In our final Getting Started Guide, wanted to collect some of the key website related terms, you might come across as a marketer. Make sure you save this guide, then you’ll be able to ask all the right questions in pitches or during projects if anything comes up that you’re not sure about.
Let us know if anything is unclear, or if you have further questions.
We’d love to hear from you.
A
Accessibility
Accessibility is all about making a website compliant with standards for people with disabilities, whether that’s hard of hearing, visually impaired, or other conditions.
AI
Artificial intelligence, where computers try to emulate humans. The buzz over the recent years has been around Generative AI - this is AI that's been trained on massive datasets to generate new content/outputs. AI will change all jobs and online systems in the coming years.
Alt tags / Alt Text
Alt tags are used to describe the appearance and function of an image on a page. This is used for screen readers, if an image cannot be loaded and for SEO purposes.
API
An API (Application Programming Interface) is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other.
Angular.js
AngularJS is a JavaScript-based open-source front-end web framework; it extends HTML with new attributes.
B
Browser
A browser is a software application used to locate, retrieve and display content on the web.
Brute force attack
A brute force attack is an attempt to crack a password, username or find a hidden web page using a trial and error approach. Attackers let a computer do the work – hoping that the find one that works.
Botnet
A botnet is a network of computers that have been intentionally infected with malware by cybercriminals. Botnets can be used to perform DDoS attacks, steal data, send spam, and allow the attacker to access the device and its connection.
C
Cache
A cache is a hardware or software component that stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster.
CDN
A CDN (content delivery network) refers to a geographically distributed group of servers which work together. The goal is to provide fast delivery of Internet content.
CMS
CMS stands for “Content Management System”. This is a collection of database(s), software and tools to manage website content and generate a functioning website for your users. Common CMS platforms include Wordpress, Umbraco, Episerver, Kentico and Sitecore.
CMYK
CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow Black) are the four basic colours used for printing colour images. CMYK colours are "subtractive", meaning the colours get darker as you blend them together.
Cookies
A cookie is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored on the user's computer by the user's web browser while the user is browsing.
CRO
Conversion Rate Optimisation - a process that increases the ROI of your website. This could be by increasing the percentage of visitors to a website that convert into paying customers, or by driving data-capture and more overall lead generation.
CSS
CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) is a style sheet language that is used to format the layout of Web pages. Without CSS, Web pages would just be plain text.
Cross-domain tracking
Cross Domain Tracking makes it possible for Google Analytics to connect sessions on two related sites and make it a single session.
Cross site scripting attack
Cross site scripting (XSS) is a common attack that injects malicious code into a vulnerable web application. This is slightly different to other web attacks because the users of the web application are the ones at risk, not the application itself.
D
DNS
Domain Name Servers (DNS) are the Internet's equivalent of a phone book. They maintain a directory of domain names and translate them to IP addresses.
Domain name
Domain names are used to identify one or more IP addresses This is the address where users can access the website.
DDoS attack
A DDoS attack (distributed denial-of-service) will attempt to make an online service or website unavailable by flooding it with unwanted traffic from multiple computers.
DPI
DPI (dots per inch) is the number of printed dots there is in an inch of your printed document. The larger the DPI, the larger the number of dots and therefore the clearer the print.
E
Encryption
Encryption is a process that encodes a message or file so that it can be only be read by certain people. An example of this is where you see https:// in a browser address bar – this means the data is being encrypted between the user’s device and the web server.
F
Focal point
A focal point is the part of an image that draws the eye of a visitor to the most important part of the image. In most CMS’s you can set the focal point of images for different crops. Meaning that the most important part of the image is always visible regardless of the device.
Framework
A framework is a collection of programs which you can use to develop your own applications. A framework guides you on how to do something, it is like the skeleton of an application.
Frontend
The guest-facing part of a website's code, i.e. the code that actually creates and formats the page for the browser to render to your users.
G
GIT
Git is a tool to manage code. It keeps track of changes and history so that it’s easy to see what was done historically in a project. You may come across Github, which is a website that can host Git projects.
Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tool that allows you manage and deploy marketing tags (snippets of code or tracking pixels) on your website without having to modify the code.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is another free tool that helps you monitor and troubleshoot your website's appearance in their search results. It is also used to find and fix technical errors, submit sitemaps, see backlinks, and more.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. It is used to track website activity such as page views, session duration, pages per session etc.
H
H1, H2, H3 etc (one entry to cover them all)
Heading tags that are used by Google to section out your website into relevant parts. H1s are primary headings, then h2s, h3s, h4s etc are used for subtitles within sections.
HTML
HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) is a mark-up language for creating a Web page. HTML describes the structure; the CSS defines the styles.
J
Javascript
JavaScript is a text-based programming language that allows you to make web pages interactive.
JPEG
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) is a standard image format for containing lossy and compressed image data.
jQuery
jQuery is a lightweight, "write less, do more", JavaScript library. The purpose of jQuery is to make it much easier to use JavaScript on your website.
M
Meta
Tags used to aid Google in helping find a website matching a search result or search pattern.
Mobile first
Mobile first means designing a website for mobile before designing it for the desktop. In the past, the focus was on the desktop and mobile design was an afterthought.
Minification
Minification is the process of minimizing code and mark-up in your web pages and script files. Minification dramatically improves site speed and accessibility.
O
Organic listings
The natural or unpaid listing of a search result
OWASP Top Ten
The OWASP Top 10 is a standard awareness document for developers and web application security. It represents the most critical security risks.
Opengraph
Open graph meta tags allow you to control what content shows up when a page is shared on Facebook or Twitter. This includes the title, description and image.
P
Patch
A patch is a set of changes to a computer program to update, fix, or improve it. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and bugs.
Phishing attack
Phishing is a cyber-attack that uses disguised email as a weapon. The goal is to trick the email recipient into believing that the message is something they want or need — a request from their bank for an example.
Pentest (penetration test)
An authorized simulated cyberattack on a computer system, performed to evaluate the security of the system.
PNG
A PNG (Portable Network Graphic) contains a bitmap compressed with lossless compression. PNG files are commonly used to store web graphics and images with transparent backgrounds.
PPC
Buying ad space on a search engine so that your result displays higher than others. Think of it as Internet advertising. You pay every time a user clicks on your website.
Prompt
Prompts and prompt engineering is going to become increasingly important - it's how we'll be interacting with AI tools so learning how to create prompts to output what you need will be an important skill
Q
QA testing
QA (quality assurance) testing is the process of ensuring that your product is of the highest possible quality for your customers. It is used to prevent issues with your service or product and to ensure great experience for your users.
R
Reading Age
A way to test the readability of your work. Understanding your audience and their readability expectations are one of the most important parts of writing.
React.js
React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It is maintained by Facebook and a community of individual developers and companies.
Redirects
A way of sending traffic elsewhere on a website - you might have heard of 301 redirects. These are permanent, and a way to tell search engines that a page location has moved forever… so tread carefully :-)
Repository
a repository is a central file storage location. It is used by version control systems to store multiple versions of files
Responsive
A website built for many different devices, platforms and screen widths. Responsive layouts automatically adjust and adapt to any device screen size.
RGB
RGB (red, green, and blue) refers to a system for representing the colours to be used on a computer display.
S
Schema tags
Schema is a form of microdata. Schema mark-up creates an enhanced description, which appears in search results.
Semantic mark-up
A semantic element clearly describes its meaning to both the browser and the developer. Semantic HTML is processed by traditional web browsers as well as by many other user agents.
Search Rankings
An assessment Google makes on a website based on a variety of unknown factors.
SEO
The process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic through on-site and off-site means.
SERP’s
Search Engine Result Page’, any page of Google or Bing.
SSL
SSL stands for "secure sockets layer" and is a form of security for sites that handle sensitive information.
SVG
SVG is a vector graphic format—based on XML. SVG documents are nothing more than simple plain text files that describe lines, curves, shapes, colours, and text.
SQL injection attack
SQL injection is a web security vulnerability that allows an attacker to interfere with the queries that an application makes to its database. A successful attach could result in unauthorized access to personal user information.
T
TTFB
TTFB (time to first byte), is the amount of time it takes from when a client makes a HTTP request to it receiving its first byte of data from the web server.
Traffic manager
Traffic Manager is a DNS-based traffic load balancer that enables you to distribute traffic optimally to services across global regions.
U
URL
A uniform resource locator (URL) is the address of a resource on the Internet
User acceptance testing
UAT (User Acceptance Testing) is a process of verifying that a solution works for the user. UAT is one of the final and most critical phases that must occur before a newly developed website is rolled out to the web.
User testing
User testing is the process through which the interface and functions of a website is tested by real users who perform specific tasks in realistic conditions.
Usability
Web usability of a website are broad goals of usability and presentation of information and choices in a clear and concise way.
UX
User experience (UX) focuses on having a deep understanding of users, what they need, what they value, their abilities, and their limitations.
UI
The user interface, is the industrial design field of human-computer interaction, is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur.
Umbraco
A popular free open-source CMS. We’ve used it to build complex sites used throughout the world. It’s scalable and adaptable, so we find it can keep pace with clients’ marketing needs. Other open-source CMS’s include Magento and Joomla.
V
Vue.js
Vue.js is an open source progressive JavaScript framework for building web interfaces.
W
Webapp
A Webapp is a HTTP-based service for hosting web applications.
Wireframe
A simple sketch of wire-like drawings which show a rough outline of how a piece of design will work together
Wordpress
A popular CMS for blogs, generally best-suited to smaller, simple websites.
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301 redirect
301 redirects send visitors and search engines to a different URL than the one that they originally searched for. These redirects are permanent.
302 redirect
302 redirects temporarily send visitors and search engines to a different URL; this is until the redirect is removed.
500 error
A 500 error indicates that the server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request.
404 error
A 404 error indicates that the server itself was found, but that the server was not able to retrieve the requested page. This is often
