![\"Online](\"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/OnlineMarketingTerms.png\")
A Glossary of Online Marketing Definitions<\/h2>\nA Glossary of Online Marketing Definitions<\/h2>\nWhen you\u2019re starting a new business or delving into the world of online marketing for the first time, not only do you have a lot to learn about the types of online marketing and best practices for each of them, but you\u2019ll find there\u2019s a whole new language you have to learn.<\/p>\n
You can expect to encounter marketers casually throwing around terms and acronyms like they think everyone will understand them (hint: not everybody does, it\u2019s not just you).<\/p>\n
To help you navigate all the new, confusing language of online marketing, we\u2019ve put together a glossary of online marketing terms you\u2019ll want to know. Bookmark this for future use so you have a handy resource next time you come across a marketing term that leaves you scratching your head.<\/p>\n
A\/B testing <\/b>The practice of releasing two marketing items that are similar in every way but one, in order to see which of the changed elements performs better. This can be used for emails<\/a>, landing pages, calls-to-action, etc.<\/p>\n AdWords <\/b>Google\u2019s advertising service that runs many of the ads you see around the web, in particular those that show up above and to the side of organic search results.<\/p>\n Affiliate marketing <\/b>A marketing practice wherein bloggers or other influencers include links to a brand\u2019s website in their content and earn part of the proceeds for customers they help refer. (Learn about HostGator’s affiliate program here!<\/a>)<\/p>\n Anchor text <\/b>The words that are used in a link (the ones you usually see blue and underlined on the page).<\/p>\n Backlinks <\/b>A term commonly used in SEO to describe links from other websites that point back to yours.<\/p>\n Banner ads <\/b>A form of online advertising in which a visual ad shows up somewhere on a website\u2019s page, usually an image in a square or rectangle shape. These can be at the top of the page, to the side, or embedded within the text.<\/p>\n Behavioral targeting <\/b>Many online advertising platforms allow you to target ads based on online actions users have take in the past. For example, if a person\u2019s browsing history suggests they\u2019re a runner (or hoping to become one), marketers selling running shoes can target their ads at them.<\/p>\n Bing <\/b> One of the main three search engines people use.<\/p>\n Black hat SEO <\/b>SEO tactics aimed at essentially tricking search engine algorithms into ranking a website higher, such as keyword stuffing and comment spam. Google\u2019s constantly refining their algorithms to penalize sites that use black hat tactics.<\/p>\n Bounce rate <\/b>A marketing metric that measures the percentage of website visitors that leave your site without visiting more than the page they landed on.<\/p>\n Buyer persona <\/b>A marketing tool that helps people imagine the audience they\u2019re targeting by creating a description of a fictional person that would be your ideal customer. Most companies develop several buyer personas<\/a> to help guide their marketing.<\/p>\n Buyer\u2019s journey <\/b>The path prospects take to become a customer. This often includes the initial actions taken when a person first learns about a company, a period of doing research and interacting with a company\u2019s website and content to learn more, then the decision to purchase.<\/p>\n Blog <\/b>A commonly used content marketing platform for publishing frequent written content that provides value to visitors in the hopes of improving SEO, developing a relationship with potential customers, and gaining new email subscribers and customers.<\/p>\n Case study <\/b>A written piece of content that describes the success story of a past or current customer in order to convince new leads to consider doing business with you.<\/p>\n CMS (Content Management System) <\/b>A type of marketing software that makes it easier for companies doing content marketing to create, edit, organize, and schedule pieces of content.<\/p>\n Content creation <\/b>The act of creating any type of content used in content marketing.<\/p>\n Content distribution <\/b>The tactics businesses use to spread their content on the web so new people in their target audience will encounter it.<\/p>\n Content marketing <\/b>A form of online marketing based on the practice of creating valuable, relevant content<\/a> that helps brands attract new leads and build relationships with customers and people in their target audience.<\/p>\n Content promotion <\/b>The tactics used to promote content that you\u2019ve created to ensure people in your target audience see it.<\/p>\n Content strategy <\/b>The strategy that guides your content marketing efforts. Developing a content strategy plays a key role in doing content marketing well.<\/p>\n Contextual advertising <\/b>A form of targeted advertising in which the ads displayed relate directly to what a person is doing or seeing at the time. For example, someone reading an article about gardening tips could see an ad for a fertilizer alongside it.<\/p>\n Cookie <\/b>The online tool used for tracking user behavior. When you visit a website, the site\u2019s cookie will record your visit and send a message to your web server. This record of your web activity is what helps fuel targeted marketing.<\/p>\n CTA (Call to Action) <\/b>For every piece of marketing you create, there\u2019s an action you\u2019re hoping your audience will take. The call to action<\/a> is where you express that and urge your visitors toward what you want them to do next (click here, sign up for your email list, etc.).<\/p>\n CTR (Click-Through Rate) <\/b>CTR is a marketing metric that measures the percentage of people who viewed a link that chose to click on it.<\/p>\n Conversion optimization <\/b>Online marketing tactics designed to increase your conversion rate.<\/p>\n Conversion rate <\/b>The percentage of visitors that take the desired action you want them to. As an example, for an email promotion a conversion could be clicking a link in the email to go to a website landing page.<\/p>\n CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) <\/b>One of the billing methods common in online marketing. For any channel that charges based on CPA, you\u2019ll pay a set rate when their referral results in a sale.<\/p>\n CPC (Cost Per Click) <\/b>Another billing method in online marketing that\u2019s especially common in search advertising. Based on this model, you only pay when someone clicks on an ad.<\/p>\n CPM (Cost Per Impression) <\/b>A third billing model for online marketing, CPM is when you pay each time an ad is seen by a certain number of people.<\/p>\n CRM (Customer Relationship Management) <\/b>An approach to tracking, analyzing, and managing all aspects of a customer\u2019s relationship with a company from their first interaction through their time as a customer. \u00a0Sometimes the same acronym is used to refer to software that helps enable customer relationship management.<\/p>\n Domain authority <\/b>A measure of how respected a website is according to search engine algorithms which plays a role in its likelihood to show up high in search engine rankings.<\/p>\n Earned media <\/b>Marketing that focuses on unpaid promotional efforts, such as guest posts or customer word of mouth. Earned media is often discussed in comparison to owned and paid media.<\/p>\n Ebook <\/b>A longform written piece of content. Ebooks<\/a> are often used as gated content to collect new information on leads.<\/p>\n Email marketing <\/b>All marketing delivered through email. This includes promotional emails, emails that promote content, and email drip campaigns for new leads and customers.<\/p>\n Engagement <\/b>An oft-used term in online marketing that describes interactions prospects have with a brand.<\/p>\n External link <\/b>A link on another website that points back to yours.<\/p>\n Facebook <\/b>The biggest social media network and therefore one that potentially provides brands a lot of opportunities to interact directly with their audience.<\/p>\n Gated content <\/b>High-value content that you put behind a web form so people have to provide you information (usually things like email address, job title, etc.) in order to access it.<\/p>\n Google <\/b>The biggest and most important of the search engines. While SEO includes optimizing for Bing and Yahoo as well, the vast majority of the focus goes to Google.<\/p>\n Google Analytics <\/b>The tool Google provides for tracking and measuring website success through a variety of useful analytics<\/a>.<\/p>\n Guest Post <\/b>A post a brand has published on a third-party blog as a way to promote the brand, reach a new audience, and gain external links.<\/p>\n Hashtag <\/b>Popularized by Twitter, a hashtag is a word or phrase that\u2019s preceded by a pound sign (#) that can help people follow trending topics on the website.<\/p>\n Inbound marketing <\/b>A marketing strategy based on the idea of attracting people to your brand rather than pushing out ads at them.<\/p>\n Influencer marketing <\/b>A marketing tactic that involves working with popular figures<\/a> in an industry or space in order to reach more followers. For example, a business that sells cooking supplies might partner with a food blogger who creates recipes that require using the company\u2019s supplies.<\/p>\n Infographics <\/b>A visual form of content marketing that collects interesting facts or data and displays them in a visually attractive way.<\/p>\n Instagram <\/b>A growing social media platform with a visual focus.<\/p>\n Internal link <\/b>Links on your website that point to other pages on your website.<\/p>\n Internet marketing <\/b>Another term for online marketing.<\/p>\n Interruption marketing <\/b>Any marketing that interrupts what a person\u2019s doing to get their attention (e.g. commercials, autoplay videos embedded in an article, pop-up ads). A term used to differentiate content marketing and inbound marketing from traditional advertising.<\/p>\n Keyword <\/b>The words and terms people use when searching for something online<\/p>\n Keyword research <\/b>The research marketers perform for SEO and PPC to determine which keywords their target audience are using in order to know which ones to focus their marketing efforts on.<\/p>\n Keyword stuffing <\/b>A black hat SEO tactic that involves filling a page with your target keyword in an unnatural way in the hopes of increasing your chances of ranking for it. (Note: this tactic no longer works and should be avoided).<\/p>\n Landing page <\/b> The page a link or ad sends your visitors to. Landing pages<\/a> should be relevant to whatever ad or link sent visitors and designed to increase the likelihood of a conversion.<\/p>\n Local SEO <\/b>The search engine optimization tactics that work best for businesses with a local focus (e.g. those specifically out to attract customers within a set geographic area). \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Link building <\/b>Any tactics used to encourage or create links on other websites that point back to your website. This is a key part of SEO.<\/p>\n![\"Create](\"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Create-Your-Blog-2.gif\")
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