Web Page Glossary

20 Digital Literacy terms

This glossary contains the words people can use to describe a web page while doing a screencast.

Alt Text

Text that shows in place of images or pops up when you hover your mouse over an image. Alt text, or alternative text, is written into the HTML code of a web page to describe an image in case the image doesn’t show. This can happen for a few different reasons. Some users may have images turned off so web pages load faster. Other users may have low vision or blindness, so they use special screen readers that translate web page text into an audio or a Braille-like touch format. Alt text also helps search engines "understand" images better.

Anchor Text

The wording of a link on a website, in an email, or within another digital asset. One example of anchor text is “read more.” Anchor text is an important part of the user experience. You want your users to be clear on where your links are going and be satisfied that the destination is what they expected. Search engines also take your anchor text into account when they rank your site pages for relevance.

Banner Ad

A standard horizontal ad placement at the top of a web page. The term “banner” is borrowed from print newspapers. It can refer to the newspaper’s name at the top of the front page or a story headline that spans the full width of the front page. Banners have been around since the early days of the web. While their popularity has decreased as newer display ad formats have become available, they can still be an effective element in your advertising mix, offering visibility at a relatively low cost.

Brand

The experience a customer has with a product or service that makes it different from others in the same category. More than just a name, a brand is where features, benefits, and customer perceptions meet. Successful brands have a unique identity, image, and emotional connection with their customers. It’s why we choose a brand over another every day.

Brand Image

How your customers perceive your products, services, and company. This is ultimately something you can’t control. But the goal of raising awareness of your brand, improving recognition, nurturing favorability, and winning affinity is to grow market share. A solid brand identity and relentless brand management are 2 keys to success.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategy businesses use to attract, engage, and retain customers by creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and other media. This approach establishes expertise, promotes brand awareness, and keeps your business top of mind when it’s time to buy what you sell.

Display Ads

A type of online advertisement that combines text, images, and a URL that links to a website where a customer can learn more about or buy products. These ads can be static with an image or animated with multiple images, video, or changing text. Some display ads educate about the product while others are designed to entertain and engage through simple games or puzzles. Banner ads are a common form of display ads.

E-commerce

E-commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services using the internet. It starts when a potential customer learns about a product. It continues through purchase, use, and, ideally, ongoing customer loyalty. Data powers the most successful e-commerce operations, which take advantage of best practices such as targeted email marketing, audience segmentation, and marketing automation.

Eye Tracking

Measuring and recording the movement of eyes as they look at a web page. In digital marketing, eye tracking is often used to figure out what parts of a web page or email people look at first or spend the most time looking at, which is often displayed as a heat map. Marketers use this data to strategically place elements, such as call-to-action buttons, where they are most likely to be seen and clicked on.

Inbound Marketing

A marketing strategy that encourages people to actively seek out and engage with your brand. Social media, content marketing (such as sponsored content and blogs), and search engine optimization (SEO) are common tactics. Inbound marketing offers consumers something they want—information, entertainment, a chance to be heard—and places information about a product and service within this context. Inbound marketing attracts prospects and encourages them to engage with your brand in the hopes of converting them to paid customers.

Integrated Marketing

JavaScript

A coding language that works with HTML to make dynamic web page content possible. Contact forms, sign-in pages, and shopping carts are all brought to you courtesy of JavaScript. JavaScript is also a key player in responsive web design, which uses the same code for desktop and mobile devices, making the user experience (UX) seamless.

Keyword Density

The number of times a keyword is used on a web page out of the total number of words on the page. Let’s say your keyword is “handmade quilt.” The formula would be: number of “handmade quilt” / total number of words, x 100. If your page includes “handmade quilt” 10 times, and your page has 300 total words, your keyword density for “handmade quilt” is 3%. The higher your keyword density, the higher search engines will rank your page for relevance. Just avoid “keyword stuffing.”

LinkedIn Advertising

A platform for promoting your company’s products or services on LinkedIn. Several formats are available, including text-only ads, sponsored ads with images and button links, and sponsored InMail communications. The LinkedIn advertising platform allows you to select your target audience based on criteria such as industry, title, and geographic location. It also provides reporting tools for analyzing ad impressions and click-through rate (CTR). A/B tests are part of the package as well.

Lookalike Audience Finder

Mailchimp’s lookalike audience finder is an attribute of social ads that uses what you already know about your contacts and data from our large audience network to build a lookalike audience. A lookalike audience is made up of people who share interests with your existing contacts but aren’t a part of your audience yet. These people will not be added to your audience unless they opt in or engage with your marketing.

Marketing Collateral

Digital or print materials that accompany a primary advertising campaign. Before the internet, “collateral” was practically synonymous with “brochures” that supported traditional TV commercials, such as a savings account brochure from your local bank branch. Today, “collateral” can refer to any printed or digital piece that supports and extends a campaign. Common digital collateral includes websites, landing pages, and banner ads.

Narrowcasting

Sending a media message to a highly targeted audience. The opposite of broadcasting, narrowcasting is also considered a form of niche marketing. Narrowcasting has been around since the days of radio. In modern practice, it spans traditional direct mail, TV, email marketing, paid search, online video, and in-person event marketing. Trade shows can also be a particularly valuable forum for business-to-business (B2B) marketing.

Spam

The digital equivalent of junk mail. Spam can be an email, text message, social media direct message, or any other unwanted or unsolicited electronic communication. Marketers can ask people to actively opt into email lists and provide easy ways to unsubscribe to prevent their digital marketing communications from being considered spam

Twitter Advertising

Twitter’s advertising platform. Twitter ads are tweets that are promoted to a specific target audience. Since they are tweets, they can include text, images, video, or polls. Character count restrictions also still apply. You can target your ads to people based on their location, interests, or who they follow. When you optimize Twitter, it can help you gain followers and get engagements, such as likes and retweets. It can also drive traffic to your website or increase brand awareness.

Yahoo Advertising

Yahoo’s ad platform. Yahoo offers various formats and placements much like other ad networks. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads on appear on its search engine results page (SERP). Display ads are served on its homepage, content portals, and articles pages—and can be re-served to viewers much like Google remarketing ads.