Online Marketing Terms and Acronyms Commonly Used

Business owners rarely have the time to be up to date on this industries terminology. Here is a resource of 75 terms that are commonly used and their definitions.

Website Jargon

Domain Name - A registered name you own or purchase. Your web property.

URL - An web property address displayed in your browser.

Host - Where the files, database & information for your website are stored.

DNS - Domain Name Server. Computers that store and remember names and addresses of every other computer on the internet. Basically translating human friendly URL’s into computer friendly IP addresses (numbers).

HTML - A programming code used to display content on the web. Hypertext Markup Language.

PHP - A server side scripting language. Can dynamically produce web pages. Hypertext Preprocessor.

CMS - Short for Content Management System. This can be for allowing non-technical people to create content. It also allows making changes across your entire website quickly and easily.

Link - A connection from one web page to another.

Splash Page - A web page delivered to a user prior to the main / home page.

Landing Page - A purpose page designed to be the first page a visitor reaches after clicking on an ad. Usually sales orientated.

Above the Fold - Content of a web page displayed without a user having to scroll.

CTA - Call to action. A marketing message that prompts a user of a website to take a desired action.

Blog - A diary or journal style web page. Usually date or category based.

Post - An article that is published to the blog.

Comment - Feedback from internet users on the content of your post or article.

WordPress - An open source CMS primarily used to publish blogs.

Joomla - An open source CMS for publishing web content.

E-commerce - The buying or selling of products or services on the internet.

Spam - An indiscriminate message published and distributed electronically.

META Tags - Code elements used to define structure data of a web page to search engines.

Template - Used to separate content from design and graphic elements to enable the quick production of web documents.

PPC Advertising Jargon

PPC - Pay Per Click is a method of advertising where you pay only upon a visitor to your website.

Google AdWords - Google’s advertising platform and main source of revenue.

Keyword - A word or phrase that defines your content or website. Usually targeted to users behaviour on search engines.

Keyword Match - Different ways to focus a word or phrase.

Negative Keyword - A word or phrase you want to dis-associate from your website.

Bid - A cost amount you are willing to pay for a position within a search result.

Impression - A user has viewed your advertisement.

Clicks – The amount of times a your advert has been clicked on by Google users.

CPC - Cost Per Click. The resulting cost of your bid after it has gone to auction.

CTR - Click Through Rate. The percentage of visitors to your website verses the amount of people who have seen your ad. This is calculated as clicks / impressions.

Average Position - The average position your advertisement is displayed within a search engine over time.

Relevancy - The accuracy of your advertisement compared to your content.

Quality Score - A user experience system that rewards or penalises advertisers based on their campaign and website.

Geo Targeting - Targeting your advertisement to display to users based on the computers location.

DKI - Dynamic Keyword Insertion. Amendments to your advertisement based on the keyword searched by a user.

CPA - Cost Per Acquisition. The divided total cost of your advertising to each sale.

CPE - Cost Per Enquiry. The divided total cost of your advertising to each enquiry.

Network - The targeted advertising network.

Display - Advertisements of a graphic or banner nature inserted into relevant websites.

Device - The technology the user is using where your advertisement is being shown. Eg. Mobile, Tablet, PC.

Optimisation - The process of continued work performed on a campaign with the goal of both increasing performance and reducing cost.

Click Fraud - An internet crime that imitates a legitimate user clicking on your advertisements.

Search Engine Marketing Jargon

SEM - Search Engine Marketing. A broad term defining the utilisation of search engines for inbound marketing.

Local Search - A web search based on a specific city or region.

SEO - Search Engine Optimisation. The process of improving a websites viability to search engines.

Black Hat - Techniques that intentionally go against guidelines set by Google and other search engines.

SERP - Search Engine Results Page. The listing of web pages returned by a search engine.

PR - Page Rank. Google’s numeric value that represents the importance of a web page 1 – 10

Long Tail - A search performed where a user has chosen to enter a long phrase to search for relevant content.

Keyword Research - The process of discovering and identifying potential keywords based on a desired result.

Niche - A subset of your product or service that does not have heavy competition.

On-Page - Work performed on a website with the general goal of higher search engine rankings.

Off-Page - Work performed on or with external websites with the general goal of higher search engine rankings.

Link Building - The process of obtaining more inbound links from external websites.

Reciprocal Links - The practice of exchanging links with another website.

Organic - A broad term used to define any results or growth outside of paid efforts. It can also be referred to the search engine listing that falls outside of the PPC properties.

Content - Any piece of non templated information displayed within a web site.

Statistics & Measurement Jargon

Hit - A file request from your web server (host)

Page View - A request to load a single page.

Bounce - The metric where a user has visited your web page but has not proceeded any further.

Referral - A visit to your website from another web page.

Unique Visit - A visitor that has never been to your website before.

Goal - An objective set to measure particular behaviour patterns of your website visitors.

Conversion - The desired result from a visitor to your webpage. Purchase, enquire, subscribe ect.

ROI - The metric that defines your income above your advertising or marketing investment.

Loyalty - A website visitor returning for new information or repeat custom.

Trend - A metric based on the general direction of another metric over time. (visitors, interest, sales, ect)

Tools Jargon

SEO Software - A third part program used for the monitoring and validation of SEO work performed.

Keyword Tool - Google’s tool that shows estimates on local and global search volume based on a word or phrase.

Traffic Estimator - Google’s tool that shows the estimated traffic of a PPC advertisement based on a word or phrase based on a cost amount.

Insights for Search - Google’s tool that shows search patterns and estimates trends based on a word or phrase.

Website Optimiser - Google’s tool that allows the delivery of different pieces of content to a percentage of your website visitors and providing conversion data differences.

Webmaster Tools - Google’s tool that provides information on your websites search viability and allows you to suggest key settings on how it should treat your website.

Google Analytics - A traffic and behaviour reporting tool by Google.

Hope the above has been useful. If we left anything important out or are struggling with any of our definitions please let us know in the comments!…