From technical jargon to acronyms, understanding search engine optimisation (SEO) terms can feel confusing.
Have you ever stopped to wonder what “SERPs” and “lead magnets” actually mean?
Whether you’re a beginner in the world of online marketing, or a website owner looking to brush up on the language used by your SEO agency, we’re here to help.
In this blog, we’re going to look at some of the most common SEO terms and break them down into simple definitions.
SERP
A popular acronym in the SEO industry – probably the most common after ‘SEO’ itself – is SERP.
SERP stands for search engine results page. The search engine results page is the page that users see after entering a search query on a search engine such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.
The SERP is the page that you would like the pages on your website to rank highly on.
Traditionally, the search engine results page used to provide users with 10 blue links to websites. In recent years, rich results including sponsored listings, AI- (artificial intelligence) generated responses, featured snippets and videos have been added to the search engine results page.
Impressions
Impressions is a term used in Google Search Console that refers to the number of times a page from a website has appeared on Google’s search engine results page in response to a user’s search query.
It doesn’t matter whether the user actually clicked on the listing from the search engine results page – if the website is displayed in the results, whether it be on page one or page 100, it counts as an impression.
For example, if a user made a search on Google for “Web design Ellesmere Port”, and Engage Web was to show up in the search results, Google Search Console would record this as an impression.
The higher your website ranks on the search engine results page for a keyword, the more impressions you’re likely to receive. Search engine users rarely look beyond the first page of results, and therefore, anything beyond this will be seen by less people, and consequently, receive less impressions.
Lead magnet
In SEO, a lead magnet refers to a resource provided on a website that helps encourage users to share their contact information. Typically, this is an email address or a telephone number.
The aim of a lead magnet is to turn visitors to the website into subscribers or potential customers by offering them something they want in exchange for their details.
An example of a lead magnet could include a downloadable PDF document, relevant to the product or services offered on your website, or exclusive content, such as a webinar or video tutorial.
Bounce rate
The term bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who land on a particular page on a website and leave without engaging further; for example, if a user were to click onto a website listing on Google’s search engine results page, but change their mind when the webpage has loaded and click back to return to Google.
If 100 people were to visit a page on your website, but 50 of those people clicked off the website without visiting another page or engaging with the content by clicking a link or button, the bounce rate of that page would be 50%.
In SEO, a high bounce rate isn’t good, as this can mean that users aren’t finding what they’re looking for, or that the page didn’t engage their attention enough to make them stay on the site and explore further.
Click through rate (CTR)
Click through rate refers to the percentage of people who click on a link to your website after seeing it on the search engine results page.
Click through rate is calculated by dividing the number of times a user has clicked on a link to your website from the SERPs by the total number of impressions pages from your website have received in the search results and multiplying this number by 100.
For example, if 100 people were to see your website in the SERPs, but only five of these people were to click on the link, the click through rate of your website would be 5%.
Click through rate can differ across industries, and can be influenced by many factors, such as the level of competition in the search engine results page, or whether the results page displays rich results, such as product listings that typically achieve higher levels of clicks.
By understanding common SEO phrases like click through rate, lead magnet and search engine results page, you’ll gain a clearer insight into how these elements work together, like cogs in a well-oiled machine, to help drive a successful SEO campaign.
If you have any questions or need some expert advice on how to navigate your SEO strategy, contact the friendly and knowledgeable team at Engage Web today.
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