Glossary of Terms
Digital Marketing jargon and terminology can get a little confusing sometimes which is why we have composed our very own Glossary Of Terms.
Please do let us know if you find these helpful or if you have any more to add to the list.
Alt-Text: Also known as Alt Attributes, these tags (code) are embedded within the image and are utilised to explain and describe the image to users who cannot visually see it. They also provide better image context to search engines, allowing them to index the image correctly.
Anchor Text: The associated and optimised text displayed for a link on a website gives both the user and search engine more information about the link on the page.
Average Order Value: This figure would be used for an ecommerce website. This metric measures the average amount of money spent each time a customer makes a transaction on your website (see ‘Transactions’)
Average Session Duration: The average duration of all the sessions performed within the specified time frame. (See ‘sessions’).
Backlinks: Links that point towards your domain from external domains. These links are either follow (benefit SEO) or no follow (no SEO benefit).
Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors where there was no interaction with the page by the user and they immediately left the website and returned to find an alternative source for their query.
Broken Links: Links are simply links on a website that no longer work because the website has experienced a specific issue such as the web page has been removed or the web page no longer exists. An error message (404) will be returned in this instance by the web server.
Canonical URL/Tags: A canonical tag ("rel canonical") is a method of telling search engines that a specific URL represents the master copy of a page. Using a canonical tag can help prevent "duplicated" content from appearing on multiple URLs.
Click-Through Rate: The number of clicks you receive divided by the number of times your link was viewed on Google search (clicks divided by impressions).
CMS: A CMS stands for Content Management system. We use many CMS’ such as Umbraco, Wordpress, Mura and Coldfusion to name a few for website development. It is the computer system that is used to manage content allowing multiple users to create, edit and publish the content.
Content Marketing: A type of marketing involving creating and sharing informative, valuable and relevant content to attract the attention of and acquire a target audience; with the underlying objective of driving customer action and profit.
Content Writing: Creating content that entertains and attracts potential customers to your website and informs them about a certain topic/subject whilst subtly informing them about your brand, products or services. The content could be blogs, articles, magazine features or PDFs.
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO): The process of increasing the number of website visitors who perform a specific action such as making a purchase or a download of a brochure.
Copy Writing: Creating content that is used within marketing and advertising that pitches your brand, products or services to your customers. Examples are paid ad copy, web page content (for SEO), email campaigns or social media.
Core Web Vitals: A set of metrics from Google designed to improve user experience across all websites. Three primary areas measured are page load speed, interaction and visual stability. These are measured by the following metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
Crawling: A process carried out by search engines that involve distributing robots (crawlers or spiders) across the web to locate new content and web pages that are then added to their index (database). (See ‘Indexing’).
Domains: A domain (or domain name) is the address of your website on the World Wide Web and is displayed at the top of the browser page in the URL bar. (See ‘URL’). However, it is not the full URL displayed, only part of it. For example, www.yourdomain.co.uk.
Domain Authority: A metric that is given to a website that predicts the overall quality of a domain and how likely a website is to rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). The score is based on several ranking factors such as the number of backlinks, referring domains, organic search traffic, and other data.
E-E-A-T: It is an acronym for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These factors play a fundamental role in content quality and search engine optimisation under Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
Ecommerce Conversion Rate: The per cent of users who make a transaction on an ecommerce website.
Email Marketing: A type of marketing which prioritises customer relationship management to share informative, valuable and relevant content. It can be directed at current customers for retention, or potential customers for their attention.
External Links: Links that point from your website to pages on external domains.
Google Algorithm: The system used to deliver relevant content to the users of Google search with consideration for hundreds of factors that are analysed for each page.
Google Analytics: A Google tool that monitors tracks and reports on website traffic and provides additional insights including how users interact with your website, how your web pages are performing and other important metrics.
Google Best Practice: The core, standard SEO techniques that enable you to get the most out of your website. They are the ‘must-have’ or ‘must-do’ tactics for any SEO strategy.
Google Business Profile (GBP): (previously named Google My Business) A business listing tool that allows companies to advertise their brand, products and services and manage their online presence locally across Google search and maps, for free.
Google Search Console (GSC): A Google web analytics tool that provides organic traffic performance metrics and other technical checks including URL inspection, index status, mobile usability and more.
Header Tags (Headings): Header Tags are included within the HTML of a page and ensure that users and search engines can understand its content, hierarchy and can navigate it accordingly. There are multiple different heading types; H1s, 2s, 3s all the way to H6s.
Impressions: How often a user is shown your website on a Google search results page.
Indexing: Once Google has crawled your pages and your website, it saves the content and stores it in its database (index). Please note that a crawled website isn’t necessarily indexed.
Internal Links: Links that point towards other pages within your website.
Keywords: Keywords are the words, phrases and search terms users type into Google and other search engines.
Keyword Difficulty: This is a specific SEMrush metric used to express how hard it is to rank in the top positions (1-10) on Google for that specified search term. The higher the percentage, the more difficult it is to rank for that keyword.
Keyword Rankings: The position of your web page within a set of search results for a specific keyword or phrase. A single page can have multiple keywords ranking in the search results in different positions, depending on how well optimised it is for each phrase.
Landing Pages: The various pages on your website that your users ‘land’ on after clicking the links on the search engine results pages. These are normally your primary pages, including your home page.
Local SEO: The process of optimising your website and online presence to target a specific geographical location to ensure that your audience can find your business, shop or your physical store.
Meta Descriptions: A snippet of text displayed beneath your URL and title tag on a search engine results page with the purpose of enticing your customers to click through to your website.
New Sessions: The number of sessions performed by a user who has never visited your website before on that device. (See ‘sessions’).
New Users (Visitors): The number of visitors who are navigating your website for the very first time on that device. (See ‘users’).
Number of Sessions Per User: The average number of Sessions taken place per user. (see ‘Sessions’)
Off-Page SEO: The process of promoting your website through building links, social media and brand mentions to increase its authority and trustworthiness, consequently improving rankings.
On-Page SEO: The process of optimising your individual web pages, specifically their content, HTML code and metadata in order to improve their ranking positions on search engines.
Organic Traffic: The number of visitors that find, click and land on your website from a search engine results page.
Percentage of New Sessions: The percentage of the total sessions that were first-time visits.
Pages per Session: The average number of pages viewed per session within the specified time frame. Repeated views of a single page are counted in this metric. (See ‘sessions’).
Page Speed Insights: A Google web tool that provides in-depth analysis of a website’s page speed performance and identifies opportunities to optimise your website.
Page Views: The total number of pages that were viewed by your users (within the time frame specified on Google Analytics). Repeated views of a single page are counted in this metric. (See ‘users’).
Returning Visitors: The number of visitors who are navigating your website, who have done so before within the last 2 years.
Revenue: The total sales value of your website in the given period.
Robots TXT: A text file used to instruct Google on how to crawl your website e.g., what sections it is and isn’t allowed access to. It can exclude pages from being crawled by Google’s bots (crawlers/spiders).
Schema: Code inserted onto a webpage to help Google further understand its content. Schema can also allow Google to deliver more informative and rich search results to its users. For example, a recipe or an event.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): The technique used to achieve high ranking positions on search engines in order to obtain organic traffic.
Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs): The pages served by a search engine to a user which contain the results they deem relevant to the user’s search query, ranked from best to worst (highest to lowest quality).
Search Intent: This is the primary goal for a user when searching a query on a search engine. Users are searching for a specific type of answer or resource as they search.
Search Visibility: The percentage of clicks you are estimated to receive based on all of your organic keyword ranking positions being tracked in your campaign. The higher the percentage, the more clicks you are estimated to obtain.
Sessions: The number of group interactions that your users perform in a set time frame (standard is 30 minutes). These could include pages viewed, videos watched, purchases, downloads etc.
Technical SEO: The process of optimising the infrastructure of your website in order to assist search engine’s access, crawl and indexation of it – components that have a direct effect on your rankings.
Transactions: The total number of completed purchases on your website.
Title Tags: The title of your webpage inserted within your HTML code that is displayed on the search engine results page within your achieved ranking position.
URL: The full address of a specific page on the internet which includes the domain name along with where the page is located.
Users: The total number of new and returning visitors who used your website during the requested time period.
XML Sitemap: A sitemap is a file that lists certain pages of your website. Google can use the sitemap to better crawl your website and help it identify your most important pages.