Internet Marketing Glossary from Calgary's Get Clicked SEO!

A
Acronym - A disease suffered by many industries but most particularly afflicts Internet geeks.

AdWords - Google's auction-based advertising system, and the primary way Google makes money.

AdSense - Google's ad placement system. People with websites that want Google ads to appear on their site use AdSense and Google pays them depending on traffic and clickthroughs.

Analytics - The general term for analyzing website statistics. May also refer to Google Analytics, Google's free website analytics analysis program.

B
big 3 - The three search engines that dominate the market. They are Google, Yahoo and MSN.

black hat - Sneaky, dirty, and underhanded attempts to trick search engines into ranking a website higher.

blog - Essentially an online diary or journal where people write about any topic they would like.

browser - Programs used to view webpages. Includes Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and several others.

buyer value - A web metric describing the average profit a company makes per completed online transaction.

C
channel - Where a customer came from. For example large stores make have various selling channels which may include physical stores, online stores, resellers etc.

clickthrough rate - The number of times something was clicked on by a viewer versus the amount of times it was actually seen or possibly seen.

conversion - An objective or a desirable achievement. A conversion online could be many things including an actual purchase, signing up for a newsletter etc.

conversion rate - The number of people who complete your desired conversion divided by the number of people who visited your site.

cookie - In Internet terms, a small piece of code that websites may attach to a users browser to identify them and track their movements, thereby leaving a trail of virtual crumbs. In real terms, Oreos and sugar cookies are the best but never eat them in bed.

CPA - Cost Per Action - The average advertising cost of getting a user to take a specified action or conversion. For example if you spent $1000 in online advertising and achieved 2000 newsletter sign ups, your CPA was 0.50 cents.

CPC - Cost Per Click - One way you may be charged for online advertising. Every time a user actually clicks on your ad you're charged a fee.

CPM- Cost per Mille or Cost Per 1000 Impressions - Another way you may be charged for online advertising. Rather than CPC, you pay for every 1000 times your ad has been presented to a user. The user doesn't have to click on it.

cross segmentation - In online analytics this refers to splitting up visitor information based on how they got to your website, whether that be from an online ad, from organic search results etc.

customer centric - By definition focusing on what is effective for the customer as opposed to what is effective for the company.

D
dashboard - A small display used to identify and track key performance indicators. Often used in database marketing to give executives an overview of results.

database marketing - DM - Usually refers to email marketing but can also include loyalty programs and more. Essentially collecting as much information as possible about clients and using it to effectively target marketing programs.

double opt in - An email marketing process where a person must confirm twice that they have signed up to your database marketing program and wish to receive information from you via email. This is considered an email marketing best practice.

E
e-commerce - Selling products or services online. May also refer to a group of technologies that enable online selling including shopping carts, reservation systems etc.

email Marketing - Using email to advertise, inform, entertain, educate and sell to clients who have signed up to receive your information. Often used in conjunction with database marketing to effectively target certain messages to certain audiences.

G
geo-targeting - A feature in Google AdWords that allows you to identify a specific country, region, city or even an area you can define with latitude and longitude points where you wish your ad to appear to users in.

Google - The current popular leader in search engine technology.

H
HTML - Stands for Hypertext Markup Language. The programming code that websites are written in.

I
Internet Marketing - A general term that encompasses any form of marketing that can be done online including SEM, Email marketing etc.

K
key performance indicators - A set of metrics identified as critical to the success of a company. These can vary depending on the nature of the business but ideally should bridge the gap between web analytics and the corporate boardroom.

keyword - A word or set of words used in search engines to find what is being searched for.

L
latency - In web analytics defines the length of time between a users first visit and the time they complete a goal, conversion or purchase.

M
metric - A statistic.

MPM - Marketing Performance Management - A new and highly annoying corporate buzzword. Relates to actually measuring the success of marketing programs in relevant ways. Good MPM means being able to say exactly how marketing programs are helping the company achieve it's goals as opposed to throwing out clickthrough statistics at a board meeting.

MSN - The Microsoft search engine, and currently the least popular of the big 3.

O
offline multiplier - An estimate of how much offline sales are generated as a result of online activity. For example if you research a television you would like to buy online then go into a store and buy it. Customer surveys can help determine this multiplier and allow for more complete evaluations of online advertising programs.

organic - Natural or unpaid search engine results. After typing a keyword into a search engine, the main results are considered organic versus the sponsored results which are paid ads.

P
paid inclusion - Paying to have your website appear in a search engine. Google attempts to index the information on the Internet automatically thereby not needing or allowing paid inclusion. However Yahoo recently began allowing paid inclusion in it's organic results meaning users of the Yahoo search engine will no longer be able to differentiate between a organic result and an ad.

pageviews - A  website statistic which identifies how many times a particular page was loaded into a users browser. This is not linked to the number of unique visitors as a single visitor may view the same page several times and they all count as pageviews.

pay-per-click - A general term referring to advertising which is paid for only when the user clicks on the ad itself. See CPC.

PPC - One of many annoying acronyms, this one stands for pay-per-click.

R
rank - Where in the list of search engine results a particular web page appears.

ROI - Another annoying acronym. ROI stands for Return on Investment and refers to a quantitative profit or loss generated on an advertising spend.

S
search engine  - A general term for a Internet resource in which keywords may be typed to access information in various places throughout the web.

search engine marketing - A  generic term for paid advertising which appears on search engines or their affiliated websites.

search engine optimization- The process of attempting to improve the position of a webpage in the results of a keyword search on a search engine.

search phrase - Another term for the group of words typed into a search engine in hopes of finding what you're looking for. See keyword.

SEM - And again, another annoying acronym, this one for Search Engine Marketing.

SEO - *sigh*, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization

SERP - This one at least sounds cool when you say it. Stands for Search Engine Results Page and refers to the page of results you get after you type a keyword into a search engine.

shopping cart - An e-commerce technology allowing users to purchase multiple products at the same time.

spam - Email marketing gone bad, and mostly an attempt to make men feel inadequate.

sponsored results - paid advertising in search engines and their affiliated websites.

source - In analytics, refers to where the visitor came from. In HTML, refers to the code itself rather than the page as viewed in a browser. In the Matrix refers to where the architect lives.

T
Traffic - A generic webpage analytics term referring to how many people and / or how many pageviews a website is generating.

U
unique visitors - A website statistic which tries to identify the number of actual people who have visited your website. Cookies, along with a host of other techniques may be used to identify a unique visitor, but may be inaccurate for a whole bunch of technical reasons I won't get into here.

W
White Hat - A search engine optimization term referring to good website design and content which will achieve high search engine rankings. See black hat.

Web - Refers to the world wide internet, or what peter parker throws.

Web 2.0 - The currently most overused word on the planet, usually tossed out by people who don't have a clue what it means. Theoretically refers to the host of new technologies that are changing how we use the Internet. These may include but aren't limited to AJAX, tagging, social networks, blogging, RSS feeds and more.

Y
Yahoo - The 2nd most popular search engine

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