SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is vital for any firm to succeed in having an online presence. For small or mid-sized firms, there isn’t always room in the budget for a marketing team, so efforts fall elsewhere onto those who may not specialize in marketing. Because of this, you may find yourself doing research, trying to figure out how to create a website for your firm that ranks well with Google.

SEO terms that are frequently tossed around may not be explained, or it may just be assumed those reading already know what they mean. To make matters easier for you, we’ve compiled a list of basic SEO terms and definitions

Authority (Domain Authority or DA): This is how much trust your firm’s site is credited for Google. Authority or Domain Authority is based on a 1-100 range, 100 being the highest your firm’s site can have. Don’t worry about getting your site to a 100 DA. Instead, look at competing firm’s domain authority to see around where you’d like yours to be. Ideally, it would be higher than your competitors. If competing firms have a 30-35 domain authority then shoot for 35+ DA for your firm’s site.

Back Link: A link to your firm’s site from another site. You can increase your firm’s back links by offering a guest blog, article, or resource that link back to your site. Offering a guest blog to a cancer support group on how to qualify for disability benefits with cancer with some links back to your firm is a simple way to increase your back links.

Black Hat: SEO practices that go against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines Keyword stuffing or paying for back links are examples of black hat SEO and can negatively affect your firm’s site or even have your site removed from search engine results.

Bot (robot, spider): These are used by Google to crawl and index pages on your firm’s website.

Content: Text or copy of a page your firm’s site that has value/interest visitors to the site. Content would be any text or copy of article or blogs on your firm’s site, but not any advertisements.

Conversion (goal): A completed goal on your firm’s site. It could be having a visitor fill out your contact form on your site or click a certain link. Most attorney’s conversions will revolve around getting consumers to reach out to your firm for legal assistance.

Conversion Rate: The percentage of users who convert, or complete the goal. You can track both conversion and conversion rate in Google analytics, but traditional forms of legal marketing (TV, billboard, etc.) will need to have a manually-tracked conversion rate.

The Fold: Similar to the fold of a newspaper, the “fold” on your firm’s website is where the page gets cut off by the bottom of the browser, where the visitor would have to scroll through. Search engines prioritize any content above the fold. When you post articles or blogs on your firm’s site, you want to make sure any pictures or links are “below the fold.”

HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language, or the code that is used to format webpages as well as help search engines crawl your firm’s site.

Internal Link: A link from one of your firm’s pages to another page within your firm’s website. This helps pass domain authority from one of your pages to another as well as create a web of pages, making it easier for search engines to crawl. If you have an article on how to file for workers’ compensation with a broken ankle, you may want to include a link to your article on what medical documentation is needed to support the claim.

Indexed Pages: Pages on your firm’s website that are stored by search engines.

Keyword: A word or phase entered into a search engine. “Workers’ Compensation Lawyer in Milwaukee” or “Vision loss disability benefits” are keywords someone may search in Google or another search engine.

Keyword Density: The percentage of times a particular keyword appears throughout a piece of content. Typically, you want about 1-2% of your content to be a specific keyword.

Landing Page: The page on your firm’s site a visitor will land on after following a link in a SERP. If someone Googles “collection agency harassment lawyer” and one of your pages appears in the results, that page is considered the landing page.

Link: A clickable element on your firm’s site that once is clicked, brings you to another page. Text or images can be a link.

Link Building: Actively trying to increase your firm’s sites amount of backlinks. You can do this through offering guest blogs, articles, or resources. Having links from websites with a higher domain authority can increase your firm’s domain authority, and subsequently the traffic your firm receives online.

Long Tail Keyword: Keywords that are more specific. “Filing a claim for a rear-end accident at a stoplight” would be considered a long tail keyword but “attorney” would not. Long tail keyword are typically 3 more words long.

Nofollow: a link that doesn’t pass its domain authority onto another. If you link to another site, you may make the link nofollow so that you don’t endorse the other domain. If you spend some time link building, you’ll want to make sure the backlinks you receive are not nofollow links, but rather do link to your site.

Panda: February 2011 Google algorithm update that targeted websites with low-quality updates. Firms with sites that have short or “thin” content are bumped down in the search engine rankings while firms with content that is beneficial to viewers rank higher.

Ranking Factor: One element a search engine uses to figure out where one of your firm’s pages will rank. An example would be the amount of backlinks your firm has and the domain authority of those backlinks.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Process of achieving a higher ranking on search engine results and driving unpaid traffic to your website.

SERP (Search Engine Results Page): The list of pages that appear on a search engine.

Traffic: Visitors that go to your site.

White Hat: SEO techniques that are best practices. Having quality content on your firm’s site and keeping links below the fold are two white hat SEO techniques.

Knowing these terms can help make your SEO efforts easier and you help gain a better understanding of why some SEO practices are done is a specific way.