Glossary

When starting or growing your company you’re likely to come across lots of acronyms and phrases that are very confusing or even meaningless to you. We’ve put together a glossary that will hopefully enable you to understand what is being referred to a little better.

If you come across a word you aren’t sure of that isn’t in this list please get in touch, as we're sure others will be in the same boat and would benefit from it being added here.

Algorithms

Algorithms are a list of mathematical calculations and if/then statements that decide what action a computer program should take. This is what Social Media platforms crate yoru feed. Following certain rules you can help to ensure the algorithm goes more in your favor, showing your posts to more people.

Bio

Bio is short for Biography and is a short description of who you are and what you do. You will find a Bio section on your Instagram and twitter page where you can also add a link to any webpage you like. Often people include ‘see link in bio’ on their posts to direct people to content relevant to the post, as a call to action. Your Bio is the first opportunity to show who you are and what your business is to potential new customers.

Call To Action (CTA)

A call to action (CTA) is a statement designed to get an immediate response from the person reading or hearing it. It's used in business as part of a marketing strategy to get your target market to respond by taking action. It's generally used at the end, or sometimes throughout a sales pitch to let potential clients/customers know what to do next if they're interested in what you offer.

Tags - Social Media

On social media platforms, you can tag another user, which creates a link to their account, which can be pressed to take you straight to their page. To add a tag you put an @ symbol in front of the persons username, which should look like @XXXXXXX

You can also add tags to a photo when uploading a post on Facebook or Instagram. On Instagram, any picture you tag a user in will come up on their profile page on the tagged photos tab.

Back End

The back end of a website is the part hidden from view of regular website visitors, where you edit the content on your website.

Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites back to your website. They’re sometimes also referred to as “trackbacks”. Backlinks have a huge impact on your sites search rankings. Lots of backlinks from high-ranking sites can greatly improve your search engine results, especially if those links use keywords in their anchor text.

Anchor Text

The anchor text, link label or link text is the visible, clickable text that links to a website. Many people use ‘please click here’ which is the link you click on to get to another page. The text used can actually make a big difference in your site’s search engine results. So it is best to describe what the link is for not just ‘here’.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth refers to two different things: the rate data can be transferred or the total amount of data allowed to be transferred from a web host during a given time, before overage charges are applied. It is generally referred to in bits-per-second (bps) or kilobits per second (kbs). Lower bandwidth internet connections (such as dial-up) mean data loads slower than with high bandwidth connections (like cable or fiber).

Below the fold

Below the fold is a carry-over from newspaper publishing days. It refers to content on the bottom half of the page, below the physical fold in the paper online the content seen only when you scroll down the page.

Bounce Rate

A website’s bounce rate is the percentage of people who leave the site from the same page they entered the site, without clicking through to any other pages. The bounce rate can affect how well you rank n a search engine as it indicates that the content isn’t what viewers were looking for when they clicked on to it.

Breadcrumbs

The term breadcrumbs comes from the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel.

They are the steps taken to get to the page you’re on.

E.g.Home > Category > Year > Month > Post

Browser

The browser is the program a website visitor is using to view the web site.

E.g. Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer and Ecosia.

Cache

Cached files are saved or copied (downloaded) by a web browser so that the next time you visit that site, the page loads faster. Sometimes you will need to clear this so that you can see an update you have made to your website as the cache is showing you an older version.

CSS

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets are used to define the look and feel of a web site outside of the actual HTML file(s) of the site. Using CSS simplifies a site’s HTML files (which can actually increase search engine rankings) and enable you to completely change the style of a site by changing just one file, without having to make changes to content.

Content Management System (CMS)

The CMS is a tool for managing a website’s content, separating it from the design and functionality of the site. Using a CMS makes it easier to change the design or function of a site without altering the site’s content. It also makes it easier for content to be added to a site for people who aren’t designers.

Domain Name Service (DNS)

DNS is also known as Domain Name System or Domain Name Server. It’s converts IP addresses into domain names. DNS servers are provided with the IP address of your web server when you assign your domain name to those servers. When someone types your domain name into their web browser, the DNS servers translate the domain name to the IP address and point the browser to the correct place.

Domain

The domain is the name by which a website is identified. Domains can consist of a combination of letters, hyphens (-), and numbers. They can end with a variety of extensions like .com .co.uk and now there are specialised ones such as .bike. The domain is associated with an IP address.

E-Commerce

Is the buying and selling of goods online, through websites. Products sold through e-commerce can be physical products sent in the post, or digital products delivered electronically.

Element

An element is the central building block of a document. Individual elements can contain text, other elements, or both.

Embedded Style

An embedded style is a CSS style written into the head of an XHTML document. It only affects that page, instead of site-wide as a separate CSS file does. Style in an embedded style sheet will override styles from the linked CSS file.

External Style Sheet

This is a CSS document, written in a separate, external document. The biggest advantage of using one is that it can be linked to by multiple HTML/XHTML files, meaning changes made to it will affect all the pages linked to it without having to change each page individually.

Favicon

Favicons are tiny icons displayed in the web address bar in most browsers next to the web address. You can use a version of your logo to customise your web page. They need to be saved in either .ico, .gif or .png file formats.

Fixed Width Layout

A fixed width layout is a webpage that has a width that stays the same regardless of screen resolution, monitor size, or browser window size. It allows for adjustments to be made to the design that will stay consistent across browsers, meaning there is more control over exactly how a site appears across platforms.

Focus Keyword or Focus Keyphrase

The focus keyphrase is used for SEO purposes. It is the phrase customers will type into a search engine that you want your page to show up for. The SEOfocus keyphrase should be a long tail meaning it should contain three or more words, making it easier to rank.

Font Style

The font style refers to whether a font is italic or not.

Font Weight

The font weight is how thick or thin a font looks.

E.g bold, regular or light.

Front-End

The front-end is all the components of a website that a visitor to the site can see. It’s the interface that visitors use to access the website’s content. It’s sometimes referred to as the User Interface.

Hex Numbers

Hex numbers are a numbering system used to define colours online. Hex numbers include the numbers and letters A-F. Hexadecimal numbers are written in three sets of hex pairs. Because screen colours are RGB (Red, Green, Blue), the first pair defines the red hue, the second pair defines the green hue, and the third pair defines the blue.

HIT

A hit is a request for a single file from your web server. One page can generate multiple hits, as they generally have more than one file (an HTML or other base file, a CSS file, multiple images, etc.) Each file is requested from the server when the page loads. Some people quote hits as the number makes their site sound like it’s getting a lot more visitors than it actually is.

HTML

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language and is the language used to write web pages. HTML is used to provide content on websites (with CSS handling the layout and styling options), but can also be used to determine how that content is displayed.

HTML Tag

An HTML Tag or HTML element is a bit of code that describes how a particular piece of a web page it’s on is formatted. Typical tags specify things like headings, paragraphs, and links.

HTTP

Stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol and is a set of rules for transferring hypertext requests between a web browser and a web server. You will find these letters before the web domain on any webpage.

HTTPS

HTTPS stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure or HyperText Transfer Protocol over SSL (Secure Socket Layer). Like HTTP, it’s a set of rules for transferring hypertext requests between browsers and servers, but with HTTPS it is done over a secure, encrypted connection. It is best to ensure that you have an SSL certificate set up for your site so it is secure. You will often find these letters before the web domain on any webpage.

Hyperlink

A hyperlink is a link from one web page to another, it can be on the same site or to another one. The links are either text or images, with text usually highlighted in some way, often underlined or put in a different colour or font weight. The inclusion of hyperlinks are the “hyper” part of “hypertext.”

Hypertext

Hypertext is any text that includes hyperlinks. Hypertext can include tables or images, in addition to plain text and links.

Image Map

An image map allows different parts of an image to be different clickable elements linking to different pages.

E.g. on an image of a map you could click on the country you are interested in and be taken to a page for that country.

Link Farm

A link farm is a website that specifically increases the number of incoming links to a website. Some link farms are single pages listing unrelated links, others consist of networks of sites that contain multiple links back and forth to one another. Search engines can recognize these types of schemes and often remove them from their directories and penalize the sites linking to and from them.

Liquid Layout

A site with a liquid layout will change with the width of the page according to the browser. It is based on percentages and so can take full advantage of a person’s browser width, optimizing the amount of content you can fit onscreen at one time.

Meta Data

Meta data is the data contained in the header giving information about the web page that a visitor is currently on. Meta data isn’t viewable on the web page (except in the source code) and is contained within meta tags.

Meta Tag

A meta tag is an HTML tag used to include metadata within the header of your web page.

Navigation

Navigation is the system allowing visitors to a website to move around the site. Menus are the most obvious navigation system, but links within pages, breadcrumbs, related links, pagination, and any other links that allow a visitor to move from one page to another are also part of the system.

Open Source

Open-source software is a code that is publically available and free for its users and anyone else who is able to use, modify and distribute in various formats.

Page View

A page view is a request for an entire web page from a server by a visitor’s browser. For each page view your website has, someone has looked at that page.

Permalink

Permalink is short for “permanent link.” These links are generally only used on blogs, as a permanent web address of a blog post. Most blogs have constantly-changing content, so the permalink is a way for readers to bookmark or link to specific posts even after those posts have moved off the home page or primary category page.

Plugin

A plug-in is a bit of code that increases the capabilities of a website, without having to redo the core coding of the site. A plug-in is usually made by a third party and does one job really well, without you having to create the code yourself. Think of a plugin a bit like an app on a mobile phone. Plugins can also refer to bits of third-party software installed within a computer program to increase its functionality.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

RSS is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. This passing of content is called web syndication. Websites usually use RSS feeds to publish frequently updated information, such as blog entries, news headlines, or episodes of audio and video series. An RSS document called a feed or channel, includes full or summarized text, and metadata, like publishing date and author's name.

Resolution

Resolution is the physical number of pixels displayed on a screen (such as 1280x1024). Unlike in print, display resolution does not refer to the number of pixels or dots per inch on a computer screen, as this can be changed by changing the resolution of the screen (which does not change the physical size of the screen). The resolution of an image is often referred to in terms of pixels per inch, though this has very little effect on how the image is displayed on the screen.

Script

Script refers to a portion of code on an HTML page that makes the page more dynamic and interactive. Scripts can be written in a variety of languages, including JavaScript.

Server-Side

Server-side refers to scripts run on a web server, as opposed to a user’s browser. Server-side scripts often take longer to run than a client-side script, as each page has to reload when an action is taken.

Template

A template is a file used to create a consistent design across a website. Templates are often used in conjunction with a CMS and contain structural information about how a site should be set up, and stylistic information about how the site should look.

URL

A site’s URL is its address or domain, that specifies where on the Internet it can the found.

Usability

Usability is how easy it is for a visitor to your site to use your site. Are the navigation, content, images, and interactive elements easy to use, functioning the way they were intended, without your visitor needing any training in order to use your site.

Web Page

A web page is a single document, generally written in HTML/XHTML, to be viewed in a web browser. In many cases, web pages also include other coding and programming. Websites are generally built from multiple interlinked web pages.

Web Server

A web server is a computer that hosts websites and pages and makes them available to internet users located elsewhere.

Web Standards

Standards are specifications recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium to standardize website design, making it easier for designers to make sites that will appear consistent across platforms.

Cost per click (CPC)

Please see Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Advertising Campaign

Advertising campaigns are groups of advertising messages which are similar in nature. They share the same messages and themes placed in different places for a period of time. For example M&S Christmas food will have various adverts created for print, TV, online, and on social media in the run-up to Christmas.

Google Ads

Google Ads is the platform where you can choose which keywords are most relevant to your business and how much you want to pay for the advertising campaigns. The ads appear at the top of Google’s search engine results page (SERP) or on third-party websites and apps when someone searches for one of these keywords. Advertisers are billed on a pay-per-click (PPC) model, which means you’re only charged if someone actually clicks on your ad.

Google Algorithm

Google uses a set of rules (algorithm) to sort through websites and display relevant results to users' search. The results and ranked in order of usefulness on the search engine results page (SERP). The algorithm also uses personal context, such as your current location and past search history, to tailor the results.

E.g. If you type ‘pizza’ in, you’ll get results of pizza restaurants that are near you and a map showing their locations.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a platform that measures and reports on how people use your website, including the most popular content, time spent on each page, where they are located, and what devices they have used. Google Analytics can be connected to Google Ads to learn which campaigns are driving the most traffic and which generate the most inquiries or income.

Direct Message (DM)

On social media, you have the option to direct message (dm), other users. This is a private message just between you and them. Often users will say "dm me" asking their followers to get in touch directly.

Devices

A device is the hardware that someone uses to access content.

E.g. Mobile Phone, Tablet, or a desktop computer.

Google My Business

Google My Business lets you provide more detail about your business when it appears in a google search. This information is displayed on the right-hand side of the search engine results page (SERP) you can also add photos, videos, telephone numbers, business hours, a delivery area, and links to reservation services. A cover photo, map, and Google Street View help potential customers know what to expect when they arrive for the first time. This feature can only be used if you want to have a physical location for your business, e.g. a shop. If you run your business from home and don’t want people to know where it is, this isn’t for you. Warning: Users can suggest edits to your profile, so check it regularly for accuracy.

Google Remarketing

Google Remarketing (retargeting) is the technology enabling your Google Ads to follow potential customers as they move from one website to another. When a user visits your website, a small bit of code on your site adds them to a remarketing list. When they visit another website using the Google Ad network, they will see your advert. You can customize who sees your remarketed ads, e.g. prioritizing new or returning customers.

E.g. If you search for a BBQ on google and then go on to someone’s blog website, often a BBQ advert will appear there, as the business owner has set up a campaign on Google Ads.

Google Search Console

Google search console is a tool that helps you optimize your website content to improve its performance and your search engine optimization (SEO). You can submit URLs and full sitemaps to make sure the most important pages are indexed in Google’s search engine. It also makes recommendations on structuring your content so it appears as “rich results” on the search engine results page (SERP). E.g. recipe pages can display a photo of the dish right in the results.