Blog: A journal that is available online and can be updated as often as desired through simple interactive software. Businesses use blogs to keep customers informed and improve their websites’ search engine rankings by increasing keywords.

Domain Name: The name of a website, such as http://google.com It is one of the two things necessary to put a website online– the other being a host.
E-commerce: Selling products or services online. This means, more narrowly, the transactions that automatically take place through shopping carts and other internet technologies.

Flash: A web animation software created by Macromedia that allows for a multimedia web experience.

Host: The company offering server space where a website is stored. You can buy the space (think of it like your hard drive) for your website through companies such as godaddy.com or Lunarpages.com Along with a domain name, the only thing you have to pay for to have a website.

HTML code: The language that creates web pages. Up-to-date HTML code, and pages that do not use primarily Flash or Javascript can be “found” more easily by search engines.

Incoming Links: Links to your website from other sites. These could include links from directories, business partners, or personal sites. Relevant links to your site improve your search engine ranking.

Internet Marketing: Any means of generating business by using the web. More specifically, it refers to creating a website, marketing it through Pay-per-Click campaigns, emails, newsletters, or online directories, optimizing the site for search engines to find, and creating content-rich pages with keywords.

Keyword: A word that someone types into a search engine in order to look for websites containing that word.

Example: If you were looking for a barber sho p in Los Angeles, “barber,” “haircut,” and “Los Angeles” might all be keywords. If you were a barber and had a website you would probably want those same keywords to appear on your web pages.

Keyword Optimization: The use of keywords on a website to improve search engine ranking. Keywords appear in the body of the text, in the title, meta tags, and in links. Another aspect of keyword optimization is updating your site with content-rich pages containing keywords.

Link (or Hyperlink): Text on a web page that leads you to another web page or website. Links may also lead you to another part of the same page (such as “back to top” links).

Meta Tags: Part of the website code that is not displayed, but supplies additional information about the site. Meta tags are used primarily to tell search engines what the site is about. They are an important place to put keywords.

Multimedia: The use of video, music, Flash animation or other web technologies on a website.

Pay-per-Click Advertising: Ads that one purchases on search engines by bidding on keywords. These ads are usually found on the right hand side or on the top of search engines.

Example: Let’s say that you have a website for your barber shop in Los Angeles. You decide to bid on the keywords “haircut” “Los Angeles” and “barber shop.” When someone searches for those words, an ad appears for your business. Your ranking is determined by the amount you bid and the relevance of your keywords to those the user types in. You pay only when someone click on your ad, leading them to your barber shop website. Read more...

Search Engine: A site such as Google.com, Yahoo.com or MSN.com that allows you to search the internet for websites by typing in keywords.

Search Engine Optimization: Creating and maintaining a website that will be found easily by search engines and have a high search engine ranking. There are several factors that contribute to how “optimized” a website is, including keyword optimization, updating content, HTML compliance, and incoming links. SEO is a continual process that requires changes to one’s website. Read more...

Search Engine Ranking: The order of websites on search engines based on the keywords entered.

Example: If you typed “barber shop in Los Angeles” into Google.com, you would see a list of sites. Let’s say that Manny’s Barber Shop was the first site in the list. It would have a great search engine ranking. However, that search engine ranking would decline if you typed in “barber shop in California”, since websites from all over the state might appear first.