Whether you are a new starter at an SEO company or a small business trying to reach your customers online, the world of Internet marketing can be a complex and confusing place. This glossary has been put together in an effort to provide clear and concise definitions to some of those tricky terms you hear banded around but are unsure of. So take a read of this resource and dazzle your clients, colleagues and customers with your new found online marketing expertise!
Alt Tags
An alt tag is the text that appears when you hover your mouse over an image. Alt tags are an important practice because the search engines do not see a page as we do; they see it in HTML code (don’t worry we will be covering this later!). By creating an alt tag you are telling the search engines exactly what the image is displaying, helping them to categorise the image and understand what the page is all about.
Backlinks
In short, backlinks are the links showcased on other websites that direct the user back to your site. You may be familiar with the term “link building” which is essentially the process of creating links within articles, infographics or other content and offering this content to another site on the condition that they include the link. This process is important because it helps the search engines to gauge the credibility of your site based on the quality and quantity of your bank link profile.
CMS
CMS stands for content management system, and this is the system you choose to be able to publish, delete and amend content on your website. Some of the most popular CMS systems include WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, because of the fact they are open-source (free) and incredibly user friendly.
Domaining
Your domain is the name you have chosen to give your website. For instance, the domain name for Link-Assistant.com’s domain name is link-assistant.com. Domaining is the process of buying domain names deemed desirable with a view to selling them on for profit. The .com domains are considered to have the highest value although .net and .org can also fetch a high price provided the rest of the domain name is competitive. One of the most expensive domain names at present is insure.com.
Ecommerce
If you or one of your clients wishes to have an online shop, then the site will need to be ecommerce in order for somebody to be able to purchase online. A common sign that a site is ecommerce is an “add to basket” or “shopping cart” feature. Check out our blog post on the on-page SEO for ecommerce.
Forums
A forum is the term used to describe a place online where people can discuss a certain topic and others can use it to find information. Forums can be a great source of information but be careful not to take everything as gospel as they are typically opinion based and if you are going to contribute yourself then do so wisely.
Gravatar
A gravatar is a globally recognised avatar (what’s an avatar I hear you cry?!). An avatar is a graphical representation that will appear by your content online, showcased on sites that decide they want an image to display by your work. An avatar could be a graphic that represents your business or it could be a photo of yourself. To get your gravatar, go to https://en.gravatar.com.
HTML
HTML is short for HyperText Markup Language, and this is the main language used in order to display content in a web browser. It might look a little confusing, but getting to grips with the basics such as how to create a header and how to make a link is really quite easy and there are plenty of online guides to help you further your understanding of various HTML elements.
Inbound Links
The term inbound links is a relatively new term that simply describe the aforementioned backlinks. This serves to demonstrate how difficult it can be to get to grips with the basics of internet marketing, but knowing which terms overlap is half the battle!
JPEG
This is a file format used to compress images without losing the quality of them and is the most common file format for transmitting photos on the web.
Keywords
If you wanted to look for information about cats on the internet, you would most likely type “cats” into the search engine so that it can deliver the most relevant results. “Cats” is the keyword in this scenario, so when it comes to choosing keywords for internet marketing purposes, it’s important to think of what you want your business to be found for and what potential customers are likely to type in as this will give you the best chance of being found online for the right reasons.
Landing Page
This is the first page a person will land on after clicking through from a link somewhere else; be it on a search engine results page or other advertisement. Any page of your site has the potential to be a landing page, including your homepage.
Meta Descriptions
When you type in a keyword and those sites relevant to your search appear on the search engine results page (SERP), you will notice that underneath the link to the site there is a snippet of text; this is known as the meta description. If you do not create custom meta descriptions, the search engine will take a section of the text from the page to use which might not be the best text for showcasing your business. Editing your meta descriptions to provide a punchy sentence describing the content of the page can make a big difference to the amount of people clicking through to your site.
This resource has been designed to be referred back to time and time again; a cheat sheet for new marketers and businesses alike. In part two, we will be discussing outbound links, pay per click and much more so be sure to stop back for the second installment in a couple of days!
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