Glossary

AI – artificial intelligence. Machines perform tasks requiring human intelligence; works best when integrated with humans.

alt attribute – alternative information entered as a source of information for those users who have images disabled in their browsers, or for agents unable to “see” images.  Should describe the image and what it is about.  Google mostly focusing on alt text when trying to “read” an image.  The alt attribute is more important to search engines than an image title.  Most important to use on a site wide header banner if website has one.

acquisition—acquisition is how you acquire users.

attribution/marketing attribution – assigning credit for a conversion.

AQ – adaptability quotient

behavior—behavior data helps you improve your content.

• last click attribution – all of the value associated with the conversion is assigned to the last marketing activity that generated the revenue.
• first click attribution – all value of conversion is assigned to the first defined action that started the user on the customer journey.

backlinks– incoming or inbound links, inlinks and inward links; basically all incoming links to a website or webpage.  Significantly important in SEO and SERP.  In general, the more backlinks, (especially links from authoritative and relative sites), the more favorable your SERP rankings.

big data – Massive data collections that require computational analysis to determine trends, patterns, and associations in order to enable greater insight and better decision making when applied intelligently.

blog– a shortened term for “weblog.” Either term refers to a website where entries are made similar to a journal or diary. The entries are presented in reverse chronological order, with the newest entry on top.  Generally, blogs combine the text entries with images, links to other blogs and other related media.

bounce rate—bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e., visits in which the person left your site
from the entrance page without interacting with the page).

campaigns—campaigns (also known as custom campaigns) allow you to add parameters to any URL from your
website to collect more information about your referral traffic.

content marketing – marketing that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers.  This information can be presented in a variety of formats, including news, video, white papers, eBooks, info graphics, case studies, how-to guides, q and a articles, images, etc.

content strategy – planning the creation, publication and governance of useful, desirable content.

conversions—conversions are the number of times goals have been completed on your website.

CRO – conversion rate optimization

ctr – click through rate

deep learning- a subset of machine learning that solves problems using neural networks that simulate human decision making such as image search and handwriting recognition.

digital analytics– the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from your business and the competition to drive a continual improvement of the online experience that your customers and potential customers have which translates to your desire outcomes; both online & offline.

dimensions—a dimension is a descriptive attribute or characteristic of an object that can be given different
values. Browser, Exit Page, Screens and Session Duration are all examples of dimensions that appear by default
in Google Analytics.

goals—goals let you measure how often users take or complete specific actions on your website.

image title – literally the title you give to your image.  Less important to SEO and SERP than alt attributes.

influencer marketing – using a person of influence, (called the “influencer”), to persuade their followers, friends, or circle of influence to expand your market.

keyword research – searching for the keywords that will bring a website or article the best rankings on SERP.  Brainstorming and spending time hunting for the best primary and secondary keywords is time well spent.  Quality, not quantity is most important.

KPI’s – key performance indicators; these are the measurements of your strategies and tactics are are the numbers that you’ll look at day-to-day to understand how your business is performing.

lean startup – as defined on Wikipedia a method for developing businesses and products first proposed in 2011 by Eric Ries. Based on his previous experience working in several U.S. startups, Ries claims that startups can shorten their product development cycles by adopting a combination of business-hypothesis-driven experimentation, iterative product releases, and what he calls “validated learning“. Ries’ overall claim is that if startups invest their time into iteratively building products or services to meet the needs of early customers, they can reduce the market risks and sidestep the need for large amounts of initial project funding and expensive product launches and failures.^[1]

link building – acquiring backlinks that point to your site.  A proven marketing tactic that increases brand awareness and conversions.  There are three main types of links, defined by how they are earned:

• manually built links– links acquired through deliberate link-building activities, such as asking customers to link to your website or persuading influencers to share your site information
• natural links– links that are pointed towards your site without any action on  your part; i.e. a blogger recommends your business or product.
• self-created links– links created by practices such as listing your site in online directories or commenting on a blog post

long tail keywords – generally a longer keyword phrase; usually offers the lowest barrier, (lowest amount of competition), in SEO ranking with good search volume. Important to create unique content around these long tail keywords.

machine learning- (sub-field of AI); machines learn how to perform a task from data collected such as facial recognition, predicting future outcomes and improving experiences without explicit programming.

meta refresh tags– tags that instruct a browser to automatically refresh the current web page after a certain amount of time.  Can also be used to set page to refresh to a different URL.  NOT recommended for site optimization, and should never be used on a page that developer wishes to be indexed by search engines.

meta tags – word “meta” means information about.  Meta tags were originally created to provide information, (to search engines), about a website.  Meta tags give information such as the description of the site, keywords, copyright and other core information.  Google no longer uses meta tags, (as related to SEO), as they did many years ago.  In some situations, Google may use the meta description tag as part of a snippet of a website displayed in search results.

metrics—metrics are individual elements of a dimension that can be measured as a sum or a ratio.  Screenviews, Pages/Session and Average Session Duration are examples of metrics in Google Analytics.

microsites– a separate site from the organization’s main website focused on a specific topic or created for a different purpose.  Microsites are not the same thing as landing pages.  A great example of a microsite is Office Max’s “Elf Yourself“.

natural language processing (NLP) – a way for machines to understand and derive meaning from human text and speech including structure, tone, feeling and topic.

new sessions—an estimate of the percentage of first-time visits.

non-organic search results – links generated on a SERP attributed to PPC, (pay per click), advertising.

organic search results – the context relevant results that appear on a SERP when someone searches for specific information.  Organic search results are generated by quality SEO, social marketing, and content creation such as blogging.  Referenced sometimes as “natural’.

pages/session—pages/session (Average Page Depth) is the average number of pages viewed during a session.
Repeated views of a single page are counted.

pageviews—pageviews means the total number of pages viewed. Repeated views of a single page are counted.

PWA’s – progressive web apps are experiences that combine the best of the web functionality and the best user experience (UX). They are useful to users from the very first visit in a browser tab, no install required. As the user progressively builds a relationship with the site over time, it becomes more and more powerful. It loads quickly, even on flaky networks, sends relevant push notifications, has an icon on the home screen, and loads as a top-level, full screen experience. (Source: Google)

SEO – stands for “search engine optimization”.  Today, includes keyword research, content creation, on-site optimization, off-site optimization and social media marketing.  Done correctly, SEO will result in high SERP ranking.

SERP – search engine results page.

sessions—a session is the period of time a user is actively engaged with your website, app, etc., within a date range. All usage data (Screenviews, Events, Ecommerce, etc.) is associated with a session.

users—users who have had at least one session within the selected date range. Includes both new and returning
users.

UX–short for “user experience” or how user-friendly the website is.  Easy navigation and helping the user understand what to do next, (call to action), count here.

F.A.Q.’s

References

1 Ries, Eric (2011). The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Crown Publishing. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-307-88791-7.