The following terms have been discussed in various SEO and web related conversations. We use this in our in-house training, but felt others may find use in this compiled list as well. If you have additional things to add, please leave it in your comments!
Above the Fold – Historically this is the section on the front page of a newspaper on the upper half. It is also the area of preferred advertising space. The term has been extended and used in web development to refer the portions of a webpage that is visible without scrolling, ergo it is also known as “Above the Scroll”.
Add to Cart – A feature on ecommerce websites that allow you to add a product to your virtual shopping cart.
Add to Cart Rates – Some shopping cart systems will give you detailed analytics that allow you to see how often people add products to their shopping cart.
Alexa Traffic Rank – Where your website ranks in according to Alexa. Not always 100% accurate, but a great indication of how well your website is performing from a traffic standpoint.
Algorithm – A mathematical formula used by search engines to determine which web sites in their database to present in search results, in which order. While search engine algorithms change regularly, primary on-page factors include keyword density and source code optimization. The primary off-page factor is link popularity.
Alt Image Text – When visitors have their browser settings to disable image loading (for quicker load times), an image alt tag is displayed. This is assigned during the development of the web page and alerts the end user what the image is about.
Anchor Text – As an example this is: anchor text and is usually a link to another web page. Using a keyword/key phrase in your anchor text is a good SEO technique. The text should give an indication of what to expect when you click the link.
Articles – Articles should be viewed as a resource on services or an industry. The articles should be linked back to your website in the resource box when they are distributed to various article directories. This creates organic SEO and additional ways to be found in the search engines.
Banner Advertisement – An advertisement on a web site placed above, below, or on the sides of the sites main content and linked to the advertiser’s own web site.
Blog – Is a self-published, managed or maintained Web diary. Usually updated daily or weekly, blogs have historically been personal, but gained notoriety after the 2004 election as an influential media outlet. Companies now use blogs to extend their brand and improve their organic search visibility.
Body – The meat and potatoes of a webpage. This is the where the primary content of a page is displayed.
Bold Text Blocks – Font on a webpage that is bolded. This alerts search engines and your visitors that the words in bold are of significance.
Bookmarks – Internet bookmarks are stored Web page locations (URLs) that can be retrieved.
Bounce Rate – This is the rate of visitors that enter your site, and leave within the first 5 seconds (as calculated by Google Analytics) without viewing another page.
Browser – A software application used to locate and display web pages. The two most popular web browsers are Mozilla’s FireFox™ and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer™ (IE). Both are graphical browsers, meaning they can display graphics as well as text. In addition, most modern browsers can present multimedia information, including sound and video, though they require plug-ins (q.v.) for some formats.
Call to Action – This is a marketing message that directs visitors to act in some specific manner such as requesting a brochure.
Cart Abandonment Rate – Some shopping cart systems will give you detailed analytics that allow you to see how often people do not follow through with a purchase.
Checkout/Purchase Process – How a website flows through from product display and selection, to the end purchase.
Click – Every time a visitor clicks on an advertising banner to access the advertiser’s Web site, it is counted as a “click” or “click-through.”
Click Fraud - A type of internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad’s link.
Click Rate – The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click through. Calculated by dividing the number of clicks, by the number of impressions.
Click Through Rate (CTR) – The percentage of those clicking on a link out of the total number who viewed the link or text ad.
Cloaking – A “black hat” technique of tricking the search engines into seeing something other than what is displayed to the human viewer; using this technique can get websites penalized or banned from search engines.
Competing Pages – How many pages of content are relevant to a specific search term, keyword, or key phrase. In Google the competing pages are found as the 1 of 10 of “X” number. You can go several more layers into this to determine true competing pages, but this is a general rule of thumb to give you an idea of how competitive a market might be.
Content Management System (CMS) – A software platform that aids in the management of content on a Web site.
Conversion - A site visitor completes a desired action. Generally a download, signup, purchase, etc.
Conversion Funnel - A series of steps or actions a user must take in order to complete the desired conversion action (i.e. eCommerce shopping cart).
Conversion Optimization – In internet marketing, conversion optimization is the science and art of creating an experience for a website visitor with the goal of converting the visitor into a customer.
Conversion Rate – The relationship between visitors to a web site and actions considered to be a “conversion,” such as a sale or request to receive more information. This metric is often expressed as a percentage.
Conversion Form – A conversion form can be a newsletter signup, contact page, or quote request page. Typically the code to properly measure conversion would go on the “Thank You” page.
Directory – A type of search engine where listings are gathered or reviewed by humans, rather than by search engine crawlers. In directories, web sites are often reviewed, summarized in about 25 words and placed in a particular category. The largest and most popular directory site is Yahoo! D.M.O.Z. is another highly relevant directory site.
Domain Name – Used in URLs to identify particular web pages or sites located on the Internet. For example, the domain name nces.ed.gov represents the web site for the National Center for Education Statistics.
E-Commerce - Put simply, e-commerce means conducting business online. E-commerce software programs run the main functions of an e-commerce web site, including product display, online ordering, and inventory management. This software resides on a commerce server and works in conjunction with online payment systems to process payments.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) - A standard Internet protocol for transferring files from one computer to another.
H1-H6 Headings – Heading tags give importance to the words that are contained within them. H1 tags contain larger, bolder font while you work your way down to H6 tags which are much smaller fonts. Search engines read these tags to determine relevance and importance.
Homepage – The homepage (often written as home page) is the URL or local file that automatically loads when a web browser starts or when the browser’s “home” button is pressed. One can turn this feature off and on, as well as specify a URL for the page to be loaded.
Host - To host is to provide the infrastructure for a computer service. For example, a company that hosts web servers may provide the content on the server (e.g., web site or other content), but another company may control communications lines required by the server.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) – A formatting language used to create web pages that specify how a page will appear on screen.
Image Optimization - This term is used to describe the process of image slicing and resolution reduction. This is done to make file sizes smaller so images will load faster.
Internet Security – When a computer connects to a network and begins communicating with others, it is taking a risk. Internet security involves the protection of a computer’s internet account and files from intrusion of an unknown user. Basic security measures involve protection by well selected passwords, change of file permissions and back up of computer’s data.
IP Address – An IP address is an identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol, route messages according to the destination IP address. Within a private network, IP addresses can be assigned at random as long as each one is unique. However, connecting a private network to the Internet requires using publicly registered IP addresses (called Internet addresses) to avoid duplicates.
ISP (Internet Service Provider) - An ISP is an entity that provides commercial access to the Internet. Service can range in size from dial-up access with a 56-Kbps ordinary telephone line and several dozens of customers to multiple pops (i.e., connection points) in multiple cities with substantial backbones and thousands, tens of thousands, or more customers. ISPs may also provide web hosting and other services.
Italic Text Blocks – Font on a webpage that is italicized. This alerts search engines and your visitors that the words in italics are of significance.
Keyword/Search Query – It is a term that captures the essence of the topic of a document and is entered into a search engine to filter an expected result.
Keyword Analysis – Is the study of the most frequently used keywords entered into a search engine by the users.
Keyword Cloud – Is a search engine marketing (SEM) term that refers to a group of keywords that are relevant to a specific website. The term keyword in reference to SEM usually refers to a word or phrase (combination of words, such as ‘San Francisco weather map’) used to find relevant and useful web pages. Keyword clouds can be illustrated using web-based tools as a group of keywords, displayed in different sizes to represent the frequency or weighting of each keyword within the cloud.
Keyword Density – is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. In the context of search engine optimization keyword density can be used as a factor in determining whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase.
Keyword Tracking – When there are numerous keywords/search terms, a continuous process of tracking the keywords is performed by an SEO expert in order to provide information about how a web site is performing in search results.
Landing Page – In online marketing a landing page, sometimes known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines.
Link Bait - Any content or feature within a website that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other websites. Google’s SEO expert Matt Cutts defines link bait as, “anything interesting enough to catch people’s attention.” Link bait can be an extremely powerful form of marketing as it is viral in nature and can impact visibility in search results.
Link Building – Is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.
Link Popularity – The number and quality of links pointing to your website. This is a very important factor in the search engine placement of your website.
Listing - The information that appears on a search engine’s results page in response to a search. See “Results Page.”
Local Search - Search engine results constrained by region/location, based on the searcher’s location or intent. With the addition of Web 2.0 capabilities, local search results may include business ratings, reviews, maps and driving directions.
Log-in – In computer security, login (logging or signing in, also log on) is the process by which individual access to a computer system is controlled by identification of the user using credentials provided by the user.
Long Tail - In relation to search engine marketing (SEM) the Long Tail refers to the keyword phrases that are highly detailed and specific and may generate low volumes of searches and traffic, but add up to generate a majority of traffic for sites with deep content or product SKUs.
Loss Aversion/Sunk Cost Fallacy – Many people have strong misgivings about “wasting” resources. This is called “loss aversion“. In web terms this may involve the purchase of a non-refundable item like a movie ticket. Most people for example, would feel obliged to go to the movie despite perhaps not really wanting to, because doing otherwise would be wasting the ticket price; they feel they passed the point of no return. This is sometimes called the sunk cost fallacy.
Meta Description – Allows page authors to say how they would like their pages described when listed by search engines. Not all search engines use the tag.
Meta Keyword – Allows page authors to add relevant text to a page to help with the search engine ranking process.
Meta Tag – A command inserted in a document that specifies how the document, or a portion of the document, should be formatted. Tags are used by all format specifications that store documents as text files.
Migration – The act of moving data from one database to another, or to move a website from one server to another.
Niche – When your products or services cater to a specific, targeted audience.
Off-Page Optimization – The area of search engine optimization that applies to building back-links and website popularity.
On-Page Optimization – The area of search engine optimization that applies to the content and structure of the website itself.
One Way Links/Inbound Links – A text or graphical hyperlink from one site to another. Google and other search engines’ algorithms consider a site’s popularity based on the quality and quantity of inbound links from relevant third party sites to help determine search positioning. See “Link Popularity.”
Online Reputation Management (ORM) – This is the act of monitoring, addressing or mitigating undesirable search engine results or mentions in online media for a company or product. Techniques include generating new content and creating posts on existing content and building marketing campaigns around them.
Online Shopping Cart/Basket – The basket is simply a list of the items you have selected to buy, together with the necessary details (number selected, price of each item, etc).
Organic/Natural Listings – Refers to the area of search engine results and marketing that are a result of optimization (SEO), in contrast to paid inclusion and pay-per-click programs.
PageRank – Is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page, and used by the Google Internet search engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. 2. (AS DESCRIBED BY GOOGLE) PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”.
Page Title – The page title appears at the top of each webpage in your browser. Search engines tend to place heavier importance on the keywords included within page titles. Page titles also appear as the link for each entry in search engine results.
Page Views – The number of times a page (an analyst-definable unit of content) was viewed.
Pay Per Click – System where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click someone makes on a link leading to their web site. Also known as CPC (Cost Per Click) or paid listings.
Pop-Up Ads – Advertisements that appear in a separate browser window while a web site is being viewed.
Portal (a.k.a. web portal) – Refers to a web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services, such as e-mail, forums, search engines, and online shopping malls. The first web portals were online services, such as AOL, which provided access to the web; now most of the traditional search engines (e.g. Yahoo®, Google®, etc.) are web portals, modified to attract and keep a larger audience.
Press Release - A news release, media release, press release or press statement is a written or recorded communication directed at members of the news media for the purpose of announcing something claimed as having news value.
Product Removal Rate – Some shopping cart systems will give you detailed analytics that allow you to see how often people remove products from their shopping cart.
Rank – How well a particular web page or web site is listed in a search engine results. Generally, sites on the first page (or within the first 10 listings) generate significant visibility and traffic. Overall, saying a page is “listed” only means that it can be found within a search engine in response to a query, not that it necessarily ranks well for that query. “Rank” is also referred to as “position”.
Reciprocal Links – A mutually-agreed upon link exchange between two sites.
Regional (Geo Target) – Often used to describe web page requests that originated from a similar geographical area. This is measured by analyzing a server’s log files for requests from ISPs and then aggregating those requests by region according to the ISPs geographical location.
Repeat Visitors % – When viewing this statistic in your analytics, it gives you an idea of how often people come back to visit your website. Typically, the more often they return the more likely they are to convert to a sale or sales opportunity.
Return Policy – A document, or policy that explains a merchant’s policy regarding the return of products by customers. A clear and simple Return Policy is widely viewed as an important aspect in Conversion Optimization.
Reviews/Consumer Ratings – People are doing more and more research before making a purchase. Having product reviews can help strengthen the chances of someone making a purchase.
ROI – Historically associated with sales and marketing efforts; when applied to SEM efforts, refers to numerical, percentage or ratio of revenue generated over total cost of activities. ROI typically factors in paid placement and associated management costs, but a more detailed analysis may factor in profit (true cost). If ROI is measuring paid placement only, it is typically referred to as return on ad spend (ROAS).
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) – Real simple syndication (RSS) is a relatively new and easy way to distribute content via the Internet. For email marketers, it is a way to distribute messages while avoiding spam filters. Typical applications include email newsletters, blogs or even Web sites. Similar to newsgroups, RSS feeds require a special “reader” like Bloglines or NewsGator to view messages.
Sales Volume – The quantity or number of goods (or services) sold in a specified period of time.
Search Engine – is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information which must be consulted, akin to other techniques for managing information overload.
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) – The act of marketing a web site via search engines, whether this be improving rank in organic listings (search engine optimization), purchasing paid listings (PPC management) or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities (i.e. affiliate programs, shopping feeds or link development).
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – The act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines. In the past, has also been used as a term for any type of search engine marketing activity, though now the term search engine marketing is more commonly used as an umbrella term.
SES (Search Engine Submissions) – The act of submitting specific URLs to popular search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo! to ensure the web page gets “spidered” and “indexed”.
Search Index – The collection of information (contained in a large database) a search engine has that searchers can query against. With crawler-based search engines, the index is typically copies of all the web pages they have found from “crawling” the web. With human-powered directories, the index contains the summaries of all web sites that have been categorized.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) – The page that is displayed after a search phrase is typed into a search engine.
Search Volume – How many times in a month a search term is typed in a search engine.
Shipping – The document or form used to approve, track, and process outbound shipments. A MAJOR cause of visitor “cart abandonment” occurs when shopping online if the shipping policy is not both clear and cost friendly.
Site Complacency – Search engines love fresh content, so having a static or complacent website over time can eventually affect your search rankings in a negative way.
Sitemap – A sitemap (or site map) is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for web design, or a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. This helps visitors and search engine bots find pages on the site.
SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) – A unique number assigned to each style/size combination of a product. One item may have many SKUs for the differing sizes, colors or materials, etc.
Social Bookmarking – Is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata, typically in the form of tags. Examples include Delicious, Digg, & Reddit.
Source Code – Source code is instructions to the computer in their original form. Initially, a programmer writes a program in a particular programming language called the source code. To execute the program, the programmer must translate the code into “machine language,” the only language a computer understands. Source code is the only format readable by humans.
Spam - Refers to electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define spam even more generally as any unsolicited e-mail. In addition to being a nuisance, spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth. Because the Internet is a public network, little can be done to prevent spam, just as it is impossible to prevent junk mail. However, the use of software filters in e-mail programs can be used to remove most spam sent through e-mail.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) – Is a protocol for transmitting private documents via the Internet, using a public key to encrypt data and transfer it.
SSL Certificate – An SSL certificate is used for the server authentication, data encryption, and message integrity checks. With a valid SSL certificate, your Internet communications are transmitted in encrypted form. Information you send can be trusted to arrive privately and unaltered to the server you specify (and no other).
Target Audience – A target audience, or target group is the primary group of people that something is appealing to. A target audience can be people of a certain age group, gender, marital status, etc. (ex: teenagers, females, single people, etc.) A certain combination, like men from twenty to thirty is often referred to as a target audience.
Tracking Numbers – Numbers that are assigned to by a call center or shipping service to track the current location of an ordered product for customer inquires about the status of a delivery.
Traffic – The number of times a website is viewed within a stipulated time.
Unique Selling Point (USP) – The unique product benefit that the competition can not claim.
Unique Visitor – Is a visitor that interacts with a site. They may interact more than once, but within analytics reporting, they are only counted one time.
Universal Search - Google’s process of blending listings from its news, video, images, local and book search engines among those it gathers from crawling web pages.
URL (Universal Resource Locator) – a World Wide Web address composed of several parts including the protocol, the server where the “resource” (e.g., web page) resides, the path, and the file name of the resource. URL is often referred to as a “domain”.
Viral Marketing - A marketing technique that induces websites or users to pass on a marketing message to others. This creates a potentially exponential growth in the message’s visibility and effect.
Visitor Session - Interaction by a site visitor. The session ends when the visitor leaves the site.
Web 2.0 – The use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, and blogs.
Web Analytics The study of user activity on a web site or web application to understand how well it fulfills its objectives.
Web Accessibility – refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities.
Web Browser – is a software application that, on a user’s prompt, retrieves and collects information resources and arranges and displays the resources on the user’s computer screen.
Webcasting – A process where by sound and/or video is broadcast online. The process can deliver live or prerecorded information. Often advertisements are inserted at the beginning of the broadcast.
Website Clutter – Often happens when a website is too busy. Visitors can lose focus and not know where they are supposed to go or what they are supposed to do on your site. Too much clutter can cloud your call to action and minimize your conversion rate.
Web Crawlers/Spiders/Bots – A Web crawler is a computer program that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. Web crawlers are mainly used to create a copy of all the visited pages for later processing by a search engine that will index the downloaded pages to provide fast searches. This exercise helps determine your keyword relevancy and is a big reason websites get ranked where they do (be it good or bad).
Website Metrics – The foundation and analytics used to measure a website’s effectiveness.
White Papers - Technical documents used primarily to generate leads for business-to-business technology companies. The technical papers typically include industry research, statistics and deep technical information. Download Anvil’s SEO White Paper for an example of how it’s done correctly.
Website Usability – The ease in which visitors are able to use and maneuver within a website.
The following terms and definitions are relative to SEO, Internet Marketing, Conversion, and websites in general. It is laid out in alphabetical format and compiled here for your convenience.
Above the Fold – Historically this is the section on the front page of a newspaper on the upper half. It is also the area of preferred advertising space. The term has been extended and used in web development to refer the portions of a webpage that is visible without scrolling, ergo it is also known as “Above the Scroll”.
Add to Cart – A feature on ecommerce websites that allow you to add a product to your virtual shopping cart.
Add to Cart Rates – Some shopping cart systems will give you detailed analytics that allow you to see how often people add products to their shopping cart.
Alexa Traffic Rank – Where your website ranks in according to Alexa. Not always 100% accurate, but a great indication of how well your website is performing from a traffic standpoint.
Algorithm – A mathematical formula used by search engines to determine which web sites in their database to present in search results, in which order. While search engine algorithms change regularly, primary on-page factors include keyword density and source code optimization. The primary off-page factor is link popularity.
Alt Image Text – When visitors have their browser settings to disable image loading (for quicker load times), an image alt tag is displayed. This is assigned during the development of the web page and alerts the end user what the image is about.
Anchor Text – As an example this is: anchor text and is usually a link to another web page. Using a keyword/key phrase in your anchor text is a good SEO technique. The text should give an indication of what to expect when you click the link.
Articles – Articles should be viewed as a resource on services or an industry. The articles should be linked back to your website in the resource box when they are distributed to various article directories. This creates organic SEO and additional ways to be found in the search engines.
Banner Advertisement – An advertisement on a web site placed above, below, or on the sides of the sites main content and linked to the advertiser’s own web site.
Blog – Is a self-published, managed or maintained Web diary. Usually updated daily or weekly, blogs have historically been personal, but gained notoriety after the 2004 election as an influential media outlet. Companies now use blogs to extend their brand and improve their organic search visibility.
Body – The meat and potatoes of a webpage. This is the where the primary content of a page is displayed.
Bold Text Blocks – Font on a webpage that is bolded. This alerts search engines and your visitors that the words in bold are of significance.
Bookmarks – Internet bookmarks are stored Web page locations (URLs) that can be retrieved.
Bounce Rate – This is the rate of visitors that enter your site, and leave within the first 5 seconds (as calculated by Google Analytics) without viewing another page.
Browser – A software application used to locate and display web pages. The two most popular web browsers are Mozilla’s FireFox™ and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer™ (IE). Both are graphical browsers, meaning they can display graphics as well as text. In addition, most modern browsers can present multimedia information, including sound and video, though they require plug-ins (q.v.) for some formats.
Call to Action – This is a marketing message that directs visitors to act in some specific manner such as requesting a brochure.
Cart Abandonment Rate – Some shopping cart systems will give you detailed analytics that allow you to see how often people do not follow through with a purchase.
Checkout/Purchase Process – How a website flows through from product display and selection, to the end purchase.
Click – Every time a visitor clicks on an advertising banner to access the advertiser’s Web site, it is counted as a “click” or “click-through.”
Click Fraud - A type of internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad’s link.
Click Rate – The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click through. Calculated by dividing the number of clicks, by the number of impressions.
Click Through Rate (CTR) – The percentage of those clicking on a link out of the total number who viewed the link or text ad.
Cloaking – A “black hat” technique of tricking the search engines into seeing something other than what is displayed to the human viewer; using this technique can get websites penalized or banned from search engines.
Competing Pages – How many pages of content are relevant to a specific search term, keyword, or key phrase. In Google the competing pages are found as the 1 of 10 of “X” number. You can go several more layers into this to determine true competing pages, but this is a general rule of thumb to give you an idea of how competitive a market might be.
Content Management System (CMS) – A software platform that aids in the management of content on a Web site.
Conversion - A site visitor completes a desired action. Generally a download, signup, purchase, etc.
Conversion Funnel - A series of steps or actions a user must take in order to complete the desired conversion action (i.e. eCommerce shopping cart).
Conversion Optimization – In internet marketing, conversion optimization is the science and art of creating an experience for a website visitor with the goal of converting the visitor into a customer.
Conversion Rate – The relationship between visitors to a web site and actions considered to be a “conversion,” such as a sale or request to receive more information. This metric is often expressed as a percentage.
Conversion Form – A conversion form can be a newsletter signup, contact page, or quote request page. Typically the code to properly measure conversion would go on the “Thank You” page.
Directory – A type of search engine where listings are gathered or reviewed by humans, rather than by search engine crawlers. In directories, web sites are often reviewed, summarized in about 25 words and placed in a particular category. The largest and most popular directory site is Yahoo! D.M.O.Z. is another highly relevant directory site.
Domain Name – Used in URLs to identify particular web pages or sites located on the Internet. For example, the domain name nces.ed.gov represents the web site for the National Center for Education Statistics.
E-Commerce - Put simply, e-commerce means conducting business online. E-commerce software programs run the main functions of an e-commerce web site, including product display, online ordering, and inventory management. This software resides on a commerce server and works in conjunction with online payment systems to process payments.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) - A standard Internet protocol for transferring files from one computer to another.
H1-H6 Headings – Heading tags give importance to the words that are contained within them. H1 tags contain larger, bolder font while you work your way down to H6 tags which are much smaller fonts. Search engines read these tags to determine relevance and importance.
Homepage – The homepage (often written as home page) is the URL or local file that automatically loads when a web browser starts or when the browser’s “home” button is pressed. One can turn this feature off and on, as well as specify a URL for the page to be loaded.
Host - To host is to provide the infrastructure for a computer service. For example, a company that hosts web servers may provide the content on the server (e.g., web site or other content), but another company may control communications lines required by the server.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) – A formatting language used to create web pages that specify how a page will appear on screen.
Image Optimization - This term is used to describe the process of image slicing and resolution reduction. This is done to make file sizes smaller so images will load faster.
Internet Security – When a computer connects to a network and begins communicating with others, it is taking a risk. Internet security involves the protection of a computer’s internet account and files from intrusion of an unknown user. Basic security measures involve protection by well selected passwords, change of file permissions and back up of computer’s data.
IP Address – An IP address is an identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol, route messages according to the destination IP address. Within a private network, IP addresses can be assigned at random as long as each one is unique. However, connecting a private network to the Internet requires using publicly registered IP addresses (called Internet addresses) to avoid duplicates.
ISP (Internet Service Provider) - An ISP is an entity that provides commercial access to the Internet. Service can range in size from dial-up access with a 56-Kbps ordinary telephone line and several dozens of customers to multiple pops (i.e., connection points) in multiple cities with substantial backbones and thousands, tens of thousands, or more customers. ISPs may also provide web hosting and other services.
Italic Text Blocks – Font on a webpage that is italicized. This alerts search engines and your visitors that the words in italics are of significance.
Keyword/Search Query – It is a term that captures the essence of the topic of a document and is entered into a search engine to filter an expected result.
Keyword Analysis – Is the study of the most frequently used keywords entered into a search engine by the users.
Keyword Cloud – Is a search engine marketing (SEM) term that refers to a group of keywords that are relevant to a specific website. The term keyword in reference to SEM usually refers to a word or phrase (combination of words, such as ‘San Francisco weather map’) used to find relevant and useful web pages. Keyword clouds can be illustrated using web-based tools as a group of keywords, displayed in different sizes to represent the frequency or weighting of each keyword within the cloud.
Keyword Density – is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. In the context of search engine optimization keyword density can be used as a factor in determining whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase.
Keyword Tracking – When there are numerous keywords/search terms, a continuous process of tracking the keywords is performed by an SEO expert in order to provide information about how a web site is performing in search results.
Landing Page – In online marketing a landing page, sometimes known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines.
Link Bait - Any content or feature within a website that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other websites. Google’s SEO expert Matt Cutts defines link bait as, “anything interesting enough to catch people’s attention.” Link bait can be an extremely powerful form of marketing as it is viral in nature and can impact visibility in search results.
Link Building – Is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.
Link Popularity – The number and quality of links pointing to your website. This is a very important factor in the search engine placement of your website.
Listing - The information that appears on a search engine’s results page in response to a search. See “Results Page.”
Local Search - Search engine results constrained by region/location, based on the searcher’s location or intent. With the addition of Web 2.0 capabilities, local search results may include business ratings, reviews, maps and driving directions.
Log-in – In computer security, login (logging or signing in, also log on) is the process by which individual access to a computer system is controlled by identification of the user using credentials provided by the user.
Long Tail - In relation to search engine marketing (SEM) the Long Tail refers to the keyword phrases that are highly detailed and specific and may generate low volumes of searches and traffic, but add up to generate a majority of traffic for sites with deep content or product SKUs.
Loss Aversion/Sunk Cost Fallacy – Many people have strong misgivings about “wasting” resources. This is called “loss aversion“. In web terms this may involve the purchase of a non-refundable item like a movie ticket. Most people for example, would feel obliged to go to the movie despite perhaps not really wanting to, because doing otherwise would be wasting the ticket price; they feel they passed the point of no return. This is sometimes called the sunk cost fallacy.
Meta Description – Allows page authors to say how they would like their pages described when listed by search engines. Not all search engines use the tag.
Meta Keyword – Allows page authors to add relevant text to a page to help with the search engine ranking process.
Meta Tag – A command inserted in a document that specifies how the document, or a portion of the document, should be formatted. Tags are used by all format specifications that store documents as text files.
Migration – The act of moving data from one database to another, or to move a website from one server to another.
Niche – When your products or services cater to a specific, targeted audience.
Off-Page Optimization – The area of search engine optimization that applies to building back-links and website popularity.
On-Page Optimization – The area of search engine optimization that applies to the content and structure of the website itself.
One Way Links/Inbound Links – A text or graphical hyperlink from one site to another. Google and other search engines’ algorithms consider a site’s popularity based on the quality and quantity of inbound links from relevant third party sites to help determine search positioning. See “Link Popularity.”
Online Reputation Management (ORM) – This is the act of monitoring, addressing or mitigating undesirable search engine results or mentions in online media for a company or product. Techniques include generating new content and creating posts on existing content and building marketing campaigns around them.
Online Shopping Cart/Basket – The basket is simply a list of the items you have selected to buy, together with the necessary details (number selected, price of each item, etc).
Organic/Natural Listings – Refers to the area of search engine results and marketing that are a result of optimization (SEO), in contrast to paid inclusion and pay-per-click programs.
PageRank – Is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page, and used by the Google Internet search engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. 2. (AS DESCRIBED BY GOOGLE) PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”.
Page Title – The page title appears at the top of each webpage in your browser. Search engines tend to place heavier importance on the keywords included within page titles. Page titles also appear as the link for each entry in search engine results.
Page Views – The number of times a page (an analyst-definable unit of content) was viewed.
Pay Per Click – System where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click someone makes on a link leading to their web site. Also known as CPC (Cost Per Click) or paid listings.
Pop-Up Ads – Advertisements that appear in a separate browser window while a web site is being viewed.
Portal (a.k.a. web portal) – Refers to a web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services, such as e-mail, forums, search engines, and online shopping malls. The first web portals were online services, such as AOL, which provided access to the web; now most of the traditional search engines (e.g. Yahoo®, Google®, etc.) are web portals, modified to attract and keep a larger audience.
Press Release - A news release, media release, press release or press statement is a written or recorded communication directed at members of the news media for the purpose of announcing something claimed as having news value.
Product Removal Rate – Some shopping cart systems will give you detailed analytics that allow you to see how often people remove products from their shopping cart.
Rank – How well a particular web page or web site is listed in a search engine results. Generally, sites on the first page (or within the first 10 listings) generate significant visibility and traffic. Overall, saying a page is “listed” only means that it can be found within a search engine in response to a query, not that it necessarily ranks well for that query. “Rank” is also referred to as “position”.
Reciprocal Links – A mutually-agreed upon link exchange between two sites.
Regional (Geo Target) – Often used to describe web page requests that originated from a similar geographical area. This is measured by analyzing a server’s log files for requests from ISPs and then aggregating those requests by region according to the ISPs geographical location.
Repeat Visitors % – When viewing this statistic in your analytics, it gives you an idea of how often people come back to visit your website. Typically, the more often they return the more likely they are to convert to a sale or sales opportunity.
Return Policy – A document, or policy that explains a merchant’s policy regarding the return of products by customers. A clear and simple Return Policy is widely viewed as an important aspect in Conversion Optimization.
Reviews/Consumer Ratings – People are doing more and more research before making a purchase. Having product reviews can help strengthen the chances of someone making a purchase.
ROI – Historically associated with sales and marketing efforts; when applied to SEM efforts, refers to numerical, percentage or ratio of revenue generated over total cost of activities. ROI typically factors in paid placement and associated management costs, but a more detailed analysis may factor in profit (true cost). If ROI is measuring paid placement only, it is typically referred to as return on ad spend (ROAS).
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) – Real simple syndication (RSS) is a relatively new and easy way to distribute content via the Internet. For email marketers, it is a way to distribute messages while avoiding spam filters. Typical applications include email newsletters, blogs or even Web sites. Similar to newsgroups, RSS feeds require a special “reader” like Bloglines or NewsGator to view messages.
Sales Volume – The quantity or number of goods (or services) sold in a specified period of time.
Search Engine – is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information which must be consulted, akin to other techniques for managing information overload.
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) – The act of marketing a web site via search engines, whether this be improving rank in organic listings (search engine optimization), purchasing paid listings (PPC management) or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities (i.e. affiliate programs, shopping feeds or link development).
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – The act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines. In the past, has also been used as a term for any type of search engine marketing activity, though now the term search engine marketing is more commonly used as an umbrella term.
SES (Search Engine Submissions) – The act of submitting specific URLs to popular search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo! to ensure the web page gets “spidered” and “indexed”.
Search Index – The collection of information (contained in a large database) a search engine has that searchers can query against. With crawler-based search engines, the index is typically copies of all the web pages they have found from “crawling” the web. With human-powered directories, the index contains the summaries of all web sites that have been categorized.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) – The page that is displayed after a search phrase is typed into a search engine.
Search Volume – How many times in a month a search term is typed in a search engine.
Shipping – The document or form used to approve, track, and process outbound shipments. A MAJOR cause of visitor “cart abandonment” occurs when shopping online if the shipping policy is not both clear and cost friendly.
Site Complacency – Search engines love fresh content, so having a static or complacent website over time can eventually affect your search rankings in a negative way.
Sitemap – A sitemap (or site map) is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for web design, or a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. This helps visitors and search engine bots find pages on the site.
SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) – A unique number assigned to each style/size combination of a product. One item may have many SKUs for the differing sizes, colors or materials, etc.
Social Bookmarking – Is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata, typically in the form of tags. Examples include Delicious, Digg, & Reddit.
Source Code – Source code is instructions to the computer in their original form. Initially, a programmer writes a program in a particular programming language called the source code. To execute the program, the programmer must translate the code into “machine language,” the only language a computer understands. Source code is the only format readable by humans.
Spam - Refers to electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define spam even more generally as any unsolicited e-mail. In addition to being a nuisance, spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth. Because the Internet is a public network, little can be done to prevent spam, just as it is impossible to prevent junk mail. However, the use of software filters in e-mail programs can be used to remove most spam sent through e-mail.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) – Is a protocol for transmitting private documents via the Internet, using a public key to encrypt data and transfer it.
SSL Certificate – An SSL certificate is used for the server authentication, data encryption, and message integrity checks. With a valid SSL certificate, your Internet communications are transmitted in encrypted form. Information you send can be trusted to arrive privately and unaltered to the server you specify (and no other).
Target Audience – A target audience, or target group is the primary group of people that something is appealing to. A target audience can be people of a certain age group, gender, marital status, etc. (ex: teenagers, females, single people, etc.) A certain combination, like men from twenty to thirty is often referred to as a target audience.
Tracking Numbers – Numbers that are assigned to by a call center or shipping service to track the current location of an ordered product for customer inquires about the status of a delivery.
Traffic – The number of times a website is viewed within a stipulated time.
Unique Selling Point (USP) – The unique product benefit that the competition can not claim.
Unique Visitor – Is a visitor that interacts with a site. They may interact more than once, but within analytics reporting, they are only counted one time.
Universal Search - Google’s process of blending listings from its news, video, images, local and book search engines among those it gathers from crawling web pages.
URL (Universal Resource Locator) – a World Wide Web address composed of several parts including the protocol, the server where the “resource” (e.g., web page) resides, the path, and the file name of the resource. URL is often referred to as a “domain”.
Viral Marketing - A marketing technique that induces websites or users to pass on a marketing message to others. This creates a potentially exponential growth in the message’s visibility and effect.
Visitor Session - Interaction by a site visitor. The session ends when the visitor leaves the site.
Web 2.0 – The use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, and blogs.
Web Analytics The study of user activity on a web site or web application to understand how well it fulfills its objectives.
Web Accessibility – refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities.
Web Browser – is a software application that, on a user’s prompt, retrieves and collects information resources and arranges and displays the resources on the user’s computer screen.
Webcasting – A process where by sound and/or video is broadcast online. The process can deliver live or prerecorded information. Often advertisements are inserted at the beginning of the broadcast.
Website Clutter – Often happens when a website is too busy. Visitors can lose focus and not know where they are supposed to go or what they are supposed to do on your site. Too much clutter can cloud your call to action and minimize your conversion rate.
Web Crawlers/Spiders/Bots – A Web crawler is a computer program that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. Web crawlers are mainly used to create a copy of all the visited pages for later processing by a search engine that will index the downloaded pages to provide fast searches. This exercise helps determine your keyword relevancy and is a big reason websites get ranked where they do (be it good or bad).
Website Metrics – The foundation and analytics used to measure a website’s effectiveness.
White Papers - Technical documents used primarily to generate leads for business-to-business technology companies. The technical papers typically include industry research, statistics and deep technical information. Download Anvil’s SEO White Paper for an example of how it’s done correctly.
Website Usability – The ease in which visitors are able to use and maneuver within a website.
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Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful
Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients. He is available for
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