Online & Website Term Glossary

The website navigation pertains to the menu at the top of a website. For instance the "About" section of a website might have sub-pages such as "Overview, History, and Team". These links comprise the navigation menu for the "About" section.

A metric used to describe the likelihood a customer will recommend your product or service. A Net Promoter Score ranges from -100 to 100, with higher scores indicating a greater likelihood of customer recommendation.

This is the most basic element of a Drupal website. A Node is like a page though it also can be a section of a page.

Upon typing in a keyword string of your choosing, the website on which you are searching will return a list of results that contain and/or have content that is related to your search terms. 

Also commonly referred to as site search and internal site search. 

The rate at which recipients of an email actually open it.

Typically used to describe software, open source refers to something that is made available to the public so that users may modify and/or share as they wish. Examples of open source software are content management systems such as WordPress and Drupal.

What it is: Vignette/OpenText is an enterprise level CMS

Type: Fee-based licensed software

Features: Personalized content marketing due to the ability to quickly locate meaningful and relevant user content.

Pros: With OpenText one can maximize the value of enterprise information for improved decision making and productivity.

Cons: Being an enterprise CMS, the price may be too high for some.

OpenText's website.

Also referred to as natural SEO, is a phrase referring to gaining natural placement on a search engine. This is an alternative way of internet marketing compared to Pay Per Click advertising offered by Google.

A numerical value, developed by Moz, that determines the page rank on a search engine results page (SERP). Scores range from 0 to 100, with a higher score indicating a greater likelihood of better rankings. 

A term used to designate the ranking of a website. Google ranks websites and pages reportedly based on over 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pagerank is on a scale from 0 to 10. The higher the rank the more relevant it is based on Google algorithms.

The average number of pages viewed during one session.

The total number of pages viewed on a website.

These are two of the most important, if not notorious, Google updates that have occurred over the past few years. These updates have changed how websites are ranked dramatically. They have provided a better understanding though of what Google finds most important when ranking a page. This includes unique content and content that has been shared via social media.

In web design, the manner through which the background images move more slowly than the foreground images that are used. 

Data provided in the URL to specify a site's behavior.

A person who isn't currently interested in your products or services, but could be in the future. In other words, they haven't begun the buyer's journey.

An internet marketing strategy by which advertisers pay the publisher (a website) when the ad is clicked. Advertisers can bid on a keyword that is relevant to their target market.

PPC ads can display on the top of a SERP when a keyword matches the advertiser's keyword list, as well as be shown on social media outlets, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. 

A penetration test, typically called a pen test or ethical hacking, is a simulated cyberattack on a website, to see what security issues there are. Pen tests are regularly done as part of web security best practices to improve the security of a website. 

This type of document outlines the demographics, pain points, needs, motivations, and other aspects of a particular type of audience that a website serves. This is helpful for creating a user-centered UX design as well as optimizing for SEO.

A Persona Profile should be filled out for each of the main audience types. Anyone familiar with the type of audience should fill out the profile before the site is designed and content created.

See an example.

The use of data collected and analyzed to personalize a marketing strategy directed at a specific user.

PHI stands for Protected Health Information. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 is a US federal statute that provides protections for personal health information such as physical records, electronic records, or information recorded verbally.

Any website that includes PHI is required to be HIPAA compliant. Ensuring HIPAA compliance includes how PHI data is accessed and stored, data encryption, SSL, hosting and other aspects of a website or web application.

Pillar pages cover all aspects of a specific topic on one page. Included on this page are various links to more in-depth articles that expand upon the topic and link back to the pillar page.

Pillar pages are an important SEO tactic for increasing search visibility for target keywords.

This is a critical part of every website project, especially ones that include extensive functionality. Project managers play an important role in a variety of ways such as specifying: goals, requirements, schedule, budget and the Project Planning. They also often are responsible for completing Definition deliverables such as sitemaps, wireframes, and functional specifications as well as QA and testing.

The amount of project management time needed is typically 20% of the total project time e.g. if the project has 100 hours then 20 hours should be allocated for project management.

Takeaway

Insufficient allocation of time for project management increases the risk the project will not run smoothly or encounter cost overruns.

This is the operating document for completing a website or Internet marketing project. It is based on the 4 phase process: Define, Design, Develop, Deploy. This uses a ‘Waterfall’ project management process where each action item and phase follows the other, one after the other.

Takeaway

Make sure you understand what is included in your Project Plan and are familiar with the terminology used.

This is a secure site that houses all deliverables and other communication regarding a web site project. It typically has one page for Postings which list project activity chronologically and links to the sitemap, wireframes, the Project Plan and a project team page.

This is the process of creating a prototype for a website. It's not easy to create a desired website on the first try, often times it takes prototyping to eventually get the correct design.

At the end of the Development Phase the QA person will review the site. They will use a link checker as well as look at each page to determine if the design has been accurately implemented and there are no technical errors. They will also use tools such as Browser Stack that displays the site on different browsers e.g. Internet Explorer 9, Chrome on a Mac.

Takeaway

Make sure to review the ‘browser spec’ during the Definition phase that is included in the Project Plan. This lists all of the browsers and screen dimensions that the site will be tested for.

Given out by Adwords and is determined by the following factors: ad quality based on CTR, ad relevance to the keyword, and landing page experience.

The higher the Quality Score, the higher the ad will appear as well as the lower it will cost to appear there.

Another word for "keyword" or "search term" this is what users input into search engines to find what they are looking for. 

In SEO, relevance describes the magnitude of relatedness between the content on a website and the content of a search.