Alt text
Read more →The little description that goes inside an image. Google can't see your photos, so it reads the alt text instead. Also helps blind users with screen readers.
SEO glossary · 43 terms · free
Every SEO term. In plain English.
The glossary we wish existed when we started. One sentence per term, no jargon stacked on jargon. If your SEO consultant said something confusing, this is where to look it up.
A
Anchor text
Read more →The clickable, usually blue, words in a link. "Click here" is bad anchor text. "Best the UK plumber" is great.
B
Backlink
Read more →When another website links to yours. Google treats these as votes of confidence, more good votes, more it trusts you. Quality matters way more than quantity.
Bounce rate
Read more →The percentage of people who land on a page and leave without clicking anything else. Often overrated as a metric, but worth knowing.
Black-hat SEO
Read more →The shady stuff: buying links, keyword stuffing, cloaking. Sometimes works for six weeks, then gets you penalised. Don't.
C
Canonical URL
Read more →A signal to Google saying "this is the main version of this page, please ignore the duplicates." Crucial if you have product pages that look identical except for the colour.
Core Web Vitals
Read more →Google's three speed metrics: how fast the main content loads (LCP), how stable the page is as it loads (CLS), and how quickly it responds when you tap (INP). Bad scores quietly hurt rankings.
Crawling
Read more →When Google's bots wander around your website reading pages. They have to crawl a page before they can rank it.
CTR (click-through rate)
Read more →Of the people who saw your page in search results, the percentage who clicked it. Higher CTR is a sign your title and description are working.
D
Domain authority (DA)
Read more →A made-up score by SEO tools (not Google) that estimates how strong your domain is. Useful as a rough vibe check, not a target.
Duplicate content
Read more →When the same text shows up on multiple URLs. Splits your ranking power across copies. Use canonical URLs or just delete the duplicates.
E
E-E-A-T
Read more →Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. Google's checklist for "is this site written by someone who actually knows what they're talking about." Matters most for health, money, and safety topics.
External link
Read more →A link from your site that points to a different domain. Not bad! Linking to good sources can help your credibility.
F
Featured snippet
Read more →The little box at the top of Google with a direct answer to your question. Owning one is like being on the front page of the newspaper.
404 error
Read more →The "page not found" error. A few are fine, hundreds suggest broken links. Redirect dead pages to live ones instead.
G
Google Business Profile
Read more →The free Google listing that puts your business on Maps and in the local "3-pack." If you serve people in a specific area, this is non-optional.
Google Search Console
Read more →Free Google tool that shows you which keywords brought people to your site and which pages Google is having trouble with. We connect to it automatically.
I
Indexing
Read more →After Google crawls your page, indexing is the bit where it stores it in the library. If a page isn't indexed, nobody can find it.
Internal linking
Read more →Links from one page on your site to another. Helps Google understand which pages matter most and helps users find related stuff.
K
Keyword
Read more →A word or phrase someone types into Google. "Boiler repair the UK" is a keyword. So is "how to bleed a radiator."
Keyword research
Read more →Finding the phrases your customers actually type, then writing pages that answer them. Bloom does this for you automatically.
L
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
Read more →How long it takes for the biggest thing on your page (usually a hero image or headline) to show up. Aim for under 2.5 seconds.
Local SEO
Read more →The bit of SEO that's about showing up for "near me" searches. Plumbers, dentists, cafés, anyone with a physical service area.
Long-tail keyword
Read more →A specific multi-word phrase like "emergency plumber Clifton the UK Sunday." Fewer people search them, but the ones who do really want what you offer.
M
Meta description
Read more →The little snippet of text under your page's title in Google results. Doesn't affect ranking, but a good one boosts clicks.
Mobile-first indexing
Read more →Google looks at the mobile version of your site to decide rankings, not the desktop one. So if your site is broken on a phone, it's broken for Google too.
N
NAP consistency
Read more →Name, Address, Phone, the same details across your website, Google Business Profile, and every directory. Mismatches confuse Google and hurt local rankings.
Nofollow link
Read more →A link with a "don't pass ranking credit" tag attached. Common on ads and user comments. Still useful for traffic, just doesn't help SEO directly.
O
Off-page SEO
Read more →Everything you do outside your own website to rank better: backlinks, mentions, reviews, social signals.
On-page SEO
Read more →Everything you do on your own pages: content, headings, meta tags, internal links, images. The bit you have full control over.
Organic traffic
Read more →Visitors who arrived from a search engine without you paying for an ad. The whole point of SEO.
P
PageRank
Read more →Google's original algorithm for ranking pages by counting and weighing links to them. The underlying idea is still very much alive, even if the public score isn't.
Page speed
Read more →How quickly your pages load. Affects rankings (slightly) and conversions (a lot). Compress images first, fix everything else later.
R
301 redirect
Read more →A permanent forward from one URL to another. Use these when you delete or rename a page, so the old SEO juice flows to the new one.
Robots.txt
Read more →A tiny file that tells Google which parts of your site to skip. Powerful, sometimes catastrophic if you ban the wrong page.
S
Schema markup
Read more →Extra invisible code that tells Google "this page is a recipe / product / event / business with these opening hours." Often gets you fancy rich results.
Search intent
Read more →What the person actually wants when they type a query. "Best boilers" wants comparisons. "Boiler repair near me" wants a phone number, fast.
SERP
Read more →Search Engine Results Page. The page of results you see after a Google search. Knowing what's on it tells you what you're up against.
Sitemap
Read more →A file that lists every page on your site for search engines. Helps Google find your content faster, especially on big or new sites.
T
Technical SEO
Read more →The plumbing of SEO: site speed, crawlability, structured data, redirects. Boring but high-leverage.
Title tag
Read more →The big blue clickable line at the top of a Google result. Single biggest on-page lever for clicks. Worth obsessing over.
U
URL slug
Read more →The bit at the end of your URL: /emergency-plumber-bristol. Short, lowercase, hyphenated, descriptive.
W
White-hat SEO
Read more →SEO done the way Google says to do it: real content, earned links, good experience. Slower but compounds for years.
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