Internet Marketing Glossary

• Affiliate Marketing
  A form of marketing or advertising used on the internet. Companies that sell products or services online link to relevant sites. The advertising on the other or 'affiliate' sites is paid for according to results.
• Algorithm
  A set of rules that a search engine uses to rank the listings contained within its index, in response to a particular query. No search engine reveals exactly how its own algorithm works, to protect itself from competitors and those who wish to spam the search engine.
• Banner Adverts
  Adverts on web pages used to build brand awareness or drive traffic to the advertisers own website.
• Blogs/Blogging
  Contraction of Web log. An internet publishing device allowing an individual or company to express their thoughts and opinions. Businesses can use blogs as a marketing communication channel.
• Click through Rate (CTR)
  The percentage of those clicking on a link out of the total number who see the link. For example, imagine 10 people do a web search. In response, they see links to a variety of web pages. Three of the 10 people all choose one particular link. That link then has a 30 percent click through rate. Also called CTR.
• Conversion Rate
  The relationship between visitors to a web site and actions consider to be a "conversion," such as a sale or request to receive more information. Often expressed as a percentage. If a web site has 100 visitors and 3 of them convert (make bookings / reservations), then the site has a 3 percent (3.00%) conversion rate.
• Cost Per Click
  System where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click someone makes on a link leading to their web site. Also known as CPC.
• E-mail Marketing
  is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to: Sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or old customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.
• Internet Marketing
  Internet Marketing is an all-inclusive term for marketing products and/or services online – and like many all-inclusive terms, Internet marketing means different things to different people.
• Keyword Research
  Doing research on a single keyword to find it's relatives and related keywords. This is often done to find the highest producing keywords.
• Landing Page
  The specific web page that a visitor ultimately reaches after clicking a search engine listing. Marketers attempt to improve conversion rates by testing various landing page creative, which encompasses the entire user experience including navigation, layout and copy.
• Navigation
  Describes the movement of a user through a website or other application interface. This term also indicates the system of available links and buttons that the user can use to navigate through the website.
• Quality Score
  is the basis for measuring the quality and relevance of your ads and determining your minimum CPC bid for Google and the search network. This score is determined by your keyword's clickthrough rate (CTR) on Google, and the relevance of your ad text, keyword, and landing page.
• Link Popularity
  A raw count of how "popular" a page is based on the number of backlinks it has. It does not factor in link context or link quality, which are also important elements in how search engines make use of links to impact rankings.
• Marketing
  Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.
• Niche Marketing
  The marketing of a product or service to a small and well-defined segment of the market place.
• Organic Listings / Natural Listings
  Organic Listings: Listings that search engines do not sell (unlike paid listings). Instead, sites appear solely because a search engine has deemed it editorially important for them to be included, regardless of payment.
• Paid Listings / Sponsored Listings
  Listings that search engines sell to advertisers, usually through paid placement or paid inclusion programs. In contrast, organic listings are not sold.
• ROI
  Stands for "Return On Investment" and refers to the percentage of profit or revenue generated from a specific activity. For example, one might measure the ROI of a paid listing campaign by adding up the total amount spent on the campaign (say $200) versus the amount generated from it in revenue (say $1,000). The ROI would then be 500 percent.
• Search Engine
  Any service generally designed to allow users to search the web or a specialized database of information. Web search engines generally have paid listings and organic listings. Organic listings typically come from crawling the web, though often human-powered directory listings are also optionally offered.
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
  The act of marketing a web site via search engines, whether this be improving rank in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  The act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines. In the past, has also been used as a term for any type of search engine marketing activity, though now the term search engine marketing itself has taken over for this. Also called SEO.
• Search Engine Results Page
  After a user enters a search query, the page that is displayed, is call the results page. Sometimes it may be called SERPs, for "search engine results page."
• Search Engine Rank
  How well a particular web page or web site is listed in a search engine results. For example, a web page about hotels may be listed in response to a query for “hotels." However, "rank" indicates where exactly it was listed -- be it on the first page of results, the second page or perhaps the 200th page.
• Search Terms
  The words (or word) a searcher enters into a search engine's search box. Also used to refer to the terms a search engine marketer hopes a particular page will be found for. Also called keywords, query terms or query.
• SWOT Analysis
  A method of analysis which examines a company's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Often used as part of the development process for a marketing plan, or to feed the results of a marketing audit back into a revised plan.
• Unique Selling Preposition (USP)
  The benefit that a product or service can deliver to customers that is not offered by any competitor: one of the fundamentals of effective marketing and business.
• Viral Marketing
  Spreading a brand message using word of mouth (or electronically - 'word of mouse') from a few points of dissemination. Typical techniques include using email messages, jokes, web addresses, film clips and games that get forwarded on electronically by recipients
• W3C
  The W3C, or World Wide Web Consortium, is a standards body dedicated to ensuring interoperability between all the varied system and network types that comprise the World Wide Web part of the Internet. The W3C log format is commonly used by several web server software systems, such as Microsoft IIS. For more information, see the W3C website