With all the internet terms floating around today, it’s more important than ever to educate your business and understand today’s web technologies. Some terms or processes refer to different areas of business, some are related to web design, and others are related to strategy-and-marketing. Understanding these terms will provide you with:
- A better understanding of today’s technology in order to make more informed decisions and save time, money, and resources
- The knowledge to effectively communicate with a website design professional
With that said, here are our top web technology terms that you need to know.
Analytics
This marketing term is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of website data. Focusing and identifying measurables based on your company goals to drive your strategy and to gain more customers by improving user experience.
Responsive Design
This coding technique allows your site to correctly ‘respond’ and change (image sizes, format, and fonts) accordingly regardless of the computing device (computer, tablet, or phone) used to display the site.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the process of optimizing your website using specific code, keywords, and other industry metrics, like backlinks and authority, to attract more relevant and higher content in order to increase your search ranking.
Backlinks
This marketing term refers to links from outside domains that link to pages within your domain. Backlinks contribute to the overall strength and relevance of your domain’s overall profile. Backlinks from authoritative domains will increase your ability to rank higher by search engines.
Authority
Authority or Page Authority (PA) is calculated based off the Mozscape web index and includes link counts, Mozrank and MozTrust scores, and more than 40 other factors. More importantly, it does NOT take into account specific on-page elements like meta-tags, keywords usage, or content optimization. The best way to influence your page’s authority is to improve its link profile through external links from other high-authority pages, which acts as a ‘vote of confidence’ for the authority of your page.
GDD
Growth Driven Design (GDD) is a development or re-design methodology that minimizes risk by focusing on end-user data analysis. This allows for continuous improvements and changes based upon an ongoing analysis of your visitors’ needs.
Discovery
As the first part of the GDD methodology, this discovery period is where businesses have internal discussions with various teams about their clients, users, and website goals. This allows for a better understanding of how their website can better serve their clients and users. Discovery periods vary depending upon the size of the company but may include client and user interviews, workshops, or presentations.
Web Content
This is the backbone of your website, whether it’s text, images, or media. This is the reason your potential customers are coming to your site. They’re getting information about a particular product or service you provide that will help them solve a problem. When it comes to a website's success, quality content really is king or queen.
Meta-tags
These are pieces of hidden code added to your site that help define the contents of your webpage. Many search engines use these tags to index the pages within your website in order to display information, like the title and description, when displaying search results.
CMS
A Content Management System (CMS) is a web-based program that allows users to update, add, delete, and format content with little to no coding knowledge. Examples of a current CMS technologies are WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.
CTA
A call-to-action (CTA) is a marketing term that’s generally a button, image, or link that encourages your visitors to take action on something. Almost 70 percent of small businesses don’t use a CTA. Examples include download, buy now, and vote.
For a free quote and more information about how Key City Web can update or create a custom website for your needs, please contact us.
