Like a new language originating from a common tribe, the internet has produced its own unique terminology. The overflow of information has generated different terms, shaping the way we interpret the online world.
Being a business owner in the 21st Century means that you need to deal with certain trends and changes. As digital marketing has become a key skill in facing the business world of today, it is now a MUST to know at least the relevant terms and how each one is used.
To help you get familiar with digital marketing vocabulary and how it relates to your business, we have listed down the most important terms from A-Z.
This is the visible part of your website that a viewer sees as soon as he lands on your homepage. Before the internet, this phrase was used to describe the visible section of a newspaper when it is folded in half.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Being the element that your target audience immediately sees when they visit your website, above-the-fold needs to be designed well and complete. Since it can make or break the user experience, web designers put a great deal of effort into making it as effective and remarkable as possible. Your ATF needs to be powerful and compelling.
A backlink is created when another website or web resource links to one of your web pages. In other words, if another website points its visitors directly to your website, that is considered a backlink.
Why it’s relevant to your business: In SEO (more on this term later), content quality is very important. So, when someone else finds your content valuable enough to even send their visitors to your website, it’s a plus! Backlinks confirm your site’s credibility. The more good content people find on your website, the more backlink opportunities you have.
Call-to-action (CTA) is any clickable element on a website intended to get people to take action. It can be a button, a text hyperlink, or any other component that usually has a short commanding statement such as “Order now!” “Sign up” “Click here” or “Contact us”
Why it’s relevant to your business: Your website is created to get results in line with your business goals. And the only way to achieve those is by convincing people to not only visit your website but also act in your business’s favour. Whether you want them to contact you, buy your products, sign up for your newsletter or avail of your services, you need to have compelling CTAs on your website to encourage them to trust you.
This is the act of personalising website content based on the preferences, behaviour or interests of the current user. It’s basically content that changes based on who’s using it.
Some examples are:
• Dynamic banners that change based on user location
• Displaying the name of the user on the website (Hi, John!)
• Displaying the user’s location, current weather and temperature
Why it’s relevant to your business: Tailored content helps your visitors feel valued. Though implementing dynamic content may require some technical expertise, you just need to find the right team to help you materialise this feature on your own website.
Any online interaction your consumers have with your brand, such as clicks, views, likes, comments, shares, online purchases, etc. is considered an engagement.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Engagement is a form of feedback that your target audience gives to each of your digital marketing efforts. It is important to gauge and analyse engagements to determine which efforts are effective and which need improvement.
Facebook is a social networking website with billions of active users (2.8 billion monthly). Over the years, Facebook has evolved from being a simple social media service that people use to share information and interact with each other, to a multi-billion company that allows you to advertise your products (free or paid), host events and live feeds, manage your online store, set up groups and fan pages, and more!
Why it’s relevant to your business: It’s safe to say that almost everyone is on Facebook. And that’s what makes it a very powerful marketing channel for your business. The feature that you can truly take advantage of is Facebook’s advertising suite, the Facebook Ads. It allows you to target an exact audience, set up your own ad budget, and customise your ad campaign based on specific goals and preferences. The platform’s robust Analytics feature even lets you monitor and evaluate each ad campaign using different metrics.
It is a tool that allows you to manage and promote your business profile on Google Maps and Search. It’s a way to officially introduce your business to Google and be recognised by location and by website. Through your Google Business listing, people will be able to locate you on Google Maps, connect with you, review your products/services, and see updates that you post on your business profile.
Why it’s relevant to your business: A verified Google listing (meaning a business listing you claimed and confirmed on Google) gives your business a legit presence on Google Search and Maps, making you more visible to your target consumers. It also gives you access to Google Insights which “focuses on how customers find your listing on Search and Maps, and what they do after they find it,” as described by Google.
It is a word or phrase preceded by a hash symbol (#) that is used to identify that a social/digital content belongs to a certain topic. Originating from Twitter, hashtags are now used on other social media channels to categorise posts and make them easier to find. When you click on a hashtagged phrase or word, it takes you to other posts bearing the same hashtag.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Using hashtags is a fun and effective way to promote your business, making it more visible to potential customers while growing your social media presence. When you use a certain hashtag and people search for the exact same hashtag online, they will be able to see your post, giving them a chance to interact with your brand, and maybe even be new followers and loyal customers.
Any clickable item on your website that leads to other areas or pages within your website is considered an internal link.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Linking within your domain gives your users more opportunity to explore your website, hence creating more internal traffic and encouraging your visitors to stay longer on your site.
Javascript is a top programming language used by web developers all over the world. It gives web pages interactive components that make a website more engaging and functional to users.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Since Javascript is the standard programming language of the web (more than 97% of websites were used using Javascript), it can be relevant to your business, specifically your website, in different ways. We’re not saying you should learn how to use it. However, this is one of the skills that your web designers must have in order to give you an efficient and user friendly website.
When it comes to digital marketing, specifically SEO, a keyword is any word or phrase relating to a business, a topic or an idea that people enter on search engines like Google to find the information that they need. When creating content for a website, people use particular keywords to make their content relevant to their target audience and have a better chance of appearing on related search results.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Keywords help you get found on the internet. Some people are actually searching for the exact products/services that you offer. And when your website has the content that people are looking for, you gain a higher opportunity to be visible to the ones that matter most to your business – your potential clients.
Your leads are the people or businesses that have a high probability of becoming a client. You get leads through marketing efforts that you do online and offline.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Leads are the fruit of your hard work and the ones who are almost convinced that your products/services are worth a try. To gain more potential buyers, pay attention to lead generation through digital marketing efforts (website enhancements, e-mail marketing, social media ads, etc).
It is the capacity of any digital content to efficiently respond to different devices being used. For example, a website will be considered mobile-friendly/mobile-responsive if its components (eg. images, texts, buttons) display properly across all gadgets (PC, laptop, tablet, mobile).
Why it’s relevant to your business: As over 90% of the global internet population uses a mobile device, mobile friendliness is now a MUST feature in creating any web content in order to achieve a positive user experience. Your website, as well as other content you put up online regarding your business, must always be mobile-responsive.
Newsletter, also known as e-mail marketing, is a strategy used by businesses and organizations to engage their consumers on a regular basis while promoting their products/services. E-mails are sent to a list of recipients who agreed to subscribe to regularly receive newsletters to their inbox. Messages usually contain engaging content, news/updates and related links.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Over the years, e-mail has remained to be one of the most effective marketing tools in spite of how the digital marketing world has evolved. Matter of fact, 4.03 billion people around the world used e-mail in 2020. Newsletters give you direct access to your existing and potential clients’ inbox. You can take advantage of this tool to interact with your audience, promote your business and drive traffic to your website.
When a user keys in a search query on Google or any other search engines, the regular/unpaid/non-advertised entries that show up on the search engine results page (SERPs) are called organic search results. With organic search, the results solely relies on the search engine’s algorithm based on how relevant the result is to a particular search query.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Gaining organic traffic on your website is the whole point of optimising your content for search (SEO). Showing up on the first page of SERPs (without having to spend a dollar) is any website owner’s dream as this would mean that your web content is truly relevant, not only to your target audience but also to search engines.
Paid advertising is any form of advertisement that you need to pay for in order to be displayed or shown. Various online platforms offer paid ads such as search engines, social media channels, video streaming platforms, gaming apps, blog sites, etc. Most of these providers allow business owners to manage the ads by giving them full control over budgeting, scheduling, content and analytics.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Though paid ads can be very expensive, this strategy can be the fastest way to reach your target consumers, drive valuable leads and gain additional revenue.
Quality score is Google’s diagnostic tool that rates advertisers based on the quality of their ads (on a scale of 1-10). Factors that affect the Quality Score are the keywords used, how likely people are to click the ad, and the quality of the landing page (user experience).
Why it’s relevant to your business: If you are using Google Ads, this is another way to determine which of your campaigns are likely to get positive results and which would need some improvements.
In SEO, your website’s ranking is its position on the SERPs whenever a user searches for products/services/information related to your business. Content, backlinks and website performance are just some of the top factors that can affect your ranking.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Search engine ranking reflects how your website compares to your competitors when it comes to search relevance. It’s how Google, along with other search engines, positions your website and how people can find value to its overall content. It can also serve as indication whether there is a need to improve your content or just maintain.
SEO is a set of methods that aims to improve your website and make it more visible to search engines. Search engines have their own algorithms that determine how optimised and relevant your website is to their users, hence positioning it based on their own set of rules. SEO techniques have been derived from a collection of industry knowledge on how search engines work and perceive your website and its components. Google, for example, release some updates to their services and guidelines to keep people informed about their rules. This allows web creators and content providers to adjust and continually improve their SEO techniques and keep their websites optimised at all times.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Website optimisation is a must for any business owner who wants his website to be visible to its target visitors. Competition is tough online and SEO gives you what you need in order to be ready for the battlefield.
Digital touchpoints are any means of online interaction between your consumers and your brand. This includes your website, e-mail, social media, free/paid online ads, search engine results, chat support, product reviews, subscriptions, etc.
Why it’s relevant to your business: As a business owner, you want to have as much interactions with your consumers as possible. That’s why you need to create and manage your digital touchpoints properly, bearing in mind that each will be a channel that can make way for lead and revenue generation.
This describes the overall experience of your target users in utilising any of your digital touchpoints. In web design and development, UX is top priority and should be considered for each component being implemented. This includes design elements, texts, features, downloadable content, etc. The user’s needs, values, capabilities, and limitations are just some of the things being taken into consideration to satisfy user experience.
Why it’s relevant to your business: It is imperative for every business owner to create user-friendly digital marketing solutions to make your customers feel important and avoid issues with your target users.
It is online marketing that uses the power of videos to attract and engage existing and potential consumers. Youtube, Titktok, Facebook and other video sharing sites and apps are effective venues for video marketing because of user and engagement figures.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Check out our blog entitled “The Power of Video Marketing” to know how video marketing can help your business.
Optimising a website to improve search rankings while maintaining quality content and integrity within the site is what’s called White Hat SEO. Resulting to cheating or objectionable tactics to place better on the SERPs is, on the the other hand, called Black Hat SEO.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Keeping your website clean and full of substance is very important. Though many of black hat techniques have worked before, Google has made its algorithm more robust and intelligent over time, which means that white hat SEO is greatly favoured, while Black Hat SEO can cause issues, or even penalties.
Yoast is an SEO plugin for WordPress (content management system used to create websites) that aims to make applying SEO easier and faster through features like automatic SEO page titles, search engine snippet previews, internal link suggestions and keyword guides.
Why it’s relevant to your business: Yoast is easy to use and effective. Whether you’re techie or not, you will find it convenient and useful to your website.
A term coined by Google in 2011, ZMOT refers to the moment when a consumer researches online for information about a product/service that he has seen. While the first moment of truth happens when the customer decides to purchase a product, ZMOT is the event beforehand.
Why it’s relevant to your business: It is important to study the behaviour of your consumers during the ZMOT. This is where your digital touchpoints come into play and whether or not they are effective enough to take your consumers to the next level of the buying model, which is the actual purchase.
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