Internet Marketing Glossary 2018 : A List Of Digital Terms You Need To Know

Internet Marketing Glossary: A List Of Digital Terms You Need To Know - 2018 Ready

Internet Marketing is one of the fast-growing industries over this past couple of decades. Just like modern technology, digital marketing will continuously evolve -- they're ever-changing.

So whether you're a newbie or adept at technology or internet marketing, knowing the latest updates equips you for whatever challenges you may encounter -- including the acquirement of new methods and terminologies.

To help you stay on top of your game, we're presenting a comprehensive trilogy of digital marketing jargons. We will be updating this glossary regularly, and we hope you find these useful!

Join Our FB Group to get more Delicious Internet Marketing Goodies
https://www.facebook.com/groups/officialwarriorforum/

It took me 127 hours of tears and a lot of spell checking to create this document.... If you like it, share it with friends ... and why not Like our FB Page

https://www.facebook.com/officialwarriorforum/ ←- one Like never killed anyone



Adsense

Adsense is a tеxt-bаѕеd аdvеrtiѕеmеnt ѕеrviсе оffеrеd bу Gооglе. Google AdSеnѕе iѕ a renowned and popular means of making income online, through Adsense, websites can earn mоnеу from advertisements, раrt-timе bloggers, and large publishers online also make money through Google Adsense.

AdWords advertisers pay Gооglе based on the number of ad clicks generated (PPC) оr impression (CPM), in the long run, Google also ѕhаrеѕ a ratio оf that rеvеnuе with AdSense publishers.

Gооglе AdSеnѕе provides аdѕ thrоugh рlаin text, in contrast to graphical соntеnt thаt dоminаtеd thе аdvеrtiѕing wоrld whеn it wаѕ оriginаtеd in 2003. Thе adverts аrе rеgulаtеd and maintained by Google, hence Web рubliѕhеrѕ nееd tо ѕеt uр a frее AdSеnѕе ассоunt аnd copy and paste the provided соdе tо diѕрlау аdѕ.

Rеvеnuе thrоugh AdSense iѕ еаrnеd оn a реr-сliсk оr реr-imрrеѕѕiоn bаѕiѕ. It iѕ tоtаllу free tо become a vеrifiеd website рubliѕhеr in thе Gооglе AdSеnѕе program. Gооglе рrеѕеntlу рrоvidеѕ a numbеr of diffеrеnt AdSense рrоgrаmѕ, bаѕеd оn thе tуре of content you link the ads to (e.g., webpage оr RSS fееd):

• AdSense fоr content: ѕhоw аdѕ оn a website
• AdSеnѕе for search: ѕhоwѕ аdѕ in search rеѕultѕ оn a website
• AdSense for mоbilе: diѕрlау ads on a mоbilе ѕitе
• AdSеnѕе fоr fееdѕ: diѕрlау ads in RSS fееdѕ
• AdSеnѕе for domains: diѕрlау ads on unuѕеd dоmаinѕ

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Adspend

An advertising budget, or ad spend as it is fondly called, is an approximation of a company's promo expenditures over a given period. It is the money a company sets aside to achieve its marketing objectives.

When creating an ad spend, a company must be willing to weigh the trade-offs between spending versus revenue. For example, if a company spends $10, the revenue should be equal or greater than $10 to avoid a loss.

A company can set their advertising budget in a lot of ways, each of which has both pros and cons:

• As a percentage of sales
• At the same levels as its competitors
• As the amount needed to meet a certain goal
• As the whole of its profits
• As a function of the units of products it sells

Resource Links: [ 1 ]



Advertiser

The term advertiser springs from the word advertising. According to William J. Stanton, advertising has to do with all the activities that are involved in presenting an audience with a paid-for message, which is non-personal about an organization or a product where the sponsor is also identified.

Going by the definition above, an advertiser refers to a person or an organization that places an advert on a medium of advertising to reach the target audience. Collins Dictionary defines an advertiser as someone or a company that pays for an event, product, or job to be advertised on television, a newspaper or on a poster.

Types of advertisers:

• Retailers as advertisers

  There are some situations where retailers of a product become advertisers. This situation is when a retailer takes it upon himself or herself to advertise the product to prospective buyers in order to make more sales. The retailer also becomes an advertiser by virtue of displaying a company's product.

• End user as advertiser

  The end user can also turn into an advertiser of an organization's product by spreading the good news about the product to others when there is satisfaction derived from using such product.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Display Ad

A display advertising, or display ad, is a type of paid media which communicates a commercial message visually through the use of text, images, animations, videos, etc. A display ad is synonymous to a banner ad, as they are shown to your target demographic even if they don't search for your products or services.

While search ads get the credit for the sale, displays ads creates the awareness that leads to the sale. In short, display ads influence the users to click that search ad that they didn't even want to in the first place.

How do you measure the success of display ads?

• Reach - A reach is defined as the number of people who can view your ads online. This data is defined by the number of visitors that visit the ad network you plan to use.
• Click-through rate (CTR) - CTR refers to the potential of a user clicking on your online ad.
• Bounce per rate (BCR) - The percentage of visits that go to a single page and exits the site.
• Conversion Rate (CVR) - The percentage of people clicking through an ad and end up clicking the CTA (Call to Action) and completing the advertiser's goal either by purchasing, signing up, etc.
• Return on Investment (ROI) - This quantifies how much value is gained for every cent spent.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]


Native Ad

A native ad is a type of paid media where an ad's function (consistent with native or natural user experience) follows the form (visual design). It is a sponsored content that is natural, or "in-feed," and non-disruptive. This includes Facebook "suggest posts" or "sponsored posts," Twitter "promoted tweet," etc., fitting naturally in the newsfeed or timeline.

Other types of native ads are:

• Content Recommendation - This ad is typically seen at the end of articles or blog spots with a heading that says "Recommended for You," "You May Also Like..." or "Related Topics"
• Promoted Listings - Normally seen on merchant sites like eBay, Amazon, etc. where a "sponsored" or promoted product is at the top of the choice list.
• Paid Search Ads - This native ad is almost the same as promoted listings, the only difference being they promote business and put them at the top of the customer's search list.
• In-Ad with Native Elements - An ad that is relevant with the publisher. For example, a food brand may have an "in-ad" post on a recipe website.
• Print Advertorials, Online Advertorials, Online Video Advertorials, etc.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]


Publisher

The Tech Terms defines an online publisher as someone that publishes written contents (blogs) or uploads media files (images, music, videos, etc) on his or her website.

The publisher can be referred to as the originator of the idea that births a newspaper, website or a magazine into being. In essence, a publisher controls the operations of media content. The advertiser is also the person that undertakes the financial demands that go with owning and running a print or online media outfit. The publisher also ensures that his or her media outfit maintains a healthy relationship with the public. Ensuring readers' satisfaction is also part of the publisher's duties.

The reputation of a publisher is important because such reputation can make or mar the media outfit he or she owns. The same applies to an online publisher.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Remarketing

Remarketing is a technique which focuses on bringing back those visitors who have previously gone to a certain website and did not do anything.

With remarketing, you are able to position targeted ads to a specific target: those who visited your site. It is one of the most cost-effective ways of advertising which provides you a chance to reconnect with them and just maintain or increase your brand's awareness overall. Remarketing ads can be done through text and/or image display formats. For instance, a watch brand may remarket its watch with "new and improved features" to enhance sales after new technologies have been introduced in the market.

There are 5 types of remarketing:

• Site Retargeting - displaying ads to your visitors who left without any "converting" done. (e.g. Shopping cart filled but didn't push through)
• Email/CRM retargeting - showing ads to your visitors or subscribers who have opened your emails
• Social or Social Media retargeting - displaying ads on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) to your visitors who left without converting.
• Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RSLA) - This type of remarketing is available only on AdWords, with the same function as those mentioned above.
• Search retargeting - This type is almost identical to RSLA, only that it displays your ads to visitors who have searched for keywords related to your product or business.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]


Search Ad

A search advertising, or search ad, a type of paid media, is a method used to link searches to a brand's or company's products and services through the use of online advertisements.

A search ad shows up when a user types specific key words or phrases while searching a product or service. Each search ad has a specific ad management platform - Yahoo! uses Yahoo! Advertising!, Microsoft uses adCenter, and Google uses AdWords.

A good example of the use of search ad is this:

Your own a toy store. Halloween is coming, and you decided to retail lots of Halloween products (masks, costumes, stuffed toys, etc.). You then chose to advertise on Google. Once you pick your keywords ("Halloween toys," "scary toys," etc.), those people who search using your keyword will trigger your ad and will show up at the top, sponsored section of the search page. You can also customize your search ad in a way that it will only attract your target demographic (in this case, locals in your area). This option is ideal for small businesses who want to do cost-effective advertisements and would want to be "relevant" on the web without spending as much as the big brands.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Solo Ad

Solo Ads, to put simply, refers to borrowing a vendor's subscriber email list for the purpose of advertising a product to them. What this means is that the manufacture of a product looks out for a website publisher that has a good number of subscribers and pays the publisher to send out an email (adverts, offers) on behalf of the manufacturer about the manufacturer's product.

Online Business refers to solo ads as a form of advertisement which can also be referred to as a subscriber list "rental" that a product owner uses to advertise his or her product. This means that the owner of the product temporarily borrows the website owner's subscriber list to advertise his or her product.

To carry out a solo ad effectively, the owner of the product to be advertised has to have the following in order:

• Come up with an enticing and attractive landing page
• Have a sales copy in place to be included in the email
• Get in touch with a website owner or vendor in the same niche with the manufacturer's niche that has a large list of subscribers
• Put a tracking system in place Pay for the solo ad

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Sponsored Post

A sponsored post, otherwise known as a promoted post or paid post, is a post paid by an advertiser to be posted to a website. The idea comes from the time when companies and brands sponsor public events such as fund-raisings, charity programs, local and international contests, concerts, etc.

Today, in the world of online marketing, it carries the same thought.

A sponsored post is considered a type of native advertising, where it appears in the same area as a regular post would, and not the usual "intrusive" click-me ads you see on sites. In other words, a sponsored post looks like an editorial content that is supposed to be there. Some networks and tools for sponsored articles are: Adproval, BlogHer, Cision, GroupHigh, Markerly, and Syndicate.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Affiliate

In internet marketing, an Affiliate is an individual or company who endorses another brand, business, service and/or product

An Affiliate ID is a unique identifying string (alphanumeric) that is associated with an affiliate. Also known as a Referral ID, the affiliate ID is for the purpose of tracking sales, clicks, visitors and refunds.


Affiliate ID

In internet marketing, an Affiliate is an individual or company who endorses another brand, business, service and/or product.

Affiliate receive a commission identified by the endorsement which is generally in the form of cash, credit or reward. The sellers have control over the sales and pays a commission to the affiliate based on sales generated by the affiliate.

In a link, you'll be able to recognise the affiliate ID based on the parameters in the URL. Examples of this include:

• aff_id=XXXXXXXX
• referral_id=XXXXXXXX
• afid=XXXXXXXX

Online Companies such as Amazon (eCommerce Shopping), Bluehost (Web Host) and Aweber (Email Marketing Service Provider) utilise affiliate marketing to rapidly grow their business with recurring sales created by affiliates, in order to track the hundreds of thousands of affiliates they have enlisted, each affiliate is provided with a unique affiliate ID.


Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the name given to the relationship between an affiliate and brand, business, service and/or product. Affiliate marketing involves the seller sharing a percentage of the value of sale generated by the affiliate.

As a popular sales channel, companies such as Amazon, Bluehost, Aweber and Grammarly are examples of businesses that rely on affiliate marketing to grow sales volume.


Commission

A commission is a remuneration or payment agreed upon beforehand that is given to a person after a specific amount or goal has been achieved.

In terms of affiliate marketing, a commission is given to an affiliate (this can either be a single individual or a company) who promotes a seller/advertisers service or product. For instance, a Seller forms a JV with a Partner by giving the Partner his/her product or service and gets uploaded to the Partner's site.

Examples of a Commission:

• Large Commission: 50% commission, $150 per sale
• Let's say the service you will promote is $50 monthly and $350 annually. For every sale incurred, you will get $25 per month and $175 per year
• Recurring Commission: $15 per month
• This means that is someone signs up through your link and gets enrolled for 6 months, you'll have $90. If they stay for 2 years, you'll have $360.
• Rewards for Results: Trip to Paris!
• Reach 400 sales and get an all-expense paid trip to Paris!

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Cookie

On the internet, a cookie is a tiny data that websites store on your computer, laptop, or smartphone so they can recognize you when you re-visit their site.

A good example of this is Amazon. When you filled up your shopping cart the last time you visited, Amazon will remember the items in your cart when you get back such as login information, searches, recommendations, etc. This is especially useful in increasing the conversion rate of eCommerce platforms as a gentle reminder for new buyers to accumulate their 'wishlist' as a shopping cart / list at checkout.

In affiliate marketing, an affiliate cookie is the same as the internet cookie, but instead of auto-filling your login details, it transfers data about your affiliate account to a site. This is so that affiliates will receive credit for the sale when they've refer a customer to that site in any case they wanted to purchase a product.

However, an affiliate cookie has a duration which means there's a limited time that your referrals must make use of. Otherwise, it will time out and disappear on his/her computer. Most affiliate cookie durations last between 30-90 days. However, some sites, like Amazon, have a very short duration of about 24 hours.

There are some, however, who practice black hat techniques such as cookie stuffing which is illegal and a big NO-NO. Cookie stuffing, or cookie abuse, is forcing a cookie onto computers of people who never clicked a single affiliate link on the page.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Earnings Per Click (EPC)

EPC, or Earnings Per Click, is part of a performance metric that is used to determine the average earnings created as a result of 100 clicks on an ad or through an affiliate marketing link.

This metric deals with the amount of earnings that is expected to be earned and is usually showed by affiliate marketing networks to aid publishers in analyzing and differentiating the earning potential of various merchants.

The formula to determine an EPC is = Affiliate earnings / Number of clicks from affiliates x 100. EPC is a great performance metric to analyze which offer works better with various payouts. Let's say an affiliate is making two offers, one with a payout of $50 and another with a $60 payout. At a quick glance, the $60 payout looks better. Having a good grasp of EPC will reveal which method earns best.

The first offer gained 50 leads with a total of 500 clicks. The affiliate then earned $2,500 with an EPC of $5. The second offer gained 40 leads with a total of 500 clicks. The affiliate then earned $2,400 with an EPC of $4.8.

This reveals that the higher payout is not always a better choice. Using the above example, the affiliate earned $0.2 per click more with an extra revenue of $100.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Evergreen

Evergreen content (some people call it epic content), is a niche that people demand year in and year out. In other words, evergreen content is always relevant.

It is not news updates, events-based articles, product launch updates, trending articles, award announcements, or anything that is limited to a certain period like holiday seasons (Halloween, Christmas, New Year, etc.).

Evergreen contains broad niches like health (dietary supplements, skin care, weight loss pills, diet plans, etc.), money (stocks, investments, insurances, bankings, business transactions, etc.), and self-improvement tips (relationship, career, public image, marriage, school grades, etc.), to name a few.

It helps your readers solve a problem like the ones mentioned above. It is something that they naturally search for and share via social media (think of the things you see in your feed like the Myers-Briggs Personality Test articles, 10 Ways to Watch Game of Thrones, How To Find the Right Job for You - literally everything that is relevant in their daily lives).

For us marketers, we call them their "pain points" where we gain a deeper understanding of the reader.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]


Joint Venture

A Joint Venture, or widely known as JV in the marketing world, is a business arrangement between two or more entities for the specific aim of attaining a particular goal, agreed upon by both parties.

In layman's terms, it's better known as a strategic "alliance" that gives both entities a share of the gains, losses, and costs related to it.

For a JV to be formed, only a written arrangement is required. This agreement requires:

• The particulars of the venture (start/end date, use of intellectual property, submission of periodic reports, etc.)
• The partition of share in profits, losses, and costs
• The role of each entity with regards to making decisions, rendering services, etc.
• A JV is not:
• A merger because there is no shift of ownership in the deal.
• A partnership because, strictly speaking, a partnership involves two or more people. A JV involves two or more entities.

Once the legal structures have been set in stone, a JV is now official. This means that there are now certain legal ramifications involved.

• If all entities are from the U.S., at least one document is required, a Joint Venture Agreement.
• If one entity is not in the U.S., at least two documents are needed, a New Legal Entity and Joint Venture Agreement.

However, a legal definition of JV vary from country to country and is not all subject to governance, for example - Australia has no legal meaning when it comes to "joint venture/s."

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ]


Product ID

A Product ID is a uniquely identifying string (alphanumeric) that is associated with eCommerce. As a uniquely identifying string, a Product ID (PID for short), is also used in affiliate marketing to help assign and track sales created by affiliates.

Good practice of using Product ID's include repurposing the original SKU codes on eCommerce products, or alternatively ensuring that they are easy to comprehend.


Tracking Link

A tracking link is a link with specific parameters attached. Tracking links are created for the purposes of analytics and tracking. With a tracking link, you can identify where sales are made, how traffic has been acquired and much more.

Generally, a tracking link will utilise UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters in the URL.

Tracking links can be identified either with a parameter added to the URL or; created using a URL link shortener service such as Bit.ly and Goo.gl. With parameters, marketers can leverage on Google Analytics to track page statistics inclusive of acquisition, user behaviours and source of traffic.



Bounce Rate

A bounce rate is a key performance indicator (KPI) that refers to the percentage of single-page visits, such as visits where the person left your site from the entrance page.

It is a solid measure of visit quality, and a high bounce rate significantly reveals that landing pages aren't relevant to your visitors.

The formula for computing bounce rate is Bounce Rate = Total number of visits viewing a single page only / Total entries to page

A bounce rate, to be more specific, is a visit within a single engagement hit. There are 6 types of hits that can get forwarded to the GA (Google Analytics) server:

• Pageviews (sent via _trackPageview)
• Events (sent via _trackEvent)
• E-commerce Items (sent via _addItem)
• E-commerce Transactions (sent via_trackTrans)
• Social (sent via _trackSocial)
• User Defined (sent via _setVar)

A good bounce rate has many variables such as industry, brand credibility, type of site, type of page, user intent, etc.

The following are GA averages for bounce rate:

• Content Websites - 40-60%
• Lead Generation Sites - 30-50%
• Blogs - 70-98%
• Retail Sites - 20-40%
• Service Sites - 10-30%
• Landing Pages - 70-90%

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Geotag

Geotagging is a form of geospatial metadata that involves adding geographical identification metadata to different media like videos, geotapped photograph, websites, RSS feeds, QR Codes, or SMS messages.

A data geotagging makes use of mainly longitude and latitude coordinates. Other data that may be used are accuracy data, distance, altitude, time stamp, bearing, and sometimes the name of a place.

When you input the longitude and latitude coordinates of an image in search engine, geotagging will help locate images that are taken in a particular location. It is not limited to image-finding, but also to location-based websites, news, or other resources. It can also streamline a search made in the search engine by providing related media or content that is related to a search query.

Geotagging plays a vital role in storing and placing photos in a particular location on a map. This action is made possible by using the image's longitude and latitude positions on a picture's Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) data. Geotagging can also be automatic where pictures are taken with a smartphone that has its GPS turned on. Many DSLR and point-and-shoot cameras have GPS capabilities built into them as well. Some of them have peripheral accessories that allow geotagging.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Session

A ѕеѕѕiоn, simply put, implies a number оf асtivitiеѕ one user makes within a ѕресifiс timе frаmе on уоur wеbѕitе.

Gооglе Anаlуtiсѕ defaults thаt аmоunt оf time tо around 30 minutеѕ whiсh mеаnѕ whаtеvеr a viеwеr dоеѕ оn уоur website (e.g., browses wеb-раgеѕ, downloads mаtеriаlѕ, рurсhаѕеѕ рrоgrаmѕ ) before thеу exit equals оnе session. Simрlу put, thе Sеѕѕiоnѕ metrics iѕ a unifiеd method tо rероrt "Viѕitѕ" аnd "Aсtivе Uѕеrѕ ."

The соnсерt of a ѕеѕѕiоn in Anаlуtiсѕ iѕ сruсiаl bесаuѕе diverse features, rероrtѕ, and mеtriсѕ аrе соntrоllеd bу how Anаlуtiсѕ ѕеѕѕiоnѕ.

A ѕеѕѕiоn iѕ a group оf uѕеr bеhаviоrѕ with your website thаt dеvеlорѕ within a specific timе frаmе. Take for inѕtаnсе, a ѕinglе ѕеѕѕiоn can produce multiрlе раgе viеwѕ, events, ѕосiаl interactions, and есоmmеrсе transactions. One particular uѕеr саn ореn loads of ѕеѕѕiоnѕ. Thоѕе ѕеѕѕiоnѕ саn happen оn the ѕаmе day, оr оvеr ѕеvеrаl dауѕ, weeks, or mоnthѕ. Thе minutе оnе session iѕ оvеr, there iѕ thеn a good сhаnсе tо ѕtаrt a fresh ѕеѕѕiоn.

Thеrе аrе bаѕiсаllу fivе рrосеdurеѕ bу which a session ends :

• Timе-bаѕеd expiration
• Aftеr 30 minutes of dоrmаnсу
• At midnight
• Campaign сhаngе
• If a uѕеr оriginаtеѕ viа оnе саmраign, lеаvеѕ, аnd thеn comes bасk through a diffеrеnt саmраign.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Source / Medium

Source is the origin of where your traffic is, such as a search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) or a domain (.com, .org, .net, etc.)

Medium is the general class of the source such as organic search, cost-per-click (CPC) paid search, web referral, etc.

Source/Medium combines the dimensions of both Source and Medium such as google / organic search, .com/ cpc , etc.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


UTM

The Urchin Tracking Module (UTM for short) is an easy way of tracking and seeing the way traffic is coming to your website is what UTM codes provide.

In 2005, Google bought urchin software corporation and their software has served as predecessors to what is now known as Google Analytics. The UTM codes work in such a way that they will not have any effect on a website. UTM codes enable the performance of the links to be tracked and their source seen.

UTM codes are of great importance because they help to show various information specific to individual links like the number of clicks and traffic a website is getting and the traffic it gets from social media and through Google Analytics, the source of the traffics can be identified. By putting a type of value to the weblink, google analytics picks up the codes and sorts it into various useful reports and information.

A distinguishing use of the UTM code is to make a peculiar URL or a combination or many URLs that can be added to market campaigns that attract users to a website which will, in turn, provide google analytics the information needed to keep a record of data for analysis purposes.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Bootstrap (Business)

In business, bootstrapping refers to starting or running a business with little or no money. This simply means setting up a business without involving venture capital firms, banks or even angel investment.

In this situation, an entrepreneur might rely on plowing money earned from customers back into the business. It usually involves starting out hard without any external financial help.

Stages of bootstrapping:

1. A company that relies on bootstrapping usually makes use of seed money from personal savings or by getting help from close relatives and friends. Part-time hobbies like blogging which an individual can take as a second stream of income can be set up by means of bootstrapping. Here, the individual may maintain his or her daytime job while nurturing the other business.
   
2. The second stage as was earlier reflected on involves making use of money that customers paid to a business. In this situation, the growth of such a business may be quite slow because of operating expenses, but eventually, the business might pick up and be able to fund itself and make a profit for the owner. Although bootstrapping in business may appear risky, it is a better way of staying out of debt especially when it is run with personal savings.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) involves developing a technique that is used to introduce a new product with basic features into the market for the purpose of getting feedbacks from early adopters to enhance customer satisfaction.

The feedbacks gotten from the customers are used in developing the final product. This term became popular since a writer and consultant on startups, Eric Ries, began using it.

Minimum viable product provides marketers with the right research and information they need to either improve on a particular product, make some reductions on the features, or leave it as it is. In fact, it helps them know the strengths and weaknesses of such product.

3 things that MVP must have:

• Enough value to attract people and compel them into buying or testing out the product.
• It must showcase mouth-watering features that early adopters will be interested in.
• It must create room for feedback to be provided to help improve on the product.

An example is where you have a mobile phone company like Apple attracting early adopters with, let's say - iPhone 8. Here the customers are promised to get some features on the phone free when they are among the first to buy the phone.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Angular

Angular, or AngularJS is a structural Javascript framework with the main purpose of simplification. It assists the developers in creating applications.

It lets you use HTML as the template language and extend its syntax to convey your application's elements plainly and concisely. It has features like: two-way binding (models changing the views and vice versa), templating (embedding), RESTful API handling, AJAX handling, dependency injection, modularization, etc.

With Angular, you are able to do the following:

1. Create a navigation menu that responds to user input via a touch or a click by integrating the framework with HTML and CSS
2. Create a SPA or Single Page Application to provide a more fluid experience in web browsing

AngularJS is created upon the principle that, when it comes to building UIs and software components, declarative code is better than imperative.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


API

Application Programming Interface, or API for short, involves a particular set of rules, protocols, and tools that are used in setting up application software.

API is the needed specifications and codes that software programs need to be able to communicate with each other. They enable computer programming to run smoothly. It is the skeleton that a programmer uses in setting up a computer program. The specifications for API can take various forms such as data, routines, object classes, structures, remote calls or variables. API can be used for a web-based system like database system, operating system, software library, or computer hardware.

In simple terms, API is what helps software programs facilitate communication between different programs just like user interface enhances interaction between computers and humans. APIs make it possible for one to cut and paste a snippet such as LibreOffice document into another template like Excel spreadsheet.

Examples of different types of APIs are POXIS, C++Standard Template Library, Microsoft Windows API, and Java APIs.

APIs can best be seen as windows, doors, or levers which prevent a program's internal functions from being completely exposed to the world. They save resources, time, and also prevent legal entanglements from being slammed on the programmer.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Bootstrap (CSS)

Bootstrap is an open-source, front-end web framework that is used in designing web applications and websites for free.

It consists of CSS- and HTML-based design templates for forms, typography, navigation, buttons, and other interface components. Optionally, bootstrap may include making use of JavaScript extensions. It basically focuses on front-end development, unlike other web frameworks.

Bootstrap which was originally named Twitter Blueprint has its roots from Twitter. It was developed by Jacob Thornton in an effort to encourage and help internal tools work consistently. According to Mark Otto, it was basically a way the company wanted to share and also document design assets and patterns within the company.

Why are bootstraps important?

• Bootstraps have responsive features that make it easy for tablets, phones, and desktops to adjust to CSS.
• They are quite easy to use and can be applied by anyone with beginner CSS and HTML knowledge.
• All modern browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and Opera are compatible with bootstrap.
• It has a mobile-first approach that makes up its framework.

How and where can bootstrap be downloaded?

• Bootstrap can be downloaded from getboostrap.com
• Another option is to get it as an included package from CDN.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (commonly referred to as CSS) is a language that describes the layout of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) documents such as web pages, colors, fonts, margins, lines, background images, positions, etc.

CSS defines how HTML elements are to be shown on screen, paper, or any other media. It also controls the layout of various web pages all at once.

HTML vs CSS -- In the plainest words possible, HTML lays the groundwork (structure content), and CSS does the styling and more (formatting structured content)!

To explain further, HTML was made to describe a web page's content, like:

• <h1>This is a headline</h1>
• <p>This is a paragraph</p>

In the early beginnings of the world wide web, this was enough. However, as the opportunity for more content grew with tons of people using the internet growing nonstop, the web developers (and designers) started to think of adding a layout to online files. More and more components were added such as font and color attributes, which led to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) creating CSS.

By creating CSS, the web development field grew and provided significant advantages to web design such as countless advanced and stylish techniques, application of various layouts to various media-types, and more accurate control of layout, to name a few.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Dynamic Website

Unlike a static (fixed) page, a dynamic website is generated in real-time. This includes web scripting codes like PHP (HyperText Processor, or Personal Home Page) or ASP (Active Server Pages).

A dynamic website is easier to maintain than a static one. Static pages contain unique content, which means they must be opened, edited, and published manually every time a change is to be made. Dynamic sites, however, access data from a database. If a developer wants to update the contents of a dynamic page, he just needs to update the database record. This method is easier for sites that have hundreds or thousands of pages.

Static sites use ".htm" or ".html." Dynamic ones use ".php," ".asp," or ".jsp."

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Hexcode

A hex code is a code that the programmers use when they are communicating with computers. "Hex" meaning 6, and code representing the numeric values that determine a color.

For example, if the programmer decides to use a dark blue color, this would be represented as the hexcode #0000BB.

The hex code uses the hexadecimal numeral system which contains 16 symbols, otherwise known as base 16.

To accurate dictate color as best as possible, the numeral system used consists of only ten numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. The continuation of the values then change to the first six letters of the alphabet: A,B,C,D,E and F. 0 being the lowest value, and F representing the highest value.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


HTML

Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML, is the "mother tongue" of the world wide web. It is the language for defining a web page's structure (otherwise known as "markup").

It was invented in 1990 by scientist Tim Berners-Lee. Its original aim was to simplify how scientists at various universities could gain access to each other's research files.

HTML is a language that enables us to present data or information on the Internet.

With HTML, we are able to:

• Publish online files with headings, paragraphs, texts, lists, tables, photos, etc.
• Recover online data through hypertext links
• Create forms that is required when performing transactions with services such as ordering products, setting up reservations, searching for data, etc.
• Add spreadsheets, sound clips, video clips, and other applications straight to your document

Every foundation of a website is built on HTML, through elements. Elements provide structure to an HTML file and indicates to the browser your desired layout. Every element consists of a "tag", which is a designation used to "mark up" the start < and end > of an element.

There are two kinds of tags - opening (<html>) and closing (</html>). The difference is the "/" to signify "end."

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Inline

An in-line is any element inside a program, message, or document. For instance, an HTML (HyperText Markup Language) inline code is anything that has been built into the webpage/website, instead of loading from an external file.

Most of the content on the site or page is inline, but the images and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) files load externally. When we talk about HTML or CSS, an inline "element" refers to any element in the same line as the code that surrounds it.

Here are some examples of CSS inline elements:

• <a> Create an anchor
• <b> Bold text
• <br> Create a line break
• <code> Designate text as code
• <font> Change the font
• <img> Show an image file
• <q> Designate text as a short quotation
• <s> Strikethrough text
• <sub> Create subscript text
• <u> Underline text

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Javascript

JavaScript is a programming language that enables you to implement complex things on the web pages, such as showing real-time updates, interactive maps and graphics, moving objects, etc. In short, JavaScript makes your website interactive.

If HTML is used to structure content, and CSS is used to styling content, JavaScript is used to create dynamic content.

Let's suppose we create a character named Mike. HTML would look like this:

<p>Player 1: Mike</p>

CSS would look like this:

JavaScript would look like this:

If you're curious as to what will happen, you might want to try it in GitHub!

The benefits of JavaScript:

• You can store useful values inside the variables.
• You can operate on pieces of texts (known as "strings")
• You can run the code in response to some events happening on a web page.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


PHP

PHP, or Hypertext Preprocessor (a recursive acronym), is a server side scripting language that enhances static or dynamic websites and/or web applications. It was once known as Personal Home Pages.

A scripting language is used to interpret scripts (a set of programming instructions) at runtime. The goal of the scripts is to optimize the execution of an application.

Difference between scripting language (PHP) vs programming language (JavaScript):

• Programming language is used to enhance complete applications; scripting language is mostly utilized for routine tasks.
• In programming, the code needs to be compiled before it can be executed; in scripting, the code is normally executed without compiling.
• A programming language doesn't need to be embedded in other languages while a scripting language is normally embedded into other software domain.

To give you an example, a PHP would look something like this:

You would notice that there aren't lots of commands compared with CSS or JavaScript. This happens because the text above has an embedded PHP code (<?php and ?>). This code enables you to jump in and out of "PHP mode."

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Python

Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language that can be operated on any modern computer operating system.

Its high level of sophistication and dynamic semantics makes it available to be used for processing text, images, numbers, data, and almost anything that you can save on your computer. Presently, Python is used daily by Google Search Engine, YouTube, NASA, and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Python is an "interpreted" language which means that it converted at runtime and not before the program runs. You can apply Python through lots of ways including:

• Building an RSS Reader
• Programming CGI for web applications
• Creating calendars in HTML
• Working with files
• Reading and writing from and to MySQL or PostgreSQL

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


SQL

A Structured Query Language, otherwise known as SQL, is a programming language used for supervising relational databases and conducting numerous operations on the data in them. SQL is an ANSI and ISO standard and is the actual database query language.

Popular amongst start up founders, marketers, data scientists and online entrepreneurs for extracting (querying) their databases for information about their customers, products and much more.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Static HTML / Static Page

A static page or static website comprises of a series of HTML files, each representing a physical page of that website. Therefore, on a static site, each page counts as a separate HTML file.

For example, when you visit the "About Us" page, you are viewing at the actual "About Us" file.

If for instance, two pages contain similar content, they are both separate files which mean that if you want to update the header, you must do so for both pages. To know if a site is static, you can look at the page's file extension and see ".htm" or .html."

Advantages of Static Pages:

• Speed - Since there are no database queries to run, no templating, and no processing of every request, the sites load faster than a dynamic page.
• Version control - Having version control guarantees a quick fall-back plan in any case some changes need to be rolled back.
• Security - Simply put, when a user's input/authentication or multiple processes run code on every request, a potential security exploit could happen. This means that the fight for security boils down to constant patching of system for security updates, which works faster if you have a static page.

Resource Links: [ 1 ]



Infographic

Infographics are gaining popularity because they place less pressure on a website visitor. They are a form of content marketing that makes use of visual presentations with fun and colorful designs to display content. Just as tables simplify a difficult data, infographics simplify complex messages and help to capture and maintain a website visitor's attention. Images, cartoons, symbols, etc. are some of the infographic methods that many companies and website owners are using to entertain and at the same time inform their audience.

Infographics are considered to be effective worldwide because of their ability to convey information in a simple and quick manner to the reader. They are used for maps, signs, and data presentation. Infographics transform a rather boring story in a manner that is visually digestible for the user. They are usually eye-catching, entertaining, and concise.

Major elements of infographics are:

• Visual elements - the graphics, color, and reference icons
• Content elements - statistics, time frames, and references
• Knowledge elements - facts

Why people make use of infographics

1. They attract and engage a website user.
2. Attracts more traffic to a website
3. The contents are viewable and can be easily scanned
4. They are easy to share on social media

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]



Wordpress

WordPress is an online and an open-source website creation written in PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor). It is indubitably the easiest and most powerful blogging and website content management system that has ever existed in a user-friendly form.

WordPress came into existence in 2003, it was introduced with a single kind of code that promotes the use of ordinary text. Since its introduction, WordPress has expanded to become the largest self-hosted blogging system used all over the world.

WordPress is used by millions of sites and viewed by millions of people on a daily basis. There is an enormous amount of people that operate on WordPress all over the world which means that it is an open source design (far more than major commercial sites).

You are in safe hands if you use WordPress in publishing on the Web. Most renowned blogs, news channels, music platforms, largest companies, and celebrities all make use of WordPress. An instance of renowned blogs on WordPress is Mashable. There is also News Channels like New York Times' blog and CNN's on-air personality blogs on WordPress.

If you are wondering about people and brands that use WordPress, go to the WordPress site's showcase, and you will be intrigued by the number of famous sites and notable personalities that make use of WordPress to influence their website.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a device used in selling products and services. Particularly, it makes the sales of products and services reasonable and available. Both digital and physical products could be sold, inventory and shipping could be well-managed, payments could be obtained safely, and taxes organized spontaneously on Woocommerce platform.

WooCommerce is designed to incorporate easily with WordPress, making it the apparent eCommerce option for the current WordPress users, as it links easily with advanced WordPress ecosystem. Here are some features of WooCommerce:

• Sell whatever wherever: Be it physical goods, digital downloads, subscriptions, contents, or even your time, you will be able to create a WooCommerce store to sell across the globe (or within a country, depending on your choice).
  
• Mobile-friendly: WooCommerce is designed so that both your store and your products look sophisticated when viewed on your customers' mobile devices as they do on a desktop computer.
  
• Scalability: WooCommerce can be managed conveniently, so as you expand your business, you can also expand the functionalities of your store. Beginning from the sales of a product to the management of your store, Woocommerce will accommodate your needs, and help you can expand your business.
  
• Having your own data: With the ability to safeguard your data privately of any third-party software platforms, it gives you full control of your business and future.
  
• Secure Code: Sucuri, is setup to enhance security as it audits WooCommerce and ensures that it abides by WordPress approved practices. It also ensures that the rules of coding are adhered to, and that information is kept safe and updated.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Shopify

Shopify is an ideal e-commerce solution that enables you to create an online store to market your goods. It allows you to organize your products, personalize your storefront, receive credits card payments, and trace and reply to orders - everything done on the computer.

Shopify is also an SAAS (Software as a service)-based platform. With Shopify, you can begin your online store on this platform; you can easily manage orders, receive payments, create and monitor shipments and so much more.

Shopify app allows you to purchase and install various similar apps for your online store to get more features. The app store is an amazing portal of information that will transform your e-commerce store into a Multipurpose marketplace.

Although Shopify is not the only e-commerce platform online, it is virtually the most used and popular platform available in the market for both small to medium businesses. Bigger businesses can use the enterprise version.

Amazon recognizes Shopify, and with time, Shopify will become one of the most famous e-commerce platforms online, with the hard work, dedication and expertise put it this platform, it is expected to become one of the most used online shopping platform in the nearest future.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Customer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the capacity of a product or company to hold on to its customers over a given period of time. It looks at ensuring that customer of a particular product or business continues to employ that product without patronizing or defecting to other products or business providers. The ability of any company or product to hold on to its customers for a long period shows its customer retention capacity.

CRM is a relationship that starts right from the onset the customer makes contact with the company, and it continues throughout that relationship.

A fast, efficient and effective way to improve company revenue is company retention because the company doesn't need to synthesize, lure and convert new customers. Sells are made to customers that have enjoyed some form of relationship with the business.

Companies that embrace CRM find it easy marketing to customers because these customers have shown interest in their products previously and as such, it is simpler to gain the advantage based on the relationship built. One peculiar characteristic peculiar to companies that imbibe excellent customer retention practices is that their profit rises in direct correlation with the duration of the relationship with the retained customers.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Content Management System

A content management ѕуѕtеm (CMS) iѕ a computer аррliсаtiоn оr set оf аffiliаtеd programs thаt can be uѕеd to сrеаtе and process digitаl соntеnt. CMS еndеd up bеing a buzz wоrd in thе web dеvеlорmеnt ѕесtоr bу virtuе of itѕ bеnеfitѕ.

A CMS can have loads оf meanings depending оn thе ѕituаtiоnѕ аnd thе реrѕоn'ѕ оr project mоtivеѕ. To add to this complexity, an organization known аѕ AIIM (Aѕѕосiаtiоn fоr Infоrmаtiоn and Imаgе Mаnаgеmеnt) documented the асrоnуm ECM (Entеrрriѕе Cоntеnt Mаnаgеmеnt) and WCM (Wеb Content Management) as thеir invеntiоn and coined their own dеfinitiоn thаt suits thеir оrgаnizаtiоn'ѕ bеnеfitѕ.

AIIM сhаngеd thеir meaning of ECM a couple оf timеѕ аnd uploaded their dеfinitiоnѕ tо Wikiреdiа, whiсh iѕ now mаdе рubliс. In thе соurѕе of this writing, fоr most ѕituаtiоnѕ, whеn аn individuаl in thе web dеvеlорmеnt industry is speaking аbоut CMS (Cоntеnt Management Sуѕtеm), оr ECMS (Entеrрriѕе Content Management Sуѕtеm), hе/she might bе mоrе likеlу rеfеrring to the dеfinitiоn above.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Above the fold

Above the fold is a term used to describe the content that is immediate visible when opening up a website or application.

The 'fold' is considered as an invisible line drawn horizontally across the screen at the bottom of the immediate visible content.


Below the fold

Below the fold is a term used to describe the content that is not immediately visible when opening up a website or application.

The "fold" is considered as an invisible line drawn horizontally across the screen at the bottom of the immediate visible content. To see below the fold content on a website, you are required to scroll down.


Call-to-Action (CTA)

A CTA, or Call to Action, is an interface element that motivates a user to commit an action you are telling them to do. This element is vital to conversion rate optimization (CRO).

The main button, link or other UI element that tells the user to take an action that ends with a conversion. A "Buy Now" button on any shopping websites, a "Sign Up" button, a "Download Now" on an app landing page are all kinds of Call to Action.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the number of users performing a desired action, whether filling out a form, buying a product, or whatever goal of the web page may be.

For instance, let's say there are 1,000 visitors to a specific web page through a PPC (pay per click) ad.
10 of the 1000 visitors will commit to the action intended (purchase, survey, education are examples), that means the conversation rate for the particular ad is %0.01.

In essence, the larger the conversion rate, the more successful the web site. The growing pain most companies face is a decaying conversion rate as they scale their business higher with more traffic. To tackle this, marketers and businesses will trial experiments and tests to improve their conversion rate.

Conversion is a vital element in a brand's paid search strategy. Across the digital landscape, the usual conversion rate is 2.35%. The top 25% have a conversion rate of 5.31% or higher, while the top 10% have conversion rates of 11.45% and above.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Open Rate

An open rate is a percentage of the amount of recipients who have opened and looked through your email.

For instance, if you sent an email to 1,000 people and 500 of them opened it, your open rate would be 50%. If you sent an email to 300 people and 3 of them opened it, your open rate would be 1%.

The Open Rate measures the importance and context of an email by getting the total number of unique clicks, dividing it by the total number of unique opens, and then multiplying by 100. To put it simply, it just means how many people have clicked your email. However, open rate tracking is not an exact science.

An "open" is registered when a tracking pixel (single pixel graphic) loads. A common problem that all email marketers will face is that not all email service providers or load graphics regularly. It means that you may be getting emails that are opened but not registered.

Open Rate is particularly effective for tracking ads where a higher percentage of images is used (higher image-text ratio) because open rates vary and stand as a more useful measurement of content and creative.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Click Through

A click through is an act of clicking through an online ad to the merchant's destination. A click-through appears on the last-touch channel.

For instance, let's say that a visitor comes to your website daily, with each visit coming from a different marketing channel:

• Day 1: Organic Search
• Day 2: Display
• Day 3: Paid Search
• Day 4: Display
• Day 5: Organic Search
• Day 6: Display
• Day 7: Paid Search

The First-Touch Channel report would present 1 new engagement for Paid Search while the rest would present 0 new engagements. The Last-Touch Channel report would reveal 2 click-throughs for Paid Search, 3 for Display, and 2 for Organic Search. While a click-through is usually the most prompt response to an ad, it is not the only interface. Visitors have an option to type a company's URL straight into the browser bar or a search engine box.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Click Through Rate

A click through rate, or CTR, is a metric that calculates the number of click-throughs advertisers get on their ads per number of impressions, expressed as a percentage.

The formula to get a CTR is: Total ad clicks / Total impressions x 100

Getting a high CTR is essential to the success of your PPC (pay per click) because it directly impacts both your Quality Score and the amount you pay each time someone clicks your search ad. It is necessary to differentiate what a CTR does and does not measure.

The CTR computes the percentage of people who clicked on the ad to arrive at the merchant site; it does not include the people who did not click, yet arrived at the same site because of seeing the ad. With this, the CTR may appear as a measure of the prompt response to an ad, but not its total response. The only exception would be ads that display no identifiable information on the merchant site. In these cases, the click rate is the same as the overall rate.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Split Test

Split testing (also known as multivariate testing or A/B testing) is a practice of performing controlled and randomized tests with the specific aim of optimizing a website metric, like clicks, form completions, or purchases.

Incoming traffic to the site gets shared between the original (control) and the various variations without any of the visitors knowing that an experiment is taking place. Split testing contrasts two or more different strategies for opt-in forms in a controlled experiment. By experimenting and then analyzing results, you can gauge the behavior of visitors and subscribers and see where they respond best to, which allows you to enhance your email marketing campaigns. This marketing strategy is normally utilized to test changes to certain parts of a website such as registration pages, signup forms, calls to action, etc., where a measurable goal can be improved. For example, experimenting changes to an online checkout flow would help us to gauge what factors increase conversions and will lead to more orders for the merchant.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Average Order Value (AOV)

Average Order Value, or AOV, is an e-commerce performance metric that calculates the average dollar amount expended every time a visitor or customer puts an order on a website or mobile app.

The formula for calculating AOV is simply: AOV = Revenue / Number of orders.

For example, in July, your site store's sales were $40,000, and you had a total of $2,000 orders. $40,000 divided by $2,000 is $20. Therefore, your store's July AOV is $20.

AOV is calculated using sales per order, and not per customer. For instance, your customer bought yesterday and today. Both orders are factored into AOV, individually.

AOV is a performance metric that provides insight on how your gross profit or profit margins are doing. Let's say you were selling three bags worth $10, $15, and $20 respectively, and the AOV is $13. This clearly indicates that majority of your sales come from the $10 bags.

To increase your AOV, you could use some proven methods such as:

• Cross-selling (add items to whatever the customer is already buying)
• Upselling (giving a better, pricier option)
• Volume discounts (get more for less)
• Free shipping
• return policy

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


eCommerce

eCommerce, is that act of buying and selling goods and services over the internet. Any business participating in online sales is relevant to the eCommerce industry.

These transactions can be business-to-business, consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer, or consumer-to-business.

Examples of eCommerce:

• Online Shopping - buying and selling of goods on the web. Merchants have a digital "store"where the buyers can go to, browse, and purchase them through mouse clicks. E.g. Amazon
• E-Payments (Electronic Payments) - payment processors and payment gateways; helps alleviate the long process of writing and mailing checks.
• Internet Banking - banking done in the comforts of your phone
• Online Ticketing - from air tickets to movie tickets, just about any ticket can be booked online. This saves the inefficiency of lining up at ticket counters.

Types of eCommerce:

• Business to Business (B2B)
  An example of this would be a company ordering pamphlets, business cards or promotional material from an online business such as alibaba.com, aliexpress.com. or amazon.com.
• Business to Consumer (B2C)
  An example of B2C is a a direct to consumer purchase such as electronics or hobbycraft purchased from a business, manufacturer or vendor online.
• Consumer to Consumer (C2C)
  An example of consumer to consumer is a growing type of eCommerce around the globe. In C2C, consumers can use online marketplaces such as Etsy or eBay to sell or trade.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Cart / Shopping Cart

A shopping cart is on an online merchant site is a piece of software which got its term from a grocery store shopping cart.

Its main purpose is to assist with the purchase of a product or service. Normally, the user puts the products or services in the cart and "checks out" when he is done ordering. The software then takes the payment and proceeds with the data distribution to the merchant, payment processor, and related parties. Shopping carts are vital for a merchant's site since it connects the gap between shopping and buying.

A shopping cart normally contains these features:

• Product data storage
• A gateway for ordering, catalog, and customer service
• Rendering of product data for user display

There are two types of shopping carts online:

1. Hosted shopping carts - This type belongs to third-party firms who "hosts" and is responsible for server data, backup, maintenance, upgrades, etc. The good thing about this feature is that it's free. The only con is the visitors are redirected to another site for payment processing.
2. Licensed shopping carts - This type belongs to owners who build their own and customize it according to their brand and customer needs. Since a licensed shopping cart is more flexible than a hosted one, it means that it will cost more.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a method for businesses to connect with their target demographics over the internet through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

The main purpose of social marketing is to raise brand awareness and promote specific products. SMM also seeks to establish social media presence for the brands, create shareable content and ads, and connect with the community through customer service and campaigns.

Other uses of Social Media Marketing include:

• Increase of referrals or sales leads
• Increase sales of products or services
• Providing customer service
• Establishing community growth by means of feedback
• Building of the brand's page through word of mouth
• Updating the community of the business through special events and contests

The advantages of social media networking:

1. Cost - Advertising your brand through traditional media and other types would cost you big time. With social media, all you need is a page and shareable content. You can also advertise there and would cost less.
2. Audience Engagement/Community Growth - People like it when their voices are heard. So, having a brand engage with the community makes them feel special and "heard."

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Email

Email is one of the oldest methods of online information exchange.

Just like a letter, it has a sender and a receiver, and the "mailman" are services such as Outlook, Gmail and YahooMail. Both the sender and receiver have a unique address associated with a domain. For an e-mail to be sent, both users must have an active e-mail address on which to send/receive it from.

Email Marketing is one of the oldest online marketing methodologies that are heavily being practiced by marketers today.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


ESP

An email service provider, or ESP, means nothing to casual email users. However, for e-mail marketing specialists, it refers to the backbone of all their marketing communication.

If ESP is considered an email delivery engine, then it follows that selecting the right one for your needs is crucial to the success of your marketing. An ESP assists you with sending email marketing messages by providing a platform or tool. Their platform will most likely give you the following:

• Create an email template and/or use their preset templates
• Create an e-mail subscriber list
• Send e-mail to the subscriber list
• Analyze reports of email marketing campaigns and individual emails

An email marketer can use ESPs for various reasons, such as gaining significant data with customers' engagement with an email and analyzing behaviour of traffic to a specific website.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


ESP

An email service provider, or ESP, means nothing to casual email users. However, for e-mail marketing specialists, it refers to the backbone of all their marketing communication.


SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, or SMTP, is the basic protocol for email services on a TCP/IP network.

SMTP provides the ability to transmit and deliver email messages. and is part of the application layer of the TCP/IP protocol. By utilizing a method called "store and forward," SMTP moves your email on and across networks.

An SMTP is comprised of the following vital components:

1. Mail user agent (MUA) - a program that an end user uses to read and process email
2. Mail submission agent (MSA) - a program that accepts email messages from an MUA and cooperates with an MTA for the delivery of the email.
3. Mail transfer agent (MTA) - a program that delivers email messages from one server to another using a client-server application architecture
4. Mail delivery agent (MDA) - a program that is responsible for the delivery of email messages to a local recipient/server's mailbox; also called an LDA (local delivery agent)

At each step, SMTP is doing its job. We don't need to comprehend or control SMTP. It is generally integrated with an email client application. SMTP functions by initiating a session between the user and receiver.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


DKIM

DomainKeys Identified Mail, or DKIM, is an email authentication process that helps protect both email senders and receivers from dangerous and malicious emails such as forged and phishing email. It lets an entity take responsibility for an email message. The entity acts as a handler of the message, either as the originator or intermediary. Their reputation is the basis for evaluating whether to trust the message for further handling, such as delivery.

This process is done by "signing" the email message with a digital signature. A "signature" is produced by the sending mail transfer agent (MTA) by using an algorithm. It is then applied to the content of the signed fields, which generates a unique string of characters, or what we call a "hash value." After it is generated, the public key used to generate it is stored at the listed domain. After receiving the email, the recipient MTA can verify the DKIM signature by recovering the signer's public key through DNS.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


SPF

Sender Policy Framework or SPF is a mail authentication system that enables mail servers to confirm if mails being received are sent from authorized domains. The SPF is an initiative that protects email recipients from email spoofing - the alteration of email sender's information by spammers.

Internet service providers can confirm that the mails are sent from authorized servers by checking the DNS records, your domain and IP address of the incoming server. If the emails come from an unauthorized source, they will get labeled as spam.

For SPF to work, it requires the receiving server and the domain owner to work together. The domain owner specifies which mail servers get used in sending mail. The information is represented in an SPF record and then published in the DNS zone.

The SPF program conducts a search to confirm if the incoming mail is from an authorized source. After this query, there are some results which include but are not limited to:

Pass - this means that the delivered message fits the requirements of the domain server.

Fail - this implies that the message does not meet the requirements.

If the domain information is not published, SPF will return the messages with the tag - "unknown."

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Landing Page

A landing page is the first page a person sees when they browse your website.

However, when defining it using advertising and marketing terms, a landing page is referred to as a single standalone webpage, quite different from the main website that is designed to perform a specific function.

A landing page is quite different from the homepage of a website. It is any page on the website which links to other locations on the web. This implies that a landing page should not be attached to the main website by global navigation. This directs people who visit the website to your intended conversion goal and limit their options.

In the past, landing pages were the main focus of marketing efforts. Like a number of other world wide web terms, the original definition of landing pages has changed. Just the same way other Internet terms changed, so also did landing pages stray from its primary meaning. Previously, landing pages use to be the center of marketing strategies, so most sites retained a few for marketing purposes in conjunction with a homepage. The idea was based on the thinking that users would visit the personalized landing pages and then navigate to their desired pages, or click through a link to an opt-in email campaign to perform desired actions.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Doorway Page

Doorway pages can also get referred to as jump pages, gateway pages, portal pages, entry pages, etc. They are designed to favor specific phrases when entered into search engines. This improves traffic on sites.

They can get easily identified as they are structured especially to attract the attention of search engines.

Here is a description of how these pages get delivered technically and the problems they pose.

Doorway pages can function in various ways, and there are a number of different terms by which this can get described. Doorway pages range from pages with rich, unique content to keyword-stuffed pages. Because doorway pages often get abused by users who spam search engines, they have gained a bad reputation.

Recently, machine-generated pages are produced in large numbers to redirect visitors from the actual web page requested to an entirely different page. Such doorways contribute to the clutter that web searchers and search engines are faced with

Critics are of the opinion that doorway pages are unnecessary. They oppose their usage insisting that the time and efforts wasted in generating these pages could get redirected towards the creation of pages that get fully integrated into the content of the site.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Funnel (Sales Funnel)

A sales funnel is also referred to as revenue funnel or sales process. It is a term that involves the buying process that customers are led through during the purchase of products.

A sales funnel can be broken down into different steps based on the sales model.

A popular sales process is divided into seven phases namely:

• The Awareness Phase - A potential buyer becomes aware of the existence of a solution.
• The Interest Phase - The potential buyer shows interest in a product and conducts a search.
• The Evaluation Phase - The potential buyer or prospect company considers the solutions offered by competing companies as they move towards making a final decision.
• The Decision Phase - At this stage, a final decision gets made and negotiation begins.
• The Purchase Phase - The stage where a purchase is finally made.
• The Re-evaluation Phase - In some sales, buyers are offered an option of renewing the contract. The re-evaluation phase is when the customer who is already familiar with the product, decides whether or not to initiate a renewal of the contract.
• The Repurchase Phase - The final stage when a customer decides to repurchase a product.

Companies make use of different analytics to study and evaluate the success of their sales teams and also attract more prospects during a sales cycle.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Growth Hacking

A growth hacker can be classified as a mix between web development and a digital marketing expert that combines analytics, creativity, marketing techniques, product improvement, curiosity and social metrics. All with the aim of increasing sales, growing the number of users that frequent a start-up and also building a sustainable market presence. Opinions on the proper definition of the term have always been divided.

There are a few marketers who seem to embrace the term "Growth hacking" as the process of using the available technology to grow a business.

Sadly, there are other marketers who have not changed their old way of doing business but have chosen to simply add the title "Growth Hacker" to their business profiles to attract new opportunities.

Sean Ellis, the first man in charge of the growth of Dropbox, was the same person who conceived the idea of Growth Hacking on July 26, 2010.

The term was used for the first time in a write-up titled "Find a Growth Hacker for your Startup."

In this article, Sean defines a Growth Hacker as "a person whose true north is growth." Due to the continual use of this term right from its first appearance and the fact that it hasn't completely died out or faded out of existence, it is clear to see that the concept is growing.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Hyperlink

A hyperlink, commonly known as 'link,' is an HTML object that enables one to jump to a different location when it is clicked or tapped. Links can be found on mostly all webpages and provide an effective means of navigating between different pages on the web.

Hyperlinks can be attached to text, images, or other HTML formats. The standard color used to display links on Web browsers is blue, but links can come in different colors as the style may be customized with the use of HTML or CSS styles.

In the past, before the web became widely known, links were often underlined by default. Because of the rising popularity of good web design, this method has become less common. When you add a link to an image, the link tag encapsulates or surrounds the image tag. Since the image tag is nestled within the link tag, the image itself becomes a link.

This same process can be used to add links to other elements such as <div> and <span> objects. However, because CSS can be used to stylize a link, an <a> tag with a CSS class or ID attribute is often used to replace a <div> or <span> tag. Search engines use hyperlinks for two basic reasons - to find new web pages and to help determine how well a page should rank in their results.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


URL

A Uniform Resource Locator, formerly known as Universal Resource Locator, or just URL, in short, is the unique address for any file available on the Internet. It includes the following elements as an example:

http:// - the URL prefix; it specifies the protocol used to access the location,

techterms.com - the or IP address or server name,

/definition/url - the path to the directory or file.

Nowadays, there is no need to add 'www' when giving a web address. Also, you are no longer required to type in www or http into a browser before visiting a website. By simply typing the website - healthproducts.com into the browser, it will automatically open that particular website. A URL can also be entered manually into the address bar of a Web browser. If for instance, you need to visit a website that has its Web address printed on a card or brochure, you can enter the URL into your browser.

It is common for URLs to appear automatically when you click on a link or open a bookmark. If the server name in the URL is not valid, your web browser will display a "Server not found" error; if the URL has an incorrect path, the server may respond with a 404 error.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Adaptive Payment

Adaptive Payments (AP) make it possible for PayPal third-parties to create payment systems of their choice. The sender can make use of the same API to rotate money from a single person to other receivers while making use of parallel and chained payments.

With the AP APIs, handling payment refunds, preapprovals, currency conversions, and other transactions that appear cumbersome are made flexible.

The person making the application must have a business-level account with PayPal and must make sure that the appropriate permissions levels are in place before such a person can make use of Adaptive Payments. However, the receivers and senders are free to have any type of PayPal account or not have an account with PayPal. In such situation, the senders and receivers will make use of "guest checkout."

PayPal also announced on its website that AP has become a limited release product that can be used by some selected partners. It also added that it should not be used for new integrations without seeking and getting guidance first from PayPal.

To be able to make basic chained payment with AP, the person initiating it must first setup payment. Next step is to send the customer the payment is meant for to PayPal for authorization. The next step which is optional is to retrieve the payment information.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Recurring Payment

Recurring Payment is a situation whereby someone authorizes transactions to be made on his or her bank account monthly or at the expiration of a previous subscription.

Also known as AutoPay, the deductions are made from the person's credit card without the need to re-subscribe. This ensures that the customer will not concern him or herself with paying late fees should he or she forget to make payment on time.

As long as a person is subscribed to a service that allows for recurring payment at the end of a billing cycle, the same amount will be deducted monthly. Should the person decide to back out of the subscription or membership, such a person would have to turn off recurring payment from their account.

While some people feel comfortable with recurring payments, others may not find it so. Sometimes, people who are no longer part of a membership or no longer wish to subscribe to a service receive a debit alert to that effect. Many sellers make use of recurring payments to get paid automatically be it daily, weekly, monthly or in 12 months. This assures them of payment for their goods or services.

Always remember to deactivate this feature from your bank account should you no longer need it.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]



Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is what a website owner offers a website visitor in return for the visitor's email address, other information or to partake in a survey.

The website could be offering a free ebook, discounts, or free membership in return for the visitor's email address and name. The aim of generating leads is for the purpose of marketing: selling your product directly to your subscribers through their emails.

It is not easy to keep a visitor from coming back to your website except in some occasions where he/she finds your website valuable enough to be bookmarked. If one is not that lucky to have a compelling website, the best option is usually to use lead magnets to get leads that would be valuable to them.

4 basic ways of creating a lead magnet:

• Discover what your vistor would value and make them part with their email address. It could be for a phyiscal item or an ebook, coupon code, etc., then go ahead and offer them such in return for their info.
• Get coupon code, ebbok for the item ready for your visitors.
• Create a landing page while maing provision for people to sign up with the deatils.
• Set up an autoresponder to handle your emails for you.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Adwords

Google's online advertising program is known as Google Adwords. With the aid of AdWords, online ads can be created to reach out to people who are interested in the services or products you offer.

Google AdWords is a useful product that assists in promoting your business, creating awareness of the products and services you offer and consequently increasing the traffic on your website.

As AdWords accounts are managed online, it is easy for you to change your ad campaign at any time.

Simply decide the locations where you want your ads to appear, set a budget and then observe the impact of your ad. It is important to note that there is no minimum spending commitment and your budget is controlled by you alone.

Some major factors which are used to determine the order of ads are:

• The amount advertisers are willing to pay Google for every user who clicks their ad, how relevant the ad is to the search and the click-through rate of the ad.
• In recent times, Google has begun to consider the load time of the landing page.
• The overall quality score of an ad impacts its position on the Google network, and also affects the calculation of a keyword's minimum bid.
• Businesses within a particular region can narrow down their targets to a specific radius of prospective customers.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Bing

Bing is a Microsoft-built search engine, which is the improved version of Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search. It is currently the second largest in the US, placing it second to only Google.

Bing has an extensive range of features, which are as follows:

• Advanced filters which provide users enhanced search results
• Image and Video search
• Instant answer (sports, finance, flight tracking, dictionary, calculations, etc.)
• Translation and conversion of units

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC, an acronym for Pay Per Click, is an online marketing strategy that allows a business owner to advertise their business on the internet. Internet advertising such as this increases their visibility and web traffic.

However, unlike other marketing models available that allow you to increase your online presence organically, PPC requires you to pay for ads each time a potential customer clicks on it.
Ad spots are obtained in an auction, where advertisers bid against each other for spots which can either be search engine keywords or websites. And whoever bids the most gets the chance to appear in most search results, or on most websites as the case may be.

Search engine advertising has become quite popular over the past few years. Its form of PPC allows the advertisers with the highest bid on a particular search keyword to appear in the search result when someone searches that keyword. It is a great way to showcase your business directly to customers who are interested in the services you render.

Notwithstanding, any form of earned advertising increases visibility. But it also requires proper goals, setup, and management. A poor set up will only cost you a lot of money, and no positive result in the end.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Cost Per Thousand (CPM)

Cost Per Thousand is a marketing metric advertiser use to calculate the cost of reaching 1000 people using a particular outlet. It is a common costing model for the various advertising media including the print media, television and also the internet.

Cost Per Thousand otherwise abbreviated as CPM (where M represents the Roman symbol for 1000), is used by marketers to analyze the efficiency of their campaign since it only considers the impression it makes on potential customers. Using this metric enables media planners are able to budget accurately for their business.

Unlike other models (such as Pay-Per-Click) that require advertisers to pay for an agreed activity on their website, CPM considers just the views their advert gets and the impression it makes on potential customers.

The charge for a CPM marketing gets calculated by multiplying the agreed cost per 1000 by the number of impressions. Say the agreed cost is $100, a million impression would then be $100,000, which I got by dividing the number of impressions (1 million) by the standard unit (1000), and finally multiplying the quotient (1000) by the agreed cost ($100).

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Cost Per Impression (CPI)

Cost Per Impression (CPI) is one of the online marketing strategies that advertisers utilize to boost the visibility of their business.

However, there is a huge difference between this model and others available to business owners, and this varies in its costing metric. Other advertising models require an advertiser to pay a certain price for every performance on their website that has been agreed upon. For some this payment could be for every click, or even for every registration. But in the case of CPI, advertisers are charged for every view. This simply means that for everyone who views such ad regardless of any other activity, a price is paid.

CPI uses the Cost Per 1000 metric where by a fixed rate is set for every 1000 impression an ad gets. This gets calculated by multiplying the agreed cost per 1000 by the number of impressions. Say the agreed cost is $20, a million impression would then be $20,000, which is gotten by dividing the number of impressions (1 million) by the standard unit (1000), and finally multiplying the quotient (1000) by the agreed cost ($20).

CPI advertising is similar to the traditional television and print media advertising, since these too consider views alone.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Cost Per Click (CPC)

Cost Per Click, or widely known as CPC, is the price an advertiser pays for a Pay-Per-Click advert. After bidding for ad spots and finally earning a spot on the search result of a search engine, you are required to pay for every click on your website.

For example, you own a sports shoe company and wish to make your business more visible online. You can do that in different ways, but for "earned" options you may choose pay-per-click search engine advertising on Google. In this case, you will have to bid for keywords on Google AdWords.

For a shoe company, related keywords could be "running shoes" or "running shoe," so that when people search these keywords, your company appears at the top of the search results.

Now, a click on your ad that appears on people's search result would mean that your business was checked out, or even that a transaction took place. For getting the attention you were looking for, you have to pay the agreed cost per click.

Therefore, every advertiser must plan ahead of time the kind of attention they want, and the price to pay for such attention to benefit immensely from this marketing model.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an organic way to make a website visible, as opposed to paid marketing.

Many people hoping to increase their customer base have gone digital with their business by listing on web directories, and building their own website.

Agreed, this makes the first step towards going digital, but it does not end there. The problem is that there are many other businesses on the world wide web. As all are vying for an online presence, thus comes the struggles for visibility and web traffic.

SEO helps improve a website's traffic by ensuring it appears at the top of search results of search engines when related keywords get used.

When people search for things on search engines, results that are considered most relevant to the user are gathered by the search engine's crawlers and get displayed in order of relevance. Therefore, SEO helps make a website relevant enough to be displayed without having to pay.

Search Engine Optimization for a website can therefore get achieved by putting up web contents with the necessary keywords that truly represent the services you offer so that when people search those keywords, your website will also be displayed.

Other ways are by increasing backlinks to your site and also making your website search engine friendly.


Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Search Engine

Search engines are used in searching documents for particular words and publish a list of results that relate to the searched keywords

A search engine can be categorized as a program, but a search engine is most times used in reference to internet giants like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! that allows users to look for documents on the World Wide Web.

All search engine uses a patented computation to form its indices in such a way that only useful results are published after queries. As several websites owners depend on search engines to send traffic to their website, this has created a massive industry as the number of people using the search engine to look for information has grown exponentially over the past few years. To gain the advantage, web site owners need to ensure they have good content to increase their search engine ranking.

Popular reasoning defines a search engine as an arranged set of programs such as: A spider (also known as a ''crawler" or a "bot") that wanders around every page or representative pages on all Web site that wishes to be searchable and reads it, with the use of hypertext links that is located on every page to find and read the sites of other pages. It is basically a program that receiving your search queries, analyses it with the inputs in the index, and brings back relevant results.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Meta Description

A meta description tag is a bit of HTML code in a web page header that states the content that is on the site. The meta description is always placed next to the title tag and ahead of the meta keywords.

When improving the Web page for search engines (SEO), it is seen as a proper method to make use of meta description tag. Before Google and some other search engines changed the amount of importance they put on meta description tags, those keywords could enhance grading on a search engine results page (SERP).

In 2009, Google announced that both meta description and meta keywords would not appear in Google's ranking algorithms for Web search; but, the meta description may be included on the search engine results page if Google is unable to find a bit on the page that has the keyword the user is looking for.

Meta description are features of HTML that provide accurate briefings of Web pages. Meta descriptions can be of any length. However, search engines often reduce bits to more than 160 characters. It is advisable to allow meta descriptions to be lengthy enough so that they can be adequately descriptive, but below the 160-character limit.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Title Tag

A title tag is an HTML element that defines the text in the browser's top line, which briefly describes the topic of an online document. A title tag can be found in three key places:

• Internet browsers - title tags in the top bar of the browsers
• Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) - title tags in the results along with a meta description tag
• Social networks

Title tags are vital for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and UX (User Experience). Here are some ways you could maximize its potential:

1. Title Length - You have to be aware of how some characters take up more space (e.g. 'W' takes up more space than 'i' or 'l'). Therefore, an ALL-CAPS title is not recommended. We also recommend that you try to keep the title as short as possible to avoid adding an ellipsis (...) to the title tag, without losing its context and precision.
2. Don't overplay SEO keywords - Having a title that is just full of keywords (e.g. Best Burgers, Cheap Burgers, Burgers for Sale) will be bad for your business as search engines can penalize you for being too "spammy."
3. Make every page title unique - Unique titles mean valuable content and driver better CTRs (click-through rates)

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


H1

An H1 tag, header tag (<h1>), or 'Heading 1', is normally the main heading of a page, or other emphasized text on it. This tag is normally the largest text on the site.

All websites have a hidden "hierarchy" that search engines read to get the correct data and connect it accordingly. When you make an H1, you are basically telling the search engine that it is the most important part of that specific page. Headings can go up to H6 and H1 is the top priority for search engines.

An example would be:

<H1>10 dies in Paris fatal car crash</H1>

This means that whenever people search for "Paris car crash" on that same day, then this would be one of the top results in a search engine. Of course, there are other factors to consider to get a higher rank, but having an H1 makes it easier for the site to find you.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


On-page

On-page optimization refers to the practice of enhancing web pages so that they can rank higher and get more relevant traffic in search engines.

It refers to both content and HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) source code of a page that can get optimized, rather than off-page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which refers to links. On-page SEO includes technical setup (quality of code), textual/visual content, and user-friendliness of a site.

On-page factors (affecting search engine rankings) include:

• Awesome page content - must supply a demand and be linkable
• Technical excellence - your code quality should be high
• Flawless UX - navigation should be easy and not cluttered

On-page SEO is important because it contains all the SEO elements you can control test.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Off-page

Off-page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) refers to methods than are used to enhance or optimize a website's ranking in the SERP, or search engine results page. Off-page SEO is more than just link building, you can also do Social Media marketing and Social bookmarking.

Off-page SEO gives a good indication on how users and websites perceive a particular site. Simply put, a high-quality and useful website is more likely to have references from other sites. It is also more likely to be mentioned on Social Media (Facebook likes, Pins, tweets, +1, etc.) and be bookmarked and shared to likeminded communities.

Here are some of the benefits of an off-page SEO:

• Rankings increase - Your website will rank higher in SERPs which means more traffic to it
• PageRank increase - Google's ranking system for a site
• More exposure - Higher rankings lead to greater exposure because it gets more links, visits, and social media mentions.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Guest Post

Guest posting or guest blogging, is a term used when brands, or just a single writer write and publish an article on someone else's site or blog.

Guest posting helps build brand "awareness" with a different audience (different site's target) and drive more fresh traffic to your site.

However, Google penalizes guest posting whenever its main reason is to just re-route or link to the guest's site away from the author's own site.

Here are 3 reasons why guest posting is important to build online influence:

• It builds relationships - You will be able to promote your brand and build the original author's site as well, which can develop into a good working relationship and wider influence in social media.
• It is great for search engines - Just as long as you just don't use guest spot to link bank to your site, having a guest posting will raise your blog's value to social engines, making your contents easier to find.
• It introduces you to new people - Guest posting allows you to come and be a part of an establish community, all while sharing your message (and your brand's). That means if you have great content, their visitors will be your visitors as well.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Blog Commenting

Blog commenting is a method where visitors, readers, or authors leave a comment to an article or blog post and reply to other comments.

With regards to SEO (Search Engine Optimization), blog commenting is not just a good channel to exchange information, it also increases backlinks and add more traffic to your site. WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, and other CMS (content management system) platforms all have this blog commenting feature.

An effective blog commenting plan will make your backlink graphs remain constant or increase with time.

To have a good blog commenting strategy, you should keep in mind the following:

1. Do it on the right blog - You don't want to waste your time on low-ranking blogs. You should invest your strategy on blogs that are active, have "authority", contains good Page Rank, Keyboard Luv and Comment Luv enabled, and does follow or follow back.
2. Do it on useful web services - use a site like DropMyLink and enhance it with SEO Quake

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Backlink

A backlink is a link put on another website that redirects or points back to your website or a page.

They can be in form of inbound links, incoming links, inward, or inlinks links. In other words, the links on your website that are pointing to another website are referred to as outlinks, outbound links, outgoing links, or outward links. Webopedia refers to it as a hyperlink that is coming from another website to your website.

Backlinks are vital to websites because of the value search engines places on them. Websites that have more backlinks tend to rank higher in page rank. Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., see a website with good backlinks as an authoritative website.

Backlinks are part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques that website owners employ to boost their websites.

Search engines used to rely solely on keywords to rank a website, but with the emergence of keyword stuffing by website owners, search engines especially Google changed its focus from keyword density to backlinks to determine if a website should rank higher or not.

In searching for a website to backlink with, it is important to note that backlinking with a website that writes or sells in the same niche as yours is preferred.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Domain Authority

Domain Authority (DA) is what is used to judge how well a website ranks on search engines. It is usually done by combining many link metrics of a website. The higher the rank of a website, the better its domain authority.

Older and authoritative websites tend to rank higher than new websites. A website is ranked between 1-100. A website that ranks 70 will have a better domain authority than a new website that ranks 1. Basically, domain authority is based on three issues - size, age, and popularity of a website.

How is a website's domain authority calculated?

A website's domain authority is calculated using Moz' metric which is data gotten from Mozscape web index. Some of the things that are used to do the calculations include - MozTrust and MozRank scores among others. It makes use of a machine learning model with the help of algorithm in correlation with other websites to be able to predict a website's domain authority.

Although domain authority is part of Search Engine Optimization technique that website owners employ to rank higher on Google, it can be quite challenging to influence a website's domain authority directly. The best way to influence a website's domain authority is to link to other websites with good ranks.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Page Authority

A Page Authority refers to the score that is developed by Moz in an effort to predict the success of a page rank on search engines result pages (SERP). Just like domain authority, page authority also ranks from 1 to 100 with websites with higher scores ranking higher on search engines.

Page authority shares a lot of similarity with domain authority. In trying to differentiate one from the other, we can say that a single page is used in predicting a website page authority. Domain authority, on the other hand, measures the strength of the whole website domains or subdomains. However, the same metrics are used to calculate page authority and domain authority.

Checking a website's page authority is a great way of learning the page's success rate. It is simply checking the probability that such page would rank on search engines.

How to make a page achieve higher authority:

The days when search engines were tricked into making a page gain high authority are far gone. The only assured way to positively influence how a page ranks on search engines is to keep updating such page with interesting, new, relevant, fun and easy-to-read content frequently. That is one sure way to make a page gain more authority.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Rank

A website's ranking in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the position a website holds in Search Engine Result Page (SERP).

Websites with good ranks usually appear on the first page of SERP. It is, however, not an easy task to rank on the first page of a search engine such as Google. There are many aspects that come into play to determine whether a website will rank on SERP or not.

Although every search engine has its own criteria for determining how a website will rank on its pages, the major factors that help a website's ranking are basically how relevant the website contents are as well as how many quality backlinks it has.

The easiest way to check a website's ranking is by making use of Alexa's statistics. Websites that have more content and are frequently updated with a good traffic rank higher on SERP.

A website's rank plays an important role in digital marketing strategy and SEO of that particular website. Obviously, a website that ranks as number 1 on Google's search engine means that such websites do their homework on SEO techniques. Needless to say, the websites that have little content with small traffic may not rank on Alexa and more so on Google's first page.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


First Page

When a discussion is raised on how to rank on search engines first page, almost every website owner that knows its importance will develop interest.

The reason is not far fetched from the fact that ranking on search engines first page is what most people need to succeed in the online business. This explains why companies spend thousands of dollars in the battle for the first page.

Ranking on first page means that a website has all the visibility it needs to be online and to attract as many website visitors as possible. Studies have shown that many people find it hard to move to the second page of a search engine result with many settling for the websites displayed on the first page.

Now, the quest to figure out how to make it, for instance, to Google's first page can be a confusing and daunting task. Although a lot of people try to study how Google's algorithms and tools work, many have not been successful in that quest.

Some of the things that help to rank on a search engine's first page are - good content, proper headlines with the right keywords, niche/domain name, proper images, quality backlinks in your niche, etc.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Keyword

Keywords can be defined as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) phrases and words that users type in when searching on search engines.

It is technically referred to as search queries. Keywords are what search engines use to find your website as long as it is related to the search query (keyword) a visitor used for the search.

Keywords tell search engines what your website is all about and the visitors that should be sent to your website. Businesses construct their content using relevant keywords so that they stand a better chance of ranking on search engines first page

Why keywords are important:

Keywords are the backbone of every website. Keywords tell your visitors what your website is all about. They also play an important role when creating emails and offers.

Types of keywords:

• They are two major types of keywords namely - long-tail keywords and broad keywords.
• Long-tail keywords as the name implies have longer phrases or words and are usually specific to an industry or a company. These types of keywords have lower competition.
• Broad keywords are surprisingly not broad but short phrases or words that are not limited to your company or industry but to every other industry. Broad keywords have lots of competition.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Longtail

A longtail in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a specific, niche search phrase, normally around more than 2 words in length, that provides a low competition, low search volume, and high searcher intent.

They are longer and more specific keywords that users are most likely to type into the search bar when they are at the point of purchase.

To give you an idea, consider this example:

Let's say you specialize in making bags. Chances are, you won't find yourself in the top organic searches for "bags" because everyone sells them (this gets magnified if your brand isn't established yet aka startup, or you're a small company).

But let's say you have high-tech bags. Then keyword phrases like "high-tech leather bags with GPRS tracker," "high-tech bullet-proof bags with auto-destruct," etc. are going to attract the people who are specifically looking for those things.

With shorter keywords, the ranking competitions are brutal, which means visits are spread relatively, and ROI can be low.

With longtail keywords, there's less traffic, but ROI will be relatively higher. You're attracting the kind of audience you're looking for, and they are closer to the point of purchase than they were when they typed the short keywords.

Believe it or not, longtail makes up for 70% of all search engines. The longtail SEO is where the real action is, and that is where you should be as well.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]



Retention - AARRR

Retention, which is a part of the AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral) framework, refers to the ability to make customers come back for repeat purchases. While we recognize conversion as the ultimate goal in ecommerce, but one-time customers do more harm than good.

A good retention rate means that customers are satisfied with the products and services.

Here are some methods to boost that elusive retention rate:

1. Customer service - The first and most important part of retaining your customers. If you have bad customer service, then visitors won't care how good your product or service is. Learn to provide virtual shopping assistance (proactive), follow up after delivery, and maintain customer support all throughout. Treat your visitors like kings and queens and watch them become your best buds.
2. Rewards vs. Loyalty programs - Loyalty programs are good, but reward programs are the best you can offer your customers. Give them gifts for their first purchase, birthday, one-year anniversary on your site, etc.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Ressurection - AARRR

Reactivation of dormant customers can go a long way in improving a business or a company.

In an ever-competitive market where companies are looking to outdo and out class each other, retaining one's existing cost and making effective efforts to reactivate the dormant ones can go a long way in making a company gain the competitive edge amongst its competitors and become successful.

In looking to reactivate a particular customer, factors that have led to the customer's dormancy cannot get ignored. Factors like price and quality of product and service offered, poor customer services and so on could lead to a customer's deactivation. These factors should not be ignored but checked mate. A company should strive to reactivate such dormant customers because in the long run, it is cost effective and cheaper to reactivate a customer than to get a new one. Analysis shows that it costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than to reactivate an existing one.

Customer reactivation is a business strategy companies should embrace because it appeals to various products and services as well as different consumers and markets. In itself, reactivation is an undergrowth of retention marketing, and in comparison, to other customer attraction schemes, it possesses the largest rate of return of investments.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]

Referral - AARRR

Referrals occur when the current visitors bring new visitors to the merchant's business. Dave McLure, views referral as when someone goes to your website and the new visitor makes some action.

For Dave, it doesn't have to be a purchase. Referrals are frictionless meaning that the customers are happy to spread the news if they're getting something out of it. It acts as a confirmation of customer satisfaction or an acquisition of a new lead.

Referrals work so well because people like to follow people they know they can trust. If a trusted friend or family share the product, they're most likely to do the same. This method is traditionally known as "word of mouth."

Here are some tips to enhance referrals:

• Provide complete, valuable information to your customers - Sale offers are good, but if that's all they are seeing, then people are likely to leave your site/page
• Too many emails/Irritating social media presence - Proactiveness is good. However, brands should draw a fine line between trying to sell and being insensitive to customers
• Cluttered site and no "wishlist" option available - This layout is vital as people are likely to stay away from "text-y" sites. Also, if there's no "wishlist" on the site, there is no opportunity to gift a friend or family.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


Acquisition - AARRR

Customer acquisition is designed to attract consumers and business with the intent of converting them into new customers.

This process simply refers to acquiring new consumers and customers. It involves gaining new consumers by persuading them to take advantage of a new product or service. Customer acquisition is the building block of any company because with customers, the company is non-existent.

The primary goal of customer acquisition looks at spending the least amount of money as well as the smallest amount of work to procure the highest number of customers.

In getting the highest optimal results, customer acquisition needs to gets planned strategically. In employing strategic methods, some methods are more effective than others in terms of meeting the required target and cost. A customer acquisition plan entails identifying potential quality customers, validating the potential customers so see if they match the company's specifications and if they do, building a strong cordial relationship with them.

An effective customer acquisition enhances the growth of the company as well as helping the company cost-effectively acquire the most beneficial customer. Analysis shows that customer acquisition cost more than customer retention. So, when you acquire these customers, efforts should be made to ensure that they are retained.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


Activation - AARRR

Market activation entails most marketing activities a company or a business firm deploys.

It is used to give life and value to a market brand service or commodity through the use of planned and coordinated campaigns and avenues that take complete advantage of the wide array of marketing communications tools to improve and increase results and ensure the high returns in market investments made by customers.

Market activation aims to make consumers act via campaign; it seeks to drive consumers into actions through experiences and interactions. One thing to note is that in delivering optimal results and high return of investments, a market activation has to be led strategically. Strategically-planned market activation ensures market and business objectives and goals are met and completed before deadlines.

One of the key importance of market activation is that it allows businesses to improve their profit range and meet up with their objectives and goals. The benefits of strategically led market activation include: presenting consumers with the right piece of information at the right moment, attracting the most viable consumer at the key point in their decision-making process, and spotting the best avenue and opportunities in the market cycle.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


AARRR

The Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue, simply AARRR, is a framework that was first made for startups. AARRR measures and optimizes your funnel (a buyer's journey) that greatly helps you grow and expand your customer base in a quick time.

Let's break down each section below:

1. Acquisition - Users come to the product and sign-up through various channels. In a SaaS method, this works as registration for a "Free Trial." The best thing to do in this first step is to operate on Traffic Acquisition so you can bring lots of qualified leads to your site. You can also do a CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization.
2. Activation - After they sign-up, you need your new customers to utilize your product. Keep in mind that they can sign up and not use your product. So in order for them to start using your product, you must have a good onboarding program that will help them get started.
3. Retention - Using your product is good. Regularly using them is better. People can only use your product once, get bored, and will never come back. That's ad spend wasted for a one-time customer. Talk with them, get their feedback, and let them know you exist.
4. Referral - The stage when they talk about your products to their friends. It's a win-win situation for them - they invite their friends to use your product, and they get something in return.
5. Revenue - The part where you start gaining money and offer them a monthly or yearly plan with discounts, guarantees, upsells, etc.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]



Modal / Popup

Thе term "рор-uр" hаѕ twо computer-related mеаningѕ - onе dеnоtеѕ a window аnd thе оthеr is ѕоrt of a menu.

The first definition of a Pop-Up Windоw implies a type of window that opens withоut thе user сhооѕing "Nеw Windоw" frоm a рrоgrаm'ѕ File mеnu. Pop-up windоwѕ are often рrоduсеd by wеbѕitеѕ thаt permit рор-uр аdvеrtiѕеmеntѕ, thеѕе аdѕ аrе created with JаvаSсriрt соdе thаt is embedded intо the HTML of a Wеb page.

Thеу gеnеrаllу еmеrgе when a user visits a раgе оr сlоѕеѕ a windоw. Some рор-uр аdѕ арреаr in frоnt of the main windоw, whilе оthеrѕ ѕhоw uр bеhind the mаin brоwѕеr windоw. Irrеѕресtivе оf whеrе рор-uр аdvеrtiѕеmеntѕ diѕрlау оn уоur ѕсrееn, they аrе usually рrеttу аnnоуing.

Fоrtunаtеlу, brоwѕеr dеvеlореrѕ hаvе nоtiсеd this аnd most Wеb brоwѕеrѕ now incorporate an орtiоn tо blосk рор-uр windows. If you are experiencing рор-uр windоwѕ bеing diѕрlауеd on your соmрutеr when уоur browser iѕ nоt ореn, уоu mау hаvе an аdwаrе рrоgrаm running оn уоur PC.

The second definition, Pор-Uр Mеnu is a tуре оf menu thаt рорѕ up on the screen еасh timе a uѕеr right-сliсkѕ a certain оbjесt оr аrеа. Usually, the pop-up window fеаturеѕ a mеnu of соmmаndѕ аnd rеmаinѕ on thе screen оnlу until уоu select one of thе commands, it then diѕарреаrѕ.

Resource Links: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]