This is a follow up post to Confusing search engine marketing and SEO jargon made simple (A-F) and More confusing search engine marketing and SEO jargon made simple (G-N).

Outbound link - Hyperlinks leading out of your website to other websites are known as outbound links.

PageRank - The value given to a web-page by Google. Ranging from 0 to 10 (with 10 being the best), the rank is primarily made up on the basis of in-bound link quality and quantity.

Paid link - When a website pays another website, search engine or directory for a link. Although not a black hat SEO technique per se, Google frowns upon such practices, however commercial sites must pay in order to appear in the Yahoo! Directory. Also known as Pay For Inclusion (PFI).

Pay Per Click (PPC) - The advertising system where businesses pay for each click their advert receives. The adverts are mainly displayed on search engine pages and once clicked, the user will be sent through to the website belonging to the advertiser.

Reciprocal link - When two websites exchange links with each other, this is known as reciprocal linking. An activity that used to be more popular than it is today, since the search engines started discounting the value of reciprocal links. Also known as link exchanging or link partnering.

Robots file - The robots.txt file is stored within a website and tells search engines what they can do with the website, such as the pages not to show in the index and links not to follow.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - The process of improving a website’s rankings in the search engines and therefore its traffic volume.

SERPs - Stands for Search Engine Results Pages and is simply the results you see when you perform a search query.

Social media - A term used to describe a variety of websites where people meet to share information and often express their opinions. Blogs, forums, video hosting sites, user review sites and wiki's, are examples of popular social media sites.

Sitemap - A page on a website that lists and links to all of the other accessible pages on that website. Useful not only for users but for the search engine spiders.

Spider - A search engine robot that jumps from website to website, via hyperlinks, for the purpose of scanning information to add to the search engine’s database.

URL - The Uniform Resource Locator, or more simply, the address of the webpage.

White hat SEO - Techniques used to improve website rankings that confirm to best practice guidelines and do not try to manipulate or trick the search engines into ranking a specific site.

Oxford House Menswear is a clothing retailer based in South Wales and offers plus sized items under its OH Big Man brand. The business has used Pay Per Click advertising to generate sales for a number of years and recognised the potential and importance in improving natural search engine rankings.
 
OH Menswear engaged the services of other local SEO companies before speaking to us and was disappointed with the results. Undeterred, they were recommended our services and in mid 2009 asked us to help develop their SEO with the goal of significantly greater website traffic and sales.
 
How did we improve their online marketing?
 
Keyword research- We explored the keywords used by their target markets as well as the levels of competition for each one. We then made recommendations on where to concentrate efforts so that a large return could be made quickly.
 
SEO advice - Once keywords were decided upon we advised on ways the site should incorporate them, both in the makeup of the page (titles and meta data, etc.) and within areas of the body copy.
 
Inbound link building - A link building campaign took place where we sought in-bound links from sites related to clothing and e-commerce.

What did this do?
 
At the time of writing there were over 7 million web pages indexed on Google for "XXL Shirts" and OH Menswear have been sat in the first position for a number of months. They also appear on the first page for a number of other important keywords such as "large mens clothing" and "Ben Sherman XXL". Coming up high on the search engines for these keywords has brought in a lot of new, high quality traffic and has meant that the business could greatly reduce its Pay Per Click advertising spend.
 
How has this helped OH Menswear?
 
Online marketing is now a crucial part of OH Menswear. Sales have been growing month on month throughout 2009 and last month sales were up 82% when compared to the same period in 2008. This is remarkable when you look at the market they are in, one where most retailers are currently posting losses and the highest profile competitor, High & Mighty, recently went into administration. The business has actually had to take on additional premises to cope with the increase in orders from within the UK and, for the first time, from various countries around the world.

Google is showing a growing fondness of social media sites, Twitter in particular. Pages from the micro-blogging site are being displayed higher and given more respect than ever before. Twitter is now a viable way for businesses to place their brand at the top of the search engines, but only if they treat the micro-blogging site with the same SEO rules that are commonplace in the rest of the web marketing world, namely keywords and links.
 
Most of these tips are based on keywords use and how to maximise your twitter account for your main keywords. Doing so will help it rank in the search results independently of your main website. Remember, Twitter uses the nofollow attribute on its out-bound links so they do not help with the SEO of your main site. Twitter shouldn't be used as a way of getting lots of free links to your site, but as a way of finding traffic and directing it there instead.
 
Here's five quick SEO tips to bear in mind when using Twitter:
 
1. Use keywords in your account name
 
If possible, then keywords should be included within the Twitter account name. This is easier said than done as with only 15 characters to choose from and most of the popular word combinations taken, it can be hard to select something that fits and is available. Take a look on the Google Keyword Tool to see what people are searching for and try to pick keywords which  receive a fair amount of searches each month. Include one or two of these in your account name and you are already off to a strong start.
 
2. Make the most of your bio
 
Choose a handful of your most important keywords and make sure they are included within the Twitter biography section. You have 160 characters so can construct a nice meaningful, keyword-rich sentence or two, which the search engines will be sure to look at when evaluating the page.
 
3. Always tweet with your keywords in mind
 
When posting ("tweeting") messages into your Twitter account, try and include your main keywords at the start. It is important to place them here as only the first 40 characters or so are displayed within the search engine results. Remember that even though we are trying to grab the attention of Google, Yahoo! and Bing, it will be humans that eventually read the content, so make sure that in addition to your keywords, each tweet contains a valuable message that will draw people back to your main site.
 
4. Follow people from within your industry
 
An important factor in SEO is relevancy between web-pages. If there are Twitter accounts that are already well respected by the search engines for a topic that matches yours then it will be worthwhile following them. Search engines will spot the link and see that the pages are related, something they will take into consideration when deciding where to place your account within their index.
 
5. Now go tell the world
 
Just like with your website, an important factor in the ranking of a Twitter account is the quality, and quantity, of the links pointing towards it. Can you add some links to your Twitter account to give it a healthy boost up the search engines? Place a link to it from your website or your company blog. Add a link from the signature or profile page of a business forum you contribute to. Seek out some Twitter directories and list your account amongst them.