In Pittsburgh SEO: Search Engine Industry Terms Of – Pa we detailed several key terms associated with the search engine optimization industry. Understanding these terms is a critical, prerequisite aspect of becoming successful on the web. In the last installment of the series we discussed terms such as Off and On-Page Optimization – SEO conducted both onsite and offsite, Organic Search – traffic generated from natural search queries results returned in the non-sponsored section of the SERPS, and Page Rank – a hotly disputed measure of trust and authority issued by Google. In this part of the comprehensive SEO index we'll discuss 4 more important Pittsburgh SEO terms:
Plugins
Press Release Syndication
PPC
Referring Domains
What are Plugins?
Plugins are software programs and website platform add-ons that significantly expand upon the capabilities of a particular web page or website. Plugins can be anything from an email capture form to a weather widget to a social media share feature.
Without plugins most websites would offer very limited functionality. For example, the most popular website platform – Wordpress – would essentially be nothing more than a collection of static pages and blog posts. Plugins are added to a site platform in order to make it more functional – this includes analytics and tracking plugins, guest blog post plugins, forum plugins and literally thousands more.
What is Press Release Syndication?
Press release syndication refers to the act of distributing a news story amongst media and other publication outlets. News stories and press releases can consist of company announcements, new product or service launches, special events, changes in management or any other newsworthy event.
Syndication of press releases is widely thought to benefit SEO because most press release publishers allow active links and anchor text links in various areas of the published release. Additionally, a popular press release can drive a significant amount of traffic to the referenced website, thereby improving a site's standing in social media and the search engines when the traffic is relevant.
PPC Explained
PPC stands for Pay Per Click. It is an aptly named advertising program where businesses and individuals pay a set amount or a bid amount any time a user clicks on their ads. PPC allows even new websites to gain instant traffic, but in certain niches the fees involved can quickly bankrupt a search engine marketing effort. PPC is essentially the opposite from organic search.
PPC ads are returned when a user enters a search query that triggers the ad. Ads generally appear at the top of the page, on the right hand side and on the bottom of a SERP (search engine results page), but in some cases not all sections of ads will appear, and for some queries no ads will be triggered at all.
What are Referring Domains?
Referring Domains describe the amount of unique websites that point to your page or website. For instance, if there are 7 links on various different pages of a website all pointing to another website, this is equivalent to only one referring domain. Conversely, 7 links on 7 totally different websites will result in a count of 7 referring domains.
This is important because the more referring domains you have pointing to your site and the more diverse and credible those domains are, the more likely it is that your rankings will improve if other aspects of your site or pages are in order.
In the next installment of Pittsburgh SEO: Search Engine Optimization Jargon Defined we'll detail 4 more important SEO terms. But if you're ready to take action right now, pick up the phone and call us for a free, confidential consultation. The sooner you begin, the sooner you'll be at the top. Find out for yourself by calling us now.