Glossary of Terms

The following glossary is a quick A-Z of some of the terms you may come across in relation to search engine optimisation, web design and hosting.

 

Accessibility – whether or not a web page is easy to navigate. Also refers to accessibility for disabled users.

 

Browser – what the website will be viewed in

 

CMS – Content Managed System. This means that you can can update your own content and publish any changes live. The site runs with a database in the background that makes this possible.

 

Domain – a domain name is the part of your website address that comes after www, so arcticbee.co.uk is a domain name. 

 

Responsive – this refers to a website that responds and adapts well to different platform i.e. desktop, tablet and mobile device

 

SSL certificate – a secure way of encrpting your website, particularly if you accept payments on your website. A website with an SSL certificate will display https:// as opposed to http:// in the address bar and contain a padlock symbol

 

Google and SEO Terms

Algorithm – the complex mathematical formula that a search engine uses to rank the order of search results

 

Back links – links that point back to your website from other websites

 

CPC – cost per click, used in Google Ads terms as the amount you pay every time somebody clicks on your paid ad

 

CTR – the number of impressions that resulted in a click. Average CTR is a percentage of clicks against impressions

 

Indexing – the process Google goes though to scan the pages of your website in order to organise its results and rank your website

 

Impression – the number of times that your website appeared in a search result

 

Landing page – the page you land on after you click

 

Metadata – key information for search engines on what your website is about: key words, a description of your site, your website title etc.

 

Page rank – based on how popular and relevant your web page appears to be in relation to a given key phrase or key phrases

 

Position – where your website appears in search results in Google. Average position is the average position of all of your search phrases combined

 

Schema Markup – markup language to provide key data fo Google on the structure of your website such as the site title, logo, customer service telephone number etc. This often results in rich snippets appearing in your search results

 

SERP – search engine results page, the first set of results you see after entering a key phrase into Google

 

Snippet – rich bits of code that affect the way that a search engine result appear, for example, you might have an image or star rating that goes beyond a simple text description

 

URL – a webpage address

 

XML sitemap – a sitemap that helps search engines like Google determine the structure of your website