We always avoid using jargon and acronyms when talking to our clients. There is lots of terminology around digital marketing so this glossary of online marketing terms is designed to act as a reference point and reminder for those commonly used digital marketing terms. Feel free to contact us about further suggestions to add to the list.


301 Redirect

A permanent redirect which sends visitors and crawlers one URL to another. A 301 redirect can be used if you have deleted a web page and can pass on 90-99% of link juice from one page to

Return to top


404 Error

The specific page requested is not reachable on the server.

Return to top


A/B Testing

A method of comparing two versions of a webpage (A & B) against each other to determine differences in performance. See also Split Testing

Return to top


Ad Campaign

A set of related ad groups that all target similar categories of products or services and aligned to the same business goal.

Return to top


Ad Group

An ad group contains one or more ads that target a shared set of keywords. You set a bid, or price, to be used when an ad group’s keywords trigger an ad to appear.

Return to top


Ad Rank

The position of an ad on a search engine results page. It’s equal to Maximum Bid x Quality Score.

Return to top


Ad Text

The copy used in your ad and landing page, which should match the targeted keywords and encourage users to click through.

Return to top


All Sessions Time

This is a calculated number used as an overall metric of website visitor engagement. Often used on media or content rich sites it is avg Session Duration multiplied by total number of sessions. It can be useful to compare traffic types of advertising costs as it can be further extended as a metric by dividing All Session Time for a segment of traffic by the cost of getting that traffic. This provides a metric of Minutes per £/$ of engagement with the site.

Return to top


ALT Tags - Alternative Text Tags

Words to describe an image used on a website. Initially developed so that blind people could have the content of a picture described to them but now also used by search engines to classify images for search results, especially image search results.

Return to top



Anchor Text

The words used on a link to another web page or website telling the visitor what the link represents. These are important for SEO as search engines use this text to understand page relevance. Don’t link pages with Click Here unless you are optimising for the keyword -Click Here-!

Return to top



Application Programming Interface (API)

set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications

Return to top


Audiences

These are groups of people that you can target based on their interests, as well as their visits to your site. With Audiences, you can target a group of people with similar interests, as well as remarketing groups (showing ads to people who have previously visited your website).

Return to top


Avg Session Duration

The total time of all of the sessions on your website during the period divided by the numbers of Sessions in the period. Gives you a measure of how well engaged your visitors are with your website.

Return to top


Bing Ads

Bing Ads is Microsoft’s answer to search engine marketing. Microsoft allows users to advertise through text and graphics. Bing and Yahoo have joined to produce an extensive range of websites to advertise on.

Return to top


Bounce Rate

The percentage of sessions that end without the User interacting with the site by going to another page or clicking on a tracked event. The user is described as bouncing off the site in these circumstances. Where visitors are coming to good content on a site and reading / absorbing it and then not going onto another page the counting of these sessions as a bounce can be seen as unhelpful. Therefore you can create a time based event trigger for your site and then you will be able to have ‘and adjusted bounce rate’ where people staying on a page for longer than the time defined in the event no longer ‘bounce’ even if they do not go to another page.

Return to top


Business to Business (B2B)

A commercial transaction between two businesses.

Return to top


Business to Consumer (B2C)

A commercial transaction between a business and an end user.

Return to top


Buyer Persona

A semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on real data about your existing customers and market research.

Return to top


Call to Action (CTA)

a prompt for your visitors, leads/ customers to take action. Eg "Call" "Click here" or "Download Guide".

Return to top


Canonical Links / References

This is the URL that you want your visitors to see. Essentially it’s picking out the best URL when there are multiple choices available, and presenting this best choice to the search engine, so it can display it to those who visit your site.

Return to top


Chatbot

Artificial intelligence simulating human conversation on a website which engages visitors and gathers data with which to efficiently qualify leads.

Return to top


Closed Deal Lost

The point at which a lead is no longer a potential customer.

Return to top


Closed Deal Won

The point at which a lead becomes a customer.

Return to top


Click Through Rate (CTR)

The percentage of people who on seeing you on the SERPs actually click to go through to your website. Calculated by diving clicks by impressions.

Return to top


Content Audit

Analysis of all the current content assets for which your organisation is responsible.

Return to top


Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategic digital marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, content to attract and retain a clearly defined target audience.

Return to top


Conversational Marketing

A feedback approach to marketing used to drive engagement in real time.

Return to top


Conversion Rate

For an eCommerce site a Conversion will be a purchase, for a non eCommerce site a Conversion will be a Goal like the completion of an enquiry form. Conversion rate is the number of Conversions divided by the total number of Sessions in the period. Improving a websites overall conversion rate can improve the ROI for all digital marketing methods. However it is important to understand that different types of traffic will typically have differing conversion rates because of the relative ‘quality of the fit’ of the traffic types.

Return to top


Cost Per Acquisition

The cost of each conversion action taken by a visitor, eg sale or form submission.

Return to top


Display Advertising

Adverts that appear on content websites such as newspapers, blogs, video websites. Display ads can be text, images, rich (HTML5) images and video.

Return to top


DIVs

Code to create a container element on a webpage to layout and style content.

Return to top


Featured Snippet

Summary of an answer to a search query displayed at the top of Google SERPs extracted from a webpage with the page's URL. Can display as a paragraph, list or table depending on the initial query.

Return to top


Follow vs NoFollow

This is a strip of HTML code added to a link to allow (or not) search engine bots to count it as a ranking factor. When you link to a page with a follow tag, it will count as an SEO boost for the page’s ranking. If you use nofollow, it won’t. Nofollow attributes can be useful for paid links if you’re in affiliate marketing or for comments and forums to avoid spam.

Return to top


Gated Content

Online content that can only be accessed by completing a form.

Return to top


GDN - Google Display Network

The websites and mobile apps that carry Google Display advertising. including specific Google websites such as Google Finance, Gmail, Blogger and YouTube. Although Google rationalised the number of sites that it allowed in its network to eliminate those that it thought were sub standard there are still well over 1 million websites carrying Google display advertising.

Return to top


Goal Completions

It is vital to track measures of success and in Google Analytics this is done with Goals. Goal Completions are the number of Goals that have been recorded in a period. These can be broken down to see the numbers for each individual goal.

Return to top


Goals

Goals are defined as a target; what your business wants to achieve in terms of conversions. This could be sign-ups, purchases or even a call to your business.

Return to top


Google Ads

Formerly knows as 'Google AdWords' 

Google Ads is one of the biggest online advertising platforms. Advertisers pay to display advertisements, service offerings, product listings, video content via the Google ad network to users on the web. 

Return to top


Google Algorithm Update

scheduled or responsive amendments by Google which may affect useability and SEO.

Return to top


Google Analytics

Web analytics service from Google which tracks website traffic. Available in the Google Marketing Platform.

Return to top


Google My Business (GMB)

Free Google business listing which appears on SERPs. It is particularly valuable for local businesses to get found online.

Return to top


Google Search Console (GSC)

A free service offered by Google that helps you understand and improve how Google sees your site. It also shows what organic search terms users used to find your site.

Return to top


Google Tag Manager (GTM)

A Google Product which enables the tracking of various aspects of website visits via snippets of code

Return to top


Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

System for tagging website page text files to obtain desired font, colour, graphic, and hyperlinks

Return to top


Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

The protocol used to transfer data over the web.

Return to top


Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure

HTTP with an additional SSL for increased site security.

Return to top


Impressions

When your ad is served to someone who is searching on a search engine and it appears in his or her results (alongside organic search results). This is counted as 1 impression, but you do not have to pay for each impression you receive on your ads.

Return to top


Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is an approach coined by Hubspot CEO, Brian Halligan and is all about drawing customers to products and services via content marketing, SEO, social media marketing and branding. Inbound marketing builds authenticity and prospects trust by providing them information that they value.

Return to top


Keyword

Also includes key-phrase or keyword phrase – word or words entered into a search engine by a visitor looking for something. When developing a SEO plan it is important to know what keywords you are targeting before starting the optimisation process.

Return to top


Knowledge Graph

Data gathered from various online sources, used by Google and its services to enhance search results, and used to answer spoken queries in Google Assistant and Google Home.

Return to top


Landing Page

Where the visitor is sent after clicking on a PPC ad. This could be a dedicated webpage, homepage, or somewhere else.

Return to top


Lead

A person identified as a potential customer by their interest in a brand's products or services.

Return to top


Longtail Keywords

Keywords that are more specific to a topic. For example, a short tail keyword may be 'clothes shops' whereas the long tail version would be 'clothes shops for children', 'online clothes shops' or 'ethical online clothes shops for women'. 

Return to top


Marketing Automation

Software which can be set to automatically manage marketing campaigns and processes across multiple channels.

Return to top


Meta Data

Information contained within the coding of a webpage that is not visible to the website visitor but is read by search engines spiders and used within the ranking algorithm.

Return to top


MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)

A lead assessed as being more likely to become a customer than other leads, based on their interaction with marketing materials.

Return to top


New Users

New Users are those Users that have not been to your website before. This is tracked by using a Cookie file. Once a visitor comes to your site Google Analytics puts a Cookie file in their browser so that they can be tracked as a returning user. However if the Cookie file has been cleared from their machine since their last visit they will look like a ‘New User’.

Return to top


Organic Search Results

The natural results on a search engine results page. These results cannot be paid for, unlike Paid Search Results. These results can be manipulated by SEO, which helps Google to find your website easier, thus it will appear higher in organic results.

Return to top


Pages Per Session

Total number of page views divided by the total number of sessions within a period. Gives you a measure of how well engaged your visitors are with your website. If pages per session are high but Avg Session Duration low it can indicate problems with your website such as thin content or confusing navigation.

Return to top


Paid Search Results

The paid search results on a search engine results page are the results that are paid for by an advertiser. These will be appearing based on the position that they receive.

Return to top


PPC - Pay Per Click Advertising

The system that allows you to appear in the sponsored results. Gives website owners immediate results and can be useful for testing the conversion rates of different terms once visitors are on your website. Care has to be taken as large amounts of money can be wasted if a PPC campaign is not well set up.

Return to top


Proximity Rule

The earlier a keyword, phrase or element appears on the page the more important the search engines think that this is. For example in a page meta titles it is better to put your more important keywords first. For page structures navigation DIVs should appear after main content DIVs where possible.

Return to top


Quality Score

Quality score is among a variety of factors that decides how well your advertisement will be ranked in an auction, which will determine its position on the SERPs. Quality score is comprised (in most cases) of your CTR, Ad relevance and Landing page quality, as well as other features.

Return to top


Rankings

Term used to refer to where you appear within the SERPS for a specific or group of terms. With SEO you are always aiming for first page rankings (positions 1-10) as 85% of searches never go beyond the first of the SERPS.

Return to top


Remarketing

When someone visits your site, but say they don’t convert, you can track this user and use “Remarketing” to serve them relevant ads from you, that will help them to perform a conversion on your website. It is essentially remarketing your ads to the same users (but not too frequently) in an effort to get them to convert on your site.

Return to top


RWD - Responsive Web Design

This practice consists of adapting the design of a website to the device used to view it. For example, images will shrink on mobile to fit the screen size. This flexibility avoids having to develop a full new site for mobile and tablet.

Return to top


Returning Users

Those people who have been to your website before as recorded by the presence of a Cookie file.

Return to top


Search Advertising

Serving adverts in response to a user’s search query (keywords).

Return to top


Search Channels

Unless specified the SEO work applies to textual search of web pages. However, Google and the other search engines have developed specific search verticals such as video, images, shopping, news, and blogs to aid people getting the results they are looking for.

Return to top


Search Engine Spider

Automated programs that read the code of web pages and websites to gather the base information that the search engine uses to calculate the ranking of a webpage against a specific term.

Return to top


Search Network

A group of search-related websites where your ads can appear. When you advertise on the Search Network, your ad can show next to search results when someone searches for your products or services using terms related to one of you. Google provides search functionality & adverts to search engines that are specifically Google branded.

Return to top


Seed Keyword

Baseline keywords that are most relevant to a business' products or services. They are used as the foundation for performing keyword research.

Return to top


SEO - Search Engine Optimisation

The process of making a website appear in the natural or organic search engine results. These results being generated by a complex algorithm known only to the search engines, which takes into account many factors.

Return to top


SERPs - Search Engine Results Pages

The results pages of Google, Bing etc once a term has been entered.

Return to top


Sessions

Google Analytics defines this as a visit to a website. It can consist of a single page, or multiple page views. A user can have multiple Sessions (visits to your site) within a period so you Sessions number will always be higher than your Users number.

Return to top


Site Crawl

the process that a crawler undertakes to gather data from a website.

Return to top


Social Media Advertising (SMA)

The use of social media platforms to target specific audiences with paid ads.

Return to top


Social Media Optimisation (SMO)

Increasing the awareness of a product/ service/ brand/ business/ event by the use of social media platforms.

Return to top


Software as a Service (SaaS)

Cloud-based software service where a licensed application is accessed via an internet browser.

Return to top


Split Testing

A method of comparing two versions of a webpage (A & B) against each other to determine differences in performance. See also A/B testing

Return to top


Sponsored Results / Listings

The entries on the SERPs that are driven from PPC advertising on the search engines. Appearance is these results and your relative position is driven by how much you are prepared to pay for each visitor click.

Return to top


Structured Query Language (SQL)

Standardised computer language for managing data manipulation and communication between relational databases

Return to top


Subdomain

Part of a larger domain

Return to top


Title Tags

Part of the meta-data that is visible to the visitor of a web page at the top of the browser program window. Now seen as the most important element of meta data to search engines.

Return to top


Top Level Domain (TLD)

Part of the domain that appears after the dot, eg, com, org or net.

Return to top


Toxic Links

These are unnatural backlinks that can harm your ranking as search engines consider them as spam. You can even get penalised if you don’t remove them. These links come from spam sites, link networks or sites with a virus or malware.

Return to top


Uniform (or Universal) Resource Locator (URL)

The address of a page on the World Wide Web

Return to top


Urchin Tracking Module (UTM)

Simple snippet of code added to the end of a URL to track the performance of campaigns and content in Google Analytics

Return to top


Users

A user is an individual visitor to your website. Google Analytics identifies a user with a Cookie file that it puts on their web-browser, however if the individual uses a different device or a different web browser then Google can see this as a different ‘User’ unless they are logged in. Google is improving its tracking of users across devices to minimise this difference. A User can have multiple Sessions associated with it on your website in a period.

Return to top


UX Services

UX encompasses all aspects of the end user's interaction with and experiences of a company and its products and services. In digital marketing terms it refers to the website design and ease of it use and navigation.

Return to top


Video Marketing

Video Marketing allows any information to be learned and understood easily in a small amount of time via videos.

Return to top


View Through Conversions

A form of Google conversion tracking, measuring how many visitors saw your Google Display Network ad but did not click on it.

Return to top


Voice Search Marketing

Voice search uses voice recognition technology that allows people to perform internet searches by speaking into a device. (e.g. smartphones, smart speakers, computers to home assistant devices.)

Return to top


Workflow

Tool for automating internal and external marketing, sales and service processes.

Return to top