Before we get into the breakdown of terms, let’s first answer the infamous question we so often-hear people asking: “What is Digital Marketing?”

Digital Marketing can be defined as the practice of using online channels and marketing to bring potential customers directly to you, without having to take a footstep outside your door. Digital Marketing, also sometimes referred to as “Inbound Marketing”, is about creating and sharing helpful and unique content online, and then analyzing that content to ensure what you are putting out there is both valuable and positively received.

Getting Started with Digital Marketing

When you first dive into the world of Digital Marketing, it can seem a bit overwhelming. Where do you start? What should you be posting? Who do you confide in? What do all of those crazy terms mean? There is a lot of unknown, which is why we have decided to help walk you through the process. The first thing that you must understand when diving into the world of Digital Marketing, is what all of the fancy terms mean. Having a clear understanding upfront, will help for smooth sailing moving forward.

Digital Marketing Terms Defined

• Analytics – the results of all forms of marketing, such as email, banner ads, and testing of your website’s landing page. Often, we discuss “engagement” in this section (see below).
• Banner Ad – A graphical image that is typically embedded within a webpage (on the sidebar or within the middle of content) and used for advertising. It usually contains a link to another website and can be based upon things you have been previously looking at online.
• Blog – A special website, or page on your current website, used for self-publishing for either personal or professional use. You can use this page to categorize content, write about common questions your customers may have, etc. This page also helps with where you rank organically (see below for organic definition).
• Bounce Rate – The percentage of a page’s visitors who exit without visiting another page on the same site.
• Broken Links – Links to pages which no longer exist or have been moved to a different URL without redirection.
• Categories – Ways to organize the content on a site, particularly with blogs. This organization helps end-users to find the content they are looking for on your site, in a timely fashion.
• Click-Through-Rate – The percentage of people who viewed your company’s ad, email or other content and clicked on the content to bring them to another page/offer.
• Content – Any form of text, image, video, audio, app or other material published on the internet for end-users to view.
• Conversion Rate – The percentage of visitors to a site or ad who take action, such as purchasing a product or filling out a form. Most companies’ end goal is to increase their conversion rate.
• Cost-Per-Click – For a fee, sites like Google or Facebook direct traffic to your site. You agree to pay a set amount for every click. This is often called “cost-per-click”, where you evaluate how much you were charged for each individual who clicked on your paid content.
• Dashboard – A main area/screen for administrative control for places such as social media, blogging, and end-user profiles. All aspects can (for the most part) be controlled from this one “hub”.
• Engagement – When an end-user takes an action, such as liking, sharing, commenting or clicking on content.
• Hashtag – A symbol (#) placed directly in front of a word or words to tag a post on Twitter and/or Facebook. It is typically used to group tweets by popular category, making it easier for end-users to follow and take part in group discussions about a particular topic.
• Instant Messaging – A service where individuals can communicate through a real-time, text-based interface over an Internet connection. Examples include AOL instant messenger (AIM), Facebook messenger, Gmail, and many others.
• Keywords – Terms that a user enters into a search engine (ie: Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc) to search for something online. It is important to include “keywords” that your customers may be searching for in all of your unique generated content.
• Landing Page – A stand-alone webpage that a user “lands” on, whether via an email campaign or Facebook post, etc. This page is typically designed to get the end-user to convert by either giving their information (name, email, etc) or purchasing a product.
• Organic Listings – Often referred to as “natural” listings, are search-engine results that have not been purchased. When people search on Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc and your company’s webpage comes up in the listings, that means you were found “organically.”
• PageRank – Where your website ranks in listings, as well as compared to other websites (ie: your competitors). Your goal is to rank #1.
• Pay-Per-Click – Also known as “PPC,” this type of paid search marketing involves placing advertisements that run above or beside (and occasionally below) the free search-engine listings on Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. To get the highest position for these ads, website owners must place a per-click bid. This is just another way to ensure your content is seen.
• Persona – A compilation of the typical demographics of your customers.  This includes things such as age, gender, interests, location, pain points, etc. Personas are vital when it comes to creating quality content.
• Pop-Up Ad – An advertisement that automatically opens (or “pops up”) in a new window in a browser to display an ad. You often see this occur when you either (1) first go to a website, sometimes “popping up” as a discount offer and (2) when you are about to exit a website.
• Search-Engine Optimization (SEO) – The process of using website analysis and copy/design/structural adjustments to ensure both the highest possible positioning on desired search-engine results pages (ie: Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc) and the best experience for the end-users.
• Social Media – Online tools and channels that are available for users to generate content and communicate to potential customers, etc through the Internet. The media includes blogs, social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram), file-hosting sites and bookmarking sites, and many, many others.
• Tag – A keyword which is attached to a blog post, tweet, or media file. These tags help categorize content by subject (similar to a “hashtag”) and make it easier for the end-user when searching for certain topics online.
• URL – Known as “Universal” or “uniform resource locator,” this string of letters is a page’s web address and must be written in a certain form in order to be found on the web by end-users.
• Web Crawler – You may also hear this called a bot, spider, or robot. They all refer to the act of search engines crawling a website to rank it on several different factors. The higher the score, the higher the ranking in search engine results (ie: where you show up on Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc!).
• Webinar – A Web-based seminar containing audio and video, often in the form of a slide deck.

We know this can be a lot to take in at once, but we hope you download, print off, or save this document to use as a reference in the days ahead. As we all know, the online world is only going to continue to grow — keep a leg up on your competition and stay up-to-date on your digital knowledge.

Have questions or want to sit down for a consultation session with our team? Email hello@branditonline.com to set something up.