This glossary will help you discover the meanings of popular terms used in digital marketing. Find definitions for SEO, Affiliate Marketing, blogging, and more.
Table of contents
Affiliate Link
An affiliate link is used when an affiliate publisher drives traffic to an affiliate offer. When a visitor to the website clicks on the affiliate link and then makes a purchase, the publisher receives a benefit, most often, commission.
Affiliate Website
An affiliate website is a type of website that exists “to refer traffic to another website” and sits on the same server as the destination website. The referral method is normally achieved by placing a small text link or graphic at specific positions within pages on this site, which itself may be situated anywhere on the Internet — including among others as part of ads, as widgets on third party sites such as blogs and social media profiles or in articles/blogs/websites any other place where visitors can reach it.
Affiliate websites are monetized using one of many available pay-per-click (PPC) advertising programs such as Google Adsense & Amazon Associates and revenue generated from these sites is generally based exclusively on referring visitors to products and services offered by third parties.
Anchor Text
Anchor text is a piece of text that has been hyperlinked from one web page to another. The characters containing the link are descriptive and indicate where the buyer might go when they click on the link. Anchor Text is often interpreted by search engines as a vote for the linked document.
Autoresponder
An autoresponder is an email that’s automatically sent to a new subscriber so they know what to expect. Examples of autoresponders are Mailchimp, Keap, Constant Contact, and SendinBlue.
B
Bottom of the Funnel
The bottom of the funnel (BOFU) has the highest commercial intent phrases with the best chances of converting higher numbers of visitors into sales. These queries often include specific features, prices, models, or even brands. The goal is to get these people on your site and turn them into customers.
Buyer Intent Keywords
A buyer intent keyword is a term used for a keyword phrase used on the search engine for a potential customer. The goal behind focusing on these keywords is that by targeting these terms, your site could get high rankings in the organic search results when people looking for products/services related to your product search with their queries.
C
Call To Action
A ‘Call To Action’ can be briefly described as a phrase or word within an online promotion which encourages the target market to complete a particular task, such as purchase a product or subscribe to a mailing list.
Case Study
A Case study is a documentation of a group with specified data to measure. In a nutshell, it is a study where the investigator focuses on one outcome. A blogger, for example, may publish a case study on their new website.
An SEO might do a case study on testing the 5 top SEO Plugins for WordPress.
A Case Study may be used to highlight some wonderful successes or some horrid failures. The one thing they have in common is the research which was done on a limited number of subjects, rather than looking at large groups of people. It’s a more intensive and therefore a valuable resource.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on creating and distributing relevant content to attract, acquire, and engage customers. Content forms include blogs, white papers, eBooks, research reports, case studies, datasheets, how-to guides, webinars, videos, infographics, photos, social media updates, Slideshare presentations, or other online assets that help your prospects learn more about what you do.
D
Display Ad
A Display ad is made up of words, images. It could be anything that makes sense to the right person or gets someone’s attention. It’s usually in the form of a banner, video, or text.
Domain Authority
Domain Authority, a score originally created by Moz.com assigns a number from 0-100 representing its probability to rank on the search engines. Research shows that the higher this number is the more likely it will rank on top of Google’s first page results for targeted keywords. Domain Authority (or DA) is not a Google-stated ranking factor.
Learn more about Domain Authority.
Domain Value
Domain value is the total worth of a domain name. It comprises various factors which contribute to the workability and marketability of a domain name as an asset.
You can learn more about estimating domain value here.
Drip Email Campaign
A drip email campaign is a sequence of emails that are automatically sent to subscribers over the course of a pre-determined period. These can be daily, weekly, monthly, date focused, or timed depending on what you’re using it for.
A drip email campaign is typically used as an introduction to your brand and/or product(s), educating readers about your product/service, providing value in some way (i.e., tips/tricks), and encouraging them to purchase your product(s). Drip campaigns are also good for announcing discounts/promotions or updating customers on any news they might find interesting.
Dynamic Content
Dynamic content is dynamic in nature, this means that the page or file can change depending on certain conditions. It’s one of the main technologies used for web pages to create a personalized experience for users.
E
E-Commerce
E-Commerce is a form of retail or business transaction that involves the selling of products or services across electronic systems such as the internet.
Email List
An email list is a database of peoples’ emails. If someone subscribes to your list, you will be notified via email. An email list allows you to stay in touch with your customers, customers potential customers, and prospects by having an autoresponder send them regular (but not too regular) updates about new products, changes/updates, etc to the product they bought from you.
Click here to learn how to master the E-mail list.
Email Funnel
An email funnel is a pre-crafted sequence of emails that are automatically sent to a list. All someone has to do is fill in the blanks and upload their own content. The end goal of an email funnel is to sell affiliate products, drive targeted traffic to your website or even get people on your mailing list. By following an email funnel you can expect improved communication with your readers as well as better results from your promotional efforts.
Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is content on the web that does not become irrelevant or go out of date with time.
Excerpt
An Excerpt is a part of a Post, Page, Custom post type, or Term within WordPress. Excerpts are often referred to as “teasers” because they are intended to give the reader just enough information about a Post, Page, Custom post type, or Term to entice them into reading more.
G
Google AdSense
Google AdSense is an advertising service that allows websites to earn money by placing ads on their pages.
Google Penalty
Google penalties are given by Google to remove sites that violate their quality guidelines, such as putting too much advertising on a page or having low-quality content.
K
Keyword
A keyword refers to words or phrases that people type into search engines that trigger results from the pages on your site.
L
Link Equity
Link Equity is the value of the backlinks pointing to a single website. The value of the websites is measured in domain authority.
M
Metadata
Meta-data is data about the data. On your website, it’s information that’s stored in text format and located on your web pages to describe what certain content is about and how it should be indexed by search engines.
Learn more about Meta-data
Monetized Website
A monetized website is a website that provides advertisements (Ads) or other forms of revenue in addition to regular content. Most, if not all, websites that display Ads are considered monetized. The goal of monetizing websites is to increase revenue by providing advertisers with space on your site.
Monetized webmasters often make money through pay-per-click (PPC) programs like Google AdSense or affiliate marketing, but can also make money using paid advertising networks like Ezoic. Monetization allows anyone to earn extra income for their blog site, social media account, YouTube channel, and more!
Money Pages
Money Pages are web pages that earn money for you. Bloggers will use the term money page for that top converting affiliate pages, ad earners, or course sales, for example.
O
Off-site SEO
The main idea behind off-site SEO is getting authority websites(other websites) to link back to your site indirectly (backlink).
P
Persona
A persona in marketing is a type of target market grouping which uses demographic data, likes and dislikes, company usage, and interests. Personas are commonly used to develop customer profiles in order to better understand the needs of specific groups of customers within an overall market.
Q
Query
A query is a keyword or keyword phrase, that can be entered in a search engine’s search bar. It is a series of characters that specifies your search on a computer. For example, “What are the best teleprompter apps” is a query.
R
RPM
RPM is an acronym meaning the “Revenue Per Thousand Impressions” metric, also known as M or Revenues Per Mille impressions.
S
SaaS
SaaS (software as a service) is one of the most common “as a service” business models that you’ll find on the internet today. SaaS platforms give users access to an application that resides in the cloud and can be used through any web browser or mobile app, without having to download and install anything on their computers.
Sales Funnel
A sales funnel is a process online marketers use to convert prospects into customers. Its purpose is simple – getting as many people through the sales process as possible, starting with the free content you offer visitors on your website.
Search Volume
When a domain name is typed into a search bar, the engine tries to find that domain. The number of times it’s found is recorded as a search volume.
SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the process of optimizing your website and its content so that it can be found more easily by search engines.
SEO Audit
An SEO Audit is an assessment of the health of your website’s current state. It looks at anything that might be causing you to perform poorly in organic search results and helps determine if a site has been properly optimized. Generally speaking, it covers a range of topics from on-page content factors, technical issues, link-building opportunities, and more.
SERP
A Search Engine Results Page (SERP) refers to the full list of results returned by a search engine for a specific query.
Sidebar
A Sidebar is an area displayed on the right or left of a page. It can be used to display widgets, advertisements, text, RSS feeds, and so forth.
Static Page
A static page on a website is simply content that does not change or appear to “move” during navigation. A standard page layout of the main parts of the page (header, navigation, article containing text and images) would be considered as “static.”
T
Topical Athority
Topical authority is a term used for a website that has earned credibility for a particular niche. The authority is most often earned by generating backlinks from related websites.
Top Of The Funnel (TOFU)
The top of the funnel, as you sometimes hear called TOFU, is where you find the most traffic, but they are generally looking for answers and don’t want to complete a purchase at that time. You might get some sales from this group, but they won’t be as high quality as leads in most cases. Informational content is often published to attract visitors at the top of the funnel.
U
URL
A Uniform Resource Locator, or URL, is a link to a file on the internet. it follows a certain syntax in its structure and contains information needed to locate the file you want to download.
For instance: https://ballenblogger.com is a URL to the front page of my blog
W
Whitehat SEO
Whitehat SEO is the practice of optimizing a website to rank higher in search engine result pages using both on-site and off-site methods. The methods used are in line with Google’s best practices.