrases to aid our dialogue. There’s no limit to the amount of content marketing jargon out there, but at Woo Content we make it clearer by our experience in technical SEO. For more information on all of our services, don’t hesitate to get in touch today.