Keys to Keywords
A type of keyword associated with low volume but high convertibility, often defined as consisting of three or more words
What is a longtail keyword?
The name of a "bug" that also doubles as a nickname for the bots that crawl websites.
What are spiders?
The programming language (i.e., code) that dictates the structure and layout of webpages/digital content.
What is HTML?
The page on which search engines display search results, often shortened to a well-known, four-letter abbreviation.
What is a SERP?
The name of the tool within Ahrefs used for researching and identifying keywords.
What is keyword explorer?
A keyword for STARTING your keyword research.
What is a seed keyword?
The name of the hyperlinked, "blue" text on a webpage, used by human audiences for clicking and used by bots for discovering/interpreting content.
What is anchor text?
The key to everything technical SEO, that helps companies spot issues that might be hindering a site's crawlability, indexability, etc.
What is a site audit?
The name of an algorithm traditionally used by Google to discern the quality/authority of a website by understanding the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to it from other websites.
What is PageRank?
A free SEO tool from Google that the instructor emphasized every business should set up and use, that lets you control your presence on Google and learn about your Google search performance.
What is Google Search Console?
A keyword with relatively low difficulty and relatively high volume that should be an easy "yes" as a business researches keywords to pursue.
What is a hidden fishing hole?
A webpage with no incoming links. It lives on a site...with really no way to get to it.
What is an orphan page?
An HTML tag that can be added to a webpage that contains duplicate content, that lets Google know which webpage is the main content for indexing/ranking purposes.
What is a canonical link/tag?
Two levels of the SEO process.
What are program-level and content-level?
A free (actually, freemium) tool recommended by the instructor for identifying and fixing technical issues that might be hindering the crawlability and indexability of a site.
What is Screaming Frog?
Three things that must be balanced (i.e., juggled) in identifying keywords for a business to pursue. (In other words, you want keywords at the intersection of these three things.)
What are relevance, volume, and difficulty?
The first destination for bots when they visit a website, where they'll stop to see what webpages are allowed or disallowed for crawling purposes.
What is a robots.txt file?
A document that gives bots directions for finding their way around an organization's website. You can upload this directly to Google when you don't want to wait on bots to naturally discover your site's content.
What is an XML Sitemap?
When search engines attempt to determine a searcher’s intent by understanding natural language (i.e., how humans really talk).
What is semantic search?
The name of a rival, all-in-one SEO tool that competes directly with Ahrefs. (The instructor has mentioned two by name this semester.)
What is Moz and/or SEM Rush?
The piece of content at the center of a topic cluster, that often provides an in-depth treatment of a topic at a relatively high conceptual level.
What is a pillar page?
A record of activity made by your web server, including bot visits
What are log files?
This enables a secure, encrypted connection between a web browser and a distant server. It must be purchased/renewed on an annual basis.
What is an SSL certificate?
HTML that tells search engines not to give "link juice" to a particular link that may have been left on one of their webpages.
What are NoFollow Links?
A set of metrics developed by Google to help organizations understand the speed and even-ness with which their digital content loads on websites.
What are Google's Core Web Vitals?