A-Z Glossary of Online Marketing Terms Explained

There is no doubt that digital marketers have their own language. For the laymen, their language may seem no less than secret codes.

Irrespective of whether you’re a digital marketer or you have to communicate with one, let’s decode few of the commonly-used jargons and acronyms related to this industry.

Glossary of Digital Marketing Terms

1] SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

• Anchor Text

It is the highlighted text that contains a link which navigates to a different web page when clicked.

• Backlink

Links placed on external sites that redirect back to the pages of your company.

• Black Hat SEO

Aggressive and unlawful SEO tactics that try manipulating search engines by sabotaging their guidelines.

• Deep Linking

Linking to a content page that is not present on the home page of the website.

• Keyword Stuffing

Loading a page unnecessarily with irrelevant keywords to tweak the ranking of a site on search engine result pages.

• Long Tail Keyword

A search phrase of 3 or more words.

• Meta-Tags

HTML tags that offer metadata on a web page – this is an SEO puzzles that has an impact on the ranking of a webpage.

• NoFollow

A backlink that doesn’t have an impact on search engine result rankings.

• Organic Results

Search results that occur due to relevance of the page and not due to paid ads.

• PageRank

This is one among the algorithms of Google for determining the ranking of a site in SERPs. It counts the quality and number of backlinks to determine the importance of a site.

• Reputation Management

Influencing the reputation of the brand, especially within search results.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The strategic way of using keywords in the navigation of your website, content and inbound links to increase rankings in SERPs.

• SERP

Search Engine Results Pages are the pages that appear when you enter a search. It has 3 sections: paid ads, search query and organic results.

• Short tail keyword

These are generic 1-2 word search phrases.

2] LEAD GENERATION & WEBSITES

• Alexa Rank

Traffic ranking of a website as compared to other websites on the web.

• Below the Fold

Part of the webpage that you can’t see unless you scroll down.

• Bounce Rate

Percentage of visitors who navigate away from your site after only viewing one page.

• Call-to-Action (CTA)

Instruction to provoke immediate action like ‘Download Now’ or ‘Click Here’.

• Click Heat Map

Shows where exactly the visitors clicked on a website.

• Conversion Rate Optimization

Improves website content and navigation to motivate passive visitors in becoming customers.

• Content Management System

An app that simplifies editing, adding and managing websites by automating tasks like navigating and indexing.

• Landing Page (LP)

Standalone page that is different from the main site, with a single CTA.

• Responsive Web Design

Offers optimal reading and navigation experience across desktop and mobile.

• Split Testing

Testing 2 variants of a product or page with blind control group to see which gives you better results.

3] CONTENT MARKETING

• Brand Storytelling

Utilizing the techniques of storytelling to define a specific brand and build an emotional connection with the audience.

• Content Curation

Sifts through quality online content and chooses the best items that may be of interest to the target audience.

• Crowdsourced Content

Making use of a larger online community to create content through surveys, blog comments and social media.

• Evergreen Content

Material that will remain relevant for the target audience forever.

• Listicle

Articles that are written in the format of a list like ’10 best cars of 2020’.

• Marketing Funnel

Describes the journey of the customer from awareness of the product to the purchase.

• Newsjacking

Hijacking a top news headline and using it as your brand’s content, often as a jump-off point.

• Native Advertising

Editorial content that has been designed to cater to the site of a definite online publisher and that is placed along with the other articles of the site.

• TOFU, MOFU, BOFU

Top, middle and bottom of the funnel. It’s a short-form for referring to the exact place where the potential customers stand in the buying journey.

• Thought Leaders

Expert, go-to pros in the field.

4] ADVERTISING

• Click Fraud

Clicking on an ad repeatedly to deplete the budget of the advertiser.

• Click Through Rate (CTR)

Percentage of people who click on an advertisement to land to your website.

• Cost Per Click (CPC)

Actual price that is paid for each click in the PPC campaigns.

• Cost Per Impression/Mille (CPM)

Price of 1000 impressions or views.

• Pay Per Click (PPC)

Ads which only target specific target audience, especially through sponsored links.

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Improves the visibility of websites in search engine result pages through saturation, SEO and the use of right backlinks.

5] SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

• Boost/Promote

Paying to include content in the feeds of the prospective customers who are still not followers of your website.

• Cross-channel

Using one social media channel like Facebook to support another page, like Twitter.

• Meme

Image, symbol or cataphrase that spreads virally.

• Shareable

The potential of a piece of content to be shared by viewers or to be made viral.

• Vanity Metric

Statistics that don’t always correlate to numbers: page views, downloads, retweets/likes vs. vital metrics like revenue, active users and profits.

6] EMAIL MARKETING

• Autoresponder

Program that sends automatic response to messages and mails sent to a particular email address.

• Marketing Automation

A system that automates repetitive marketing jobs and sends alerts for specific customer reactions.

• List Building

The process of adding subscribers to an email list.

• Opt-In

Potential customers should grant permission to send them mails.

• Opt-Out

Already existing customers receives emails because of their prior relationship without having to grant any permission to receive mails.

All digital marketers require sturdy project management and coordination tool to bring into effect their team efforts and maintain organized campaigns. Keep in mind all the above mentioned online marketing jargons to make your job easier.

Infographic brought to you by Wrike project portfolio management software.