If you’re new to digital marketing, or you’re just not sure what some of the terms we use mean, this glossary is for you! Keep a link to it handy, or pin it to your desktop, save it for later however works best for you. We’ll add new terms to this whenever we can.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
The practice of improving a website’s visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results to attract more traffic. It involves optimising a site’s content, structure, and technical elements so that search engines can understand it, and it ranks higher for relevant searches on engines like Google and Bing. The main goal is to increase the quality and quantity of visitors to a website without using paid advertising.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Paying for space in search results so your website appears at the top of searches. The results aren’t guaranteed as most large brands have an SEM strategy.
SEMrush
An online tool you can find at semrush.com, which is used to managing and planning SEO. You can use it for free or pay a subscription, it is great for planning keywords and building reports to monitor your SEO progress. You can find it at semrush.com.
answerthepublic.com
Another online tool for keyword research, covering social media and Amazon searches too. It’s really easy to use and the visual format is helpful – using the difficulty score for each keyword helps planning as well. You can use it at answerthepublic.com.
Meta Description
The short text under a link in Google or Bing. This can be altered to include keywords to support your SEO.
On-Page SEO
Aspects of a website’s pages that Google (or other search engines & tools) use to determine how closely your page fits someone’s search. On-page includes page title, headings (particularly the main heading, or H1, but others are important too), meta descriptions, URL, page copy.
Copy / Page Copy
The writing on the website page.
URL
The link – what you type in to reach a website page. Eg bricktoclickmarketing.co.uk/blog. These used to always start with www. but often they don’t now.
Padding
Space around an image or website page element.
Minimise Images
Make the file size smaller to support your SEO.
Keywords
Words and phrases that are searched on Google, Bing, ChatGPT or social media.
Target Keywords
The keywords that you identify as relevant to your website, and want to rank for.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of website visitors that book a table or make a call to your business.
Ranking
Where your website is shown in search results. Generally the top 10 are shown on the first page, so that is what you’re aiming for.
Menu Toggle Button
The small square button that opens a website menu when viewing on a mobile phone. Often has three horizontal lines, and is sometimes referred to as a ‘hamburger menu’.
Tinypng.com
A free website where you can minimise any images you have saved on your computer. Go to tinypng.com.
Plugin
An add-on for your website in WordPress. Some are free and some are paid. There are hundreds of thousands of plugins with different capabilities.
Tracking code
A bit of website code that is provided by tools such as Google Search Console that you add into your website (usually in the header) to link the two. This means the tool can track what happens on your website and report on it.
CSS
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. CSS describes how page elements are to be displayed on screen. CSS saves a lot of work. It can control the layout of multiple web pages all at once.
