Glossary

A

AdWords: The advertising elements of Google search.

Affiliate: In the case of online marketing, a marketer who recruits persons to their website in the hope of selling the customer exchange for a commission from a third party.

Affiliate Network: A group consisting of sellers and marketers who are joined by a third party (the Affiliate Network) to bring products and/or services to the consumer.

Analytics: Any and all analysis provided to you by your Affiliate Network, by Google AdWords or by an online advertising network. Analytics provides numeric analysis of ad campaigns, weeks/months comparisons, etc. Analytics refers to all the data you might receive from any source that shows you the number of conversions, the number of clicks, and more.

B

Back end: This refers to the "behind the scenes" pages of your website. Every page of your website has a back end that needs to be properly "optimized" in order to get the highest search engine ranking.

Black Hat: SEO tactics that are considered negative by search engines in that they try to redirect traffic in a manner that is not natural or preferred for quality traffic. Such tactics include keyword stuffing, hidden links and pages, and unnatural redirects. Sites who use these tactics are at risk of having their sites taken down by Google or other search engine.

Bots: Website crawlers that scan the web for the purpose of indexing it. The results of this indexing form the basis of organic search results.

C

Content: This refers to articles, videos, graphics, etc. that you post on your site that is aimed at helping the consumer. This content not only helps the consumer but by posting keywords in the content (and on the back end) it allows the search engines to find you and to rate your site. The better content you have, the higher your organic SERP will be.

Conversion: A sale. A customer comes to your site and purchases a product. They are said to have "converted."

CPC – Cost per Click: Cost per click. The cost to PPC advertisers for a consumer to click on their page.

CPM – Cost per thousand: Cost per thousand. Generally refers to the cost of 1,000 people viewing a web page.

DE

Domain: The website name.

Duplicate content: Content that appears on more than one site. It is desirous that you post original content on your website. The search engine ranking systems penalizes duplicate content.

EPL - Earnings per Lead: The amount of money earned per lead.

External Links: Links that connect to content outside of your own website.

FH

Footer: Generally the very bottom of every page on a website which often, but not always, contains disclaimers and links to all departments (categories) on the website.

Hyperlink: A link to another web page. It may be another page on your site, or it may "link" to an entirely different site. It is used to make navigation on your own site easier and in the case of linking to a different site; it often acts as a "footnote" of sorts. In creating your content, you may "quote" from a source and linking to that source is considered good practice.

I

Inbound Links: These are links that come from another website to your site. These are considered strong indications that your site is a quality site according to the various search engines. But avoid paying for links. The search engines are getting better at finding fake links.

Internal Links: Links to other content (pages) on your own website. Marketers often do this to make site navigation easier for the visitor.

K

Keyword: These are words/phrases that people search for on the web. As a marketer you will use these in your content to attract search engines and ultimately the searcher. For example, let's say I live in Los Angeles and am looking for a florist, I might search for "florist LA." Websites with this keyword will more than likely show at the top of the organic search.

L

Link Farm: An old, now discredited, method of gaining inbound links. These were sites where you could buy links to your site. Search engines penalize sites that use this practice to gain inbound links.

Long Tail (search): Searches with more than two or three words. Searches use these when they are looking for a very specific thing, that one or two words can’t describe. Marketers' hyperlink to these longer keyword phrases in an effort to come up first in an organic search in a less competitive keyword arena. For example let's say I'm looking for a particular kind of insurance in my neighborhood. I might search for something like this: "commercial insurance in Canton Maryland." Because there are many different "Canton's", it's important to add the state, so that my search will be accurate. An insurance agency with those keywords will likely come up first in my search.

MN

Meta Tag(s): Words or phrases that appear in the header of a web page. They help search engines to find your site and to rank it.

Negative keyword: Used in AdWords, using negative keywords keeps your ad from showing when the search uses those words.

O

Optimize, optimization: The process of creating your website and its content to be read by search engine bots. Without this the search engines do not know your website and its content exist.

Organic search: This is the non-paid search result. To use Google search as an example, the paid ads appear at the top and to the right on the page. Below the paid ads at the top begin the non-paid or organic listings.

PR

Page Rank: The page number of search results. Can be found at the bottom of the search results page. The lower the number (1 is best,) the better the result.

PPC - Pay Per Click: Type of internet marketing where advertisers pay a small fee to the search engine each time someone clicks on their ads. Redirect Links: A link that sends the visitor to a different page.

Platform: What the hardware or software runs on. The platform can be described as the "bone" of the hardware or the program you are running.

ROI: (Return on Investment): The amount of money earned against the amount of advertising and/or marketing dollars spent. Used often in comparing AdWords campaigns to study effectiveness.

S

SEO: Search Engine Optimization: The process of coding a website and its pages to rank better on search engines. Focuses on keyword optimization.

SERP: Search Engine Results Placement: The position a site appears on organic search results.

T

Traffic: The number of visitors to your site and to its various pages. This process is extremely important so you can study how your site is performing. Is it getting more visitors that a month ago? A year ago? It's important to know what pages get the most traffic as well so that you can see which pages are leading to the most conversions. Which pages need some updating of content and which should be left alone.

Title Tag: The title at the top of the web page. It's the main way search engines find and index your site.

wz

Webmaster: The party or parties who are responsible for a website.

White Hat SEO: SEO tactics that are industry accepted.

Zero Parallel: One great network.

301 Redirect: A permanent redirect of a webpage. A search engine ignores the redirect page and reads the new page.