This includes evenly splitting two variations of a layout or marketing effort to determine which performs better. A/B testing is most often used in email marketing, but it can also be used for website lead pages to test which methods result in better methods. For example, traffic could be programmatically split between two website pages that offer different calls-to-action (with variations in color, shape, or text), different headlines, different lead images, and more. The data collected on which version performed better is used to help drive decisions on the final version. In addition, you may see trends unfold from A/B tests that can guide future pages or marketing campaigns that enable you to increase potency from the start.
Often used in e-commerce, this refers to the situation where a website user terminates actions and leaves the website. You may also hear this term used in reference to users who add items to their cart and then leave the website: cart abandonment.
This normally refers to the part of a website page that is viewable before scrolling down. However it can refer to any on-screen presentation for marketing such as an email or an ebook. This term has obvious ties newspaper and printed marketing materials.
Analytics normally refers to website visitor (traffic) data, but it can refer to any data collected regarding digital marketing efforts — website visitors, email open/click rates, social media engagement, etc. The analytics data gathered helps drive decisions about marketing. For example, if 80% of your normal website traffic is on mobile devices, then you’d certainly be better off taking a mobile-first approach to your website re-design. Or, if you’re seeing a high bounce rate on one of your main content pages, we’d better get in and improve the content strategy and UX.
This term essentially refers to how multiple applications can interact with and obtain data from one another. APIs operate on an agreement of inputs and outputs. When an API is connected, there is the flow of data from one application to the other. This can be a one-way or two-way flow, but the end result is normally in the interest of enabling a user easy, quick access to see parsed data that is consolidated into one view, web page, or dashboard.
This describes or profiles companies that sell primarily to other businesses. Examples of well-known B2B companies would be Salesforce, Hubspot, or Quickbooks.
This describes or profiles companies that sell primarily to directly to consumers. Examples of well-known B2C companies would be Amazon, Apple, and Nike.
Often used regarding SEO, backlinks are links from any outside website that points to any page on your website. Your backlink profile is made up of backlinks from external sites — this is also known as referring domains. Overall, backlinks are considered to be a “vote of confidence” for your website from outside sources. The quantity, relevance, and quality of referring websites are all included factors that Google uses to rank websites.
While this term can refer to websites or emails, this refers to the percentage of users who land on a page and then leave without clicking or navigating to any other pages on your website. Bounce rate is one of the metrics that should be monitored within your website/email analytics, and it can be a flag for needed improvements. If users are bouncing, that means they’re not clicking or converting.
Your brand is the overall, consistent impression or image that you portray. It’s what sets your company apart from other competitors. Brand elements range from color theory to your tone-of-voice and messaging. Your logo is the part of it that reinforces brand familiarity with audiences.
Though this is more of a vague term, brand equity can refer to the value that is added to a product or service as a result of its recognizable name, as opposed to a generic equivalent. For example, it is the reason that consumers will pay more for Tylenol, as opposed to a generic alternative, even though they are identical products. The factor of that brand being familiar and safe to mind of the consumer is what makes the difference.
This refers to the measure of how often customers return to, or stay with, a certain brand. It is the degree to which a consumer consistently purchases the same brand within a class of product or services.
This is a phrase or element that tells the user exactly what action to take and how to take it. This can be as simple as two words, such as “Buy Now,” a sub-heading sentence, such as “Do you like what you see? Let’s get started,” or any simple text with a clickable button. Calls to action should be placed very strategically in web pages, emails, and printed materials. These are planned for very carefully during the website wireframe and web design phases our our projects here at Chariot.
This refers to the percentage of your users that click through (or advance) from a website page to the next step of the process. More specifically, CTR can be calculated by the total number of clicks that your page or call to action receives divided by the number of how many people viewed that page and had the chance to click through.
A marketing channel refers to a main method of engagement with potential customers. Examples of marketing channels would be Social Media, Email Marketing, Paid Search, Public Relations, Direct Mail, and Digital Advertising. Further, having a “multi-channel” marketing campaign means you would send out a similar content & messaging across several of those channels for a set period of time.
Content refers to any text, graphics, imagery, audio, or video that is meant for your users to view, read, or share. The quality of your content, and your content strategy, plays a vital role in any marketing campaign or website. Have you ever heard the term “content is king?” It links back to Bill Gates in 1996, and it still stands strong today. Content effects conversions, SEO, and the overall efficacy or any digital marketing efforts.
A CMS normally refers to a web application or dashboard designed to make it easy for non-technical users to create, edit, and manage a website. The most popular CMS out there is currently WordPress, but other popular CMS’ include Drupal, Magento, Shopify, and Squarespace. Further, an open-source CMS refers to a system that is completely downloadable, does not require an ongoing paid subscription, and provides access to anyone to its core files. WordPress is an open-source CMS, whereas Shopify is not.
This refers to the percentage of users who completed a desired action on a web page, such as purchasing an item, filling out a form, or making an appointment. Pages with high conversion rates are performing well, while pages with low conversion rates are performing poorly.
CRO refers to efforts of improving conversion rates. This is normally done by strategically updating web design, UX, content, or other factors. CRO is most often applied to web page optimization, but it can also be applied to email marketing, social media, and other parts of your marketing.
This refers to the amount it costs your marketing organization to acquire a lead or potential customer. There can be many factors in this equation that include the costs of PPC or Google Ads, Email Marketing campaign costs, and other costs depending on the path from which that lead came.
This refers to a web application or technology that acts as a hub for your company’s interactions with customers and potential customers. This technology, and having more concise processes, helps to improve relationships with current customers and attract new ones. CRM integration is often a part of websites and internal dashboards that allow employees to access admin features and manage prospects in one place.
Examples of popular CRM platforms include Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho, and Zendesk.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) refers to website development code that is the preferred way for setting the look and feel of a website. CSS acts as a centralized library of code that is referred to by HTML pages that control the visual styling and placement of elements on a website page.
The style sheets define the color, size and position of text and other HTML tags, while the HTML files define the content and how it is organized. The “cascading” term means that a style applied to a parent element will also apply to all children elements of that element. For example, setting the color of body text will mean all headings and paragraphs within the body will also be the same color, unless separate CSS code dictates otherwise.
As the name implicates, this refers to central control section of a website or web application. This normally is protected by a secure login, and offers administrators a concise way to manage public-facing elements such as website content, system functionality, etc. A dashboard can also be used to manage internal process, other users or members, and configure functions on any digital system.
We often speak of a dashboard to refer to the access a client has to their own CMS, or admin portal of their web application.
Demographics is used to describe the statistical view of a population that normally includes age, gender, income, schooling, occupation, etc. In marketing, it’s important to research your targeted demographic very well so that you know who your potential customers are, what they want, how they find you and your competitors online, and more. Knowledge and data about your target audience should help to drive all marketing efforts.
Also referred to as “Direct Mail Marketing,” this refers to the creation and sending of advertising materials to customers & prospects through the mail. This includes mailable items such as postcards, donation requests, sales papers, and more. By getting or buying specific mailing lists, direct mail efforts can be targeted to a certain geographical area (radius) and/or a certain demographic (age, gender, income level, etc.).
Though direct mail has been around for a long time, it is still proven to work. Depending on your list and industry, average response rates on direct mail can be from 2% to more than 30%.
This refers to paid online advertising that consists of text, image, video, audio, and motion ads, which display on websites, apps, and social media platforms. Display ads can appear in the form of banners, pop-ups, sidebar ads, or expanding ads on websites across the internet.
The most popular example of display advertising would be through Google Ads. For this, Google strategically displays your ads to users as they visit other websites within the Google Display Network. We include display ads to our clients with our Google Ads management services which includes remarketing.
With remarketing, we strategically set up your display ads to show to users who have visited your website or shown interest in similar products/services in the past. By tracking user’s IP addresses, Google can intelligently increase conversion by showing your ad to those who are much more likely to click on them.
This is you website name. A domain name is the address where Internet users can access your website. A domain name can be any combination of letters and numbers, and it can be used in combination of the various domain name extensions, such as .com, .net and more. There are a growing number of alternate domain extensions, such as .co, .marketing, .design, and many more.
Technically a domain name is separate from web hosting. Web hosting is the “space” where your website files are stored and accessed by those visiting your website, whereas the domain name is the unique identifier that visitors use to view those files.
Dynamic content refers to website content that constantly or regularly changes based on factors such as user actions, timing, actions of off-site users, and other parameters. This can be as simple as a “good morning” or “good afternoon” greeting that displays based on the time of day, but many social media platforms heavily use complex dynamic content. For example, Facebook shows every user different content based on their friends and previous interactions.
A popular social media metric used to describe the amount of interaction — Likes, shares, comments — a piece of content receives. Interactions like these tell you that your messages are resonating with your fans and followers.
This refers to content that never goes out of date. It revolves around a topic that’s always relevant to readers, regardless of industry changes, trends, or seasons. Evergreen content is important to include in a solid content strategy because it offers long-term user engagement and web traffic as opposed to hot, trending articles that will fade quickly, requiring the constant writing of new content to replace it.
Heading tags are HTML indicators included in your web page structure to help improve SEO. These tags also help Google read (crawl) your page content and quickly identify the main keywords and search phrases that will factor into how the page should be ranked.
Heading tags range from H1-H6 and form a hierarchical structure to your page’s headings. H1 is the most important header, H2 is used for sub-headings, and so forth. Here is an example:
<h1>The Ultimate Guide to Starting Your Own Business</h1>
<p>Here is the paragraph copy, here is the paragraph copy.</p>
<h2>1. Build a Business Plan</h2>
<p>Here is the paragraph copy, here is the paragraph copy.</p>
<h3>Research Your Competitors</h3>
<p>Here is the paragraph copy, here is the paragraph copy.</p>
<h3>Review Plans of Other Successful Businesses</h3>
…and so on.
This is short for HyperText Markup Language, a language used to write web pages.
Inbound marketing refers to a strategy that engages and attracts potential customers as opposed to the more traditional sales strategy of going out and finding new customers. Inbound marketing uses things like content marketing, blogs, events, SEO, social media, etc. so earn the attention of customers and ensure their company is easy to be found.
Put simply, infographics are a visual representation showing information or data. They are used in web design and UX to display data in an intuitive, visually interesting way that would otherwise present as very dry content. Infographics normally include colors, design, and typography, along with charts such as pie graphs, donut charts, line graphs, and bar graphs. They can range from a single statistic to a full-page presentation showing conditional and relative data of many statistics. Infographics are a great way to convey important data while keeping the user engaged.
JavaScript is a programming language used to implement complex features on web pages. Examples include displaying timely content updates, interactive maps, animated 2D/3D graphics, scrolling video, etc. JavaScript is considered the third element of standard web technologies, with the other two being HTML and CSS.
In marketing, a KPI is a measurable component used to demonstrate the success of a campaign or any digital marketing efforts. Organizations use KPIs in their marketing strategy to determine whether they’re spending their budget in the right areas. Some examples of KPI’s include website traffic, social media followers, cost per acquisition, ROI for ad spend, and many more.
Mostly used for SEO, a keyword is the search term that you want to rank for with a certain website page. A keyword is any search term entered on Google. We use and research keywords in order to optimize a website with the goal of ranking at the top of Google’s results for specific keywords.
Our keyword research process includes using special tools to pull data around all potential target keywords. We discover and analyze factors such as search volume (how many users search for that particular term each month on average), competition (how many other relevant competitors already organically rank for that keyword), difficulty (a metric that combines competition with cost per click in the paid ad world), peripheral terms (other keywords you should target based on what people search), and more.
The final Keyword Research Report is used to sort and prioritize keywords that we should target in your new website or marketing efforts.
A landing page is a page on your website created specifically for a marketing campaign or focus. Its purpose is for users to “land” there after they click on a paid ad, display banner ad, email link, social post, or other external source. Landing pages should be strategic and very relevant to what the external source promises.
In marketing, a lead is a qualified prospect or potential customer who has shown interest in your company. A lead may be someone who has contacted you, visited your website, clicked on one of your ads, or shown interest through another channel.
The term lifecycle, lifecycle marketing, or lifecycle stages refers to the process that you have planned to take a lead all the way through to the purchase stage. In other words, the lifecycle refers to the path to purchase. It may include things like persuasive, personalized followup emails at a certain stage, presentations tailored for their specific needs (pitch decks), etc.
Long-tail keywords refer to search terms or phrases that are most descriptive (and usually longer) and focused on a small, less popular niche as opposed to a broad topic. Long-tail keywords get less search traffic, however they normally have a higher conversion rate simply because they are so specific. Incorporating long-tail keywords into your SEO strategy allows you continue growing your traffic and constantly be found by new and motivated audiences.
Marketing automation refers to the use of software to automate marketing activities. There are many software options available today that automate repetitive tasks such as email marketing, social media posts, and ad campaigns. This makes tasks more efficient, and it delivers a more personalized experience to potential customers and leads.
Often referred to as a “sub-site,” microsites are smaller versions of a main website that is focused on a particular campaign or pitch. A microsite has its own, unique content, uses its own consistent themes and keywords, and is often supported by its own social media, email addresses, and a direct domain or sub-domain.
A mobile responsive website is built using a layout and/or content that actively responds or adapts to the screen size or device of each user. Often, elements on a responsive website automatically stack and resize to provide an optimal experience whether you’re on a laptop, digital tablet, or smart phone. Additional adaptive elements include a tap-to-expand navigation and longer sections reducing to a tap-to-expand container.
This is the optimization of elements on the actual pages of a website, as opposed to off-site elements such as backlinks from other sites.
Normally regarding email marketing, this refers to how many recipients opened your email out of those who received it. E.g. If you sent your email campaign to 1,000 people and 500 opened the email, you had a 50% open rate.
This describes the scenario of posting digital advertisements and only paying when someone clicks on that ad. Examples of PPC ads would be Google Ads.
This refers to a lead, or potential customer who has shown interest in your company, who also qualifies in other ways. For example, if you have a lead who clicks on one of your digital PPC ads, and they are also within your targeted demographic, this makes them a qualified lead — meaning they are even more likely to convert into an actual customer. We often use the term “unqualified lead” to identify and weed out costly clicks or wasted marketing budget engaging visitors or searchers who are much less likely to convert; normally meaning that they’re not looking for what you offer but something else entirely.
In marketing, ROI simply refers to the number of new customers that you are getting as a result of your marketing spend. This can refer specifically to, or encompass, what you spend in channels such as paid ads, email marketing, and social media vs the rate of new business.
SEO refers to the process of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website via organic (not paid for) search engine results such as Google ranking. SEO is a very far-reaching topic in modern day marketing that includes a long list of factors such as content, on-page optimization, backlinks, outgoing links, keyword usage, social engagement, website structure, and many more.
Smarketing is a new term that refers to sales and marketing efforts combined. It includes your ability to bring marketing leads and sales leads together through a process that analyzes, monitors, and follows up on possible leads.
Social media marketing refers to the use of social platforms/accounts to engage and compel potential customers. SMM is often an important channel of any marketing campaign or effort because it reaches an audience that other efforts miss. Social media can also be a great platform to increase brand awareness and deliver a more approachable tone of voice.
SaaS refers to a market that allows users to connect to and use cloud-based applications over the Internet. This is normally a pay-as-you-go set up where you pay for the use of an app while other users within your organization can also connect via Internet. SaaS offers a way to cheaply, and quickly get onboarded and start using software, however in long-term costs may not be as beneficial as opposed to custom or local software.
Use in web analytics, “Unique visitors” refers to the actual number of people who visited your website at least once during a reporting period. This number does not increase if a previous visitor returns to a page multiple times.
URL stands for “Uniform Resource Locator.” A URL is the address of a specific webpage or file on the Internet.
User experience (UX) is used to describe UX Design — this is the process of creating meaningful and relevant experiences to users. There are overlapping elements with Web Design, however the user’s experience is different. We use a multiple-angle approach to UX Design that involves audience data, psychology, design principles, statistics-driven image choices, content strategy, and more.
A User Journey (also known as a Customer Journey) is essentially a map that helps identify user intentions at each stage of their experience. It helps to remove obstacles that cause user frustration, and it can pinpoint optimal places for key elements in the web design. A well-formed customer journey map acts as a guide for building the web UX in the following phase. It provides data-supported guidance on where to place certain calls to action, how to build optimal website navigation, when and where to use page-flow queues, and many other elements.
Web hosting is the “space” where your website files are stored and accessed by those visiting your website. Your website is “hosted” on a physical computer hard drive somewhere in the world, though it may be far away. Shared hosting refers to when your website is on a machine with a number of other websites who all share traffic and processing power of that hard drive. Dedicated hosting is where your website is the only installation on that server — this almost always means much faster load speed and more control of the server.
An XML sitemap is normally a single file or page within your website that acts as a roadmap of your website leading Google to all your important pages. XML sitemaps can be good for SEO because it allows Google to quickly find and index your website pages.
