Have you ever wondered what SEO terms actually mean?

It’s important to have a basic understanding of search engine optimization (SEO) to attract search engine traffic. However, in order to compete and rank highly for keywords, you also need to know the medical SEO terms that help explain the procedure.

In this article, we take you through some of the most common terms that you need to know about and what these terms or abbreviations mean for the process of optimizing your website.

Medical SEO Terms: Search Engines, Keywords and Queries

Search Engine: Google, Yahoo and Bing are examples of search engines which provide online users with a database of items including products and services.

Keywords/Search Query: These are the words (keywords) that users type into a search box.

Long-tail Keywords: A keyword term that usually contains three or more words.

Keyword Difficulty: This is an estimate/number which indicates how difficult it might be to outrank competitors for a particular keyword.

Search Volume: Refers to the overall number of users that are searching for a specific keyword(s).

Local Query: Search query relating to a product, service etc in the local area.

Navigational Query: Search query related to reaching a specific location/website.

Regional Keyword: This refers to keywords that might be specific to a certain locality as not everywhere uses the same words to describe a hair salon or fizzy drink.

User Intent: This refers to precisely what the user wants/needs when they use certain keywords.

Search Ranking: This is the order of search results which are ranked based on relevance and authority.

SERP: Search engine results page is the name of results page on a search engine.

Featured Snippet: These are the boxes you often see at the top of search results which provide a specific solution to the search query.

Page Rank: An estimation in terms of the authority and quality of a certain website page.

More Medical SEO Terms

Organic Search/Results: These results are the result of honest search engine optimization (SEO) over time and not the result of paid ads etc.

White Hat SEO – This refers to methods and techniques for which search engines approve. These tactics are approved and do not rely on “tricking” Google etc.

Black Hat SEO: The opposite of white hat SEO, Black hat techniques are those which violate the quality guidelines laid out by most search engines.

Web Crawling: The process search engines use to discover web pages.

Indexing: The organization and storage of content on a web page found through web crawling.

De-indexing: When a search engine removes web pages (often due to violations).

Channel: The different means by which you can get attention and acquire traffic, such as organic search and social media. 

HTML: This is the name for a type of text/language that creates web pages.

URL (Uniform Resource Locators): This refers to what you see in the address bar of a web browser and indicates the precise address for a piece of content.

Site-map: This is a list that outlines the structure of all URLs/pages on a website.

SSL Cert: Data security protects your identity and this security layer encrypts data that passes through a web page.

Medical SEO Terms for Measuring Performance

Key Performance Indicator (KPI): This refers to key performance indicators which put a measurable value on performance or progress toward a specified goal.

Bounce Rate: This is the percentage of visitors that visit a web page without taking any further action. “Bounced” means the visitor decides to leave the web page.

Click-through Rate: This is the number of clicks an ad gets divided by the number of times the ad is shown.

Conversion Rate: The number of users that click on a result and take a desired action.

Qualified Lead: These are online users for which a conversion is more probable.

Engagement: The way in which online users interact with a web page.

Page speed: A number of factors help search engines decipher if a particular page speed is fast or not and there are many ways to make a website faster.

SEO Links and Descriptions for Medical Content

Algorithms: The formula that search engines use to retrieve and rank content/info.

Backlinks: Links that come to a piece of content from another third party website.

Local links: These are links from other local businesses, services etc and many marketers see local link building as one of the most important parts of SEO.

Internal Link: These are links that point to another web page on the same website.

Anchor Text: This is the exact text which is used to link a piece of content to an internal or external web page.

Bots: Robots, spiders, or crawlers are the names given to the artificial intelligence (AI) that crawls through the internet to find content and web pages.

Duplicate Content: Duplicate content can reduce a website’s rank and is when the same content is found on two different web pages or two different domains.

Header Tags: This is the HTML text that identifies headings to web crawlers.

Meta Description: This is the HTML text that describes the content of a web page to crawlers. Meta descriptions are often used as snippets in the search results.

Alt Text: This is the text in HTML form that helps describe images online.

A Final Word on Google SEO Terms

It may not be the only search engine, as said by Digital Authority Partners, but Google is the primary source of search traffic. With this in mind, let’s look at the following:

Google My Business (GMB): This is a free listing that businesses can use to highlight their location and what they do etc.

Google Search Console: This is a platform which enables marketers and website owners to monitor progress and performance.

Google Analytics: A free dashboard which provides metrics and tools that help website owners extract SEO-related data. This is also data which marketers will use for the purpose of reporting to their clients.

Google Quality Guidelines: Google provides guidelines to which website owners must adhere in order to appear in search results and move up the rankings.

Final Thoughts 

While there are many more medical SEO terms to know, the above list is a good starting point for those who might be new to the process. That said, in order to rank quickly, it’s not nearly enough to know the basics, and most businesses employ the services of a digital marketing agency.