You don’t have to be new to digital marketing to be confused by all of the different terms and jargon that come with the industry. Strange words that may not relate to anything in real life other than marketing like caching, meta description, and RSS are terms both business owners and digital marketers need to have a basic understanding of.

Familiarize yourself with the language and learn more about digital marketing with the commonly used terms below.

Ad Blocking

The advertising blocking technology can block ads before they load. This not only benefits a user by avoiding an advertisement from popping up, but also renders a website faster since it doesn’t need the extra bandwidth to load an advertisement. Though this is great for consumers, Ad Blocking is very frustrating for advertisers, which is why you’ll frequently see the term associated with the many threats ad blocking poses for advertisers trying to do their job.

Banner Ad

These advertisements are placed at the top of a web page, like a banner, and are usually above the header image. Common sizes for banner ads are 728×90 and 468×60.

Blogging

Although this can be translated as an online diary to some, blogging actually represents a section of a website that is updated regularly with new content called “posts”. Blog posts can inform customers of product information, promos, and keep a website updated with content regularly.

Caching

A data storing process, caching takes information from a website like HTML pages and images and temporarily stores the information to help increase load time. There are many different types of caching plugins you can install onto your website to help increase the speed and decrease the overall bandwidth of the site, as well.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Commonly seen as CTR, the click-through rate measures how many times your advertisement has been seen against how many times it is clicked on.

Cost Per Impression (CPM)

Unlike what you’d expect from the initials, this cost is based on per thousand impressions. CPM analyzes how much it costs for every thousand impressions an advertisement receives.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

CPC is based off of the average cost per click.

Contextual Advertising

The type of keywords you use to search can trigger specific types of ads to display on web pages you visit with contextual advertising. It is very targeted advertising that displays banner and pop-up ads to users based on their keywords and user data.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rates are not just based on advertising performance, but analyze the overall performance of actions taken. For example, a conversion rate can be based on how many opt-in forms are filled in on a specific landing page, if the conversion is defined as leads. Another type of conversion rate can be the amount of purchases made, email newsletter sign ups, and more.

Cookies

Unlike chocolate chip, these cookies lack flavor. Website cookies store information from a user based on their website traffic and preferences. Cookies can be used to store billing information for future online purchases, as well as passwords, frequently visited websites, and more.

Domain Authority

Using a 100-point scale, the domain authority is a rating developed by Moz to predict how a website will rank on search engines. A website’s domain authority can fluctuate frequently because Moz uses 40 different signals from Google’s algorithm to determine how search results are generated, and this information changes often.

Frequency:

Frequency is how many times the same advertisement is shown to the same person/visitor.

Impressions

This is the amount of times your advertisement or content has been displayed. You can receive 1,000 impressions if an advertisement was viewed 1,000 times.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing refers to placing keywords heavily throughout content, and usually unnecessarily. You can tell if a web page has been keyword stuffed if the content does not read easily and focuses more on search terms over clarifying content.

Keyword Research

Using tools or doing extensive research on what kinds of terms people are searching for is defined as keyword research.

Meta Description

Using 160 characters, meta descriptions are snippets that describe a web page. These descriptions help search engines populate search results based on specific terms and let users know what to expect before clicking on a search result.

Native Advertising

Native advertising is what social networks like Facebook and Twitter use for advertising. These ads are placed within their natural platform, such as in a Newfeed on Facebook.

Organic Traffic

Website traffic that comes from unpaid efforts is considered organic. Organic traffic to a website can come from search results and local search.

Page View

The amount of times a web page is viewed represents the total number of page views over a designated time period.

Pop Up Advertisement

These advertisements are incredibly annoying for users and usually only appear on “spammy” types of websites. Their brother, Pop-Under Advertisements will display behind a browser and offer a less invasive way to still display an ad.

Retargeting

A retargeting campaign is a great way to keep a user interested in your company or product. Once a visitor has bounced away from a webpage, a retargeting campaign can help keep the visitor interested by displaying a company advertisement wherever the visitor visits next. For example, a visitor can leave a shoe store website and go to their personal Facebook page and find an advertisement from the shoe store in the Newsfeed or right rail.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

The RSS feed is a universal syndication of content that allows users to view content from multiple websites in one feed, without having to go directly to each website.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is defined as the ranking and visibility process of a website. It is commonly referred to as a marketing strategy to get websites to appear on “Page One” of search results. Several factors can determine a website’s SEO, such as keywords, domain authority, content, links, etc.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

The page that displays results when you search online using search engines like Yahoo, Google, and Bing is considered the search engine results page. Based on specific queries, SERP’s will display different results and advertisements.

404 Error

A HTTP 404 Not Found Error is usually displayed when a URL is not typed correctly and represents an invalid website, or a webpage that can’t be found on the server.

401 Error

This type of error is an HTML error code that is displayed when a webpage requires access to view, a website you may not be authorized to access.