Digital marketing can be quite a daunting topic, many don’t have the time to make this an area of expertise. If you are not convinced about how crucial it is to your business, here is the business case!

The first step to understanding digital marketing or marketing generally, is to have an understanding of the commonly used terminology. You don’t need to memorize them but at least get to the level where you are familiar with the terms to be able to understand your marketing needs and discuss them effectively.

Here’s a quick guide to deciphering some commonly used terms.

This is the most crucial thing when it comes to digital marketing is email marketing: here is the 7 Myth Busters about Email Marketing, and this will help you understand the psychology behind it.

Above the Fold –This section of an email is the most crucial part of an email marketing campaign. The above the fold section of an email is that part that you can see without having to scroll down. Your readers will see and read this section first.

Bounce –A bounce is an email marketing message that is rejected by your subscribers incoming mail system. There are several reasons why emails can bounce, but usually because:

• your message was regarded as spam.
• the email address is no longer valid.

CTR (Click Through Rate) –The CTR is calculated by dividing the amount of clicks received to the HTML links in your email by the amount of emails sent. If you sent 100 emails and 10 people clicked on links in your email, you would have a 10% CTR. Averages vary by industry.

Open Rate –The open rate tells you how many people opened your email message. To get the rate, divide the amount of emails sent by the amount of people who opened it. Note: The open rate does not guarantee that the messages were read. Your CTR will give a better indication as to how many emails were read.

Subject Line –The subject line appears next to the From line in your subscribers’ inboxes. This section of your email marketing campaign is crucial. You have to craft enticing subject lines for each campaign. It should tell the reader what the email is about in a way that will make him or her open and read the whole message. Subject lines should be simple, short and enticing.

Subscribe –The process during which a person joins your mailing list. Building an email marketing list of people who choose to receive your mail takes time.

Subscriber –Subscribers are people who specifically request to join your list.

Search engine optimization makes your website easy for search engines to index and for users to find.

Alt Image Tags –Alt tags, or alternative text, help search engines to read a description of images, as it cannot read images.

Black Hat SEO –This term describes unethical, deceptive and distasteful SEO practices that could include keyword stuffing, buying links or other methods that are in breach of search engine regulations.

Call to Action –Messages that inspire your website visitors to take an action, such as:
“click here”
“buy now”
“subscribe here”
“get your free copy”

Conversion –When a visitor or subscriber successfully reacts to your call to action to complete the leads funnel, for example, when he downloads something, reads something or buys something.

Domain –Your website’s main address.

Headings – Website text that is enclosed in a heading tag, including H1, H2, H3, etc. The headings will usually be in a larger, bold font than the rest of your text.

HTML – Your website consists of code, a language that search engines read to decipher the information. Clean HTML on a website makes it easier to index and rank a website.

External Links –Links from your website to a different site. Relevant external links are crucial for good SEO.

Internal Links – Links that refer visitors to a different page within your own website. It is another useful SEO tool.

Keywords – Words that users enter on search engines to find information. Your website should contain keywords to draw visitors who are looking for relevant information to your site. Keywords should be related to your specific business.

Link Bait – This term describes the type of content on a website that will make people want to link to your site. The more quality and diverse links are sent to your site, the better your site will rank in search engines. Good examples of link bait include quality content, such as original information, visuals, infographics, resource guides, or tools.

Link Building – Link building is the process of obtaining more inbound links to your site. The more links to your site, the higher your rankings. Good methods for link building include quality link bait content, guest blogging, and building strong relationships with relevant bloggers or businesses in your industry.

Longtail Keywords – Also known as keyword phrases, longtail keywords are made up of more than one word. This will drive highly targeted traffic to your site. Since longtail keywords present less competition, it is easier to rank for it.

Metadata – The title tags, header tags, alt tags and meta descriptions make up your metadata, which tells search engines what your site is all about.

Meta Description – Consisting of fewer than 160 characters (including spaces), the meta description tells search engine users whether they need to know about your site. This description is displayed below the title of your site on search results pages.

Meta Keywords – Major search engines no longer use meta keywords, due to the fact that webmasters and search engine marketers abused it. Don’t bother using it, because it serves no purpose.

Organic Traffic – This is the free traffic that comes to your website from search results. Paid traffic is not organic, as it comes from visitors who reach your site by clicking on an advert.

Page Rank – PR indicates how good Google rates your overall SEO. They will assign a number ranging from 0-10.

RSS Feed – Really Simple Syndication is a tool that allows readers to subscribe to automatic new content updates from your website or blog.

Sitemap – A list of all your website pages that allows search engines to easily index your site. It can be created by the webmaster, or by software, and provides a hierarchy of the content pages.

Search engine marketing(SEM) –a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages(SERP) through optimization and advertising.

Spider – Search engines use software, known as spiders, to index and locate all the websites and pages on the internet. It indexes sitemaps and links from one site to another.

Traffic – The amount of visitors that come to your site from various online sources.

Title Tag – Your page title, which is inserted in the head section of your page and enclosed in an HTML tag. In search results, it appears as the title of a certain page, informing searchers what your site is all about and notifying the search engines of the topic of the page.

URL – Your website’s address, for example www.transpiral.org.

White Hat SEO – Good quality SEO practices and techniques that are search engine approved. It is generally aimed at improving the user experience(UX) and results in relevant traffic and higher return on investment.

Content and inbound marketing is an effective form of marketing that makes use of a range of content sources to create conversation on a business’ website and social media account.

AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, is one of the founding principles of most modern-day marketing and advertising. This is the principle of how you develop your inbound marketing.

Blog Post – An informative article about a specific topic on your blog. It generally educates readers about your unique business perspective, news, or highlights. While posts may range in size, the best word count is around 1000 words.

Content Curation – This popular method involves gathering content from other sources to share a personal perspective on a certain topic. Many bloggers use social media content, other people’s blog posts, images or articles and then share their own input regarding that content.

Content Aggregation – This method generally uses algorithms or software to compile content from various sources. Done automatically, it doesn’t usually include any personal editorial input.

Earned Media – Using organic promotional methods to advertise and receive social media exposure. This method could include social media images or customer testimonials. Earned media is a form of word-of-mouth advertising.

eBook – eBooks are shorter books that can be read online, or on an electronic reader and can be used to deliver value to your prospective customers. It is more comprehensive than a webpage or a blog post, but not as in-depth as a text book.

Newsjacking – Newsjacking can keep your business in conversation, while at the same time promoting your company perspecive and representing your unique offerings. The process involves using current events or recent news headlines as inspiration for marketing and blog posts.

Owner Media – Your organization’s media. It includes media that are fully controlled by your company (such as the company website) and social media accounts that are partially controlled by the company.

Paid Media – Used in conjunction with other types of media, including owned media to create a full-rounded campaign. Paid media includes advertising in print, direct mail, paid search, television and radio.

Word of mouth marketing(WOMM) – is an unpaid form of marketing where satisfied customers tell other people how much they like a business, product, service, or event.

Unique Visitor(UV) – This refers to a person who visits a site at least once within the reporting period.

User-centric design(UCD) – is the process of putting your users in mind and design your design accordingly to solve their problems.

User-generated content(UGC) –

Social media marketing(SMM) is a good way to easily attract a lot of traffic to your site while at the same time building an audience for your business.

Algorithm – Google uses a set of formula to perform specific functions and to determine which keywords deliver specific results. Facebook use similar algorithms to determine the content that is delivered to your newsfeed.

Bit.ly – A free tool that shortens URLs to make it more easy to share on platforms such as Twitter. Short links can be easily tracked to give insights on traffic sources and click frequency.

Comment – When someone responds to your website content, social media postings or blog posts, it is referred to as a comment. It is the primary form of communication on the internet.

Connections – LinkedIn uses the word “connections” as the equivalent to Facebook’s friends. These connections don’t have to be close friends, but could be business associates or professional contacts.

Engage – Social engagement is when you communicate with other people through these channels.

Facebook – Facebook.com is a social network that helps people connect with other people. More than 1.11 billion people use the site every month.

Foursquare – A social network which allows users to share their locations by checking in. It allows businesses to give users discounts or rewards for checking in. Additionally, it helps users to find people and businesses in close proximity to their locations.

Google+ – Google’s social network which combines functionality and benefits from other social networks to bring a full-rounded platform that allows users to share information with people in specific groups, or enjoying 1-on-1 conversation.

Hashtag – Social networks enable users to apply hashtags # to annotate a message. It compiles all messages with the same tag in a single place so that users can analyze all the conversations on a specific topic.

Influence – Determines how important an individual is deemed by his or her following.

Instagram – Facebook’s photosharing app that allows people to share photos and apply filters to make it more appealing. Photos can help spark conversation with a larger social network audience.

Like – Social networks use like buttons to allow users to approve of content. It’s a simple interaction that helps people share content as well.

LinkedIn – A social network aimed at business-oriented interactions and discussions. It’s a great place for people to connect with other people in their field and to find job opportunities.

Podcast – A series of audio or video files released in episode format, podcasts can be downloaded via RSS feeds on audio devices. It’s a great way to build an audience and establish authority.

Retweet(RT) – A retweet depicts the action of sharing someone else’s tweets on Twitter. When displayed, it is attributed to the original tweeter.

Twitter – A microblogging social network where users can share their comments, known as tweets, in 140 characters at a time. The network has a diverse, mainstream following which is suited to personal and business users. It is a great network for sharing a message to a large scale audience online.

Trending – Words or topics related to current events usually become popular quickly. Trending topics can be anything that is popular on Twitter at any point in time.

Viral Marketing(VM)UGC – User-generated contentB- Any content that is quickly passed along to a large (and growing) audience in a rapid way.

Paid online marketing is a useful method for getting a lot of traffic to your site in no time.

Pay Per Click – PPC marketing is a type of online advertising where you pay the search engines to display your advert on the search results pages. Instead of paying a set fee for publishing, as you would in a newspaper, you pay a set fee per click that delivers a visitor to your website.

Ad Copy – Your advert’s header, description and display URL that is used on a pay per click advert. This advert is used to entice people to visit your site from its position at the top of search result pages.

Bid Price – Pay per click campaigns allow you, the advertiser to set a maximum bid, which indicates how much you are willing to pay for targeted keywords in a PPC campaign.

Click Through Rate – The CTR is the amount of clicks your pay per click ad receives divided by the amount of times it is displayed on the search engines. The CTR indicates the keyword’s relevance to users and the success of your advert.

Conversion Rate – A conversion is when a user interacts on your website, either by inquiring or purchasing or responding to your call to action after clicking on your original PPC advert.

Cost Per Click – CPC is the amount a business pays for a click on an ad that is displayed on search engines. The CPC is affected by keyword competition, the click through rate and the quality score.

Google Adwords – Google’s pay per click ad network is the most widely used network of its kind.

Impressions – The number of times your advert is displayed on the search results pages in response to a search for a specific search term.

Keyword – The word or phrase used to search for a term that you bid on. Using relevant keywords will ensure that your adverts are only displayed to relevant users, who are most likely to convert into sales.

Landing Page – The page on which a visitor lands after clicking on your ad. These pages should be optimized to ensure high conversion rates.

Quality Score – A ranking method used by Google Adwords. It is based on relevancy with competitors, CTR and CPS. A high quality score will result in a lower minimum bid and better ad position.