Digital Marketing Terms

A/B testing (sometimes known as ‘split testing’) is the experimentation phase in your digital marketing campaign. It is often used for websites and PPC advertising, where specific components of your website or advertising campaign will be changed to see which elements have the most impact on consumers.

Your web designer or PPC executive will change two or more elements on a web page or within an advertising campaign and run both versions simultaneously. Both versions are shown to consumers at random to determine which version has a lasting impact and drives your chosen metrics.

For instance, if you run a website which allows customers to shop and pay online, but you are finding that you’re losing conversions through an abandoned cart, you may want to have your shopping cart process redesigned to figure out at which point in the process customers are abandoning their purchase.

A web designer may change some elements on the website before randomised testing to determine an effective new layout that minimises instances of an abandoned cart and increases conversions for your business.

In PPC campaigns, a phase of A/B testing may be used to run two campaigns at the same time to determine which elements in the campaign are most powerful. A PPC executive may change one element, such as a slogan or an image (or even audience demographic information) before settling on a campaign which delivers on your chosen metrics.

Above the fold refers to the content that displays when a user first visits a website and includes everything they see on the screen before they have to scroll down. It is considered the most important part of a web page as should immediately grab the interest of the reader.

Affiliate links are usually embedded within a blog or webpage and are an effective way of increasing traffic and domain authority for your website. They are used to drive traffic from one website to another and usually result in some form of commission when they’re clicked.

Both traffic and domain authority is crucial to your SEO strategy, as they are metrics by which search engines determine page rankings. As a result, affiliate links can be great for your search engine optimisation.

In digital marketing, ‘affiliate marketing refers to advertising on a website from another organisation or business.

When you’re reading the news online, you may see that some articles say ‘affiliate link’ at the top. This is usually because a company has paid for article placement. Within the article, there will often be an ‘affiliate link’ which will link to a product or web page.

Placing an affiliate link on another website can be a really useful tool in your SEO strategy. Not only can affiliate links increase traffic to your website, but by placing a link on a website with a higher domain authority (scroll down for definition!), you can increase the domain authority of your website and creep up search engine rankings – enabling your website to be seen by more people, even if they haven’t seen the affiliate link!

Ahrefs is a software suite used by digital marketing professionals to influence and monitor ongoing SEO strategies.

Using Ahrefs, we can measure the quality of backlinks on your website, determine keywords, track competitors and determine your rank status in order to create a data-driven digital marketing strategy which influences creative decisions.

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Algorithm is a fancy word for a filter which processes content to get it seen by the right people. It’s essentially a set of rules built by a search engine or social media company to rank the quality of a website or social media content. The better the quality – the more you’ll get seen.

Everything online is at the behest of the almighty algorithm, including your social media content. Social media giants such as Meta and TikTok are constantly changing and improving their algorithms in order to deliver personalised content tailored to individual user behaviour. This can prove tricky for companies looking to build an online presence, as having to keep up with the ever-changing algorithm can make it tricky to get your content out to your audience.

Social Media executives will always be ahead of the algorithm, will know how to create content which cuts through and will be ready for when the algorithm shape-shifts again.

It can be difficult to see algorithms positively – especially when we see them as a barrier between your content and your audience. However, they’re also incredibly useful for filtering through all the content on the internet so that your products and services can be seen by the right people.

As part of your SEO strategy, you might create content on your website or an external website to generate traffic to a certain page or product. This content will feature anchor text, which appears as a clickable hyperlink to direct readers to the page you’d like them to see.

Even if the content on the blog or webpage isn’t directly related to the link you’re trying to create, it is good SEO practice to ensure that the link you create is related to the information that will be found on the link.

For instance, if we wanted to create a link which directed you to one of Priority Pixel’s SEO case studies, you can see where the hyperlink for the anchor text would sit within the sentence.

Within an SEO strategy, anchor text is often chosen by doing detailed keyword research to determine terms that your business might want to rank for in search engine results, as high-quality pages and products will also drive search terms for your webpage.

Anchor text can be long tail or short tail. Short tail anchor text consists of one or two words, which drives more general search terms, whilst long-tail anchor text is typically 5 – 7 words and can be used to create more specific search results.

Apache is part of the LAMP stack, an open-source software system for web servers. Sitting on top of the Linux OS, Apache translates what’s typed into a web browser and in simple terms, directs it to the website.

An Application Programming Interface (API) is software that provides communication between an app and user, creating functions for different events that might be available to the user. Any ‘click’ on a website that is relevant to the API is delivered to the webpage, which will mark the action as complete.

For instance, if you’re booking flights online via EasyJet’s webpage, you might choose from a series of drop-down options such as destination, date and number of passengers. However, flight search companies such as Kayak will take your search terms and crawl EasyJet’s (and other flight operators’) websites in order to offer a range of relevant and up-to-date options. In order to fulfil this task, Kayak will use an API to communicate with different web pages, trawling their databases so that you don’t have to do the hard yards.

When Apple launched its famous ‘there’s an app for that’ tagline, it wasn’t exactly true. Fast forward a decade, and you really can download an app for everything – from meal planning to booking a taxi.

We’re all familiar with mobile apps. For most businesses, an app is never a replacement for a website, but an added tool to engage with the audience and offer an alternative user experience.

Many companies choose to take advantage of an app to deliver specific functionality or experiences to a user. It also allows companies to create a more meaningful experience with the consumer, deliver notifications and offer a simplified mobile experience.

There is a raft of experienced app developers who can create all kinds of functionality for different needs, from shopping apps to those which run alongside your company’s aims and objectives. For instance, our client The Long Paddle, used an external app developer to create a water safety app as a result of their successful charity campaign.

Apptivo CRM automatically embeds forms within your website and generates leads when potential customers provide their contact information. Fully integratable with various other software platforms and apps such as Office 365 and Slack, Apptivo CRM also offers an all-in-one mobile app – so you can access the software from wherever you are.

If you’d like to know more, read our guide The Best CRM Software for 2022.

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With the option to fully integrate with other customer relationship management platforms (CRM), Avanser allows small and large businesses alike to track and record their phone calls with clients in real-time.

If you’d like to know more about call tracking apps, read our guide What are the Best Call Tracking Software Apps?.

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B2B, which is short for Business to Business, is used to describe any business which sells products and services directly to other businesses.

B2C, also known as Business to Consumer, is used to describe any business which sells products and services directly to consumers.

The backend refers to the back of a website – it’s where the magic happens!

Everything you can see on a website is controlled by the backend. This is where the server, application and database are found. Together, these components will create the look and functionality of your website.

Your backlink profile refers to the quality and quantity of links pointing to your website.

Your backlink profile is crucial to your SEO strategy. When search engines determine how high your website ranks for different search terms, they will crawl the web for ‘backlinks’ to your website. These are links from other sources which point to your site.

Your backlink profile is decided by the quality, quantity and anchors used to point to your website. Whilst you will want to ensure that you have as many links as possible, the quality of backlinks also matters. It is vital to ensure that links to your website are from trusted sources and that anchors match your website – which will avoid search engines flagging your site for black hat practices.

Backlinks are links from one website to another website.

Backlinks are important to a successful SEO strategy. Creating a strong backlink profile will help search engines to determine where your website ranks for different search terms.

If the content on your website is ‘below the fold’, it means that the user has to scroll to see it. When your developer designs your website, they should ensure that the most important content is ‘above the fold’, as engagement with content ‘below the fold’ can often be much lower.

It can be tricky to determine where the ‘fold’ actually is, given that there are thousands of devices with different screen resolutions, your developer will be able to estimate where the ‘fold’ is for the majority of users.

Although the term ‘below the fold’ might seem strange, like many terms we use in digital marketing, the term is taken from the before times when ‘below the fold’ was used by publishers to determine where the most important information would sit on a broadsheet newspaper.

Black hat SEO refers to SEO methods which are a little less than savoury, hence the name. Black hat SEO processes include intentional keyword stuffing (overusing keywords), using link farms (a group of websites owned by the same entity with the sole purpose of providing space for guest blogs) and cloaking (disguising irrelevant material in order to trick search engines to rank your content for popular search terms).

Nothing good ever came easy and an SEO strategy is no exception. Employing the services of a black hat SEO provider might seem harmless, but if a search engine finds your SEO practices to violate their terms of service, then you and your website could be penalised. Penalties can include Google lowering your ranking in the SERPs or in extreme cases, even delisting your website altogether.

A great SEO strategy is consistent, but just like going to the gym, you won’t get results overnight. However, with some planning and consistency, your SEO strategy will lead your website to success. Check out our case studies if you don’t believe us!

A blog isn’t just a place on your website to write your opinions, it’s a powerful component in your SEO strategy; which – if used to its full potential – could drive a lot of traffic to your website, create new leads and generate more custom.

Blogging is crucial to a good SEO strategy, and your blog is an area of your website which can offer more information about your business, products and services without having to overload product pages with lots of content.

If you’re looking to create more backlinks to your website or create a better online presence, you’ll want to engage in some blogger outreach.

Create a list of bloggers, content creators and influencers who might be able to help your business to grow. Whether you’re looking for a quality backlink or a collaboration with an influencer with lots of followers, blogger outreach can be a powerful marketing tool for your online business.

Do your research before beginning to contact bloggers! You should ensure that their brand and tone match your business and that your products and services will suit their audience. You can also ask any collaborators for their Google or social media analytics – if you’re paying for collaborations, you want to ensure that there is an audience to see your products!

You can bookmark pages on your web browser in order to easily return to them at another time.

It is even possible to create a ‘bookmarks bar’, which allows you to list your favourite pages across the top of your browser in order to easily navigate to the most viewed pages.

You might see ‘bots’ as a negative thing. They’re often spoken about in the context of fake social media accounts or annoying ‘chatbots’, but they’re actually very useful. Quite simply, a bot is just a software application which can run different tasks and emulate human activity.

Gone are the days of frustrating chatbots. A lot of bots are actually pretty sophisticated and can be a real asset in simple online customer service interactions.

We’ll often talk about bounce rates when we discuss your web design. Bounce rate refers to the number of times a web visitor might view a page and immediately leave.

Having a high bounce rate can affect your search engine ranking, as it could suggest that pages are not useful or informative to visitors.

A high bounce rate could mean that your page isn’t useful – it could also be a sign of long loading times (too many plugins!) or that it’s just not that interesting. Search engines won’t care for the reason for your high bounce rate, so it’s best to assume that you should do everything you can to keep the bounce rate low and keep visitors glued to your web content!

Breadcrumbs are a useful navigation tool to increase customer engagement and reduce your bounce rate.

Remember the story of Hansel and Gretel? The clever siblings sprinkled breadcrumbs behind them as they walked so that they would know the way home from their adventure into the woods. The ploy worked so well that it inspired the name of a secondary navigation tool created by web designers in order to improve user experience.

Breadcrumbs are useful for websites that have a lot of pages and require several steps of navigation for the user. Giving users a trail to follow can ensure that they spend more time on the website, as they can easily retrace their steps. It also means that it is possible to break content into several pages, as users will not feel that the journey is taking so many clicks, as they can easily see their journey back to the home page in one simple click.

Ever clicked on a link that doesn’t lead to a page? That link is broken. It’s a broken link.

Common causes of broken links include:

• Typos in the URL
• Deleted pages
• Changes to a URL

Always double check your links before publishing!

A browser is an application that allows you to surf the web. Common browsers are Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

A Brute Force Attack is a cybersecurity attack method where hackers attempt to gain unauthorised access to a system or encrypted data by systematically trying every possible combination of passwords, encryption keys, or other access credentials.

The process starts with simple and commonly used choices, such as “123456” or “password,” and progresses to more complex combinations. Attackers often employ automated tools or scripts to expedite the guessing process, testing a large number of combinations rapidly. They continue this trial-and-error approach until they discover the correct password or key that grants them access.

Brute Force Attacks are not limited to passwords and can be applied to any situation where a secret code needs to be guessed. To mitigate such attacks, security measures like strong passwords, account lockout policies, rate limiting, multi-factor authentication, and encryption are employed to safeguard systems and data. While Brute Force Attacks can be effective, their success hinges on the complexity of the password or key, making robust security measures a vital defense against such threats.

BuddyPress is a plugin for WordPress which allows you to build online communities from your website. Your developer might use it to build a database or membership portal for your website. BuddyPress will give your website the functionality to allow users to message one another, create online profiles and create conversation threads.

It is most commonly used by organisations which need a ‘members area’, such as schools, sports teams and organisations which may have a physical membership, but would like the option to keep in touch online.

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If you’re looking to see an updated version of your website but you’re unable to see any changes, you might hear us say, ‘try clearing your cache!’

The ‘cache’ is software on your browser used to gather data. It is made up of temporary files which are stored on your computer. When you surf the internet, your browser saves certain information from websites that you have visited to make your browsing experience smoother. These temporary files allow websites to load quicker, as the browser does not need to send the information again.

The ‘cache’ is software on your browser used to gather data. It is made up of temporary files, stored on your computer. When you surf the internet, your browser saves certain information from websites that you have visited to make your browsing experience smoother. These temporary files allow websites to load quicker, as the browser does not need to send the information again.

Unsure about how to clear your cache? We’ve got a handy guide here.

CallRail offers businesses a fully integrated digital platform called Lead Center, which includes call recording and an innovative data analytics suite. It’s essentially tracking and analytics for phone calls and web forms, which helps businesses understand which campaigns are driving inbound leads. As a result, it’s a great tool for optimising your marketing and increasing your return on investment (ROI) when it comes to your PPC, SEO and offline ad campaigns.

If you’d like to know more about call tracking apps read our guide What are the Best Call Tracking Software Apps?.

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CallSource is driven by user experience. With customer service at the forefront of everything they do, CallSource provides a user-focused call-tracking platform that helps businesses and organisations better understand a customer’s journey through call tracking, lead management and business analytic solutions.

If you’d like to know more about call tracking apps, read our guide What are the Best Call Tracking Software Apps?.

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Utilising conversation analytics to drive data-back marketing strategies, for over a decade CallTrackingMetrics’ innovative software has enabled businesses and organisations alike to trace their phone conversations through call and campaign tracking and use the resulting data to make informed decisions as well as boost their return on investment (ROI).

If you’d like to know more about call tracking apps, read our guide What are the Best Call Tracking Software Apps?.

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A Content Delivery Network, known more commonly as a CDN, is a group of servers strategically placed across the world to quickly deliver internet content. A CDN uses cached information to reduce the bandwidth required by a hosting service, prevent website outages and improve security.

If you’re experiencing slow loading times related to traffic or a lack of bandwidth, a CDN may be the solution you’re looking for. Bandwidth is the amount of space required to host your website, and as these are often the primary costs for large websites, using a CDN can alleviate your overhead costs and improve efficiency.

A lot of web hosting services struggle to meet the performance needs of modern websites. A CDN does not replace your web hosting service but supports your host service to deliver great website performance time and time again.

When configured correctly, a CDN can also protect websites from malicious online attacks. To find out more about getting a CDN for your website, have a look at our blog What is a CDN and why do you need one for your WordPress Website?.

Click Through Rate, also known as CTR, is the metric used to measure the number of users who see a link to your website – whether in a newsletter or PPC advertisement – and as a result, choose to click through to your website, hence the name click through.

It is a useful metric in measuring the success of your strategies, including PPC and email marketing campaigns.

As the name suggests, competitor analysis is the research conducted into the primary competitors of a business or organisation.

When you approach Priority Pixels, one of the first things we do is a competitor analysis, as well as an analysis of your existing digital marketing strategy. During this research period, we identify your main competitors and look at their digital marketing, which usually includes their web design, social media presence and SEO strategy.

Competitor analysis is a great way of getting ahead of your competition and gaining a competitive edge in your unique niche. The aim of competitor analysis is never to copy the competition but to mirror their successful strategies and disregard anything that doesn’t work. You know how the old saying goes… ‘If you can’t beat ‘em… analyse their digital marketing strategy and implement your own creative, data-driven solution which drives customers towards your products and services!’ Or words to that effect…

Put simply, conversions are used to measure a conversion rate (hence the name) which is a measure of the success of an advertising campaign or aspect of your digital marketing strategy. As a result, a conversion can be defined as a goal set by you and your business to determine what you would like to achieve from certain actions or campaigns. You might have a number of conversion types within your digital marketing strategy, in order to measure the success of different aspects of your campaign – ultimately this will come down to your product and/or service as well as what you hope to achieve.

For instance, if you’re looking for more newsletter subscribers from a sponsored social media campaign, your goal might be for users to click on the advertisement and sign up for your newsletter. In this instance, each new newsletter subscriber represents a conversion, and the conversion rate is simply the number of users who have signed up divided by the total number of users who have clicked on the link. Simple!

If a conversion rate is a measure of how many users are completing goals, then conversion rate optimisation is the practice of increasing this percentage. This is often done through an analysis of the current conversion rate in order to improve your strategy and increase the number of conversions overall.

In order to optimise conversions, you might consider A/B testing, which allows for two versions of the same page or ad to be used at the same time to determine which aspects are performing best in front of users.

Conversion rate optimisation will take some research and analysis, but it is an important part of shifting your digital marketing strategy to ensure you are getting the best return on investment (ROI).

We’ve all been greeted with the pop-up ‘Do you fancy some cookies? Not the delicious kind!’, and clicked ‘Yes, use recommended cookies’ as quickly as possible, whilst muttering something about the website finding itself incredibly funny.

But what are cookies? Not the delicious kind! (sorry…)

Cookies are small files stored by a website, which gather information about users. It’s a way for a website to store your browsing preferences whenever you visit. The website will use cookies to store small pieces of data such as login information, in order to make the browsing experience smoother for its users.

Some people worry that cookies are harmful. It is not necessarily the cookies themselves which are harmful, but hackers who can steal information from websites which store user information. That’s why if your website is storing customer information, it is essential that this information is properly encrypted and secured.

As far as digital marketing is concerned, cookies are incredibly useful. Not only do they improve user experience, but the data can be interpreted to learn more about customer habits and improve services and campaigns. Depending upon the type of cookies used, websites can also track how long users spend on certain pages, their scroll rate and other browsing habits. To get rid of cookies from websites that you no longer use, it’s important to clear your cache regularly. This ensures your data isn’t being stored unnecessarily.

If you’re interested in how a website is using your data, there should be information on their webpage about their cookie policy.

A content management system, also known as CMS, is a piece of software that allows users to edit and add content to a website without the need for any knowledge of web development, or knowing how to code. Your CMS will store your website’s basic infrastructure, allowing you to update and change simple aspects of a website such as text and imagery with ease.

The most well-known, and arguably most popular, content management system platform is WordPress. At Priority Pixels, we utilise WordPress for all of our website design projects – including our own.

A crawl budget is the number of pages a search engine, such as Google, will crawl on your website, on any given day. The number remains mostly the same and will depend upon how many pages your site has.

A crawl budget plays an important role in any SEO strategy. In order for a page to rank on Google, it needs to be indexed. So, if Google is only crawling six pages a day, but we’ve created 100 pages of new content, it’s going to take some time for all of the pages to start ranking on Google.

The best SEO strategies always play the long game. However, most sites really don’t need to worry about crawl budget as Google’s spiders can get through a lot of pages very quickly. You might be more interested in your crawl budget if your site has a lot of pages, you add a lot of pages in one go or your website contains a lot of redirects – redirect chains can eat up your crawl budget.

The Cascading Style Sheet, more commonly referred to as CSS, is the language used to change visual aspects on a webpage. It gives developers control over visual style aspects such as the thickness of a border and/or the padding around the text.

Before CSS, web style was a much more complicated process controlled from within the HTML. However, CSS has made it possible to control every page of a website’s style from within one document. Once all of the style parameters are defined within the CSS document, the style can be applied to every page, which certainly saves our web developers a lot of time!

“Want a creative, data-driven solution to your digital marketing needs? Find out more about Priority Pixels here” is an (incredibly basic) example of a call to action.

A call to action is usually a line or two of copy which persuades users to act. That act could be clicking through to a webpage or signing up for a weekly newsletter. A strong call to action can improve conversion rates and gain potential new customers.

So what are you waiting for? Find out more about how the team at Priority Pixels could transform your digital presence today!

Cyber security is the practice of protecting digital systems, networks, and data from unauthorised access, cyberattacks, and data breaches. In the modern digital sphere, it’s essential to protect personal data from ransomware and cybercriminals.

Whether you’re an individual or business, cyber security impacts all of us and following the correct processes can help protect you from criminals targeting your data. With strong passwords, multi-factor authentication, and recognising phishing, you can ensure personal data is protected.

Domain authority is a search engine ranking score created by Moz. Developed for the purpose of predicting how likely a website is to rank in the search engine result pages (SERPs), it’s a very simple way of understanding how much weight your domain carries.

Whilst your domain authority won’t directly affect your website’s rankings, it is an indicator of how authoritative your site is. Domain authority is ranked out of 100 and this score can be affected by several factors – outbound and inbound links (quantity and quality), the amount of content on your website, social media presence and visibility on other online platforms.

Every new website has a domain authority of 1 – which is why it is so important to keep your website active and optimised from the get-go.

Want to find out more about Domain Authority?

We’ve got a great blog post here.

Delacon offers an industry-leading call-tracking software solution that seamlessly integrates with a range of market-leading platforms including Google Ads and Zapier. With powerful features such as data and speech analytics, call recording and innovative reporting tools, Delacon can measure the success of your marketing campaigns and optimise your marketing initiatives and strategies.

If you’d like to know more about call-tracking apps, read our guide What are the Best Call Tracking Software Apps?.

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If your business is looking for high-quality leads and an increase in revenue, DialogTech may be for you. DialogTech offers a modern and innovative digital platform that can create a better user experience for your customers, generate more leads and increase your overall return on investment (ROI).

If you’d like to know more about call tracking apps, read our guide What are the Best Call Tracking Software Apps?.

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Direct traffic is a metric used to describe when a user visits a site directly – without clicking a link from another website. Direct traffic can be generated by typing a URL directly into a browser or browsing from a bookmark. Google defines it as traffic that ‘has no information about referral’.

Higher direct traffic could mean that your tracking isn’t set up properly in Google Analytics. Direct traffic is generally considered useless for analysts as there is little to no way to interpret the data as there is no known source.

Display advertising is an online advertisement which uses images, copy and a website URL. It allows users to click through to a page and find out more about a product and/or service. Display ads are typically found as banners at the top of web pages or in the sidebar of a website. They are also commonly used on social media and within certain apps.

The Domain Name System, also known as DNS, translates domain names from their readable human form into a machine-readable IP address. In a nutshell, the DNS is basically the phonebook of the internet. For example, prioritypixels.com might become 192.3.3.3 in DNS form.

A domain name is essentially the readable version of an IP address. So if 192.3.3.3 is the DNS then prioritypixels.com would be the domain.

A computer will connect to your website’s server via your IP address. Visitors to your site will be greeted with your domain name, which is easier to remember than a long string of numbers – hence the purpose of a domain name.

You need a domain name, an IP address and a host server for your website to work.

Drupal is a free, open-source content management system which can be used by developers and non-developers alike to create and manage different types of websites. Drupal has been around even longer than WordPress but lacks the market share because it is often considered to be more technical and not as accessible to those who lack web development skills.

As a result, Drupal is often used for more complex projects although, in 2020, it improved accessibility for those with little to no knowledge of web development.

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Data privacy ensures the protection of customer and user data, including personal information, from unauthorised access. An example of data privacy is ensuring sensitive data, such as financial information, is only accessed by those authorised to do so. Using strong passwords or biometric authentication helps to ensure data is protected.

Under GDPR, businesses must take the necessary steps to protect their user data. They must ensure that user data is accurate and up-to-date, and GDPR requires businesses to provide users with a right to information.

Evergreen content can remain on a site forever and will not go out of date – hence the name, evergreen, referring to a plant that retains its leaves throughout the year, no matter the season.

In order to maintain a sustainable SEO strategy, it is important to create rich evergreen content which does not need to be updated regularly to stay relevant. A rich catalogue of evergreen content can improve your search ranking, position your brand as an industry leader and continually drive traffic to your site without the need to regularly refresh the page or blog on which the content sits.

It is important to ensure that evergreen content is well-researched for topics and keywords, as it can be a powerful tool in your digital marketing strategy.

As the name suggests, an external link is the opposite of an internal link. External links are any link on a website which points out towards another domain. For instance, this external link will take you to a great cat video.

First contentful paint is the first sign that a webpage is loading. The first contentful paint is the moment at which the browser loads any text, non-white canvas, image, video or vector graphics. It is tied to your website’s load speed and is an important metric to understand the quality of your user experience.

A low score, and therefore a speedy FCP indicates a positive user experience. However, a high score could indicate your website is taking too long to load, which can impact your bounce rate and overall SEO.

The act of ‘following’ another account on social media means you subscribe to their content. When a user chooses to see another user’s content in their feed, this is called a ‘follow’.

The more ‘followers’ an account has, the more users will see this account’s content in their feed.

Your social media strategy should include steps towards growing your follower count organically. Doing so can help your business foster a community online around your brand and boost engagement on your social media platforms.

Freshworks is a customer relationship management platform. Freshworks makes it easy for businesses to exceed the expectations of both their clients and their employees. The platform can be fully customised to the needs of your needs with over 1000 custom apps available.

If you’d like to know more about CRM’s read our guide The Best CRM Software for 2022.

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As the name suggests, the frontend of a website is the term used to describe the part of the website the end user will see. It is the opposite of the backend, which is where you find all the bits and bobs that make a website tick such as HTML code and image files.

For example, when you visit prioritypixels.co.uk, you are looking at the front end of our website. Any alterations or changes are made in the backend of the site by our web developers, content creators and SEO strategists.

A full stack is the frontend AND backend of your website. A full stack developer has an in-depth knowledge of both of these areas – they are the chef AND the waiter. Not only can they code and build everything that the user doesn’t see, but they are also well-versed in the frontend user experience and can design, develop and implement bespoke websites that are easy to navigate as well as visually immersive and a joy to look at.

Geo-targeting is used to target a specific audience based on their location. For instance, an e-commerce business that only ships to the United Kingdom would ensure that their Google Ads are geo-targeting people within the United Kingdom, as it would be a waste of ad spend to advertise their business to customers in countries where they do not ship.

Geo-targeting makes use of customer location data – whether via recent check-ins or by active location services being available on their device. It’s also a helpful tool in Local SEO strategies.

Also known as GA4, Google Analytics 4 is the latest version of Google Analytics. The platform allows you to track and measure data across websites and apps by measuring traffic and engagement.

GA4 is due to launch fully on July 1st 2023 and will completely replace Universal Analytics. This is an important update as Universal Analytics, also known as UA, tracks screen views in separate mobile-specific properties – GA4 however, combines both web and app data into the same property, making for a more unified, integrated experience.

You can read mroe about Google Analytics 4 and the end of Universal Analytics in our blog post.

A helpful device from the Google toolbox, Google PageSpeed Insights is a dedicated site performance checker. Also known as Google PSI, it’s a simple yet effective tool offering a good starting point to flag any existing issues. By testing the page URL, PSI can highlight potential CSS or JavaScript issues as well as images that require further optimisation.

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If a company is a Google Partner, this means they have been recognised for being outstanding in the field of digital marketing. Google describes Google Partners as those who have proven experience in “maximising client campaign success, driving client growth by maintaining client campaigns and demonstrating Google Ad skills through certifications”.

The Google Partner program has three different tiers – Member, Partner and Premier Partner. Each tier has several benefits and a comprehensive set of opportunities and advantages that can further deepen an agency or individual’s relationship with the internet giant.

At Priority Pixels, we are proud to be a Google Partner! As an official Google Partner, our team have access to additional training, support and resources that we utilise to drive client success.

Google Universal Analytics, also known as UA, is an older version of Google’s analytics software. UA is currently being phased out and will be officially replaced by Google Analytics 4, also known as GA4, in July 2023.

A guest post, as the name suggests is an article written by a guest and published on a website such as a blog or news site. These days, guest posting is most often done for the sole purpose of obtaining an inbound link. Inbound links are also known as backlinks.

Guest posts are an important part of your SEO strategy. This is because if one website has a higher domain authority than yours, publishing an inbound link going from the more authoritative website back to your site will increase the authority and legitimacy of your own content. This can improve your search engine ranking and help drive the right kind of traffic for specific keywords, which will be used for the anchor text in your link. For example, if you wanted to rank higher for ‘Best Bakery in Plymouth’, you might publish an article about the best bakeries in the South West with a link using that anchor text.

Although guest posting might seem like an easy way to boost your search engine ranking, it’s actually a complicated process that requires a lot of strategic planning. For example, it’s important to focus on quality over quantity – 10 high-quality links from legitimate websites will do ten times more for your site than 100 links from dodgy websites. It’s also important to make sure your links are dofollow links. This means the site where the content is published will share its PageRank signals with you, as opposed to a nofollow link which won’t give pass on the site’s “link juice” back to you.

Publishing guest content on your own website also requires planning. Websites with good domain authority will often receive requests to host content on their site and while there is nothing wrong with doing this, you’ll want to make sure that the product being promoted does not conflict with the aims of your own website and that it is well written and researched. Your site will be penalised by Google for any guest content that is illegal or plagiarised – which could affect your own domain authority – so tread carefully!

In digital marketing, a hashtag is this symbol – #. Hashtags can be used on any social media platform, but these days are most often seen on Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.

Hashtags are used on social media as a way of grouping content together such as topics of conversation, images or themes. Attributing hashtags to posts will provide better visibility outside of those accounts which you follow. For instance, you might take a video of a silly cat and use #funnycatvideo – this will allow the video to be seen by anyone looking for funny videos of cats under this hashtag.

The first hashtag ever published on the internet was by American blogger Christopher Messina in 2007. Initially used as a type of metadata tag, by 2009 Twitter had begun hyperlinking all tweeted hashtags. Today, hashtags are commonly referred to as the veins of the internet because of the way they bring specific topics, conversations and content together across multiple social platforms.

A good social media strategy will use a mix of popular, relevant and branded hashtags. Relevance is particularly important. If you’re posting a photo of your sandwich on Instagram with #funnycatvideo, you most likely won’t get the engagement you’re after – this is because people looking up #funnycatvideo are looking for humorous clips of cats doing unusual things. You’d have more luck using a hashtag such as #lunchdate or #sandwich. The same theory applies to brands looking to boost their online engagement.

Header tags are used to separate headings and subheadings on a web page. When formatting text on a website, it is important to use header tags rather than formatting your content in bold and/or changing the font size. This is so Google understands where key information sits on the page and can rank information accordingly.

Your homepage is the first page of your website. It’s the first page a customer sees and as a result, it’s a hugely important part of your website as well as your overall SEO strategy.

Before your customer makes up their mind, they’ll most likely review your homepage to get an idea of what you’re selling or offering, why your product and/or service should matter to them and of course, how you can improve their lives in some way. As a result, your homepage should be striking and easy to navigate as well as informative, without being too overwhelming or busy – failing to do so can increase your bounce rate. A higher bounce rate can harm your search rankings. It also indicates your customers are going elsewhere for the product and/or service you’re offering.

When building your website, it’s also important to ensure there’s an obvious route back to your homepage from other pages on your site. For example, many websites feature a frozen navigation menu which can be accessed anywhere throughout the site. This allows for a more efficient user experience and means they’ll be less chance of your customers abandoning their cart in favour of your competitor.

Web hosting is the process of renting or buying space on the internet to house (or host) your website. Web hosting basically allows individuals and businesses alike to display their websites on the internet, as well as important content like imagery and code such as HTML and CSS.

Servers are also an important part of your web hosting. Websites are made up of various files containing the code and databases needed to display the website correctly on a user’s browser. These files are stored on computers called servers which are kept on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to ensure your website always remains online.

At Priority Pixels, we offer managed web hosting for businesses and individuals alike. To read more about hosting, have a look at our managed website hosting services page.

Hypertext Markup Language, known more commonly as HTML, is a universal language used to create websites. HTML is made up of symbols and codes which, when inputted into a file, will tell the internet how to correctly display elements such as text and images on a webpage.

HTML is the most basic and most well-known building block of the internet. It is used to define the meaning and structure of web content and will tell a browser how to display the content, whereas other languages such as JavaScript and CSS are used to describe the appearance and presentation of a website.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, known more commonly in short form as HTTPS, is a security protocol used by most web browsers. If a website URL is preceded by HTTPS, this indicates that the website is using an SSL certificate, and any information and data passed from your computer to the website are encrypted by the server. In a nutshell, it means your data is safe, secure and protected.

Perhaps one of the best-known customer relationship management platforms (CRM), HubSpot offers a fully integrated interface with full visibility into your sales activity. Offering a number of innovative features and solutions, the platform aims to arm businesses with the tools they require to easily generate leads and boost their conversions.

If you’d like to know more about the best CRM tools, read our guide The Best CRM Software for 2022.

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A trusted WordPress development plugin, Hummingbird is a pro performance, caching and optimisation tool designed to keep your site running as fast and efficiently as possible. With Hummingbird in place, you’ll see an increase in page loading times, potentially higher search rankings and a higher satisfaction rate from your users and customers alike.

As the name suggests, a Hyperlink is a link to a webpage, which when clicked will take you to the destination. Hyperlinks can appear as the address for the webpage or can be embedded in documents, text, images or videos to easily navigate to the target webpage, like this link to our about us page!.

An impression is a metric used to describe the moment a piece of information such as an advert, image or video appears on a user’s screen – hence the name, impression.

An impression is not action-based. As a result, it doesn’t necessarily rely on the user engaging with the content. However, the metric does indicate that the content has been seen and mentally absorbed by a user. By interpreting the data, it may be possible to see how many impressions a user experiences before they decide to engage.

Understanding impressions may be useful to a brand trying to build brand awareness. It may also be useful if a business isn’t receiving the number of click-throughs they would like, as the metric lets you see if your content has actually reached anyone in the first place.

Indexing plays an important role in the ranking process of your website. The term refers to the indexing process of storing web pages in the index, also known as a search engine’s database or library. Indexing will occur after it’s been crawled by a search engine such as Google. Once your website has been crawled and indexed, it can be ranked accordingly and will appear on search engine result pages.

If your website hasn’t been indexed, then you won’t receive any organic traffic from search engines to your site. Every time you add a page to your website, search engines must visit, crawl and index the page before they can rank it. To ensure your website is indexed properly, you’ll need an SEO-friendly URL, a sitemap and a number of other features including plenty of inbound links.

An influencer is a term used for someone who has a lot of followers on social media. Influencers have provided brands with a new way of marketing products outside of traditional media.

While using a celebrity or public figure as the face of your business is nothing new, the rise of social media giants such as YouTube and Instagram has taken the concept of ‘celebrity marketing’ to a whole new level. Harnessing the power of influencer marketing can offer your brand a new advertising channel and has the potential to drive sales to an entirely new market of customers who follow and trust your chosen influencer.

The very first big influencers were Zoella, Alfie Deyes, Tanya Burr and of course, PewDiePie, a controversial Swedish YouTuber with over 111 million subscribers. Influencer marketing can be expensive but don’t worry – you don’t have to get the likes of PewDiePie or Zoella on board to make use of influencer marketing.

It’s important to do your research before approaching influencers to ensure that they have active and engaged followers. You’ll also need to fully understand how they can enhance your digital marketing strategy before you sign any contracts.

An inbound link is a link on another webpage that points or directs to your site. Having a lot of inbound links from trusted webpages with good domain authority will tell Google that your website is authoritative, which can indirectly improve your search ranking.

Insightly’s CRM (customer relationship management) platform aims to deliver a world-class experience and foster long-lasting customer relationships. Built to nurture business growth and integrate easily with your existing website, Insightly gives businesses everything they need to create a full picture of their customers – from hello to delivery and beyond.

If you’d like to know more about CRM’s read our guide “The Best CRM Software for 2022“.

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As the name suggests, an internal link is a link which points from one page to another on your website – hence the term internal. Contact us, is an excellent example of an internal link.

JavaScript is a language used by developers to create interactive elements on a webpage.

JavaScript is embedded in code to create dynamic elements which engage a user. For instance, when you clicked the drop-down to reveal what JavaScript is in this Digital Marketing Glossay, JavaScript was responsible for creating the interactive dropdown action.

JavaScript is also used for image carousels, animation, playing audio and video and much more.

Joomla, also known as Joomla!, is a content management system used to build websites and other applications. Just like WordPress and Drupal, Joomla is free, open-source and removes a lot of the jargon and technical challenges a business can face when building a website.

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jQuery is a JavaScript library that helps users easily add interactivity to their website without having to build JavaScript from scratch. The platform has been designed to simplify the development of websites, and like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, it’s free and open-source.

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The keywords on your website are the keywords and/or phrases that make it possible for your target audience to find your site via search engines such as Google and Bing.

Your keywords are the queries your users might type into a search engine to find the content they are looking for. They are also often ideas and topics that define what your content is about. As a result, keyword research can be incredibly beneficial to your business and is a crucial component of your SEO strategy.

For example, if I was looking for a new pair of clogs, I might type leather clogs or open toe clog heels into Google. For any businesses selling clogs online through an e-commerce store, phrases leather clogs or open toe clog heels would be considered keywords. As a part of their SEO strategy, they would make sure to include content on their website which was optimised for those specific phrases, meaning anyone looking for a new pair of clogs would be able to find the right business.

Keywords are also an important part of both PPC campaigns and social media marketing, although the way in which we target users online is changing due to the increasing popularity of Voice Search.

Also known as keyword frequency, your keyword density is a metric used to define the number of times a keyword occurs in a piece of content such as a blog or webpage. Keyword density is most often measured using a ratio or percentage in conjunction with the overall word count – using your keyword three or four times in a 100-word piece for example would be considered overkill, but in a 300-word article, it might be just right.

Keyword density is an incredibly useful tool and can ensure you’re not “keyword-stuffing” when it comes to creating content.

As the title suggests, keyword research is the practice of identifying, collecting and storing keywords and phrases a user types into search engines such as Google and Bing. The process of keyword research can help a business find the best keywords to target a specific audience and provides valuable insight into the queries your target audience is searching for.

This insight can also help you find actual search terms that can shape and inform your content strategy as well as your digital marketing strategy as a whole. As a result, ongoing keyword research is fundamental to an SEO strategy and might be used to determine blog topics, design menus and create PPC campaigns, amongst other things.

As the name suggests, keyword stuffing is the practice of overusing keywords in a piece of content, such as a blog or on a landing page. It is often adopted by black hat SEO practitioners as a way of tricking Google into giving a page a higher ranking.

Considered webspam or spamdexing, intentional keyword stuffing is widely regarded as bad practice and is taken into account by search engines when websites are being crawled, indexed and ranked. So if you overuse your keywords, your ranking in search engines such as Google will suffer.

Also known as a semantic network, a knowledge graph is a huge database of information representing a network of real-world components such as objects, events, concepts and situations. The graph represents relationships and connections and is often created for the purpose of providing a framework for collaboration, data analytics, unification and data integration. In the context of digital marketing, any reference to the knowledge graph is the one developed by Google.

Google’s Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base from which the website pulls relevant data for the purpose of displaying the information in an infobox which is located at the top of the search results. This enables the user to quickly and easily see the solution. The data itself which includes information about places, people, businesses and more, is automatically generated from a range of different sources.

Google introduced the knowledge graph to keep users on the search engine and avoid any website having a monopoly on information. Rather than visit third-party sites, users can see answers to their questions within the Google Search Engine without the need to look at another website. The answers can also appear above other search results, in a drop-down formation which provides the user with answers to their question, as well as a link to the website to find out more.

Google created the knowledge graph by pulling information from trusted, knowledgeable websites. Creating content which Google can use as part of the knowledge graph is great for SEO, as it is another way of getting your website in front of your target audience. This is why we might use FAQ sections on websites as part of a dynamic SEO strategy.

LAMP typically consists of four essential software components: a Linux operating system, an Apache HTTP server, a MySQL database system, and a PHP programming language – hence the name. All of these elements sit in layers and support one another.

Developers use LAMP to build sites and web applications. A number of content management systems also utilise LAMP, including WordPress.

As the name suggests, Less Annoying CRM is a simple yet efficient CRM platform that aims to optimise a customer’s journey. It’s the cost-effective, accessible approach to customer relationship management.

If you’d like to know more about CRM software, have a read of our guide The Best CRM Software for 2022.

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Linux is the L and first layer in every LAMP stack. It’s a free and open-source operating system that creates the foundation for the stack model, with everything else running on top of it.

Also known simply as Majestic, Majestic SEO is a powerful software tool and analysis platform used exclusively for backlink research. Unlike other SEO tools such as Ahrefs, SEMRush or Moz Pro, Majestic focuses entirely on backlinks.

Majestic SEO is also a useful tool for link-building strategies. For example, if were looking for a site to publish a guest post, you can use Majestic SEO to analyse the authority and trustworthiness of the site using their Trust Flow feature.

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Marchex is a B2B call and conversational analytics company providing businesses with award-winning conversation intelligence Their innovative platform can transform data into actionable insights, optimise the sales performance of your business and create a better user experience for your customers.

If you’d like to know more about call-tracking apps, have a look at our guide What are the Best Call Tracking Software Apps?.

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As the name suggests, marketing automation is the process of using software to perform and automate simple marketing tasks without the need for human interference. Depending on the platform, marketing automation allows brands to manage every aspect of their marketing campaigns from one single, fully-integrated dashboard, including but not limited to email marketing, social media marketing, ad management and even mobile messaging.

Marketing automation also allows businesses to gather and interpret data about specific target audiences and transform it into actionable insights that can nurture leads and create repeat customers. For example, you might schedule a welcome email to be sent automatically to anyone who signs up for a newsletter, or a survey for previous customers to receive shortly after they have bought a product.

The meta description is the information that appears below your web title in search results. It doesn’t affect your search ranking but provides extra information for a user, which will influence whether they click on your page.

A meta title is the title displayed when your page is found in search engine results. It appears above the meta description. A catchy, keyword-driven meta title can attract more clicks – which means more traffic. Meta titles also allow search engine algorithms to easily interpret what your webpage is about, which can also affect your ranking.

Microdata is the additional information included within the code of a website. It’s a specific set of HTML code used to nest structured data within HTML content and can help search engine algorithms to better understand the content on a webpage.

Microdata uses HTML tag attributes to name properties within structured data. When looking at a website’s overall SEO health, the team at Priority Pixels often check whether we need to add extra microdata to help Google and other search engines crawl a page to provide it with a better ranking.

When Google and other search engines first crawl and index your website, the algorithms will use the mobile version of a webpage over the desktop version to rank each page. This is known as mobile-first indexing.

Mobile First Indexing is one of the many reasons optimising your site for mobile is so important. Page experience is becoming one of the most important ranking factors for Google. So, if your mobile web users aren’t having a good experience, your rankings may suffer as a result.

MySQL is an open-source database management system. Its name is a combination of My, from the daughter of co-founder Michael Widenius, and SQL, an acronym standing for Structured Query Language.

MySQL is a tool used to manage and store databases and servers. Although it’s not technically a database, the platform is often used to manage and organise data in databases. For example, the tool can be used to store website scripts, which is helpful for developers when building a new site. Many of the world’s largest companies including Facebook, Twitter, Booking.com, and Verizon also rely on the platform to run their high-traffic websites, mission-critical systems, and packaged software.

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Malware, short for malicious software, is designed to harm or gain unauthorised access to a computer system. Examples of malware include viruses, ransomware, and spyware. Cybercriminals will try to steal data and damage computer systems. Once up and running, criminals can steal personal data, destroy devices, and spy on activities.

It is essential to protect yourself from malware and spot the signs of potential malware threats. Malware can be installed on a computer if you click on a dangerous link, or download a file sent to you in an email by an unknown sender. Signs of malware include slow computers, numerous pop-ups, and inappropriate ads. You can install anti-virus software to help protect your computer from malware attacks.

NAP stands for Name, Address and Phone number. The consistency of your NAP can have a significant impact on your SEO. It’s also fundamental information for your customers. A lack of consistency when it comes to your NAP information can result in a frustrating user experience for your target audience. Ensuring your contact information is correct, consistent and readily available online lets your target audience know who you are, where you’re based and of course, the ways they can contact you.

It may seem basic but in reality, NAP is really important to SEO and is a driving factor in your local SEO strategy. It’s also incredibly easy to fix.

It’s also important to claim your Google Business Profile. Doing so can ensure that the information listed is consistent with any NAP information on your website and is pointing your customers in the right direction.

As the name suggests, negative keywords are specific search terms that prevent your ad from being triggered for irrelevant queries on search engines. Finding your negative keywords can help you exclude search terms that may be similar but not relevant to your campaign.

Negative keywords are most often used in PPC campaigns to tell Google which keywords are not useful to your product or business. For example, if you were running a PPC campaign for your veterinary practice, you might make “general practice” a negative keyword. This is because your clinic does not treat humans and it would be a waste of ad spend to market your services to those looking to cure themselves rather than their cats.

Nofollow links are hyperlinks with a rel=“nofollow” tag. A nofollow link does not send PageSignals and as a result, doesn’t influence the search engine rankings of a destination URL.

Basically, nofollow links are used to show search engines that the link is not an endorsement of the target site. Nofollow links were originally set up to reduce spam on blogs, which black hat SEO sharks were using to boost their domain authority.

Google doesn’t crawl nofollow links and as result, they are often used to show the Google algorithm that it shouldn’t use the link in its search engine rank calculations.

Links are set up as nofollow by default. It is easy to change this via the CMS of your website if you are looking to create links as part of a link-building strategy.

Noindex is a rule set with either a HTTP response header ortag. It can be included in webpage HTML code to tell search engines not to index a page. This means that the page will not appear in search results, will not be ranked and is only able to be visited directly or via the webpage itself.

When a page with a noindex header or tag is crawled, the search engine will immediately drop that page from the search engine results, regardless of whether or not there are links from other sites going to that page.

As the name suggests, offsite SEO is anything offsite that contributes to your search engine optimisation strategy, meaning anything that improves your search engine ranking outside of your website.

Off-site ranking criteria include improving search engine and user impression of a site’s popularity, relevance, trustworthiness and authority. This is usually accomplished by having other trustworthy websites link to or promote your website, thus “vouching” for the value and authority of your content. Well-known examples of offsite SEO include guest blogging and influencer marketing.

Onsite SEO is any optimisation tactic, practice and process that take place on your website. This could include anything from blogging, creating an FAQs section and cleaning up your website’s code to streamlining the navigation of your site and ensuring your metadata has been optimised.

There are lots of ways to undertake onsite SEO. That is why the best SEO strategies are ongoing and consistent. Effective on-site SEO aids search engines in comprehending what a human visitor would see (and what value they would receive) if they visited a page, enabling them to consistently serve up what human visitors would consider high-quality information about a given search query (keyword).

In addition to assisting search engines in understanding page content, effective on-site SEO also aids users in quickly and clearly determining the subject matter of a webpage and whether it’s relevant to their search query.

In simple terms, open-source refers to software which is user generated, publicly available and able to be modified by anyone. Most frequently, it is made available under a licence that gives users the freedom to use, examine, modify and share the software and its source code with anybody for any reason. As a result, open-source software is often developed collaboratively and publicly.

Organic traffic is traffic that has been directed to your webpage organically, meaning the traffic has not come from paid sources such as PPC advertising. Organic traffic often comes from sources such as search engines such as Google or Bing, direct links on other websites and of course, via social media.

Optimising your website for search engine algorithms, posting regularly on social media and publishing relevant, high-quality content to your blog is the quickest way of boosting your website’s organic traffic.

Also referred to as authority links, an outbound link is a link which points away from one website to another, like this link to the Guardian from our website. Outbound links are often used within page content to add context. They can also link a reader to another source which adds additional information to the topic being discussed.

A page builder is a plugin or a component of a theme that allows users to structure, design and launch responsive pages without the need for coding experience. As a result, page builders are often used to create complex sites with minimal time or effort.

If you are looking for a quick fix for a simple website and your budget is limited, then a page builder is ideal. However, it is worth remembering that options for personalisation will be limited. You will also not be able to take full advantage of search engine optimisation and if you ever want to make fundamental changes to a website, your developer will have to start from scratch. Too many plugins can also result in slow loading times and a poor user experience for your visitors.

PayPal is a fast and secure online payment system that allows payments between two parties through online money transfers.

Many e-commerce businesses use PayPal because it’s such a trusted, well-known platform which can give customers a little extra peace of mind.

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Pingdom is a performance monitoring offering data insights into how your site is performing out in the real world. Delivering real-user monitoring, page speed testing, server response times and downtime statistics, Pingdom immediately highlights anything that could be slowing you down.

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Pipedrive is the first CRM (customer relationship management) platform designed by salespeople, for salespeople. It’s a fully integrated web-based sales platform and management solution built for the sole purpose of nurturing growth and growing revenue. Instead of focusing on the sale itself, Pipedrive helps businesses focus on the actions that get them there.

If you’d like to know more, read our guide The Best CRM Software for 2022.

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The fourth and final layer of the LAMP stack is PHP, also known as hypertext pre-processor. Originally created by programmer Rasmus Lerdorf, it’s a high-level, object-oriented, server-side programming language widely used in web development to create websites and web applications. It’s also open-source and can be embedded in HTML code.

Plugins are a special piece of software created for the purpose of providing enhanced functionality and features to your website. Commonly used in conjunction with content management systems, such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, plugins are useful because they require no coding knowledge or experience – you simply install your chosen plugin on your site and voila!

Plugins are installed for a variety of reasons. For example, an e-commerce business might use a plugin such as WooCommerce to enhance a user’s shopping cart experience so that customers don’t have to leave the site to make payments. However, it’s also important to note that plugins can slow down your site exponentially and cause a multitude of other issues. While it’s useful to have one or two plugins, it’s important not to go overboard.

A portal is a type of website or an area of a website that provides personalised access via a login. Schools for instance might build a portal for parent access, which allows parents and carers to view important information related to their child’s education, such as term dates or school reports.

PPC, or pay-per-click, is an effective type of internet marketing where a business or marketeer working on behalf of a client will pay a small fee every time an ad is clicked on. Advertisers will bid in real-time auctions in order to show their ads within slots on a specific platform or network, such as Google or Facebook. Also known as paid advertising,

Essentially, PPC is a way of buying visits to your website. However, you will only pay for your marketing if your ad is clicked on. Paid advertisements come in many different shapes and formats and can include text, images and videos. There are many options to choose from but most paid ads fit into two main categories:

• Search ads – Search ads are triggered by someone actively searching for specific keywords. Your ad will show on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and answer a specific question or search query.
• Display ads – Display ads are triggered by a user fitting specific criteria such as demographics or interests. They usually show when someone is browsing the web or on an app.

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This is Google’s algorithm to determine where a page ranks on the search engine. It takes into account many different factors and can be positively influenced by good SEO practices.

PageRank can be passed from one page to another via dofollow links. Hence the power and importance of backlinks which act as votes of confidence in your website from another.

Propagation is the anticipated time it will take for the DNS information for a domain to be updated throughout the whole web following a change.

When a website moves to a new server or a new domain is registered, a new IP address is created. Every DNS server in the world must register this change and record the new IP address. Whilst this process takes place, the website will not be accessible to users. The process of propagation can take between 24 – 48 hours depending on the size of the website.

Phishing is when cybercriminals use fake emails, social media posts, or direct messages, with the intention of their victims clicking on a dangerous link or downloading malicious software. If you click a phishing link, hackers may gain personal information or install malware onto your device, compromising your data.

It’s easy to spot phishing attempts so you can protect yourself. Always check who an email or message is from and think twice before clicking on any links or attachments. Check the urgency of the message, any spelling mistakes, and the language used. If you recognise a phishing email, report it to your email provider. If the email is to your work address, report it immediately to your IT manager.

In Google Ads, a quality score determines how Google ranks the quality and relevance of your ads. It is used to determine the cost-per-click (CPC) and then multiplied by your maximum bid to determine your ad rank during an auction.

This rating, which ranges from 1 to 10, is available at the keyword level. A higher Quality Score indicates that your ad and landing page are more relevant and helpful to someone searching for your term in comparison to other marketers. As a result, quality score is also a helpful metric that can help you find areas where your advertisements, landing pages or keyword choice could be improved.

Also known as a search query, a query is a phrase or keyword combination a user might type into a search engine box to find a resolution to their question. For example, someone looking for a bed for their senior dog might type orthopaedic dog bed or best dog bed for old dogs – in this case, orthopaedic dog bed and best dog bed for old dogs are both search queries.

Remarketing is a feature that allows businesses to modify their display ad campaigns for users who have already visited their website and retarget those visitors.

Remarketing is a useful strategy to target potential customers after they’ve visited a website without making a purchase. It can be done in a variety of ways, including email marketing or placed in sidebars on other websites.

Rich snippets are normal Google search results with extra data displayed. In order to get your search result displayed as a rich snippet, you should pay attention to microdata and structured data, allowing Google to better read your site information and crawl to create rich snippets.

Return on ad spend, also known as ROAS is a key performance indicator in digital marketing which, as the name suggests, refers to the amount of revenue that is earned for every dollar spent on a paid advertising campaign.

You can gain a good idea of your ROAS by ensuring that you are collecting user data on both Google Ads and your website. ROAS is dependent on several factors, including your profit margins, unique market niche, industry and average cost-per-click (CPC).

Robots.txt is a text file web developers create to instruct web robots (typically search engine robots) how to crawl pages on their websites. The robots.txt file is part of the robots exclusion protocol (REP), a group of web standards that regulate how robots crawl the web, access and index content and serve that content up to users.

Your return on investment, also known as your ROI, is the financial return you receive from investing in an asset or spending for your business. You can calculate your ROI by dividing the profits you’ve earned on an investment by the cost of that investment.

ROI is an important metric as it can inform a business whether or not operations are profitable, which can serve as a benchmark for shaping future strategies and campaigns.

Salesforce CRM is another popular and well-known CRM (customer relationship management) software platform. Their platform, Customer 360, aims to provide valuable insights into every aspect of a customer’s journey – from lead to loyalty. With customers expecting more these days, SalesForce aims to better support businesses and their employees with plenty of innovative apps and features.

If you’d like to know more, read our handy guide The Best CRM Software for 2022.

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Schema is a shared language that allows search engines to read exactly what the pages on your website are trying to convey. Schema, also known as schema markup, informs search engine algorithms precisely what your content is trying to convey on your website by converting unstructured data into structured data. Adding schema can help search engine crawlers better which can improve your ranking.

Search engine result pages, also known as SERPs, are a list of search results shown by a search engine in response to a search query.

In addition to organic search results, SERPs usually include pay-per-click ads. Ranking spots on a SERP can be highly competitive. This is because users are more likely to click on results on the first page.

SEMrush is an online platform that allows users to undertake comprehensive keyword research and access data. It’s a useful tool for finding specific keywords, which can shape your digital marketing strategy, and ultimately influence your search ranking.

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Smush Pro is a pro-level WordPress plugin which scans every image across your entire site, before optimising and resizing them. Large images are one of the biggest culprits for slow sites so if your site is slow to load, using Smush Pro can save you space and give your site a huge performance boost.

Stripe is an online payment processing platform which allows businesses to handle online transactions from several sources including debit, credit card, digital wallets and a number of several other solutions.

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A subdomain, as the name suggests, is when a new domain is purchased as an extension to your original domain – hence the name sub-domain. Subdomains can provide an easy way of splitting your website into separate sections with each section serving a different purpose. For example, you might use a subdomain to set up an e-commerce store or to target a new audience, without having to make changes to your primary domain and/or your overarching brand.

Technical SEO refers to an aspect of SEO which includes any onsite maintenance which could improve your search ranking. It’s all about improving, optimising and maintaining the technical aspects of your site.

Technical SEO is often undertaken by developers at the instruction of SEO Executives. They will use the processes of crawling, indexing, rendering and website architecture such as sitemaps to ultimately improve the user experience and further optimise the site for search engines.

Find out more about technical SEO here.

A title tag is the title of the document. In digital marketing, it often refers to the title of a webpage which will show in a search result listing. It’s also an HTML element.

Title tags are an important component of the user experience, search engine optimisation and of course, social media. The title tag of a webpage, whether it’s a service page or blog post, should be an accurate, informative and concise description of the content the user will find if they click the link – this is especially important for social media if you’re looking to drive traffic to a specific product, service or piece of content using platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

In the context of digital marketing, traffic is the volume of visitors to a website. Also referred to as sessions, website hits or web traffic, traffic is often used to measure the effectiveness of a digital marketing strategy in attracting an audience.

In theory, more traffic translates to a more effective campaign. However, there is little point in generating thousands upon thousands of website hits if the traffic your site is receiving is not your target audience. If order to keep your bounce rate low and boost your lead generation and conversions, you need to be attracting the right kind of traffic to your website.

Trust flow is a useful metric provided by Majestic SEO. The metric measures the trustworthiness of a website, based on backlinks and a number of other factors.

It’s important to remember that because a site has a high domain authority does not mean it’s a reputable site. As a result, trust flow is a handy metric when building a guest posting strategy. For example, you can use Majestic SEO to measure the trustworthiness of a site and reveal whether or not its DA has been boosted using black hat SEO techniques.

Twilio is a top provider of cloud-centric call-tracking software The company prides itself on offering simple tools and solutions to even the trickiest of conundrums through its unique call-tracking software Voice, which allows businesses to create solutions around their existing operations.

If you’d like to know more about call-tracking apps, read our guide What are the Best Call Tracking Software Apps?.

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Two-factor authentication (2FA) is an extra layer of security, requiring users to provide two different authentication factors, typically a password and then a code sent to their mobile phone. This two-factor authentication is a cyber security measure to prove your identity when you log into an account. Once you enter your username or password, you’ll then prove your identity with a fingerprint or respond to a text. Therefore, even if hackers know your password, it should be hard for them to access your online accounts.

User interface is the point at which human and computer interaction occurs. Also known as UI design, it’s the process used to build interfaces in software or on digital devices.

A UI designer will focus on creating an easy user interface that is both appealing and simple to use. UI design can include screens, buttons, toggles, icons and any other visual elements of a website, app or programme.

A uniform resource locator, known more commonly in short form as a URL, is your website’s digital address. In simple terms, it’s a mechanism your browser can use to retrieve any published resource on the internet.

This is a URL – www.prioritypixels.co.uk.

The easiest way to explain a URL is to think of it as a physical brick-and-mortar address. The scheme is the postal service you want to use, such as The Royal Mail, the domain name is a city or town and the port acts like the zip code. Furthermore, the path represents the building where your mail is delivered, the parameters are the extra information such as a flat or apartment number and, finally, the anchor is the actual person you’ve addressed your mail to.

As the name suggests, user intent is a goal or intention held by a user when using a search engine. It’s the identification of what a user intended or wanted to find online when they typed their search terms into engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.

User intent is now overtaking keywords as a dominant ranking factor for search engines and should be considered in future digital marketing strategies.

A user journey is the way in which someone navigates a website. The goal of web designers is to make this journey as interactive, interesting and simple as possible, so the user stays on the website and doesn’t decide to head somewhere else.

As a result, the user journey is often taken into consideration in the design and development of websites. Website developers will often optimise a site design for ease of use and look for ways to improve navigation.

UX, also known as user experience, is the experience of a visitor to your website. It often entails the ways in which they will interact with your site as well as navigate and engage with the different web pages.

A UX designer is tasked with creating the best, most interesting user experience possible to keep users engaged and happy. The process most often takes branding, design and functionality into account, and also be applied to products and services as well as websites, software, platforms and programmes.

Voice Search utilises speech recognition to search the internet – and it’s becoming an increasingly popular way of utilising search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Rather than typing their query into the search bar, users will literally speak into their device and use speech to find an answer rather than relying on keywords.

Only a decade ago, asking a robot or AI for directions or food delivery only existed in science fiction films but today, more and more users are turning to Siri and Alexa for recommendations. From smart speakers to smartphones, talking and asking virtual assistants for advice is now a very normal practice in households all over the world. This is because it’s more convenient, quicker and a lot easier than typing a query into Google.

Voice search has far-reaching implications for search engine optimisation. This is because voice search often differs from a text search because our questions will be phrased differently and more conversational – as if we were having a chat with our devices like we would with our family or friends. As a result, SEO specialists and marketers are having to adjust their strategies in order to reach the growing number of users who rely on voice search rather than more traditional marketing practices.

A W3C markup validation service is a tool used to check the quality of pre-HTML5 HTML and XHTML documents.

W3C markup validation services are important because they ensure that code is technically correct, compliant and up to date with current HTML specifications. It’s an important step for web developers in ensuring the technical quality of a website and its pages.

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WhatConverts provides expert lead and call tracking for marketing agencies and their clients. Their software is trusted by pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO) specialists, who use collected data to grow value for their clients.

If you’d like to know more about call-tracking, have a look at our guide What are the Best Call Tracking Software Apps?.

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The opposite of black hat SEO, white hat SEO refers to practices, SEO processes and techniques that are above board and operate within Google’s WebMaster Guidelines. It’s any practice that improves your search rankings without compromising the integrity of your website, meaning the techniques you utilise stay within the terms of service of search engines.

Examples of white hat SEO include…

• Creating high-quality, authoritative content
• Quick loading times
• Ensuring your site is responsive and can be used on multiple devices
• Using keyword-rich meta titles and descriptions
• Improving the user experience and making sure your site easy to navigate

Search engines will reward white hat practices. Although it may seem like white hat SEO takes some time to influence change, white hat SEO practices will reward your business in the long run with higher rankings, better traffic and a higher lead generation rate.

A widget is an application that allows a user to perform a specific function on your website for the purpose of improving… well, functionality. It can also The term widget can also refer to an app icon on a smartphone or other device such as a tablet.

A widget is different to a plugin, in that it is visible to a user. Examples of widgets include social media links, calendars and even event countdowns.

Adding a lot of widgets to your site will cause loading time to increase and could affect user experience, so it’s important to only use widgets that are relevant to your site and add value.

With a vow to tame inbound phone leads, WildJar helps large and small businesses alike successfully reduce the costs of customer acquisition and boost their return on investment with their powerful call tracking and analytic platform.

If you’d like to know more about call-tracking, have a look at our guide What are the Best Call Tracking Software Apps?.

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WooCommerce is a well-known, open-source e-commerce plugin which can transform a WordPress website into an online store. It’s popular with businesses and developers alike for its simple, customisable and user-friendly design.

At the backend, e-commerce businesses can enjoy easy inventory and tax management, secure payments and shipping integration which blends seamlessly with whatever content management system you’re using – inlcuding WordPress.

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WordPress is probably the most popular content management system in the world. It is a free, open-source content management system written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with your choice of MySQL or MariaDB database and supported HTTPS.

Beloved by designers, content managers and businesses alike, WordPress was first released in 2003. Primarily designed and developed with blogging in mind, online users could utilise the platform to share their content and was a popular blogging tool. Over the past twenty years, WordPress has seen unequivocal growth and is now one of the most popular and well-known content management systems available today – not that we’re biased or anything!

Arguably, the best part about WordPress is how easy it is to use. The platform is flexible enough to make any kind of website, including e-commerce stores. Other benefits include:

• Easily customised
• Pre-built themes that can be made tailored to different needs
• Plenty of plugins and widgets
• Ability to create responsive websites
• Powerful media management
• Heightened security features
• SEO capabilities
• A well-designed backend that is easy to use

Workbooks CRM unites your business operations under one single, easily-access umbrella. It gives you and your employees a full 360-degree of your customers. Built with the user experience in mind, Workbooks CRM helps to build lasting, profitable relationships with your target audience and is revered by large and small businesses alike for its cloud-centric, fully customisable and automated marketing platform.

If you’d like to know more about CRM’s read our guide The Best CRM Software for 2022.

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An XML file is a common type of sitemap and is essentially a list of your website’s URLs. Acting as a kind of roadmap of your website, an XML file essentially points search engines such as Google and Bing to the most important pages on your website. XML files are especially useful for large websites that may have archives or use lots of media-rich content such as videos and images – having an XML file means search engine algorithms will be able to crawl your site more efficiently.

If the pages on your website are linked properly, then search engines will be able to discover your website and index it regardless of whether or not you have a sitemap. In saying that, we would recommend getting an XML sitemap. One reason for having a sitemap is for the purpose of getting your website indexed quicker, which increases the likelihood of your website getting ranked in SERPs. This is because an XML sitemap is basically a blueprint of your website and can help search engines work out its structure more quickly.

Yoast SEO is an SEO plugin for WordPress and one of the most popular plugins for search engine optimisation. It highlights where a web page can be further optimised and is especially useful when writing blog content.

Yoast SEO is particularly popular amongst marketeers, and can helps content managers and developers alike ensure a site is optimised whilst creating and editing behind the scenes.

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YSlow is an open-source extension that sits inside common web browsers to analyse web pages and provide a rating on their speed. It provides suggestions and feedback on where time and performance savings can be made to improve page load times.

Features of YSlow include:

• The ability to grade web pages based on predefined rulesets or user-defined rulesets
• Performance analysis and suggestions for improving the performance of a page
• A summary of the components of a webpage and any relevant statistics

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Zendesk is a CRM platform. Built specifically to boost sales and improve customer interactions and relationships, Zendesk makes it easier than ever to organise and prioritise leads. The platform is fully automated, and essentially eliminates the hassle of time-consuming admin work by unifying your workspaces and existing platforms into one easily accessed interface.

If you’d like to know more, have a look at our guide The Best CRM Software for 2022.

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Zoho CRM is the gold standard for customer relationship software. Their CRM (customer relationship management) platform aims to connect businesses with their customers and target audience – wherever they are. Fully automated and packed full of innovative features, the Zoho CRM platform gives businesses access to real-time reports and insights for the purpose of implementing data-driven, customer-centric strategies.

If you’d like to know more about CRM’s, read our guide The Best CRM Software for 2022.

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