Glossary of Lead Generation Terms

A

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A/B Testing
A/B testing (sometimes called split testing) is a comparison of two versions of the same web page in a quest to find which version offers the better conversion rate.

Abandonment Rate (aka Shopping Cart Abandonment)
This is when an online shopper starts an order but does not finish the checkout process and leaves without making a purchase.

Above the Fold
Above the fold is usually about 600 pixels from the top of the page or the bottom of the browser window. It is the part of a web page that is visible without having to scroll down.

Advertorial
Advertorials are ads that are put on the editorial section of a website to make it look like an unbiased article as opposed to a paid ad.

Adwords
AdWords is Google’s online advertising service that allows businesses to display ads on Google’s advertising Network. Based on keywords, the system allows business owners to set a budget for their ad and bid for the most visibility. Advertisers are charged each time an ad receives a click. Hence, this type of advertising is known as Pay-Per-Click or PPC.

Affiliate
An affiliate is an individual or organization that agrees to drive business to a company using an affiliate link. In return, the affiliate will receive a commission or reward for each lead received.

Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing where an organization offers marketers a means to earn money by attracting leads to the organization using an affiliate link.

Affiliate Network
An affiliate network links together companies and publishers that follow the affiliate marketing model. Affiliates can then sort through the various advertisers available to find the affiliate programs that suit their needs best.

Algorithm
An algorithm is a complex computer program used to sort and delineate bits of information. Search engines like Google rely on algorithms to deliver relevant search results to users.

ALT Tag
An ALT tag, otherwise know as “Alternative text,” is a text description given to an image. Alt Tags help search engines rank images properly, and they can also be used to describe images to the hearing impaired.

Analytics
Analytics is the analysis and measurement of various bits of data. In digital marketing, analytics typically refers to the measurement of website data, but can also be used for social media, apps, and other online elements. Analytics can help a webmaster determine the number of hits to a website in any given month, how many people visited a site and left immediately, and how many made a purchase, for example.

Anchor Text
Anchor text is the text that is displayed to readers in link form. Anchor text helps both website users and search engines determine where a link might lead.

Article Marketing
Article marketing is the practice of using informative, industry-specific articles to promote a business.

Attribution
Attribution is the identification of user-actions that produced a desired result.

Ad Extensions
An ad extension is additional data concerning a business/product that can be added to an advertisement, such as a link to a website or phone number. Extensions help the ad get noticed and provides alternate means of lead generation.

Advertising Network
An advertising network is a number of websites where a particular advertiser is in control of all of the ads on those sites.

Aggregate Data
Aggregate data is the data that describes how a section/group of customers/visitors respond to your marketing activities/efforts. This could indicate how a particular audience responds to picture ads, video ads, and what actions they take after seeing these ads.

AMP
AMP is an acronym that stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. This a project that is backed by Google which was designed as an open source incentive to help publishers create content that would load faster on mobile devices.

Analytics
Analytics is the collection of information about websites and their users. It is also called Web Metrics. It gives information on the clicks, pages viewed, how many visitors, how many new vs. old users, and more.

Astroturfing
Astroturfing is a term for messages or campaigns that are set up to be an organic occurrence but are in actually fake. They are defined by a company to hide business and the financial association between the company doing or generating the campaign and the campaign.

Automated Rules
Automated Rules is a Google Adwords feature that automates the adjustment of ad budgets, bids and ad statuses as per the specification of the individual.

Average Position
Average position tells you which rank your ad typically occupies on a search results page.

 

B

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B2B
B2B stands for: “Business-to-business”. Transactions that occur between two businesses e.g. transaction between a manufacturer and wholesale company is B2B, the transactions that occur between a wholesale company and a retail company is also B2B.

B2C
B2C means “Business-to-consumer”. This refers to a transaction that occurs between businesses and consumers. A B2C company can offer products and/or services.

Backlinks
Backlinks are links that are placed on other websites which help direct search engines and potential customers to a particular website. They are also referred to as “inbound links.”

Banner Ad
Banner Ads are prominent ads placed on a website that come in variety of shapes and sizes. The cost of banner ads vary depending on the size and shape, but also the advertiser. Leaderboards, skyscrapers, and inlines are all types of banner ads.

Black Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO is where various means/tactics are used to attempt to “trick” the Search Engines into giving a particular website high rankings. The practice is the opposite of white White Hat SEO. Black Hat is not a recommended practice because it usually ends up backfiring, with the website dropping in rankings rather than rising.

Blog
It is a fusion of two words, “web” and “log” to make “weblog” – which is essentially a log kept on the web. In marketing, blogs are articles written about industry-related subjects and are used to generate interest in a company and its offerings, drive leads, and entice subscribers to an email list, for instance.

Bottom of the Funnel
The “bottom of the funnel” is when leads are just about to “convert” into customers. This is the time when the individual has researched the company, shopped around, and is about to make a positive decision in the company’s favor. The next step is usually a purchase.

Bounce Rate
Your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who go to your website and leave without going to another page.

Brand Awareness
Brand Awareness is how easy or difficult it is for an individual to recognize a particular brand and link it back to a product. It is an essential part of marketing because people are more likely to buy from a brand they are aware of or know about.

Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty is how loyal a consumer is to a particular brand, despite how much the other brands advertise or entice them with better prices etc. This is demonstrated through the repeated patronage of the particular brand regardless of what competitors are doing.

BAIDU
Baidu is the largest search Engine in the world outside the US. It was started in the US, but currently mainly serves China.

Banned
To be banned from a Search Engine’s index is when a page is removed from the Search Engine’s index. This happens when a site violates or flouts their guidelines and rules. No notification is given when this happens. In some situations, a ban is fixable.

Beacons
Beacon is a technology that allows companies, mainly marketers and retail people, to connect wirelessly with consumers via their mobile devices using Bluetooth.

Behavioral Targeting
Behavioral Targeting is a form of marketing where ads are targeted to potential consumers based on the past browsing patterns. The point of this form of marketing is to present the ads to consumers who are more likely to accept/ receive the product being advertised.

Bing Ads Editor
Bing Ads Editor is a free application that is used to manage Bing search engine ad campaigns. It is downloadable and allows you to manage more than one account at the same time. You can also use it offline.

Bing Merchant Center
This is a tool created by Bing which enables you to upload product and store info (basically a catalog) onto the Merchant Center, so buyers can see it on Bing Shopping.

Brand Stacking
Brand Stacking or Domain Stacking refers to searches for a particular product or service whereby users can see more than one search result from a product’s or service’s domain on the first page.

Broad Match
A default matching system in Adwords, which allows your ad to show if a search includes any of your keywords and related words. This bid type is useful when you want your ad to reach a large audience.

Buyer Persona
Buyer Persona is a fictitious description of your ideal buyer that is developed using a combination of industry research, gathered customer data, and demographics to help marketers form an “image”. Buyer personas are often given a name, job title, hobbies, interests, likes, dislikes, and buying habits.

 

C

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Call To Action

A Call to Action is anything on a website that provokes, calls, asks, or invites website visitors to take an action. The CTA can be an image, video, or text and is often used to drive a purchase or subscription.

Channel Distribution

Channel Distribution is when products go through different hands/businesses to get to the final consumer.

Click-Through Rate

Click-through rate is a measurement tool used to measure the effectiveness of ads in Internet marketing. It shows how many clicks an ad receives out of the number of times the ad is displayed.

Cloaking

Cloaking is displaying one version of a website to the Search Engine and another to the person who will be visiting the webpage.

Closed Loop Marketing

Closed Loop marketing is when marketing distributes a campaign across a variety of channels to determine what happens to leads who enter and leave the sales funnel.

CMS – Content Management System

A content management system is an app that enables users with no knowledge of HTML to manage and edit their websites. WordPress.org is an example of a CMS.

Competition-Oriented Pricing

Competition-oriented pricing is a strategy used in pricing that is dependant on the price of competing products or services.

Content

Content is the information on websites and social media that users consume, be it text, a video, images, charts, or infographics.

 

Content Marketing

The creation and sharing of relevant, valuable content to attract and engage a target audience, ultimately driving profitable customer action.

Conversion Path

A conversion path is the path website visitors take to go from first-time visitor to subscriber or buyer.

Conversion rate

The Conversion rate of a website refers to the total number of purchases or sales that are made on the website divided by the collective number of people that visited the website over a period of time.

 

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

The practice of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action, such as filling out a form, to improve lead generation.

Cookies

Cookies are tiny bits of data kept in the web browser of an internet user even after they have left a website they visited. The information stored (cookie) on this user is recalled and sent back to the website’s server.

Cooperative Advertising

Cooperative advertising is an advertising form where two or more businesses share the cost of an ad.

Copy Testing

Copy testing is a test carried out on an ad to find out how effective it will be before it becomes public. It factors in key indicators like reactions, consumer feedback, and others to help decide if an ad is effective.

Copyright

Copyright is the legal right an originator is given for developing a piece of creative property. In online marketing, copyright usually refers to images, art, literature, content, music, photography, or videos. This prohibits anyone except the originator from people who may use it without permission or attribution.

Cost Per Acquisition

Cost per acquisition is an advertising cost structure that only requires a user to pay when an actionable event takes place as a result of the ad. E.g. when a sale is made or lead is acquired.

Cost Per Click

Cost per click is an ad strategy where the advertiser only pays when their ad is clicked on.

The advertiser usually selects a certain price/bid which is charged to them when people click on their ad.

Cost Per Impression

Cost per impression is an ad system related to web traffic where people pay anytime their ad is shown to their customers. Thus, every time an advertiser’s ad is viewed, they are charged.

Counter Advertising

Counter Advertising is when a company uses an already existing ad in an opposing manner so as to promote their own product or service.

Crawler

A Crawler is a software employed by search engines that “crawls” the internet and indexes data. Crawlers are sometimes called spiders, robots, or bots.

Creative Disruption

There are cases where target audiences may not be responding positively to an ad from the same business. Creative disruption happens when a highly creative ad causes a drastic change in the response of an otherwise non-responsive target audience.

Creative Strategy

A creative strategy defines how a business wants to be portrayed. It involves the materials being distributed, methods of distribution, tone of voice, and other elements of how the brand’s “Message” should be addressed.

CSS

CSS means “Cascading Style Sheet” and is used to manipulate the appearance of certain elements on a website, such as the color and size of text.

CRM – Customer Relationship Management

Customer relationship management is software that helps businesses manage their clients. Using CRM, sales and marketing can log email addresses, orders, requests made, and all communications for an easy-to-search database that makes selling easier.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction measures how satisfied customers are with a particular product or service.

 

D

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Dagmar

Dagmar stands for Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising results.

Businesses set defined goals for their ad campaigns, and this enables them to clearly see when/if the ad has accomplished its goal.

 

Deceptive Advertising

Deceptive advertising, as the name suggests, is an advertisement that misleads prospects in some way.

 

Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is when advert info is sent to customers directly. It could be through Telemarketing or sending direct cold emails to customers.

 

Domain Name

A Domain name is the online address of a business or a person.

 

Double Jeopardy

Double Jeopardy is a marketing law which advocates that businesses that have a lower market share have less brand loyalty and fewer buyers. There are a few exceptions to this rule but is very prevalent.

 

Double-Loop Marketing

Double-loop marketing is the practice of marketing when a business first creates a relationship with their potential customer base. Then once they have accepted and are familiar with what the business represents and have to offer, it becomes easy to convert them to actual paying customers.

 

Dynamic Content

Dynamic content, otherwise known as “dynamic” or “adaptive” is the content on a website that is adaptive or keeps changing. E.g. the blog section of a business’s website.

 

Daily Budget

A Daily budget is the amount an advertiser chooses to set for an ad campaign per day. The ad is then shown by the ad company for as many times as the advertiser’s budget can cover. e.g. $ 1 a day for 7 days. Therefore, the ad is shown as much as the ad bid will cover for the allotted $1 per day for 7 days and the advertiser pays $7 at the end of the 7-day period.

 

Delisting

Delisting is when websites or pages of a website are unlisted or de-indexed from a search engine. It can happen when a site is banned or for other reasons.

 

Description Tags

Description tags are HTML tags that describe a website in a way that the search engine comprehends. The description is also shown in search results to describe to search users what a page may be about. It is advisable to have the main keywords of your web page in description tags to help search engines – and users – find it easily.

 

Digital Marketing Funnel

A digital marketing funnel is a marketing model that describes the path a consumer must take to go from being a lead to making a purchase. There are 6 stages to this process: Exposure, Discovery, Consideration, Conversion, Customer Relationship, and Retention.

 

Display URL

A display URL is a URL that accompanies a displayed ad. For Google Adwords, the limit of characters allowed for a display URL is 35.

 

Domain Authority

A domain authority is a scoring system that projects how websites will rank in the search engines at a particular time. It was developed by MOZ. The scores start from zero and end at one hundred.

 

Doorway Page

A Doorway page is a web page which is set up to rank high in the organic listings of a search engine. However there isn’t enough information on it, but there might be a link or a call to action button asking the visitor to take an action e.g. “click here to enter”

 

Domain Name Monitoring

Is a service that allows you to keep an eye on a particular domain so that you can be notified when it becomes available. There are companies that provide this service.

 

Dynamic Retargeting

Dynamic retargeting allows you to show an ad to customers who have visited your site. The images and or information is shown in this ad are identical to what the visitors looked at while they were on your site.

 

Drip Marketing

Drip marketing sends collections of messages that are pre-written to their prospects or customers over a certain period of time. It is often used in email marketing.

 

E
EdgeRank
EdgeRank is an algorithm used by Facebook to determine which stories should show up on a user’s feed.

 

Eighty-Twenty Rule
This is a rule that suggests that eighty percent of one particular product will be sold to twenty percent of the customers. This is usually within a store/shop that sells other products too.

 

End-User
The end user is the person who ends up using the service or product that has been purchased. E.g when a customer purchases a gift for another person, they only pay for the product or service, but the person they give the gift to is the one who is the end-user.

 

Engagement Marketing
Engagement marketing involves the customer/potential customer in the creation of a brand.
In other words, engagement marketing uses content that is strategically thought through and useful to the customer to engage them in order to build a relationship over the course of time.

 

ESP
ESP is an Email Service Provider ESP – they are businesses which provide bulk email services and email marketing services. E.g. Aweber and MailChimp

 

Exposure
Exposure refers to the phenomenon of people hearing or seeing an ad or media message.

 

Eye Tracking
Eye tracking is used to track where site visitors’ eyes go when viewing a particular page. The science is used by marketers to improve their web pages and ads.

 

E-commerce
E-Commerce is basically commerce online or being able to buy and sell online. Products and services are purchased online and sent to the customer via delivery or in-store pickup.

 

Ego Keyword
An Ego Keyword is a keyword that a person insists has to rank high in search engines organically and paid search despite how expensive it is or whether it will deliver a return on investment (ROI).

 

Email Campaign System
An Email Campaign System is one that enables businesses/companies to send out messages with a standard style to their email lists.

 

E-Marketing
E-marketing is another way to say internet marketing or digital marketing. There are numerous strategies E-Markers use to generate leads or sales, some of these include Pay per Click Advertising, Social Media Advertising, and Search Engine Optimization.

 

Enhanced Bidding
This is a Google Adwords feature that allows you to change your bid to raise your level of conversions.

 

Exact Match
Exact Match is an Adwords ad type that is only displayed when the search term has the keyword that you put in specifically.

 

F

Facebook Retargeting
This is a cookie-based technology that uses Javascript code to learn what customers like when visiting certain websites, and then displays those types of ads when those users return to Facebook.

FBX
FBX in the abbreviation for Facebook Exchange, and is where Facebook retargeting is done. FBX allows you to reach visitors of your website on Facebook who showed an interest in your product or service.

FCC
FCC is the Federal Communications Commission, the government body in charge of the regulation of electronic and broadcast communications. The FCC makes the rules and ensures people abide by them.

Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is a government body that regulates advertising nationally.

First Party Leads
First Party Leads refer to the contact information gathered directly from a potential customer.

Flash
Flash is the animation software/platform that enables the creation of complex or fast-paced movements on a site.

Flat Rate
A flat rate fee is a fixed rate and cannot be changed or negotiated.

Flighting
Flighting is an advertising term in which messages are scheduled to be displayed at certain times and then not shown at other times. The time when an ad is displayed is called a “flight.”

Focus Group
A small group of people from different walks of life who gather or come together to discuss a particular subject. Sometimes it’s to come up with a solution for a problem. A topic of discussion of a focus group could be a product, a project, or a service.

Forum
A forum is a site or webpage that is used as a message board. Users can find information through other people’s contributions and they can make contributions of their own.

Full-Service Agency
An agency that takes care of all the processes involved in advertising for a business or an individual.

 

G

Generic Brand
A product that does not have a private or known brand name is termed as a Generic Brand.

 

GEO-Targeting
This kind of targeting is based on geographical location, where visitors on a website are targeted based on where they are located geographically.

 

Google+
Google’s social media network.

 

Gross Audience
The total number of people a marketing campaign reaches counted across all modes of the campaign (blogs, websites, social media, etc.) is what is referred to as a Gross Audience.

Guerrilla Marketing
Guerrilla marketing is using unorthodox ways to market/sell a product or service. An example of is sticker bombing.

 

H
Header Tags
HTML tags that are used to distinguish headings from the rest of text on the page is what we call Header tags.

Hit
A Hit is when a visitor goes to a website – the action of a person going to a website is described as a hit.

HTML
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It is used by programmers to build/create websites.

 

Hyperlink
It’s something (usually text or image) on a website that one can click on to be taken to another part of the document, another page, or a totally different document.

 

I
Image Attribution
Image Attribution is when credit is given or “attributed” to the person who created the image. This could be a photograph or drawing.

Impression
When a person visits, clicks, or views a website or ad it’s called an impression.

 

Inbound Link
An inbound link is also called a “backlink”. These are links that are placed on other websites/pages that lead back to a particular website.

Inbound Marketing
Using content from your website to promote your business, i.e. through videos, infographics or blogs. The content created for this kind of marketing is engaging and helps the business “bond” or create a relationship with the potential customer.

 

Income Report
This is a report of how much money was made and how much money was spent over a period of time by a business/website.

Indexed
In digital marketing, a website is referred to as “indexed” when it is listed and can be found in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Internal Link
An Internal link is one that is placed on a webpage of a site that links to a different page on that site.

Internet Marketing
Internet Marketing is using the internet for marketing in simple terms. Some of the strategies used in Internet Marketing include Search Engine Optimization, Banner Advertising, and Search Engine Marketing.

Interstitial (ad)
This is an Ad that shows up just before or after you get to the page you’re trying to visit.
There are times where these pages have content that confirms your age before being allowed to go to your original webpage destination.

 

J

JavaScript

Javascript is programming language used for complex moving images and other enhanced functionality to help improve the user experience on websites. It was created by Netscape and is responsible for showing interactive maps, on-time content updates, animated two and three D graphics and more.

 

K

Keyword

A Keyword is a search term that internet users type key/type in when they conduct a search in search engines like Google. Also known as a “search term,” keywords are also the “search terms” people bid on in search engine marketing when they are looking to get more visitors to their landing page or website. Search Engine Optimization uses keywords along with other strategies to help websites rank higher in search engines.

 

Keyword Difficulty

Keyword Difficulty is done by the SEOMoz tool for research and it computes how easy or difficult it would be to rank high in the search engine for certain keywords. It is harder to compete with popular keywords than it is to compete for lesser known ones.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is a negative practice of excessively “stuffing” keywords (sometimes keywords that have little to no relevance to the subject) into meta tags as a way to cheat for higher rankings. This practice was prevalent in the early days of the search engines, but most engines have updated their algorithms to catch such deceptions.

 

Keyword Tags

Keyword Tags are HTML Tags that describe search terms/keywords on a website. They can hold up to 10 keywords that may be related to the page’s content.

 

L

Landing Page

Your Landing page is the first point of contact a visitor sees when they come to your website from an ad. It is usually the home page of the website, but it can be any of the pages on the website. A landing page is typically used to gather leads. That is why it important that the page contain a call-to-action to inspire visitors to act.

 

Link Building

Link Building is the process of gathering links to your website from other online sources. While once crucial to search engine optimization (SEO), due to rampant tricks and deceptions by Black Hat SEO marketers, link building is no longer as necessary for gaining prominent rankings in the search engines.

 

Link Juice

Link Juice is the value or “weight” a link carries or holds based on the authority of the website where the link originates. For example, government sites have high link juice, which could contribute to higher rankings when placed on a relevant website.

 

Link Popularity

Link Popularity “measures” the number of websites that link to your website. The more authority sites link back to your website, theoretically, the higher you will rank in the search engines.

 

Local Search

A local search allows you to search for websites or businesses that are in a specific location. E.g. If someone goes on holiday in France, and they are staying in the capital Paris, they may search for “diners in Paris” or “coffee shops in Paris.” In SEO, local search refers to using locales in marketing campaigns for the purpose of attracting nearby leads.

 

Local Business Listing

All the well-known search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! give local businesses the chance to be listed in their search engines. Businesses can claim a listing if it’s been already added to the Search Engines Index, or they can submit their business to be listed. They don’t necessarily have to have a website to be listed in the local business listings.

 

M
Made For Adsense
Websites created for the sole purpose of making money with Google’s Adsense program are termed as “Made for Adsense” or MFA.

 

Marketing Automation
Marketing Automation refers to software technologies or platforms that use a combination of well known online marketing strategies such as SEO, Social Media Management, Email Campaign etc… as a tool for marketers. It automates a lot of the regular activities marketers have to do when using these marketing strategies.

Marketing Communication
Marketing Communication, also referred to as MarCom can be loosely defined as all the means (i.e. media and messages) a business or an individual uses to communicate with their target market.

 

Marketing Research
The gathering and analysis of information concerning any part of selling/marketing a service or product is what is termed as Marketing Research. This enables marketers to know what type of marketing is affecting or impacting the customer and in what ways.

 

Materiality
This term is usually used in relation to deceptive marketing. The Federal Trade Commission regulates ads, deceptive ads included. So, for such an ad to be regulated, it has to be evident that the ad has some type of (usually a tangible/material) impact on the customer’s decision or action towards a product/service.

 

Meta Description
A short text that is displayed in the search engine results. They show up in the heading/head section of a webpage. Even though it doesn’t directly affect the SEO of a site, if a website’s keyword is in the meta description, there a greater chance that visitors might click to go there.

 

Meta Tags
Meta tags are tags that let you accentuate keywords related to your website that search engines might find relevant. Alt Tags and header tags are examples of Meta Tags.

 

Microblogging
Certain platforms only allow uses to post a certain number of characters (for example, 140 characters for Twitter). When posting on these “microblogs,” one is said to be “microblogging.”

 

Middle of the Funnel
Middle of the funnel is a term derived from the marketing funnel that describes the process after the prospect has become a lead and before the prospect has made a purchase.

 

Mobile Marketing
This is a type of Marketing that is aimed at users of mobile devices like tablets and smartphones.

 

Monetize (Monetization)
To monetize simply means to “make money from”. When features or ads are introduced onto a website for the purposes of making money, it is described as monetizing the website.

 

Money Site
This is a website where an individual or business generates the most money from.

 

Multivariate Testing
Multivariate testing is a means for testing an assumption where many variables are modified. The purpose of this is to find out which combinations of variables work best.

 

N

Nascent Market
Newly developed small markets are called Nascent Markets.

 

National Brand
A Brand that is known and distributed nationwide or within a given region. Unlike a store brand that can only be found/distributed in that particular shop.

 

Natural Listing
Natural listings or “Organic Listings” refers to the listings in a search engine that have arrived there naturally as a result of search engine optimization. For instance, the website owner didn’t have to pay for ads.

 

Negative SEO
Is when a business/an individual takes measures to negatively affect their competitor’s ranking with Google and other search engines. One way people do this is by hacking a site and putting backlinks in the hacked site’s HTML code, which can adversely affect the competitor’s rankings in the Search Engines.

Next-Best-Action Marketing
A type of marketing that is customer based, the “next best” action to be taken is always dependant on the customer.

 

Neuromarketing
This a pretty new technique in marketing where they use neuroscience to sort of predict how the consumer will act or respond. This form of marketing takes the behavior of the human brain into consideration and tries to produce ads that will appeal to the brain of consumers subconsciously.

 

O

Off-Page Optimization
Off-page optimization is the influences that the owner of a website may not be able to control, like backlinks located on other websites.

 

Offsite SEO
Offsite SEO is the kind that happens outside of a website such as in sharing on social media and link building.

 

On-Page Optimization
This is a key term that refers to what things you can do on your page and or through coding that will help your website gain positive ranking in Search Engines.

Some things you can do to on your website that can help with optimization include putting in outbound links, keyword placement, title tags, and meta tags to name a few.

 

One Way Link
This is a link that, as the name suggests, only takes a website visitor “one way”; it takes the visitor to a site with no way of getting back to where they came from.

 

Onsite SEO
These are means that are used to help to make a website SEO friendly.

 

Opt-In
Opt-in is when a person provides contact information via a “signup” form or any form that allows you to either add them to a subscription list or email list.

Organic Link
An inbound link to a particular website, that was not solicited for but happened to be created in the course of normal browsing or web activity.

 

Outbound Link
Outbound links are links from a website, that points visitors/users outside that site toward another one.

P
Page Rank
The level of authority a website has is determined by their “page rankings”. e.g. If your page ranks 10 it means your website has the most (a lot of) authority. If it ranks 3 or 4, then your page is not so authoritative.

 

Page Title
These act as the headings for pages on a website. For instance, the “About” section is a title for the about page or the page where you write about your business, and “Gallery” is the title of the page where pictures and slide shows might go.

 

Pageview
After your website is loaded, when a visitor to your website views one of your pages, it’s called a page view.

 

Paid Inclusion
This is where search engines get paid to include paying websites in their indexing. This practice does not guarantee a high ranking and has received quite a bit of criticism.

 

Panda
Google Panda is an update that was made to the search results rank algorithm of Google. This was done in 2011 with the aim of lowering the rankings of some sites which are considered to be low quality, such as from content farms.

 

Pay Per Click
This is also referred to as PPC, where an advertiser is charged/billed only when people click on their ad. It’s the same as “Cost per click”

Payment Threshold
A payment threshold is a term used in affiliate marketing to describe a minimum amount that the affiliate has to earn before the payment is issued.

 

Penalty
When search engine rules or regulations are violated, penalties are given out to violators.

Penguin
The informal nickname given to a major Google algorithm update whereby many websites lost rankings due to unscrupulous SEO practices. The update was designed to regulate artificial backlinks, blog spam, and widget bait.

 

Plugin
A module that is installed within software to add functionality.

 

Popunder
This is an ad that opens a new window/tab when you go to a certain website, It’s not as annoying as pop-ups because they do not disrupt what the user was doing.

Popup
A popup is an ad that literally “pops up” when you visit certain websites. It usually opens up on the same page the visitor is viewing and can become annoying to the user.

Private Label Rights
This is a license that some digital products have which permits reuse, modification, or reselling.

 

Q
Qualified Lead
When you have information on a lead, PLUS more information that makes them a perfect fit for a particular service or product.

 

Query
A Query is also called a “search term” or a “keyword” This is what people key in to search different things on the Internet. Search query reports from Google Adwords shows you what actual terms people type in to get to ads versus the keywords or query terms you advertise.

Quality Index
Quality Index is like Yahoo’s “version” of Google’s Adwords Quality Score. It can affect a user’s cost per click and ranking.

Quality Score
A Quality Score is a number that Google Adwords awards to advertiser accounts based on guideline adherence and ad response. A low quality score can contribute to higher ad fees while a higher quality score can save advertisers money. The score is based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest.

 

R
Readability
This is the ease with which text on a website may be read and understood. There are some sites where Readability is terrible and there are other sites where it’s very easy to read and understand what is written.

Reciprocal Link
A Reciprocal Link is when websites exchange backlinks.

 

Redirect
This is when a web user intending to go to a particular website is pointed or steered to another website. This can happen if a website has moved to another web address, and it has been set up in such a way that going to the old address re-routes the user to the new and current web address.

Responsive Web Design
When a website is designed in such a way that it is easy to read, easy to navigate and gives users an excellent viewing experience, AND can be viewed with ease on various devices, then it can be termed as Responsively Designed Site.

 

Retargeting
Retargeting is putting your ad in front of a customer even after they have left your website. The practice uses cookies to showcase ads the prospect might be interested in, even as they visit other sites or their social media profiles.

 

Return On Investment
A Return on investment is the income that comes in after you invest money and time into something. In online marketing, it is usually how much profit you make after you put in money for an ad or an action that is expected to bring income.

 

Rich Snippet
Rich Snippets are used to highlight certain pieces of information within search engines, such as addresses and phone numbers, making them easily accessible to search users.

 

Robots.txt
HTML code which is inserted at the beginning of a website’s directory that tells search engine crawlers what to read and what not to read when determining indexing and rankings.

 

RSS
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication,” and is a data feed system that delivers website content or website updates to a person as opposed to them actually navigating to the site to get this information.

 

S

Sales Funnel
This marketing model visualizes the path with which leads take to become customers. Prospects enter at the top of the funnel, then they spend time in the middle of the funnel, and then they move to the end, which is usually where they make a purchase.

 

Scraping
Scraping is the practice of “scraping” or stealing data from webpages, such as the text or images.

Search Engine Marketing
Using Search Engines to market products/services to a target audience is called Search Engine Marketing or SEM. Any form of marketing that has to do with the search engines can be classified as Search Engine Marketing and marketers usually use PPC, SEO, or other paid avenues to influence the search engines to showcase more prominent results in favor of the advertiser.

Search Engine Optimisation
Search Engine Optimization is when a website is optimized or made to be “user-friendly” for search engines so that the website can receive the best rankings in the search engine results naturally.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
This is the page displayed to a user after they put in a query on Google or any search engine. The results show organic or natural listings and paid advertisers that are relevant to the user’s query.

Searchability
Searchability refers to the ease of finding a particular website within a search engine.

 

Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is when websites share a server equally.

 

Shopping Cart Software
A shopping Cart is software installed on a site that allows users to browse items within an ecommerce site, select the items they want (which will put those items into their shopping cart), and then pay for those items when they decide to check out.

 

Site Audit
This is a full “inspection” of how well a website is performing, to see if the website is up to par on all established goals.

Skimmable
Content that is easy to read or “skim” through.

Smarketing
Smarketing is the term given to the alignment of sales and marketing, which helps to contribute to more profitability and efficiency.

Social Bookmark
When a user/visitor puts the link of a website into a public site like Pinterest, it becomes a backlink to that website and is known as a Social Bookmark.

Social Media
Social media can be described as applications, platforms or websites that are used for social interactions. Like Facebook, Google +, Twitter, etc.

 

Social Share
This is when a website gets shared on social media.

Social Signals
Social signals are used in SEO for measuring a website’s popularity depending on how much it’s discussed, how many likes it has and how many times it’s been shared on social media.

Spam
Emails or messages that are sent to a person without their consent or without them making any inquiry are known as Spam.

 

Spinning
Spinning is usually used in Article Writing when the writer gets some content/article and rewrites it in a new way.

Split Testing
This is when two or more versions of a web element are tested to determine which one is the better one to use based on performance. Split testing can be used on titles, descriptions, titles, images, and more.

 

Stickiness
Stickiness is when websites have content that keeps users returning. Sites that are considered sticky usually contain tools which are useful to users like Logo Generators.

Subscriber
A subscriber is a visitor that has opted-in or consented to have a business contact them. They can be added to email lists and SMS lists, and the business can then send out messages with the purpose of converting the subscribers to paying customers.

 

T

Tags
Tags are words that categorize images, blog posts, and/or videos that help with visibility when properly and correctly optimized for SEO.

 

Target Audience
A target audience is the section of people a business thinks will purchase their product or service. This is usually based on demographics, for instance income, job title, location, and gender.

 

Target Market
A target market is the people a business “targets” or aims to market to.

 

TLD
TLD is an acronym for “Top Level Domain.” Examples are “.com” in toporganicleads.com or “.org” in WordPress.Org.

 

Top of the Funnel
The Top of the funnel is Stage One of the sales funnel model where a potential customer first encounters you, your product, or service.

 

Top-Of-Mind Awareness
Top-of-mind awareness is the ease with which a prospect or customer remembers a brand, product or service. For example, consumers might think of Samsung or Apple when the mobile phone industry is mentioned. Or when search engines are mentioned, a consumer might first think of Google.

Tracking Code
A Tracking code is a JavaScript that is copied from a Google analytics account of an individual or business and pasted on their website to allow data from the website to be tracked by Google.

 

Twitter
Twitter is a microblogging social network where users can post text up to 140 characters and pictures. These posts are called “tweets” and users communicate on the network using “tweets” “retweets” and others.

 

Twitter Retargeting
Twitter uses “Tailored Audiences” to retarget your ad campaigns so that people who have interacted with your business on your website can see what they were looking at on your site again as ads in their Twitter news feeds.

 

U
Unique visitor
In web analytics, a unique visitor is one that visits a particular website in the period when the report is run at least one time.

URL
A URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. This is a combination of letters and symbols that indicate the web addresses of websites.

Unique Value Proposition
A Unique Value Proposition is what you bring to the table that your competitors don’t.

Usability
A website that allows a user easy navigation and user-friendliness is what Usability is all about.

User-Generated Content
This is content created by those who use a product or service. This type of content is normally seen as images and videos on social media, but can also include blog comments.

 

V
Viral Content
This is content that goes around the internet and gets shared among a large number of people, usually within a very short period of time. These included videos and social media posts.

Virtual Private Server
Also known as VPS, it is a server that runs Linux or Windows that one can go into remotely.

 

Visitor
A user that goes to a particular website is described as a “visitor” to the site.
W

Webinar
A webinar is like a “seminar on the web” It is an internet event where there are usually hosts, moderators, and speakers who present on a topic using Powerpoint. Participants are able to listen, view and sometimes contribute (make comments, ask questions).

 

Website
A place on the internet with one or more pages.

 

Web 2.0
Refers to websites that are not static like earlier versions were. Web 2.0 sites are more complicated and tend to contain blogs, social media sharing, and video sharing.

 

White Hat SEO
This is the “good” kind of SEO – the kind of Search Engine Optimization you want for your business. It is also termed “Ethical SEO” – this kind of optimization keys in on humans, does not get involved with manipulating search crawlers, and adheres strictly to the rules and regulations required by the Search Engines.

 

Word Of Mouth Advertising
This kind of advertising is usually done by the consumers of a product or service. The customers talk about the service or product to other people, such as family and friends, who may then go on to tell others. According to a recent study, Word of Mouth Advertising is still a very trusted mode of advertising with over 90% of people declaring it trustworthy.

 

WordPress
Wordpress.org is a Content Management System. WordPress.com is a free blogging tool and hosting service.

 

X
XML Sitemap
Is a list of pages on a website that allows search engine crawlers to easily find all the pages on that site.

 

Y
YouTube
YouTube is a video sharing website owned by Google. It was started by three former employees of Paypal and was later bought by the search giant.

 

Z
Z-Index
This is a property of CSS that lets you have better control positioning elements that overlap. It is used sometimes for Black Hat SEO.