To ensure that your site continues to receive recognition in the ever-changing search engine race, your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) team at BJM offers Search Engine Campaigns and Reports for organic and advanced "paid" registration. We also offer reputation monitoring and management.

Below are definitions, descriptions, and examples of commonly used terms in the Search Engine Optimization and Reporting world, especially with Google Analytics.

If you have any questions about the terms listed below, or if you are interested in speaking with a Brooks Jeffrey representative about YOUR search engine stats, call us at 800.506.8064!

SEO Report Terms

Adwords
A Google service for advertisers to compete in displaying ads to targeted users.

Alt text
A description of a graphic that is displayed when the graphic is inaccessible. Alt text is especially important for ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance because it provides screen reading devices with text to read for website visitors with vision impairments who may not see the graphic element.

Average session duration
The average amount of time that website visitors spend on your website or on a particular page on your website, depending on how the report is broken down.

Overall page rating
A rating provided based on site validation and testing, which includes checking for broken links, spelling errors, HTML syntax errors, and verifying browser compatibility.

Boost post
Paying to make a post appear more prominently in News Feeds on Facebook or Instagram.

Bounce rate
According to Google, bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits where a person leaves your website from the same page they entered on and do not interact with the rest of the website.

External link
A link on your website that directs the visitor to another domain.

Google Analytics
A service offered by Google that tracks your website traffic and creates reports based on the information.

Internal link
A link on your website that directs the visitor to another page on your website. Opposite of an external link.

Keyword
A word that a user types into a search engine to find relevant web page(s). Keyword(s) should appear in the text of your web page if you want that page to appear in search engine results.

Keyword density
The percentage of words on a particular page of your website that match a specified set of keywords. The number of keywords on a page helps the search engines to determine if that page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase that a visitor might search for.

Load Time
The time it takes for a browser to download a complete web page from the server.  Typical load times tend to be under 1000 milliseconds (1 second) whereas longer load times can frustrate users or even cause a timeout error. Excessive load times are often caused by non-optimized images or videos, but can also be caused by temporary network issues.

Meta description
A phrase (15 words or less) that summarizes a page’s content and includes keywords and keyword phrases specific to that particular page and/or website. This text does not show in the browser but is used by search engines.

New visitor
The first time a device or a browser loads your website, the person using that device/browser will be counted as a new visitor. The device/browser information is stored for analytics purposes and unless the visitor clears the cookies in that browser, any time they visit your website in the future, they will be counted as a returning visitor.

Page title
The blue underlined hyperlink that appears in the search engine results. This information is found in the title tag of the website.

Relevant content
Information that is up-to-date, informative, and meets the expectations of visitors to your website and/or social media accounts (i.e. if your company owns a bicycle shop, your website and social media accounts will include information about cycling, bicycle repair, etc., rather than politics).

Returning visitor
Someone who has used the same device/browser previously to visit your website will be considered a returning visitor next time they go to your website.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Publishing and marketing web and social content to appear in desired relevant search results.

Sitemap
A model of a website’s content often listed in a hierarchical fashion with links to the pages on the website. This page allows search engines to easily navigate the entire website, increasing your website’s chances of showing up in the search engine results based on keywords and phrases found throughout your website.

Social media integration
Functionality that connects the pages and features of your website to your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), allowing you to post directly from the Content Management System of your website to your social media accounts.

Top 10 pages visited
According to Google, these are the top 10 pages on your website that are visited most often through Google results. This information is shown by giving you the URL for the page that displays after the domain (i.e. “www.mywebsite.com/calendar” would appear as “/calendar” in the Top 10 Pages Visited section).

Top 10 search terms/queries
According to Google, these are the terms/queries that users searched for on Google, when your website was listed in the results.

Web stats
A report feature provided by BJM with your website (separate from Google Analytics) that provides records of overall website traffic, bandwidth usage, etc.

Website traffic
The umbrella term used to describe visitors or visits to your website.

Sources include: Search Engine News, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics