A/B Testing
Comparing two versions of a page, message or experience by randomly allocating eligible visitors to each version.
Digital Marketing Glossary
Clear explanations of the terms you meet in search, advertising and websites. Find the meaning, then put it to work.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
An open-source framework for building web pages with restrictions and components intended to support fast loading.
Ahrefs (Tool)
A commercial SEO platform used to investigate backlinks, search demand, rankings and technical website issues.
Alt Tag
The alt attribute supplies a text alternative for an HTML image when that image conveys information.
Average Order Value (AOV)
Average order value is revenue divided by the number of orders over the same reporting period.
Backlink
A link from a page on another website to a page on your website.
Bounce Rate (BR)
In Google Analytics 4, bounce rate is the percentage of sessions that are not engaged sessions.
Call To Action (CTA)
A message or interface element that asks a visitor to take a specific next step.
Click Through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions, multiplied by 100 to express a percentage.
Content Management System (CMS)
Software that lets authorised editors create, organise and publish website content.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Cost per acquisition is the cost of an activity divided by the acquisitions attributed to it.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
Cost per click is the amount charged for an advertising click; average CPC is spend divided by clicks.
Direct Mail (DM)
Marketing material delivered physically to a recipient’s postal address.
Domain Name
A human-readable name used in internet addressing, such as example.com.
E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness & Trustworthiness
E-E-A-T means experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness: concepts used in Google’s search quality evaluation guidance.
Exact Match Domain (EMD)
A domain name that closely matches a search phrase a business wants to appear for.
Featured Snippet
A search feature that highlights an extracted answer from a web page.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Google Analytics 4 is an event-based analytics service for understanding measured website and app activity.
Google Search Console (GSC)
Google’s service for monitoring aspects of a website’s presence in Google Search.
Google Tag Manager (GTM)
A tag management system for deploying and controlling website measurement tags through configured rules.
Hreflang
Annotations connecting equivalent pages intended for different languages or regions.
htaccess
A per-directory configuration file used by Apache when the server permits that configuration mechanism.
Impression Share (IS)
The proportion of eligible advertising impressions that your ads received, as estimated by the advertising platform.
Indexing
The process through which a search engine analyses content and considers storing it in its searchable index.
JavaScript
A programming language used for browser interactions and many server-side applications.
Keyword Research
Investigating how people search, what they need and which topics are relevant to a business.
Knowledge Graph
A system that represents entities, their attributes and relationships.
Knowledge Panel
An information panel in search results that summarises details about a recognised entity.
Landing Page
The page a visitor first reaches after following a link, advert or search result.
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)
A historical information-retrieval technique that uses mathematical relationships between terms and documents.
Link Building
Earning or creating opportunities for relevant websites to link to useful content.
Link Juice
An informal SEO expression for the ranking value people associate with links between pages.
Long-Tail Keywords
Search queries in the lower-frequency portion of a topic’s demand distribution.
LTV or Lifetime Value
An estimate or measure of the value a customer contributes over a defined customer relationship.
Meta Description
An HTML summary that a search engine may use as the descriptive snippet for a page.
Meta Pixel (Facebook Pixel)
The Meta Pixel, formerly Facebook Pixel, is browser code used to send website events to Meta for advertising measurement and optimisation.
Metatag
An HTML meta element providing information such as a description, viewport setting or robots instruction.
Mindmap
A branching diagram used to organise ideas and the relationships between them.
Mobile First Indexing
Google’s approach of using the mobile version of a page’s content for indexing and ranking.
Mobile Optimisation
Improving website content, layout, speed and interactions for people using mobile devices.
Mobile-Friendly Website
A website that remains readable and usable on small screens and touch devices.
Moz
A commercial provider of SEO research tools and educational resources.
Negative Keywords
Keywords used in supported advertising campaigns to exclude searches you do not want to target.
Nofollow
A link relationship value used to qualify a link when you do not want to endorse or associate with its destination.
Off-Page Optimisation
Work outside your own website that supports its reputation, discovery and relevant referrals.
On-Page Optimisation
Improving the content and page elements that help visitors and search engines understand a page.
Organic Traffic
Visits attributed to unpaid search results under the reporting rules of an analytics system.
Outreach
Contacting relevant people or organisations with something useful to share or discuss.
Page Speed
How quickly a particular page loads useful content and responds during a visit.
PageRank
A link-analysis concept introduced by Google that uses links between pages as part of assessing their importance.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay per click is an advertising payment model in which advertisers are charged for clicks.
Quality Score
Google Ads’ keyword-level diagnostic for expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing-page experience in Search campaigns.
RankBrain
A Google machine-learning system described as helping relate words to concepts when understanding search results.
Reciprocal Link
A situation where two websites link to one another.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
Revenue attributed to advertising divided by advertising spend, usually shown as a multiple or percentage.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Return on investment compares a defined net return with the cost of the investment.
Rich Results
Search results with additional features beyond a basic title and snippet, sometimes supported by structured data.
Rich Snippets
A common term for enhanced snippets showing extra information within search results.
robots.txt
A file at the root of a website that provides crawl instructions to compliant robots.
Schema Markup
Structured data that uses the Schema.org vocabulary to describe entities and page content.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing: a term used broadly for search marketing, or more narrowly for paid search advertising.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Improving a website’s content, technical foundations and credibility so relevant audiences can discover it through unpaid search.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
A search engine results page: the page or experience showing results for a search query.
Search Intent
The need or task behind a search query.
SEMrush
A commercial digital-marketing platform offering search research, tracking and technical analysis tools.
SEO Audit
A structured investigation of issues and opportunities affecting a website’s organic search performance.
Site Map
A representation of a website’s pages or structure, intended for people or machines depending on its format.
Site Speed
The overall loading and interaction performance observed across a website’s page types and user journeys.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social media marketing: using social platforms to reach people through content, community activity and advertising.
Social Media Optimisation (SMO)
Social media optimisation: improving profiles, content and distribution for the audiences using a social platform.
SSL Certificate
A digital certificate used in HTTPS to help authenticate a website’s domain and establish encrypted connections using TLS.
Structured Data
Machine-readable information describing the entities, attributes or relationships represented by content.
Technical SEO
Work on the technical conditions that help search engines discover, render, understand and index appropriate website content.
Title Tag
The HTML title element, used to name a document and help describe it in browsers and search results.
Total Order Value (TOV)
Tone of voice: the consistent character and style of a brand’s written or spoken communication.
User Experience (UX)
User experience: how people understand, use and feel about a product or service across a task.
User Interface (UI)
User interface: the controls, visual elements and feedback through which someone interacts with a product.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-generated content: material created by customers, community members or other users.
UTM
Campaign parameters added to URLs so compatible analytics systems can identify campaign traffic.
Voice Search Optimisation
Voice search optimisation: adapting useful content and business information for questions asked through voice interfaces.
White Hat SEO
An informal term for SEO practices intended to follow search-provider guidance and serve users.
Word of Mouth (WOM)
People sharing recommendations or experiences with other people.
XML Sitemap
A machine-readable file listing URLs a site wants search engines to discover, with optional supporting information.
Yelp
A business discovery and review platform.
Yoast
A provider of SEO software, including plugins commonly used with WordPress.
Z-Index
A CSS property that affects the stacking order of elements within the relevant stacking context.
Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT)
Zero Moment of Truth: a marketing concept describing research people do before making a purchase decision.