Glossary of Internet Marketing Techie-Terms (for non-technical people)

Transcription

1 Glossary of Internet Marketing Techie-Terms (for non-technical people)

2 ALT text tag: Behind-the-scenes code that helps search engines read, translate and index images on a web page. An image can be a photograph, a logo, or even a call-to-action button. The alt text is a prime, and often overlooked, area to also include a relevant keyword. Anchor text: The visible words of a hyperlink. The anchor text is often displayed in a blue colored font and may be underlined. When linking to another web page, or web site, rather than keying in that often ugly and long destination URL, instead select keyword-rich anchor text with the hyperlinked U.R.L. code residing in the background. Auto-responder: A follow-up , or series of s automatically sent to recipients who have previously responded to a lead-capturing campaign, and have voluntarily provided (opt-in) their address to the sender. Auto-responder s are written ahead of time, then automatically sent at specified time-frames. For example I could expect to receive a follow-up auto-responder after opting in for a free 3 month subscription. The auto-responder series would likely thank me for the trial, then ask if I would be interested in continuing the subscription on a paid basis. Banner ad: An advertisement, usually located at the top of a web page, in the shape of a rectangle. Similar to a brick-and-mortar business hanging a banner over their front entrance advertising a clearance sale, or grand opening. Best practices: Generally accepted guidelines and standards set-forth to ensure integrity, transparency, and responsibility for the writing and coding of web pages, landing pages, auto-responders, blogs, etc. Google has published guidelines for design & content, technical, and quality related coding. HubSpot has published, and continues to publish, best practices and guidelines for blogging, landing pages, SEO, and other Inbound Marketing related activities. Black Hat SEO: Just say no! There are tricksters out there who employ tactics intended to achieve search engine indexing for a irrelevant keyword, just to increase traffic to the site. It's a bad idea. Google and the other search engines employ very smart people who have written very good code to sniff-out these tactics. Rather than wasting time and energy on these tactics, spend that time writing and producing relevant, quality, remarkable content that visitors want to read. Blog: Originating from the term web log, a blog can be a stand-alone type of web site, or integrated as part of a web site. A blog is usually a word article written with the intent of informing or entertaining the reader, not selling a product or service. Blogging is becoming more accepted in business use as companies integrate blogs into their commercial web sites. Search engines consider each blog post as another page of the web site, which helps builds the number of indexed pages for that company's U.R.L. Blogs have the option of allowing visitors to post comments, which makes a blog article interactive, as opposed to a static web page that visitors can only read. Blog Tool: A module within the HubSpot software that reminds the blogger of important keywords that could possibly be used within the context of the article topic. Bounce rate: When used in the context of website visitors, a bounce rate refers to the number of visitors who left the site without taking any further action once arriving at the site via a search engine, a pay-per-click ad, or other link. When used in the context of an campaign the bounce rate refers to the percentage of s that never made it to the recipients in-box for any number of reasons

3 including being blocked by a spam filter. Browser: Examples of browsers are Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome. A browser is software that allows the user to access, find, and display web pages. Anybody remember Netscape? Call-to-Action (CTA & C2A): A request that the visitor do something. A call-to-action could be in the form of a button, an image, or just hyperlinked text. Every ad (especially PPC ads) should have some sort of call-to-action (order today, try it free for 30 days, take our survey, etc). The call-to-action should be directly linked to an extremely targeted landing page, rather than the home page. When a user clicks on a Take Our Survey button, that button had better lead the user directly to the survey (landing page) and not to the site's home page where the user then has to click around looking for the survey. Click-through-Rate (CTR): Used when measuring the effectiveness of an online campaign. For example, while running a Google AdWord campaign I would calculate the click-through-rate by dividing the number of impressions (number of times the ad was shown) by the number of times the ad was actually clicked on. Code: The behind-the-scenes language of a web page. The code tells the browser how to properly display the web page. Collaborative community: Wikipedia is a great example of a collaborative community. Wikipedia has millions of indexed web pages and continues to grow, expand, and improve as we all volunteer our knowledge for the benefit of all. Commercial enterprises can, and should, adapt this model to their own businesses. Employees have so much more to offer (usually on a volunteer basis) if there is a proper environment established in which to do so. Watch the video: Drive by Dan Pink CompetitorGrader : A HubSpot tool that takes pertinent public data from your competitor's web sites, crunches it through HubSpot's software, then displays the data in a useful format. Content: A broad term used to describe the text, copy, images, and rich media like video, audio, and animation, etc contained on any given web page. Anything that the user can see, read, watch, listen to, or interact with can be considered content. Google loves content because users want content. When I Google How to Update itunes on my old ipod, Google had better return links to web pages with step-by-step instructions, and a few How-To videos, as well. I don't want to shop and compare prices for ipods on Shopzilla. I don't want to read ipod reviews on Amazon. I want how-to instructions. And, I need them NOW! Search engines are getting better, smarter and faster at returning more relevant results from web sites with relevant content, even if the website is smaller than the goliath amazons and others out there. Content Management System (CMS): A software program used to manage and organize all of the associated content (code, images, documents, etc.). A website CMS often contains templates and tools that make it easier for non-technical people to manage content, upload photos, and add pages to their own websites without requiring help of a web designer or I.T. Professional.

4 Conversion rate: The percentage of users who took a desired action. For example, of the 100 visitors to the page, 10 visitors completed the form to download the white-paper So this page, or this offer, had a 10 % conversion rate, or is converting visitors into leads at 10%. Copywriter: Someone who writes the copy (text, content, the words) for web sites, , blogs, direct mail, video scripts, etc. Most copywriters are freelance writers. However, some larger advertising and marketing agencies have in-house copywriters on staff. Cost Per Click (CPC): The cost, the actual amount of money, that the advertiser will pay to the publisher (like Google) when a user clicks on that advertiser's ad (like AdWords). Delicious: A social bookmarking site that helps users manage, store, share, and access particular web pages from any computer. Digg: An internet community of people who read, share and vote-on newsworthy articles online. Digg compiles articles from all over the internet. These are then published on Digg with a special Digg button. As visitors read the articles, and Digg them, the credibility (thus popularity) of that article starts to build. Domain Name: The registered word-name, or nick-name, part of the larger U.R.L. A domain name can be associated with one or several I.P. addresses. This is a simplified definition of something much more complex and technical. Domain Registrars: GoDaddy & Network Solutions are examples of registrars companies who help users properly register a domain name, and direct it to the correct I.P. address. Download: When a user accesses a file from an outside source (web page, i-tunes, etc) and brings that file into their own computer. Electronic mail (versus paper-based mail) that is delivered to a computer's in-box via the internet through an service. Popular services include Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo!. list: A list of addresses. An opt-in list is a list that a company has built over time as visitors have voluntarily given that company their addresses. There are other lists available, usually for purchase, of addresses compiled from a variety of sources. If you consider using one of these purchased lists, be sure you have an understanding of the CAN-SPAM act. blast: Sending an to a large number of addresses all at once. This usually requires the help of an marketing service. marketing service: A company that helps businesses create and send bulk s, newsletters, surveys, etc. MailChimp and Constant Contact are examples of these service providers. E-newsletter: Similar to a standard newsletter containing information about new products, new employees, education and informational copy, except it is delivered in electronic format to an inbox rather than printing it on paper and mailing it to a physical address.

5 Embedding video or other rich media: This is the process of adding specific code to a web page so when a user clicks on the link something cool will happen. For example, a video will play, or a graphic will animate. This makes viewing your web site much more interesting. Luckily, YouTube has helped make embedding video to your web page super-easy to do. Facebook: A popular social networking site that helps users connect and share information, photos, etc with other Facebook friends. Facebook for Businesses: A Facebook page that represents a commercial entity rather than an individual. Business Facebook pages acquire followers through Likes, whereas individuals go through a Friend Request process. A business Facebook page is an excellent social marketing tool, if done correctly and consistently. First screen: The immediately viewable area of a web page without having to scroll down. This is similar to the phrase above the fold for all of us who remember reading the newspaper the most important news articles appeared above the fold. The same theory hold true in our digital world. Don't make your web site viewer scroll down to find important information make sure it is immediately viewable on the first screen. Follow-up s: See Auto-responder Footer: The area of a web page that usually contains the same information, such as the address, phone number, fax number, etc and is consistent for every page of that web site. Golden Triangle: The upper left hand area of a web page that most human eyes look at first. When building a web page, keep in mind that the human eye pays most attention to this area. Most humans do not read every single word on a web page. We scan. We start at the top left, go across top right, then middle left, middle right, then lower left. Some people call it the F area. Most readers pay little attention to the bottom right area of a web page. Sophisticated heat-mapping software and extensive testing has been done on this. Don't allow design to overrule usability. A good web site is all about helping your customers, and potential customers, find solutions to their problems. Not about stroking the ego of a web designer. Google: A very popular search engine. Google AdSense : A program within Google. Participants can EARN money every time a user clicks on a particular ad. Google AdWords : A program within Google. Advertisers PAY money to Google every time a user clicks on a particular ad. Google Analytics : Google's web performance software that allows Google to track activity on your web site by installing their special tracking code. Many hosting companies provide some sort of analytics as part of their hosting package, but Google has some pretty cool tools and metrics to help make better decisions about what is working, and what is not working on one's own web site. Googlebot: Bots, also called spiders, automatically crawl the web looking for nuggets of information

6 (code) that will help them identify and properly index every web page they come across. If we can provide good, clean, fresh, relevant code describing what our page is really about, Google will reward us with a link to our web page from their search engine results page when users enter a matching search query. Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page): The page(s) of links to other web sites that Google deemed relevant in accordance with the keyword entered by the user into the Google Search Box. Guest blogging: Allowing other people (usually industry experts) to contribute their knowledge to your web site via posting blog articles. This is a great way to increase your own web site s popularity and number of indexed pages. Hero shot: An image of the product, the offer, or a person depicting the benefit of the product or offer. Hero shots can be large or small. There can be multiple hero shots per web page, or just one. It is important to put the hero shot on the left hand side of the web page. Again, sophisticated heat-mapping and extensive testing has proven this time and time again. Home page: The top-level page of a web site that most visitor arrive at first (usually, but not always). The home page should be clean, organized, and entice the visitor to DO SOMETHING! Times have changed, people, a home page is no longer an electronic version of your company brochure. The web is a place we all go to DO something, find information, find solutions to our problems, etc. Don't let your visitor just leave without doing something like downloading a white-paper, or filling out a survey, or watching a video, or ultimately purchasing the product or service you are selling. HTML: Stands for HyperText Markup Language. It is the code that most web sites are written in. HubSpot: Full Disclosure Here: I am a HubSpot customer turned raving fan turned partner/reseller. A company that creates internet marketing software that helps small businesses get found online. Hyperlink: The blue colored underlined text that, when clicked on, directs the user to a different page. Hyperlinks can also be behind the scenes of an image or button. Inbound links: When a different web site links TO your web site. Inbound marketing: Originally coined, in this context, by Brian Halligan, co-founder of HubSpot. Inbound Marketing relates to the marketing strategy and methodology used to help one's website get found by people searching for related products, services, or information via search engines and social media sites. Inbound marketing is in accordance with Permission Marketing as popularized by Seth Godin. I.P. Address: The unique identifying number of every computer on the internet. Internet Service Provider (ISP): A company that provides subscribers with access to the internet. Today, many cable television providers are also ISP's. I once heard an analogy that went something like An ISP is the on-ramp onto the information super-highway (the internet) and your browser is like a vehicle that is equipped to drive properly (web page display correctly) on this highway so the user

7 can enjoy the ride. Keyword: A word, or several words (keyword phrase, or long-tail keyword) that accurately describe what that particular web page is about. A keyword must be relevant to the general topic of the web page in order to be indexed properly by the search engines. SEO best practices suggest that there should be only one optimized keyword phrase per page. If there are two keyword phrases you want to optimize, build a second page. Then properly optimize that particular keyword, in several areas, on that particular page. KeywordGrader : A HubSpot tool that compiles data from across the web and crunches it through their software, returning insightful, meaningful data to help us identify and optimize the right keyword phrases that are relevant, and popular, yet not too competitive. Even when hiring the best search engine optimization consultants, there is no guarantee that your web page about a new garden tool you've invented will organically rank #1 for the keyword garden. At the time of this writing, there are over 2 billion related web pages indexed on Google for the keyword garden. Keyword grader helps us find a balance between a relevant, popular term that is not too competitive. Keyword research tools: In addition to HubSpot's tool, there are many other keyword researching tools such as Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery. Google has a pretty nifty keyword tool, and it is free. Landing page: A highly targeted web page designed with a specific intent. The Landing Page should honor the connected Call-to-Action. According to best practices, each Landing Page should request only the minimal amount of user information in context with the offer. In other words, if your Landing Page is related to signing up for a free e-newsletter, the user could expect to divulge their name and address, but not much else. If the landing page is also the sales page, the user could expect to divulge their full name, address, ship-to address, address, phone number and credit card information. Keep it in context. Lead Nurturing: See Auto-responder. LinkedIn: A social networking site for professionals. Link farms: Link farms are usually created by automated services with the intent of spamming the search engines to get higher rankings. Search engines are getting better at identifying, omitting, and even banning these sites. Just say NO! Be wary of solicitations regarding link exchanges. Never feel obligated to place a link to another web site on your web site, just because they have linked to your website. The quality matters. Having 500 incoming links from random sites is not as important as having 50 incoming links from relevant, quality web sites. Meta tags: Part of the html code. However, there are two meta-tags that most everyone should understand. The Meta Title Tag in your code, is likely what will be displayed on the SERP underlined, in blue, an obvious link to the web page. The Meta Description Tag, or parts of it, is likely to be displayed in black text just beneath the above mentioned Title, and just above your U.R.L. Check this out the next time you search for something on Google.

8 Metrics: The system of tracking, analyzing and reporting the visitors' activity. Important metrics could include the entry page, how many pages were viewed, in what sequence were they viewed, which keyword drove the visitor to the page in the first place, from which page did they leave your site, response to C2A, landing page success at converting visitors into leads, leads into customers. HubSpot has a robust analytics package integrated into it's software package. True closed-loop analytics from first visit to paying customer. Off-page search engine optimization: Engaging in activities, outside of the html code, that could help drive traffic to your web site. For example, posting relevant How-to-videos to YouTube with a link to your web site. Also joining and engaging in social media sites like Facebook for Businesses. Perhaps consider writing and submitting articles to industry related sites. And, of course, blogging. On-page search engine optimization: Placing important, and relevant, keyword phrases in the right places within the meta tags, and the body copy, so when a user enters that keyword in the search engine query box, your web site has a better chance of ranking on the SERP. Open rate: The percentage of messages that were actually opened by addressees. This term is most often used as a metric for measuring the performance of an blast. Opt-in: A method that allows the visitor to voluntarily provide their information, usually an address, with the understanding that they will likely receive future correspondences. Opt-out: A method that allows the visitor to either stop receiving correspondences that they've previously opted-in for (unsubscribe) or to make it clear that one never wants to be added to the list in the first place. Organic search results: The, non-paid, list of links on the results page that were indexed and ranked by relevance and authority. Although I do believe there is a place in nearly every businesses marketing plan for pay-per-click, the statistics show that the organic results have a much higher click-through rate. Outbound link: A link on your web site that takes the visitor to another web site. Outbound marketing: Sometimes referred to as traditional marketing. Examples include television and radio commercials, outdoor billboards, telemarketing, junk mail, junk faxes. Also referred to as interruption marketing, as each of these must interrupt what you are currently doing to try to get your attention and get their message heard. PageRank : Named after one of the founders of Google, Larry Page, PageRank in Google is determined by two factors authority and relevance. The authority of a web page is determined by how many other web pages are linking to it, and the authority of those web pages. The relevance is determined by how closely the code and content on the page matches the keyword entered in the search query box. Paid or Sponsored Search Results: Usually displayed at the top or along the right-hand side of the results page. The advertiser has dedicated a decent amount of marketing dollars to these ads they are not cheap. Every time a user clicks-through one of these sponsored ads, the advertiser pays the publisher (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc). If your business has an extremely important keyword that has

9 enormous competition (like Garden), then paid ads may be a way to get your website listed on the first page of results. Pay-per-click (PPC): A general reference to a paid internet advertising campaign. For example, a marketing department may evaluate the necessity of our PPC campaigns once organic rankings have improved to first place on page one. Permission Marketing: A term popularized by Seth Godin. Permission based marketing is the opposite of traditional interruption marketing (or outbound marketing like telemarketing, spam , junk mail, television and radio advertisements). Permission marketing is about building relationships of increasing depth with customers and potential customers. In the words of Seth Godin, "turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers." Permission marketing has been hailed as a way for marketers to succeed in a world increasingly cluttered with traditional interruption-based marketing. Rich media: Code on your web site that is presented in streaming video, streaming audio, and even interactive animation. Most recently I've had floating media come across my screen asking me to participate in a survey. The Peel Down media was popular for a while. It showed just a little bit of the advertisement hiding behind the web page that appeared to be dog-eared. The user had to interact with the media to virtually peel down the page to reveal the entire advertisement. RSS: Really Simple Syndication. This is basically a way to distribute new content, almost immediately, to visitors who have subscribed to do so via an RSS reader. Prior to RSS, bookmarking the web page was how we noted web pages we liked and wanted to keep-up on. However, the burden was on us to remember to go back into our bookmarked pages and look for updated content. Now, with RSS, subscribers are automatically notified of new content posted. RSS reader: A service that distributes RSS feeds from web sites you've requested. There are several RSS reader services. Google has a free one. Search engine: Popular search engines are Google, Yahoo and Bing. Each has their own super-topsecret proprietary algorithm used to read, interpret, index and rank web pages based on the relevance of the information as it matches a keyword entered in the search query. Search engine optimization (SEO): The art and science of writing relevant copy that is useful to both the human reader and to the bots and spiders. The page must be coded properly so it stands a chance to be ranked high enough in search - in order for it to ever have the chance to be seen by users. Search engine spider: See Googlebot Search engine results page (SERP): See Google SERP Social media: A broad term used to describe highly accessible, collaborative web sites that turn communication into a more interactive dialog that allows users to easily post and share information. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are examples of popular social media based web sites. Social media monitoring: Software or service providers that help businesses listen to what is being said about them, their brand, their employees, etc. Originally used to respond to attacks on brands,

10 social media monitoring has evolved into a new channel enabling companies to listen, interact, and improve customer relations. Social media optimization (SMO): The art and science of using the appropriate social media tools (like a Facebook Business Page) cautiously and consistently, to help increase your businesses exposure and reach across the internet. Spam: The abuse of any digital or electronic medium ( , texting, instant messaging) to get an unsolicited message out to people who don't want whatever it is the message is selling. This is most often associated with , but there are abuses related to spamming search engines as well. Spam filters: Computer programs used to detect unsolicited messages. StumbleUpon: A web site that helps users find, share, and vote on other web sites. Twitter: A social media web site used mainly on mobile technology. Twitter is a quick way to get a short message (tweet) out to your followers. Tweets are composed of a maximum of 140 characters. Uniform Resource Locator (URL): The / /html that appears in the URL address bar when you are viewing a web page. Upload: When a user takes a file from their own computer and sends it to an outside source. Uploading your how-to-videos to YouTube, for example. User-centric: Putting the experience of the user at the center of your web page design. Rather than building a web page that boasts how great the company is, or presents a bunch of flashy design elements to please the web designer. A user-centric web page is geared toward helping the visitor find what it is they came looking for in the first place. Visitors: One who has arrived at your web site either by typing in the URL, or by following a link, or through a search engine. Web or Browser based application: Software that a subscriber accesses via the internet versus downloading the software onto their own computer. QuickBooks online and HubSpot are examples of popular web-based apps. Website Grader : A HubSpot tool. This is usually the starting place for most businesses interested in improving their web site's performance. This tool not only gives an overall grade, it also gives detailed suggestions on what needs to be done to improve performance. White paper: A white paper is a report, or article written to address a specific problem, and usually offer a solution to that problem without selling one's own product or service. Although white-papers are not intended to directly sell, they can be influential in the buyers decision making process. YouTube: A video-sharing web site. Anyone can sign-up and start posting, sharing, and voting on videos. Side note YouTube is now the #2 Search Engine behind Google at #1. Now Yahoo is #3.