Echo’s Digital Marketing Glossary

The 301 status code signals that a page has been permanently moved to a new domain location. It is a way of directing website visitors to a live URL when the one they were originally searching for has been removed.

A 404 error occurs when you visit a page that doesn’t exist anymore. This happens when pages are changed or removed and a redirect isn’t set up.

This refers to the section of a page that is visible before any scrolling.

Accessibility is about making your website readily available to as many people as possible. Text size, font and buttons can be adapted ordesigned to prevent any difficulties for people with disabilities.

Ad extensions, which are available within Google Ads, extend the amount of space your adverts take up within the SERPs, allowing you to include more information and boosting your visibility.

Again referring to Google Ads, an ad group is a cluster of different ads that all share similar (or the same) key targets. Your campaign can be made up of multiple different ad groups, each one targeting different keywords or regions, for instance.

The process of scheduling ads to automatically display at specific times of day.

An address bar is the text field element of an internet browser that is used to input the address of a website. It is also referred to as a URL.

When a user posts to multiple social media platforms from one location.

Google makes regular updates to its ranking algorithm. Some updates focus on specific improvements, while others are more general changes. They can have an effect on a website’s position in search results.

Since crawlers like Google, Bing and Yahoo can’t read images, an ALT tag allows us to give them a few words that describe the image, so they know more about it.

Analytics is the collection, measurement and analysis of data to gain an understanding of user behaviour across different channels.

This is a software and web application that can assist in identifying if activity carried out by a business is achieving the expected or desired goal.

This is a piece of text that can be clicked on to take you to another page. They often look like this.

An API is software that enables two apps to talk to each other. It works by acting as a type of messenger, taking your request and informing a system what you need, and then relaying the response back to you. For example, each time you use Facebook, pay with PayPal or use your phone to check your favourite restaurant’s opening times, you are using an API.

The usage of artificial intelligence (AI) became much more widespread in the marketing industry following the introduction of tools like ChatGPT. However, though it has its uses, it’s nothing more than a handy productivity tool as of yet. A quality marketing campaign still needs to be run by humans! 

An attribution window is a time period during which a conversion event can be claimed after an ad interaction, such as a purchase.

• Click through attribution – where a user clicked on your ad and took further action.
• View through attribution – where a user saw your ad, chose not to click on it but took another action within the attribution window.

The process of automating elements of a marketing campaign, be it the distribution of ads, marketing emails or other content. Automation allows routine marketing tasks to be completed without human intervention, allowing us to focus our attention elsewhere. 

Average order value is a metric used by retailers to analyse their customer’s buying behaviour. It tracks the average pound spent every time a customer places an order through their site. It’s a great way to improve performance without increasing the conversion rate. An example of this would be better product recommendations during the checkout process.

A process that involves producing two different versions of a webpage, advert, email (or anything else, for that matter) and comparing the results generated by each version. The results of A/B testing can inform the future direction of your marketing campaign, and give you valuable insights into the behaviour of your audience.

A backlink is a link from an external website to your site. This is a Google ranking factor – the more backlinks from trusted websites that you have, the better.

A useful type of digital ad which consists of a fixed or animated image which can be placed across websites to attract traffic.

An evaluation process of the performance of a campaign that involves setting a list of targets against which you can compare results, such as efficiency, digital behaviour and feedback.

Introduced in 2018 by Google, BERT is an enhanced aid for search engines affecting the way everyday language is processed. It allows Google to read language in a similar way to humans to better understand the context of what a user is searching for.

Black Hat SEO uses a search engine to achieve higher rankings. White Hat SEO focuses on techniques that target a ‘human’ user. They both share the same objective.

Black Hat is an older style tactic that is no longer valid, while White Hat follows guidelines and achieves better, longer-lasting results.

This is a regularly updated web page. Its purpose is to connect with a relevant audience to inform and explain news/business or industry updates.

The final phase of the ‘customer journey’. If a user has reached the bottom of the funnel, they’re primed and ready to make a purchase, so the way you market to them should reflect this.

When a user clicks straight off your website after visiting it.

Brand affinity is when a customer forms an attachment and feels loyalty towards a particular brand and its products, often sharing common values.

Links at the top of a web page allow users to track where they are within the structure of the website. Breadcrumbs show which categories were clicked on to arrive at the point the user is viewing, which also makes it simple to see the steps back to the homepage.

Buying signals are actions that may indicate prospective buyers are close to making a decision to purchase.

B2B refers to commercial transactions from one business to another, for example between a wholesaler and a retailer, rather than an individual end user.

Content specifically targeted towards B2B (business to business) i.e clients, colleagues and suppliers.

Refers to business that is carried out between a company and individual consumers. The people who purchase from this type of business are the end user of its products or services.

This is a term used to describe a simple website which acts as an online brochure. These websites usually just consist of information pages such as services, case studies and contact details.

A cache is a storage location that helps websites and browsers to load faster by collecting temporary data.

A piece of content that is intended to persuade a user to take an action, such as ‘Buy now’ or ‘Click here’.

A marketing or advertising campaign is a pre-planned, targeted collection of work designed to achieve a specific goal. This could include raising brand awareness, promoting a specific product or driving more traffic to a website based on targeted keywords.

A Canonical Tag is a way of telling search engines the primary version of a page you want to rank. It’s like saying “I know this content is good, but it’s taken from this even better page on my website here”.

Is a test to determine whether or not a user is real, or a spam robot, when filling in an online form. The most common type of CAPTCHAs display a series of distorted letters and numbers which a user must enter correctly into a box before the form can be submitted.

A carousel format allows the combination of multiple images and/or videos to be presented in a single ad. Users can scroll through the carousel by swiping on their device or using arrows on a computer screen.

Cart abandonment emails are sent when a potential customer adds products to their cart on an online store but then fails to check out. These can be an effective sales recovery tactic.

A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is a way of showing search engines in which country you do business and where your website is targeting. The ccTLDs is the .co.uk, .com, or .fr part of the URL.

A computer program designed to simulate human conversation. Users communicate with this tool via a chat interface, mimicking a real conversation. Chatbots interpret the words supplied by the user and respond with one of a number of pre-programmed answers.

A measurement of when a mouse clicks on an ad or hyperlink. When a customer clicks on a link it is logged using a ‘click tracking’ technique, allowing you to analyse how your ad is performing.

A percentage of how many users clicked onto your website vs how many people saw it but didn’t click through.

An option within Google Ads that allows a user to ‘click’ from a mobile phone and call a business directly from the ad.

CMS is a content management system which is a software application used to create and manage digital content.

Some popular CMS platforms you may have heard of are WordPress, Magento, and Shopify.

The language used to build a website. The most commonly used languages are HTML, CSS, JAVA & PHP.

Irrelevant or unrelated comments left on a blog post by a spammer, with the sole purpose of placing a link back to themselves.

A form of marketing to generate interest in a product or service using online material such as blogs, video and social media posts.

This is the process in which content, including text, images and videos is moved from an existing website to a new one as part of a new website build.

Software focusing on optimising content aimed at delivering a fully personalised web experience to the user in a way that reaches the largest possible target audience, by using tools such as meta and title tags, keywords and related links.

An action on your website that completed a desired goal. For example, requesting a quote, making a booking or calling your business.

The percentage of website users that ‘convert’. When a user completes one of your pre-set conversion goals, this will be recorded in Google Analytics’ conversion rate data.

Cookies are small text files with ID tags stored in a computer’s browsing directory. When you visit a website, a cookie is embedded in your browser. The website also stores the same files, helping them track your activity and store information of your movements while navigating their site. A cookie remembers your login, page selections and preferences and is designed to help you resume your activities from where you previously left off during a subsequent visit to the page.

A set of specific factors that Google sees as important in a webpage’s user experience. Using page speed and user interaction measurements, they are basically a way of assessing your overall user experience. For example, Google will configure if a page is loading quickly enough to stop users from bouncing, this is called ‘cumulative layout shift’

Core web vitals originally consisted of three performance measures:

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) – loading performance metrics
FID (First Input Delay) – inactivity metrics
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) – visual stability metrics

Further metrics are set to be added as time goes on. For example, Interaction to Next Paint (INP) became a key metric in 2023.

CPC stands for ‘cost per click’, and refers to the average amount of money it costs you each time a user clicks on your advert.

The process of a search engine looking through your website and checking all your pages, code and media.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. CRM systems are used to keep tabs on communication between your business and existing or potential customers, ensuring that all emails are followed up on and that every lead is capitalised on.

Also known as conversion rate optimisation, CRO refers to a range of changes made on a website to increase the likelihood of conversions.

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is a computer language used by developers when creating/styling a website. CSS is frequently used to set font, colour, layout etc. It can manage the layout of multiple pages at once, therefore saving time.

Is the exercise of assessing data in user databases and websites looking for consumer behaviour patterns.

Digital tools and platforms that a seller uses to attempt to sell products or services to a customer, which complement those already purchased, by way of suggestion based on user history.

What we do here at Echo. Digital marketing is all about leveraging technology (and the power of the internet) to increase your company’s profile, generate leads and fuel growth.

The approach taken by a business to increase its overall performance online. Digital strategy is an umbrella term, encompassing all forms of digital marketing, and refers to the overall direction a business takes in crafting its online presence.

This is where a user is persuaded to purchase a more expensive item or to upgrade a product or service, using digital tools and data to identify the most relevant item for the customer and thus making the sale more profitable.

A directory is a location for storage files on your computer. On many computers, directories are known as folders.

A communication delivered by way of a private message direct to the consumer by either email or inbox such as Facebook Messenger or Instagram Direct.

Direct marketing allows direct communication to individual consumers by way of email, SMS messaging, interactive websites, etc. It eliminates the need for a third party by reaching the target audience directly.

Advertisements that are shown to users of websites or apps. If you see an ad pop up while you’re scrolling through a news article, for example, you’re looking at a display ad. They can take many forms, including animated GIFs, still images and videos.

Google Display Network includes more than 200 million different websites, videos and apps. If you run a display ad, it could appear across this network.

Elements are used to create the structure of a web page. They are used to present information in various ways. Six key components of a good web design are:

• Layout/Visual Appearance
• Colour Scheme
• Navigation
• Typography
• Content
• Mobile Friendliness

A domain name is your website name and each one is unique. When typed into the browser your computer searches to locate an IP address for the website. Domain names were created as an IP address consists of a series of numbers, having an individual name makes it more user-friendly.

DNS is the Internet’s system for converting alphabetic names into numeric IP addresses. For example, when a web address (URL) is typed into a browser, DNS servers return the IP address of the web server associated with that name. Without DNS you would have to type the series of four numbers and dots into your browser to retrieve the website.

A list of options that display when a menu item or field is hovered over or clicked on.

Text on a website that is copied from another page on the same or another website. This became a big no-no following a Google Update in 2020.

This is the length of time that a user spends viewing your website before returning to search results.

Online and digital content which adapts and changes based on data, user preferences and behaviour.

Ecommerce or ‘Electronic Commerce’ refers to any form of business transaction carried out over the internet. It is the act of buying and selling goods or services online.

The practice of sending marketing emails to either potential or existing customers. Email marketing remains a popular and highly effective medium; it can be used to drive sales of new products, raise awareness of sales and much more. An example of of an email marketing platform would be Mailchimp. 

A commercial email host that offers email marketing or bulk email services.

Encryption converts data to an unidentifiable or ‘encrypted’ form to protect sensitive information when sent via the internet.

Engagement refers to the amount of interaction in an online community. Comments, Likes and Retweets are all forms of social media engagement.

A useful feature that tracks elements of a website which are not tracked as standard. Google Analytics uses code on web pages to track and measure events such as downloads, video plays and clicks.

Content that will continue to be relevant for many years to come. For example, a guide to baking a chocolate cake would be considered evergreen content, because it won’t be any less useful to people even years after it’s been published. A news article about a one-time event, however, would not be considered evergreen content.

The last page a user views before their session expires or before they leave a site. Used within Google Analytics to measure which pages users end their visit on.

Also known as ‘Accordions’, these are sections which are user expandable and collapsible to show or hide content.

External links are links that point users to another website.

Short for ‘favourite icon’, a favicon is a small (16 x 16 pixel) tailor-made icon used on a web browser to represent a website’s brand. They are usually displayed on tabs at the top of a web browser but can also be added onto the browser’s history, bookmarks etc.

This is the highlighted area that often appears at the top of a Google SERP, or part the way down the page. A featured snippet stands out from other search results on the page, and is designed to quickly and simply answer a user’s search query. Featured snippets can include video guides, maps, video tutorials and much more. 

The first interaction model gives credit to the first touchpoint, regardless of whether that marketing campaign directly influenced the sale or not. A visitor might bounce around from campaign to campaign, but the first click matters the most.

Is a technique involving permanently fixing some elements in the browser whilst the rest of the page scrolls. The purpose of this is to keep the critical area of a page in front of a user at all times.

A follower is a person who has subscribed to a social media account, enabling them to receive regular updates from a business or user they have an interest in.

A website’s footer is located at the bottom of each page, below the main body of content. Its purpose is to aid users by adding information and navigation options. It usually repeats some elements of the header, often displays social media icons and is a space to share the obligatory legal information.

The front end of a website is the part that users interact with. Everything you see when you are searching the internet is a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript being controlled by your computer’s browser. The formation, design and content seen in the browser when a website or app is opened are applied by a front end developer. Responsiveness and performance are the main objectives of the front end.

Content which is only accessible by filling out an online form.

General Data Protection Regulations were introduced in 2018. This is a legal framework which sets guidelines for the collection, processing and storage of an individual’s personal information.

Geotargeting is a way for businesses to create customised advertising campaigns to a specific market based on geographical locations. Different content is used depending on the locale, making it more relevant to certain audiences.

Graphics Interchange Formats, or ‘GIF’ for short, is a file which supports either static or animated images. Moving GIFs are created by looping a short piece of silent animation.

A percentage based on the number of users that convert vs the number of users who have been on your website.

Google Ads, formerly Google AdWords is an online advertising platform developed by Google where businesses pay to display their adverts to web users.

It’s a form of PPC meaning you’ll pay for each click your advertisement gets.

Google Analytics is a web analytics tool offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. It’s the most widely used tracking tool and can give you extremely valuable information about your website performance.

Google Data Studio is a free tool that can be used to compile reports based on Google Analytics data and much more. It is a useful tool for website owners to monitor performance.

This is a free tool that helps you to create detailed plans of your advertising expenditure. It aids in forecasting performance over a set period of time and managing budgets for a campaign.

Previously known as Google Webmasters, this is a free platform that allows web developers and digital marketers like us to monitor, maintain and troubleshoot a website.

Google Tag Manager is a free online tool to help you with the tracking codes and collecting analytics on your website. It works by tracking all the information through one tool. This data is then stored in a central location.

An email that was never delivered to its intended recipient. This is an important metric to note when running an email marketing campaign, as it may indicate that those email addresses are no longer active or that the individual has flagged your emails as spam, blocking them from being delivered.

A clickable keyword used on social media platforms to highlight the content subject in a status update. Applying user-generated tags by placing the hashtag symbol in front of a word or phrase helps others to easily find messages or posts within a particular topic of interest.

A header is the first thing a user sees on a website and is a central part of web design. It is the top section of the web page and can be fixed or floating. A header should make a website instantly recognisable especially when using your brand and logo. It can also be ‘clickable’, redirecting users back to your homepage acting as a navigation tool.

There are a few different header types, but H-tags help search engines and users understand what each part of your page is about.

A visual summary using colours to identify the level of engagement with a specific webpage. Heatmaps indicate ‘hot spots’ of high levels activity. This information can then be used by digital marketers to increase conversion rate.

Website hosting is the process of renting or buying space to house a website on the internet. This is done on a server, which is a computer dedicated to connecting other web users to your website from anywhere in the world.

Hotjar is a subscription-based online tool which enables a website owner to view screen recordings of real user sessions, conduct surveys and polls. This can be used to monitor the performance of online changes, or fixes after website issues have been resolved.

A hreflang tag tells Google which language you are using on a specific page so that it can be served to a user searching in that language.

Often paired with Rel=”Alternate”, this tag helps search engines to understand the relationship between different language versions of pages on your website.

HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is a set of codes that inform a web browser to display a webpage. An individual code is known as an element, or a tag.

Hummingbird is Google’s parent algorithm, an important tool in SEO which is continuously evolving. It makes it easier for Google to understand the language used when searching online. Hummingbird works by focusing on whole sentence structures. Its objective is to find results that answer specific queries as opposed to providing random results based on single keywords.

Hyperlinks are words or phrases, often blue and underlined, that you click on to jump directly to specific pages/documents, either within the original document or to another page entirely.

An iframe is a frame within a frame. It is part of a HTML element which allows you to embed documents, videos or interactive media within a page. This element allows you to include content from another source.

Each picture you see online is an image file. Two of the most popular examples of image file types used in web design are JPEG and PNG. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group and has ‘lossy’ compression. This means that compression is applied to the actual pixel data which reduces the quality of an image. PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics, with ‘lossless’ compression. That means that the image quality was the same before and after the compression. PNG also allows images to have a transparent background.

An image map is an image which is divided into clickable sections which have associated HTML hyperlinks. Clicking on an area will redirect the user to another URL or webpage.

Impressions track how many times a webpage is viewed. They are used in online advertising and act as a count of ads shown for each page viewed. It tracks the number of times your content is displayed whether or not it is clicked on.

An ad that appears in a mobile app, for example videos and banners. It is triggered once a user launches the app and the ad network sends an ad to the user’s device.

A page is indexed by Google after it has been visited by a crawler, analysed and found to have data of a suitable quality for relevant search engines. An index is an alternative name for a database. ‘Indexed pages’ show up in search results and help to drive organic traffic to a website.

High-profile individuals who can manipulate and influence the buying habits of a target audience with product placements and endorsements, mainly due to their social media presence.

Infographics provide a visual depiction of complex data and facts in a clear, descriptive manner, making it easy to understand.

An HTML element used to create interactive controls for web-based forms in which a user can input data or make a selection. Examples are checkboxes, password, reset and submit.

An app which can help to pinpoint if a business’ activity is achieving a significant impact on the goals set.

Internal links are links that go from one page on your website to another.

This is the identifier of your network hardware, all devices have a unique IP address. It enables a system to be identified by other systems connected to the internet.

An app created for web designers as an inclusive tool for collaboration between the developer and the client. It allows a developer to easily create interactive mock-ups on which the client can leave feedback during the design process.

IP Tracking allows you to follow and observe users to a website. It has the ability to recognise the server which accessed your site and track the name of the individual business.

Is a programming language which is commonly used when implementing website features during a build. It allows developers to add interactive elements such as buttons, sliders, display alerts and pop-ups.

KPIs measure the performance of an activity to demonstrate how efficiently a business is progressing towards set targets.

Words or phrases that users search for to find a relevant website.

This is an old (and frowned upon) SEO technique used to boost a website’s ranking on certain keywords. This is often done by placing repeated keywords onto a page, making them visible to search engines only. For example, by using white text on a white background.

The number of times a keyword is mentioned compared to the total number of words on a page.

The process of making changes on a webpage to increase where you rank in search engines for a particular phrase, also known as SEO.

A number that’ll tell you where your website currently shows for certain search terms. This goes in 10s, so 1-10 equals the first page, 11-20 equals the second and so on.

Keyword stuffing is used to keyword stuff, and keyword stuffing is bad because keyword stuffing doesn’t read well. In case you didn’t get that, it’s where phrases are used an unnatural amount of times to try to increase better rankings. This used to benefit rankings in the early days of Google, but no longer – doing it today will have the opposite effect.

Generally speaking, this is a more concise article targeted at answering a specific query. Compared to blog posts, knowledge base articles tend to be more evergreen – they’re often updated over the years to remain relevant, and focus on non-newsworthy topics.

A landing page is the first page you ‘land on’ after clicking on an advert, SERPS listing or link, from a search engine, email or social media etc. This is typically a stand alone page, specifically designed with a focus on receiving and converting traffic.

Last Interaction refers to a web analytics model in which the ‘last click’ is given credit for a conversion to sale. For example, if someone makes a purchase from your website, you should have a system in place that can show you where that customer came from.

This is where a section on a page is only loaded once it’s needed rather than everything loading all at once.

This refers to the whole process of a user finding you online right the way through to them completing a desired action or conversion.

Lead generation refers to the process of introducing new, potential customers to a business (be it through advertising, email marketing or any other medium). Lead nurturing, meanwhile, is the process of converting these leads into customers by targeting them with relevant, helpful content.

A lightbox is a type of popup used to promote a piece of content, like a survey, new product or important announcement. It appears as a window overlay which blocks a portion of the page and dims the background, disabling it until action is taken by clicking on a button, filling out the box or exiting.

A linear attribution model focuses on multi-touch attribution. This means it takes into account and attributes credit to multiple touchpoints along the customer journey and not just what was last clicked on.

Link building is a process of obtaining high-quality links from other websites to yours. Getting links from high-quality websites is like getting an extra thumbs up from other places on the web.

Local listings are online portfolios promoting details of your business, including the address, opening hours, website address and photos. Most online directories are free to use, but some offer paid listings to boost your visibility.

A logo is a design made up of images and text to uniquely identify a business and its brand.

A search term that contains three or more words such as ‘Red ankle boots size 5’ – they’re more specific so get searches less often, but the results will be more tailored.

Lookalike audiences are a type of targeting audience from Facebook based on a custom list you import.  When you create a lookalike audience of a custom audience Facebook finds users who haven’t heard of your business but share similar attributes with your existing customer base. This is so you can show your adverts to users who are more likely to take an action, such as purchasing, based on other users who have already done the same.

Is where a computer system uses an algorithm’s ability to learn from pattern recognition to improve functionality and make predictions based on previously stored data, an example of this being spam recognition.

Magento is a flexible ecommerce platform which provides online retailers with a highly customisable, responsive marketing option, rich in features. It allows businesses to have individual control over the look, content and functionality of their online shop.

Mail merge is the automated process of sending an email to recipients of a contact list. Each message will contain similar information but the content will be personalised to be relevant to each individual recipient.

An MQL is a lead who has shown interest in a brand and subsequently engages further by taking action such as submitting contact information, downloading material, frequently re-visiting a website or adding items to a shopping cart.

Meaning the ability to amass data with the intention of creating insights and using these results to act on improving the outcome of future engagements.

Similar to a meta title, the description also shows in the SERPs. This helps explain to other users why they should click on your website instead of others.

The meta language tag is a piece of code placed at the top of the website which tells search engines what country and language the page’s content is most relevant for.

A Meta Title is shown in the SERPs and in the tab in a browser. This is what tells search engines what the page is about. Think of it like a file name in your computer – the title helps you know which file is relevant for what you’re looking for.

Metrics help to measure key elements like lead quality, connections and close times to be able to calculate the efficiency and success of a digital sales program.

This term refers to a particular stage in the customer journey where a potential lead will begin looking more seriously about using your company’s products or services. They’re almost ready to convert, and are looking for more specific, in-depth educational content to nudge them in the right direction. 

MMS stands for multimedia messaging service. It allows a user to send and receive text messages which include multimedia content such as pictures, videos, GIFs and audio clips.

A mobile-friendly site is a website that has been modified to display content accurately in an easy-to-read format using a smartphone or tablet.

A grid-based website design option which focuses on displaying a clean, uncluttered appearance and allows greater versatility when presenting content. Its benefits include an organised aspect, ease of navigation and being highly responsive.

Elements on a page that are not the Header, Footer or Banner. They are contained within an area or box and contain more than one item (i.e a box with text and a button inside).

A marketing approach that involves the use of multiple different channels, which could include email, SEO, physical stores, printed advertising and more. 

When your marketing is tailored to a niche audience. For example if you are a travel company offering family holidays and you want to specifically target the single parent sector, then you would concentrate on promoting key points to attract that audience.

Online ads that blend in with the look and functionality of the platform they appear on.

Search engine results that are not paid for or sponsored and are often referred to as organic search results. They are considered by the search engine to be relevant solely based on the keywords used in the search.

Is the process of navigating websites, pages and apps, via the internet, in a way that allows users to move from page to page. A good navigation structure should let a user land on any page of your website easily without obstruction. It is achieved by creating a series of links from the navigation menu of the website. The benefits of having reliable, user friendly navigation include increased visit duration, improved product sales and organic traffic, a lower bounce rate and improved customer confidence.

A negative keyword is a keyword targeting option offered by search engine advertising platforms (like Google Ads) to prevent you from displaying your adverts for the wrong searches. For example, you might want to target ‘Web Design Peterborough’ but not display for ‘Web Design Jobs Peterborough’. In this case, you’d add ‘Jobs’ as a negative keyword.

Utilising negative keywords can benefit your campaign by improving click-through rates, conversion rates and the overall efficiency of the account.

Network etiquette. The expected standard of online behaviour.

A newsletter is a way to communicate regularly with your subscribers. It can be useful in publicising current news, articles and content relevant to your audience, often highlighting special offers or benefits.

The noindex instruction is a widely used value in a meta tag that can be added to the HTML source code of a webpage. It suggests to search engines to not include that particular page in its list of search results. For example, if you have employees or members’ only pages, a noindex directive will keep those pages from being found, keeping this information inaccessible to the general public.

Any optimisation activities you do outside of your website to achieve a higher ranking of a page with search engines.

This refers to a range of tasks that can be completed on a website to increase search engine rankings.

The percentage of email recipients that have opened your email – a vital metric that every email marketing specialist should pay close attention to. The higher this rate is, the more engaging your emails are likely to be!

Opt-In marketing is a permission based strategy in which a user consents to a company storing their email address to provide ongoing communication and offers to their inbox. They willingly supply this information in the knowledge that you will contact them in the future.

Website visitors finding you through the search results page.

Outreach marketing allows businesses to advertise to more people who fit their target demographics by building connections with websites or social media accounts related to shared topics, establishing relationships with other businesses, influencers and bloggers. This can aid in reaching new audiences.

A page impression measures the exact number of times a visitor views specific elements of a website page, like an image, video or text.

Refers to the measurement of the average number of times a page is viewed per visit. Multiple clicks on a single page are counted as individual views.

A page title may also be called a ‘title tag’. It is written in HTML and appears in the title bar of the browser. Search engines display page titles in their search results and use them to recognise what information a website contains.

The number of times a page is viewed, multiple views of a single page are counted.

Website visitors finding you through paid adverts online, also known as Pay Per Click.

A technique that uses differing background and foreground designs which creates the illusion of layers and depth, creating a 3D effect. It is frequently used in the design of video games.

A payment gateway allows secure communication exchange between a website and a third party when processing payments. It validates a customer’s card details securely, ensuring funds are available and enables payment to the merchant. Sensitive information is encrypted to ensure this is passed safely from the customer to the acquiring bank, via the merchant.

A form of paid advertising which allows you to showcase your services or products to your customers and only pay once they click on your ad and visit your website.

Percentage of new visitors vs the amount of returning visitors who view your website.

Usually only used in association with blogs, a permalink is a link which is the permanent web address of a blog post. With a blog having ever changing content, a permalink allows a user to bookmark or link specific posts, even if these posts move from the home or main category page.

A personal brand is the online image which identifies your unique business. It is the way a business is perceived through the information provided and how it is depicted in the media. A strong brand gives confidence in a product or service and makes it more likely that potential customers will respond.

A term used when referring to the type of computer system on which a software program runs on. Facebook and MailChimp are examples of digital platforms.

A post is a message such as text, video or photograph which a user publishes/shares on a social media platform or via a comment left on someone else’s account.

The process of proactively thinking about what consumers are looking for and providing information before they need it, using data and historical material to predict future outcomes.

Statistical analysis of existing customers including who they are, what they buy and how they complete a purchase. These models allow a business to predict future purchase behaviour based on past patterns and information.

These are specific guidelines which quality raters follow to manually check content. The raters supply feedback to Google which helps to improve their algorithm enabling prime content to rank highly.

A metric used by Google to regulate the quality and significance of a website based on keywords, ads and landing pages.

In SEO speak, this term refers to a website’s position in the search engine results page. SEO is used to optimise a website to improve rankings and help reach an optimum position.

A link allowing two sites to link to each other. This is done to allow visitors quick access to related sites or show a partnership between them.

When you change a URL on a website you’ll often see website managers setting up a ‘redirect’. This means that if anything visits an old link that has changed, they’ll automatically get taken to the new link.

For the sake of search engines, there are a few types of redirects. 302 – which is like saying, “This page is being worked on, look at this other page for now” and a 301 which is more like, “We changed our minds on this page, please look at this one forever!”

Remarketing is a tactic of showing targeted adverts to users who have visited your site previously. They can give you another opportunity at converting the ‘could have been’ customers.

The practice of reusing content to strengthen a message by adapting and reformatting it. This can boost SEO, save time by not having to write a post from scratch and help to reach a new audience.

Responsive design is a type of web development that means a page automatically adjusts toward the device you’re using.

A percentage that reflects the revenue you generated from advertising. For example, if you spent £50 on paid adverts but generated £150, you have a ROAS of 300%.

This is the total amount of revenue taken per visitor to a site. It is a key metric for ecommerce websites as it takes into account both average order rate and conversion rate.

A marketing technique used for analysing the value of a customer by determining key customer behaviour. They measure:

• Recency – How recently did the customer purchase/time since last engagement
• Frequency – How often do they purchase/number of transactions/time between transactions/engaged
  visits
• Monetary Value – How much do they spend/total or average value of transactions

A file created by webmasters instructing search engine bots not to visit specific pages of a site.

Return on investment – an important consideration when you’re considering any form of marketing. Some types of marketing offer a quicker return on your investment than others.

Posting at a predetermined future date and time on a social networking platform such as Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

Known to others sometimes as structured data or rich snippets, these phrases are just to describe a type of code that search engines understand to help give them more information about your business or web page. If you’re lucky, search engines will display them in a cool way in the results.

You’ll have seen examples for things like recipes, events and reviews.

Screen readers are electronic devices used by blind or partially sighted people to assist when using computers and browsing the internet. Accessibility is the practice of making websites that are accessible to Screen Readers.

Search Engine Results Pages, or SERPs, are the pages that search engines show in response to a user’s search query. They are made up of organic and paid search results.

Depending on what you’re searching for, your search history and location, Google (and other search engines) build a results page it thinks will be relevant and helpful to the user.

Words or phrases a user types into a search engine when conducting a search.

The number of searches a particular phrase gets over a week, month or year in a selected location.

An alternative name for PPC or Pay-Per-Click. Search Engine Advertising displays text or image ads on SERPs.

The practice used to divide a target market into smaller, more manageable groups based on common characteristics to tailor marketing and advertising campaigns.

A term used to describe any form of digital marketing aiming to increase a website’s visibility in SERPs.

Short for Search Engine Optimisation, SEO is the process of maximising the number of visitors to a website through increasing where they display in the search results.

A server is essentially a large computer which hosts a website on the internet. It stores, processes and presents web pages to users. When a URL is entered, the browser requests a web page from the server and the information is transmitted back to the browser.

Sessions represent a single visit to your website. A session begins when a user first lands on your website and ends when they leave. A single session can include many page views within that one time.

A complete business ecommerce platform for online stores.

Showcase Ads allow a company to show a selection of products when a broad search is used, such as ‘ankle boots’, which let customers learn more about your brand and stock items. A charge is only made when a user engages with the ad by expanding and then clicking through to the site.

A report that can highlight areas of your website/online marketing campaign that are doing well and areas for improvement – we offer one of these for FREE too!

In the context of search engines, the sitemap file lists all your website pages, images and videos and helps platforms like Google and Bing view them.

The act of tagging a web page with a browser-based tool, making it easy for web users to revisit and keep track of content. These bookmarks tell search engine algorithms that content is valuable, which helps to improve ranking on keywords associated with a business.

Advertising your products or services on social media. The likes of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn all offer their own PPC advertising services. 

Gaining traffic or attention using social media websites and networks to promote a company’s products or services.

The process of creating, building and engaging within a virtual community and maintaining relationships between people online.

Inappropriate, unsolicited, misleading and often harmful messages that can appear as emails, data, links or pop-ups. Usually commercial and sent to large numbers of recipients with the purpose of gain.

This refers to a digital certificate to say there are extra layers of security on your website. You can tell when a page has this as they’ll have a green padlock and the ULR will show HTTPS. Not got one? You should – it’s a ranking factor!

A staging site is made by developers or marketing agencies like us. We’ll take a copy of your existing site, play around with it and test changes before making it live to the public – it saves a lot of mishaps and site errors, trust us!

Stock images are generic photos, illustrations and icons created without a specific project in mind. These are then licensed, usually for a fee, to individuals or businesses for use in creative or marketing purposes online or offline.

A subdirectory is a part of the URL that contains a specific section of content on your website. Think of it like a filing cabinet where the folders within the cabinet are subdirectories.

This is often used as part of an international SEO campaign to showcase different languages to different customers.

Examples could look like:

echowebsolutions.co.uk/fr/

echowebsolutions.co.uk/us/

A subdomain is a part of a URL which is used to organise and navigate different sections of a website.

Here are some examples:

portal.echowebsolutions.co.uk/

clients.echowebsolutions.co.uk/

Subdomains are part of the main domain, but allow you to have a separate section of your website altogether.

The intended target of a piece of content. The target audience can significantly alter the tone, subject matter and structure of a web page or article – so the more you know about who you’re writing for, the better.

A part of on-page SEO which focuses on optimising the technical elements of a website for search engine ranking purposes. Technical SEO is all about making it easier for search engines to understand your website and its content – and improving rankings as a result. 

Data which is obtained from outside sources.

Time Decay Attribution gives credit to ad interactions that happened the closest in time to the conversion point of a digital marketing campaign.

A title tag is an element which specifies the title of a web page. You will see these on a search engine results page as the main headline hyperlink which takes you to the website. Both users and search engines use title tags to identify the topic of a page.

Toggles are digital on/off switches. They are used by a developer to hide, enable or disable a feature. A simple example of this is an on/off feature such as sound or Bluetooth.

The first stage of a customer’s journey. This stage of the conversion process is otherwise known as ‘awareness’.

A tracking code is a snippet of code which can be added to a website, page or URL to track user activity. It allows you to track and analyse metrics such as the number of visitors and user activity.

A user interface is the point of interaction between a user and a digital device or product, i.e. the screen on your smartphone. UI design considers the look, feel and interactivity of the website or app. It focuses on ensuring the product is as intuitive as possible by carefully considering each element a user may experience.

A URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, is the text which is typed into the internet browser when you want to go to a website. A URL begins with http:// or https:// followed by www then the website name. For example, https://www.echowebsolutions.co.uk

Usability is an indication of how a website performs from the user’s perspective in vital areas such as ease of navigation, readability and responsiveness.

User experience (UX) design is the process digital teams use to create websites that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users typically to increase the likelihood of conversions or sales. This involves the design of the entire website, usability, responsiveness and page content.

User generated content is original content – images, videos, reviews etc – created by people rather than brands. Many brands will share user generated content on their own social media accounts and websites. This builds trust and credibility and can have a positive impact on SEO.

This is the area of a web page that is visible to a user. The viewport adjusts to the device being used and will appear much larger on a computer screen as opposed to a smartphone.

Content that spreads across the internet rapidly. It could be via shares on social media or through a link to a piece of content. An example would be a ‘meme’ which spans cultures and ages around the world and is extremely shareable.

Voice search allows users to use a voice command to search the internet, a website or an app.

A VPN conceals your IP address ensuring that online activity is virtually untraceable. It is a private network that encrypts and transmits data as it travels from one place to another. This allows a user to surf websites anonymously but securely and gain access to restricted sites.

A WAF specifically inspects and protects your web application by filtering, tracking and blocking malicious HTTPS traffic while also preventing any unauthorised data from being accessed.

A ‘web browser’, or just ‘browser’ is a software application used to access and view websites. To view a website, its URL is entered into the search box at the top of the browser and the site’s homepage will be displayed. Examples of common browsers are Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge & Mozilla Firefox.

A Web Developer takes a web designer’s concept and turns it into a functioning website. They write in coded programming language to build and maintain the fundamental structure of a website or app. They carry out testing and debugging and provide a range of after launch services such as ongoing support to fixing any hosting/server issues that may occur.

The degree of ease in which a website can be used to achieve results effectively for its visitors.

A wireframe is a black and white skeletal framework drawing used in the initial stages of a website design. It presents a visual representation of the layout of a web page to assist with content placement and recognise any user experience problems early on.

Yandex is a search engine that was originally started in Russia but now has a global English version. It’s the dominant search engine in Russia, used in 55% of the searches and runs using different algorithms. This means there are different tactics involved when increasing your website rankings.