Glossary
Most common terms
Abandonment
What is Abandonment?
Most websites will have a Call To Action, which is a goal that a company wants users to reach before leaving the website. The CTA for Ecommerce sites are likely to be a user purchasing an item, or even to subscribe. Abandonment is when users leave a website without any transactional or goal orientated information, so for Ecommerce sites this will be when a user has gone onto a website but has not purchased a product or service.
Adwords
What is Adwords?
Google Adwords is an advertising network that is ran by Google. Companies will often bid on adverts that will appear in certain SERPs. Adwords gives their users a lot of information, so they can decide which phrase is better to bid on. So for instance, if a footwear company wants to sell more flip flops then it may want to advertise on Google, but many companies will probably want to be advertised on the “flip flop” SERP, so it would be wiser to bid on a keyword phrase that is more niche such as “cheap flip flops for holiday”. An Adwords account will show users the most popular search terms, how often it is searched and the average CPC.
Affiliate Marketing
What is Affiliate Marketing?
This type of marketing is often commission based. The simplest way to explain affiliate marketing is through an example, so here goes. Have you ever signed up to a club and the owner of that club says “if you recommend us to a friend and that friend then signs up, we will reward you”? Affiliate marketing works in a similar way. An affiliate site will promote another companies product, accompanied by a link to the site of the merchant of that product, which could result in a user purchasing that product. The merchant is happy because they have gained a sale and therefore rewards the affiliate site for the part they had to play in the sale.
Algorithm
What is an Algorithm?
Google uses various algorithms which impact on a site's position in Google’s search results. Google will analyse the words on your site and match them with the keyword phrases that are typed into Google’s search bar. From this analysis, Google determines the rank given to your page within that search result, which is why the copy on websites generally needs to be optimised, as no matter how good a website looks if it is not relevant to keywords then no one will be able to find it.
Analytics
What is Analytics?
Is digital marketers right hand man (or woman!). It is a free service from Google that allows companies and agencies to keep up to date with various statistics and analytics, such as the amount of traffic that a website has, conversion rates and so on. Basically, Google Analytics is your saviour, it puts all of the important information in one place allowing you to see how your website is performing.
For more insights on optimizing your Shopify store, check out our SEO Shopify guide.
Anchor Text
What is Anchor Text?
Anchor Text is a piece of clickable text that takes a user to another web page (i.e. hyperlink), so it is “anchoring” the content of one website to another. These links are important in SEO as well as driving traffic to your website. Best practice would state that the anchor text should be reflective of the content it is linking to but in reality a natural link profile wouldn’t look like this in its entirety so having a natural link profile will comprise a mixture of types of anchor text. And there is an excellent blog on the subject here (hint: this is anchor text) from SEM Rush.
Backlinks
What are Backlinks?
Backlinks occur when one site links to another site. Most links will lead users to a homepage of another site, however it is usually better in terms of a site's DA if this backlink directs users to the most relevant landing page. For instance, if a cosmetic ecommerce site sent one of their products such as an anti-wrinkle cream to a blogger, then it is ideal that this blogger links to the category page of that product (i.e. skincare category page), as this will allow users to browse the other available products plus possibly resulting in more potential purchases. Backlinking is one of the best ways to increase the Domain Authority of your website.
Below The Fold
What is Below The Fold?
Yep, you guessed it! Below the Fold is the opposite to ‘Above the Fold’. It is the part of a webpage that is not instantly viewed by a user when a web page is first loaded unless they scroll down. However the fold is becoming less relevant, and although the smart move is to still place the most important information ‘Above the Fold’ many users are learning to scroll down.
Black Hat SEO
What is Black Hat SEO?
Are a set of ‘naughty’ practices in the SEO world. Companies that use Blackhat SEO practices do it in order to try and increase their Domain Authority in search engines. Practices include hiding text, such as putting keywords on a website but in white against a white background so they cannot be seen but will still result in a surge of website traffic.
Bounce Rate
What is Bounce Rate?
Is a good indicator when it comes to determining the relevance and quality of your website. A bounce is defined as a single-page session, when it comes to percentages a high bounce rate is considered as bad, as it often indicates that users have not found your site enticing enough to click through the rest of the site. Another reason why high bounce rates are considered as a negative is because of relevance, if a person has searched “Red Shoes” and an Ad appears that sells black trainers then users will leave the site instantly as it has no relevance to their search nor their needs. Bounce rates are considered to be a concern over 50%, with anything under 30% considered to be very good.
Breadcrumb Trail
What is a Breadcrumb Trail?
As we all know, some websites have tons and tons of pages and sometimes it can be hard to remember exactly where you started. This is where breadcrumb trails come in, it is a type of navigation that allows users to see where they are in terms of the structure of the website (p.s. It is great for increasing a site’s usability).
Call To Action
What is a Call To Action?
Every PPC Ad is meant to encourage traffic to the site, the site will then try and entice users to reach the goal of that site, such as booking a consultation. This ‘goal’ is better known as the Call To Action.