Common Website and Marketing Terms
The following is a list of common website and marketing terms that you may hear if you come by our office on any given day.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is also sometimes called split testing. It is the process of testing two versions of the same webpage, email, ad copy, headline, image, etc.) against each other to see which one gets the better response.
Above the Fold
Above the fold refers to the top portion of a webpage that a viewer sees without scrolling. The most important information should be placed above the fold.
Accessibility
Accessibility in a website means that people with disabilities can use the site — either on their own or with assistive devices — and benefit from it.
ADA Compliance
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to make certain accommodations for people with disabilities. This includes making sure your website is accessible. There are multiple elements of your website that make it accessible — or not — to people with disabilities. Contact us for more information and to learn how to check your website for ADA compliance.
Algorithm
As a digital marketing term, algorithm refers to the complex set of rules used by search engines, social media platforms, and other advertising channels to determine what content users see first.
API
An Application Programming Interface (API) is what allows two applications to talk to each other. It’s the background programming that makes apps work.
Audience
Your audience is the target market you are trying to reach with any single piece of your marketing. And, yes, you may have more than one.
Audit
An audit of your website — or of your overall digital marketing strategy — is performed by an expert to determine if there’s anything not working or that could be improved for better results.
Backend
The backend of a website is the combination of programming and technology that users never see but that powers the site. It contains all the data and information that users do see with the help of a browser.
Backlink
A backlink is a link back to your website from another website. It’s like a third-party endorsement and helps search engines see your website as more relevant and credible.
Beta Site
A beta site is a website that is viewable only to those with a special link for the purposes of final testing and approval before a website is published and goes live.
Blog
A blog is a regularly updated website, or part of a larger website, that presents informational posts in a chronological order. Blogs often are organized into topic categories to make it easier for readers to find the information they’re looking for.
Bots
A bot (short for robot) is a software program that automatically performs tasks on the internet. Bots work in search engines (search bots), messaging apps (chat bots), online advertising platforms, games, and even on your smartphone (“Hey, Siri …”).
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate measures the percentage of people who come to your website and then leave without clicking or taking any further action. They don’t click any links, go to any other pages, or fill out any forms.
Branding
Branding is how people recognize your business. Done well, it can increase awareness of your company and drive growth by giving people a reason to choose your products and services over your competitors.
Browser
An internet or web browser (common ones are Chrome, Firefox, and Edge) is a software program that lets you view web pages on your computer.
Campaign
A campaign is a strategically planned sequence of efforts, activities, or elements used to promote something. On advertising platforms, a campaign also is a top-level category used to organize ads.
Carousel
A website carousel is also sometimes called a slider. It is a slideshow that presents a series of content that users can scroll through.
Channel
A marketing channel refers to the medium used to reach an audience. For example, Social Media, Email, Paid Advertising, Organic Search, etc.
Clicks or Ad Click
Clicks refers to the number of times the link in an online ad, email, or landing page has been clicked by users. Ad click is specifically the number of clicks an online ad has received.
Code
Code is what tells computers and other devices how your website is supposed to look and what it’s supposed to do when users take action when viewing it. It is the behind-the-scenes building blocks that a website is made of.
Content
Web content is what your user experiences — what they consume — on your website. Content includes words, images, videos, animations, and any other creative element that delivers information.
Content Management System (CMS)
A content management system is software used to create, manage, edit, organize, and publish content on a website. WordPress is the most popular CMS. Joomla, Drupal, and Wix are other examples of CMS platforms.
Conversions
A conversion happens when a user takes action and does whatever it is that you want them to do, whether that’s clicking on an ad, making a purchase, subscribing to your email list, downloading something, or contacting you.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the number of users who take the desired action on a website (or ad, email, landing page, etc.) divided by the total number of users who visited the site or other marketing element. For example, if 100 people visit your website and 5 people purchase your product, then you have a conversion rate of 5%.
Cookies
Internet cookies help websites track your movements within the site. They help you resume where you left off. They help the business who owns the site learn more about you and what you’re interested in so that they can more effectively market to you.
Copy
Copy refers to text written to generate a sale or other desired response.
Creative
Creative refers to the sensory elements of a website or other marketing piece. Creative can include images, photos, video, audio, words, and even color.
CRM
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It’s a system — usually software or an app — that helps store and organize customer data to help you more effectively interact and maintain relationships with your customers.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are used to tell web browsers how to display the elements of a website. CSS is the language that web designers use to manage colors, fonts, backgrounds, column size, and other style elements of a website.
CTA / Call To Action
A call to action (CTA) is something that encourages your reader/viewer/listener to take the next step … to take immediate action. It can be a line of text, a button, an image, or even something spoken.
CTR or Click Thru Rate
Click thru rate measures the effectiveness of an ad in getting people to click on it. It’s calculated by the number of clicks divided by the total number of impressions. For example, if 10 people clicked on your ad out of 200 impressions (views), then you’d have a CTR of 5%.
Dashboard
The dashboard of your website, ads manager, email provider, or any other tool is where you can see and manage important tasks and metrics at a glance.
Database
A website database stores the information that is accessed on a website.
Demographics
Demographics are identifying characteristics of a group of people. Examples of common demographics used in marketing are age, gender, education, occupation, marital status, etc.
Domain
A domain is a name (made up of letters or a combination of letters and numbers) that identifies your specific website. For example, www.yourdomain.com
Domain Name System (DNS)
The Domain Name System (DNS) is what translates domain names (like www.worldlightmedia.com) into numeric IP addresses. It also plays a role in the delivery of email.
Download
To download something (data, files, etc.) is to copy it from one computer system to another, typically over the internet.
E-Commerce
E-commerce refers to commercial transactions — the buying or selling of goods and services — conducted electronically over the internet.
Email List
Your email list consists of the email addresses of people who have given you permission to send marketing emails to them.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is using email to promote your products and services as well as to build and maintain relationships with your prospects and clients.
Form
A form on a web page allows your user to enter data, which is then sent to a server and saved for you to use later.
Front-end
The front-end of a website is the part that users experience directly … what they see and what they interact with. This includes fonts, colors, images, graphic elements, buttons, navigation, etc. In terms of web development, the front-end also is in charge of how the website performs and how responsive it is.
Funnel
A marketing funnel represents the process of turning a lead into a customer. It is a strategic plan to take a prospect from the awareness stage of the buyers journey all the way to the purchase stage.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google that measures and tracks details about your website performance and traffic.
Headings
Headings are the titles and subtitles of different sections of a web page. Used correctly, they help organize the page and help readers who skim the pages understand the information provided on the page.
Hero Section
The hero section of a web page is the prominent visual element, although it can include text, too. Usually, it is at the top of the page and is meant to be the first thing users see.
Hosting
Hosting refers to the act of storing the files for a website on a server where they can be accessed when someone views your website. Usually, the server is owned and maintained by a third-party web hosting provider.
HTML
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is the standard language used for creating web pages.
HTTPS
HTTPS stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure. It indicates that a website is secured by an SSL certificate.
Hyperlink
A hyperlink is an element on your website that links to another web page or file. It can be text (usually indicated by the text being a different color than the surrounding text), an image, logo, or any other graphic element on the screen.
Impressions
Impressions refers to the number of times something is seen by your audience. This is commonly tracked in paid ad campaigns as a reporting metric. It does not mean that any action has taken place beyond that the ad showed up on the user’s screen.
Index
As a noun, and in terms of websites, an index is the database of a search engine, and it contains all the information on all the websites the search engine finds. If a website isn’t in the search engine’s index, people won’t find it when searching for solutions to their problems. As a verb (to index a website), it refers to the search engine process of gathering and updating the current information — adding new or updated web pages, removing deleted pages, etc. — for a particular website.
Integrate
Website integration is essentially the process of connecting your website to other systems in your business in order to transfer data or other information. For example, when order data is linked to your order fulfillment system.
Javascript
Javascript is a website programming language that allows you to make web pages interactive with elements that move, scroll, and refresh automatically. Examples of these interactive elements include slideshows, animated graphics, and autocomplete text suggestions, among others.
Keywords
Keywords describe what your website content is about. For SEO (Search Engine Optimization) purposes, keywords also are defined as the words and/or phrases that people use on a search engine to find what they’re looking for.
Landing Page
A landing page is a singular web page with a focused sales message designed to generate a specific action. In general terms, it’s the page you land on after clicking a link.
Lead
A lead is someone who has expressed interest in your products or services and who may turn into a paying customer or client given the right follow-up and nurture.
Lead Generation
Lead generation is simply the act of generating new leads, new people interested in your product or service. In digital marketing, lead generation usually involves getting people to give you permission to send them marketing emails by getting them to opt in to be on your email list.
Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is something of perceived value (a free report, coupon, ebook, checklist, video, etc.) offered in exchange for someone giving you their email and their permission for you to send them marketing emails.
Link (inbound link, outbound link)
Link is short for hyperlink, an element on your website that sends the user to another web page or file. An inbound link is found somewhere other than your website and brings the user to you. An outbound link is on your own website and sends the user elsewhere.
Live Site
A website is considered “live” when it has been published to the web and can be found and accessed by the general public.
Logo
A logo is a visual symbol or design that is used to represent and/or identify a company.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is using technology to complete common and repetitive marketing tasks, such as sending messages and emails once someone takes a particular action.
Meta Tags
Meta tags are small bits of text that describe a web page’s content to the search engines. They are used in a web page’s code and aren’t visible on the page itself.
Migrate
Migrating a website means making significant changes to its location, platform, structure, content, design, or user experience. It also can mean redirecting old web pages to new ones so that you don’t lose search rankings.
Mobile
A mobile website automatically scales to fit the screen size of a user’s mobile device rather than a desktop computer display.
Mockup
A website mockup is a visual representation of what a website will look like. It’s put together before all the coding work is done so that changes to the format, layout, and content can be made as easily as possible.
One-Liner
A one-liner is a single sentence that clearly tells someone what your company does and how your customers benefit from your products or services.
Opt-In
Opt-in refers to someone giving you permission to send them marketing emails. They “opt in” to receiving your emails.
Organic Search / Organic Results
Organic search and/or organic results refers to your website being found in the unpaid (not ads) search engine results listings based on the words the user has entered in their search query.
Page
A web page is a single and unique location on the internet. It can include content like text, images, video, etc. Most websites are made up of multiple web pages linked together.
Page Speed
Page speed is how fast the content on a page of your website loads on a browser or mobile device when someone wants to view it.
PDF stands for Portable Data Format. It is a format used to make a document able to be viewed, downloaded, printed, and easily sent over the internet.
PHP
PHP is a scripting language used by web developers. It stands for Hypertext Pre-processor, which earlier stood for Personal Home Pages.
Plugin
A plugin is a piece of software that gives additional function and customization to programs, apps, and browsers as well as to the content on websites.
Post
Posts are content on a website that are organized by publish date (usually newest first). They also can be organized with categories or tags to help the user find content that they’re interested in.
PPC or Pay-Per-Click Advertising
With pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad. You pay for the clicks, not for the views.
Production
Website production is the act of creating the website and coordinating all the elements that go into it.
Reach
Your reach is the number of people who have viewed your content over a specific period of time (your message reached xxx people).
Responsive
Responsive means a website will look good and function properly on any type of device or screen size … it “responds” to the user’s environment.
Retargeting
Retargeting means showing your ads on other websites to people who have visited your website. It’s a way of reminding them that they may be interested in what you have to offer since they were on your website.
Search Engine
A search engine is software that searches a database (the internet, for example) for results based on words or parameters entered by someone. Web search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) are used to find websites and information on the web.
SEM / Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing is using paid ads for your website to show up with greater visibility on the search engine results page in response to specific words or terms someone is using in their search query.
SEO / Search Engine Optimization
SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, refers to the intentional practice of making your website content “optimized” for the search engines so that it will rank well in organic search results and bring more people to your website.
Sitemap
A sitemap is a file containing information about all the pages and content on your website to help search engines recognize when your site is relevant to what someone is searching for.
Slider
A slider is a revolving carousel or slideshow of content that users can scroll through.
StoryBranding
StoryBranding is a way to clarify your marketing message and tell a compelling story that connects with your prospects and customers. It is based on Donald Miller’s book “Building a StoryBrand” and its centered around a 7-part hero’s journey.
SSL
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It’s the standard technology used to keep an internet connection secure as well as to safeguard sensitive user data being sent between two systems.
Staging
A staging site is a clone of your actual live website that allows you to test changes and new features before you go into final production.
Tagline
A tagline is a short phrase or sentence that communicates your unique value and helps you stand out from the competition.
Titles
Web page titles define the content of the page for both readers and search engines. The title tag is one of the meta tags in the coding for a page. It is what you see in a search engine result and sometimes at the top page and/or browser when you’re viewing the page.
Theme
A theme is an overall style, look, and feel of your website. It includes elements like the color scheme, typography, and layout to control how your information is displayed on your site.
Upload
Uploading means to transfer data — images, files, etc. — from your computer to a web server on the internet.
URL or Uniform Resource Locator
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, which is the address where something is located on the web.
User Experience (UX)
User experience refers to how someone experiences their interaction with a company, product, or service. Website user experience includes how clearly and effectively a company anticipates and speaks to a user’s wants, needs, and desires. It includes ease of navigation and logical sequencing of next steps. User experience also includes interaction beyond the website, like email, customer service, and delivery and use of the product or service.
Web Page
A web page is a single page of information on the World Wide Web. It is a document that can be viewed on the internet by anyone who has the address (the URL).
Website
A website is a collection of web pages that are connected to each other and that are located — or published — on the internet under a single domain name.
Wireframe
A wireframe is a diagram that outlines where key elements will exist on a web page. It is like a blueprint to guide the architecture of your website.
WordPress
WordPress is website building and publishing software that is free and relatively simple to use, even if you don’t know any coding language.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin for WordPress that adds e-commerce functionality to your website so you can easily sell physical and digital goods online.
If you’re in the process of having a website built by WorldLight Media, then these terms can help you understand our daily language and dialogue with you more easily.
Please let us know if you have any questions!
Contact us to learn more.
