Online Markting Info

Glossary of Terms

Easy to understand glossary of frequently used SEO, PPC and online marketing terms

Anchor text

the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink

Affiliate

an affiliate site marketing the products or services of another website in exchange for fees or commissions

Analytics

a program used to gather and process data relating to the usage of a particular website

Authority

the amount of trust that a website is credited with for a particular search query

Back link

any link to a page from any other page

Blog

a type of website on which contributors regularly post written content such as commentaries, journals, articles, or other digital media including graphics, mp3s and video. Blogs are often used to link to other relevant blogs or websites.

Bounce Rate

the percentage of visitors to a website who do not explore beyond the landing page

Content

the part of a website that is intended to have value for the user. This may take the form of text, graphics, video, or sound, but excludes any extraneous information such as advertisements

Content Management System (CMS)

a piece of software used to collaboratively create, manage, and maintain the content of a website.

Contextual advertisement

an advert that appears close to relevant content

Cost per Click (CPC)

the rate paid per click by a Pay per Click advertiser

Directory

a website devoted to directory pages; Yahoo is an example of a directory

Directory page

a page of links to other web pages

eCommerce

the term for Internet based retail activity

Googlebot

the program used by Google to create the index upon which its search engine results are based

Hub

a highly trusted page that links out to other websites

HTML

stands for 'Hypertext Mark up Language'. It is the predominant scripting language of the web and is used to indicate to any web browser how content is to be arranged and displayed. It also allows for the creation of links and other features

Hyperlink

a reference in a web page to any other web page. Hyperlinks generally appear highlighted and when clicked will direct the user to another web page or another part of the same page

In-bound link

a hyperlink on another page that directs the user to a specific page. In-bound links from related pages act as a sign of trust and are an extremely useful means of increasing a page's PR ranking

Keyword/Keyphrase

the word or phrase that a user will enter into a search engine

Keyword density

the percentage of a page's text content that is taken up by a particular keyword or keyphrase

Keyword research

the practice of assessing which keywords and keyphrases are of the highest value to an SEO campaign

Landing page

the web page to which a user is directed when he/she clicks on a link in a Search Engine Results Page (i.e. Google results page).

Link

short for 'Hyperlink'

Link building

the practice of building a network of inbound links for a particular website

Link exchange

the practice of mutually exchanging links with other websites. This is a method that may be employed at the beginning of an SEO campaign

Link Popularity

a measure of the value of a site determined by the number and quality of the sites that link to it

Link Text

another term for 'anchor text'

Mobile Web

the web services that are available to users of mobile phone and PDAs (personal digital assistants)

Meta Data

the data that is held within the HEAD section of the HTML a webpage. This data is not visible on the page itself but contains information about the page that appears on SERPs. Search Engines rely on Meta Data to determine the relevance of a page and as such it is extremely influential on page ranking

Meta Tags

specific information contained within 'Meta Data'

Natural search results

search engine results that are not paid for or sponsored in any way

Non reciprocal link

a one way link between two websites

Page Rank (PR)

is a link analysis algorithm used by Google to determine the relative importance of a site in terms of its relationship with other sites within a particular network

Pay for Inclusion

the practice of paying a search engine for inclusion within the first pages of a SERP. While many Search Engines encourage this practice, Google makes a clear distinction between paid and natural search results

Pay per Call

is a form of internet advertising, similar to Pay per Click, whereby advertisers only pay their host if they receive a phone call via the toll free number that appears on their advertisement

Pay per Click (PPC)

is a form of internet advertising whereby advertisers only pay their host if their advert is 'clicked' by the user

Reciprocal Link

a two way link between two websites

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

the practice of pushing a particular website up the Search Engine Rankings, by means external to the website

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

the practise of optimising the content of a particular website in order to push it up the Search Engine Rankings

SERP

Search Engine Results Page

Sitemap

a page or set of pages that link to all other publicly accessible pages within the same site. A well structured site map not only increases the user friendliness, but also allows search engine spiders to more easily navigate and index a site giving it a higher chance of ranking highly on SERPs

Spam

is the exploitation of the internet to send unsolicited mass messages at random

Spider

a term used to describe a program that crawls through website content allowing web pages to be indexed for use by Search Engines

Splash page

a page which proceeds the home page of a website. Examples of how a splash page may be used include: as an aesthetic compliment to the home page; for advertising purposes; to direct users towards a particular country or language

URL

Uniform Resource Locator, more commonly referred to as a 'web address'

Web Browser

a software application used to retrieve, present, and share information over the World Wide Web. Popular web browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari