Demystifying SEO for Vets: An SEO Glossary

Search Engine Optimisation, like any specific field, comes with its own diverse range of jargon and lingo that can sometimes be hard to untangle if you’re not around them all the time. That’s why our SEO Manager, Chris is here to help you understand your SEO report so you can get the most from them and understand how we are improving your practice’s visibility on Google Searches. 

Chris, SEO Manager

Below you’ll find some definitions of the terms used in SEO.

Keywords

Keywords are words and phrases that allow search engines to find your pages when searchers use those particular words and phrases. Keywords allow us to focus and optimise content so when users enter search queries related to our content, they find our pages. 

Search Queries 

Search queries are the words searchers put into a search engine. Performing keyword research allows us to see what and how users are searching and allows us to create a keyword focus for your content. 

Sessions
A session is a visit to your website and includes all interactions between a single user and your website during their visit within a given time frame. These interactions could include anything from a page view to filling out a contact form or a map view. Any interactions after the allotted time frame are attributed to a new session as described below. 

New Sessions
A new session is activated when a user has been interacting with your website for longer than 30 minutes. So, every 30 minutes a user is on your website a new session is activated and logged.

Pages/Session
This is the average amount of pages visited per session by users. This could be a good indicator of how well the user has engaged with your website content but in some cases this metric may be misleading, for instance, in cases where a user is only searching for opening times or directions to the practice. 

Bounce Rate
Bounce Rate is a metric that lets us know how many people leave the site after just visiting a single page. This may mean that users cannot find what they’re looking for on your site and then decide to go elsewhere. In some cases, this metric might not be useful in defining whether users have found what they want or not, such as in the case of finding a contact number or a set of directions to your practice. This metric is always given as a percentage. 

Average Session Duration
Average Session Duration is the average length of time users spend on your site during their visit. Although because of the way Google records this metric it can be rather misleading and is often misunderstood.  

The way search engines records session duration is by recording the time difference between page views. Therefore, if a user only views one page for five minutes and then leaves the site that session duration is subsequently recorded as zero seconds. 

Direct Search
Direct Search is when someone is looking for your brand and is including it in their search query. Example searches would be terms such as “VetHelpDirect telephone number” or any other term that includes your business name. 

Organic Search/Discovery Search
When someone is looking for a vet with specific defining criteria such as location or type of pet they treat and they find and click on your business in the Google search listings, that is organic search/discovery search. This is an important metric to measure for SEO, as the higher we can get you displayed on the Google SERP the more chance there is of your business being discovered by a new client.  

SERP
SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page and is the page returned by Google when you enter a search query. 

Crawling
Crawling simply refers to the process of Google’s bot going through the pages of your website to discover new pages or updates to pages on your website. 

Crawl Budget
Crawl Budget refers to the number of pages the Google bot will crawl on your website. 

Indexing
Indexing refers to sorting and organising webpages found by Google during their crawls so they can be displayed when a user enters a suitable search query. 

Featured Snippets
Featured snippets are the answer boxes that appear at the top of SERPs and are typically pieces of text from your website that answers a user’s question.  

Intent
Within the context of SEO, intent refers to what the user is looking for when they type their search query into Google.  

Local Pack or Map Pack
Sometimes called the 3-pack, this is the list of businesses at the top of local search queries, which also identifies their location.

Backlinks
These are sometimes called ‘in-bound links’ and links from external websites to your websites. 

Citations
Citations are similar to backlinks, but instead of providing a link to your website, citations only display the name, address and phone number of your business. 

If need any help or support with your practice’s SEO efforts, please do get in touch with our experts in Local Search for Vets.