Digital glossary

A permanent redirection from an old URL to a new URL. This is a common method of redirecting pre-existing traffic to a website when the website is redesigned or a web page and its URL are updated.

An error message when a URL cannot be found. If you remove a page completely from a website, you, or a developer, add a 404 redirect to indicate that the page no longer exists.

An experiment using two different variants. The result can be used for communication optimisation.
A/B testing can be both visual and content-based but other factors such as time can also provide the differentiation. The testing can be done both on the website, for ads, the newsletter, ...

Placement on a website cut off above the bottom of the screen. Often, companies place forms, videos or the most relevant information for that page above the fold, so it is the first thing a user sees - no scrolling is necessary.

Acquisition is actively leading the target group towards your product, service, website, event,... Acquisition is situated in the consideration phase of your marketing funnel and usually follows on from awareness, which means that for acquisition, you often target an audience that already knows your product, or service.
Often mentioned in the same breath as lead acquisition.

A paid method of communicating with a potential customer through various media, including mail, e-mail, internet, telephone or print. In digital marketing, this often includes display ads and search, which present information using text and images to get a user to click through to the corresponding web page.

This happens when users are exposed to the same ad too much and it results in fewer clicks and conversions. Often used in Facebook, advertisers will use this as a benchmark to determine when to update ad creation to stay relevant and give users a positive ad experience.

In a pay-per-click account, these are the subcategories that contain ads targeting a group of keywords. These are often broken down into different 'themes' that make up a campaign.

The 'formula' that search engines use to determine which results are shown after a search. There are more than 500 factors included in the algorithm, some already more important than others.

The text added as a description to images and photos. Not visible to most visitors but very relevant to (the screen readers of) visually impaired people as well as search engines.
The perfect alt tag is the most accurate possible description of what the image shows, contains keywords and is 90 to 100 characters long.

Application Programming Interface is a software interface on the basis of which a computer programme, app, database or process can communicate with another programme or component. In this way, services, processes, content or data can be securely shared with external parties.

Determine which contact point of the marketing process is responsible for conversion. Often in advertising, multiple methods are needed to reach a customer before he converts or makes a purchase. Attribution allows one or more methods to "get credit" for the conversion.

The target audience you should focus your ads on to try to convert. The target audience can vary depending on the marketing channel, content, product, service, etc. It is also common for an advertiser to have multiple audiences.

A complete look at how a website is performing. Often for SEO purposes, this gives the company an in-depth look at all aspects of their website, and tells them where they can improve for a more optimised website.

The score that search engines give to a website. It shows how valuable and important the website is seen by the search engines.
Lots of (unique) content, numerous visitors, a large number of (good and relevant) links, a clear site structure, these are all factors that help determine the score.
Depending on the tool used, terms such as Trust flow, Page authority, Domain authority or Domain rating are handled.

Awareness is the extent to which a brand, product or service is known to the consumer or target audience. 'Awareness' is aimed at creating awareness and reaching many people.

This is the part 'behind' the website. The part you use to manage the website. In the backend, all information is entered that is visible to the website visitor in the frontend.

A backlink is a link on another website that points to your website. By doing so, the other website indicates that your website is of interest. The referring website is also called 'Referring Domain'.
When a website with a bad reputation (spam, fraud, duplicate,...) links to your website, that also becomes a toxic link named.

The price a marketer pays to display their ad. Used in pay-per-click advertising, this often refers to keyword bidding, and the amount an advertiser puts on a keyword so that Google takes it into account in its algorithm.

A website or web page that consists of personal or informative posts, often in chronological order, to reach an audience interested in that topic. Digital marketers often use or recommend blog posts or pages to enhance a company's content strategy by putting more information about that industry on the web.

A bot, also called a 'Googlebot' or 'Spider', is a web crawler that discovers new or updated web pages or websites. When a user enters a query into a search engine, Google's bot will search the internet to find the most relevant results for the user's query.

A term used to describe the percentage of users who leave after viewing just one page of a website, rather than clicking on links or navigating to other pages. This helps determine user interest and can serve as a metric to help companies decide which aspects of their website to optimise.

Branded content or branded story is content that is informative, inspiring or entertaining for the reader/viewer but at the same time is clearly from a brand or company. It is sometimes seen as a form of advertisement where the message is more important than the commercial intent.

Breadcrumbs consist of links and references from the current page and parent categories to the homepage.Through breadcrumbs, a visitor (and a search engine) can navigate a site more smoothly and has a better sense of the structure and hierarchy within a site.

Broken links are links on your website that do not work. This can occur because the link was entered incorrectly or because the page does not exist (anymore). Broken links have a negative impact on SEO.

A call to action urges a visitor to take a certain action. This can be either textual (call-to-action) or visual (button to click) or combined.

A tag added in the website's code. This tag tells a search engine what the primary or original URL of a page is. This allows a search engine to know which page to index if there are multiple pages with similar content. It also ensures that a search engine can immediately display the correct language for a multilingual website.

CSS is the layout code that determines how the website looks in terms of font, text size, colour, spacing,...
CSS specifies what the HTML code used to build the website will look like.

The channel an advertiser chooses to target its audience. Common marketing channels are Google, Email, Social Media, Organic, or Paid.Clicks or Ad Click

Click-through rate. The ratio of the number of times people click on a search result, ad or link to the number of times a search result, ad or link was displayed.

In Digital Marketing, code is a collection of programming instructions that form a website or instruct a web page how to perform. There are many different types of code; for example, a site can be built on JavaScript, HTML or XML.

The CMS is the tool used to manage content on a website. The CMS is used to add content (text, images, videos audio or embedded content) to the site.
When volta develops its own website, there is a preference to work with Drupal or WebFlow.

In a content planning, you create an overview of what communication will be shared where and when. Additional information such as target audience, message, content, costs, or the person responsible can be added.

The plan by which you determine what information you share with your target audience where, when and how to achieve a certain goal.

The action in which a user completes a desired action of an advertisement. This can be any action, such as downloading a pdf, filling out a form, making a purchase, clicking on an ad, or calling a company. In paid advertising, conversions help a company see how well their advertising is doing, and whether users are interacting with them.

A small digital file stored on the back of a user's computer after visiting a site. This can remain on a computer permanently or temporarily. Users can clear their cookies, or clear cache, to delete temporarily stored cookies from the website. Cookies can be used by a company to learn more about their customers, how they interact with their website, and to re-engage with them based on their interests.

The text that accompanies an advertisement. Copy can also be referred to as the main content on the pages of a website, but when we talk about ad copy, it usually refers to the headlines and description that accompany the ad.

Core Web Vitals are a number of factors that Google uses to measure the user experience (UX) on a website.
The Core Web Vitals include
- Largest Contentful Paint (CLP) = The time taken to display the largest element on the web page.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) = The stability of your page during loading. Elements that move during loading affect the CLS.
- First Input Delay (FID) = The time it takes a visitor to interact on your website: from initial click to browser response.

Term summarising how much you pay when someone clicks on your ad. CPC is also commonly used to denote paid website traffic (via Google Ads or social media advertising, for example).

Or also called cost per conversion, is the amount a company or advertiser spends on one conversion of an ad. If a company spends $500 and it has 20 conversions, their cost per acquisition ($500/20) is $25.

The amount a company or advertiser pays per click on their ad. If a company spends $500 on advertising and they have 200 clicks on their ads, their cost per click ($500/200) is $2.50.

The amount a company or advertiser pays per lead from an advertisement. If they spend $ 500 on advertising and they have 100 leads, their cost per lead ($ 500/100) is $ 5.00.

The amount a company or advertiser pays per 1,000 impressions of an ad. If a company spends $1,000 on advertising and it has 4,000 impressions, the cost per thousand(($1,000/4,000)x1,000) is $250.

Crawling is the process by which a search engine gathers the content of your website. To do this, the search engine uses robots that index the website and interpret it as much as possible. Through web pages such as robots.txt and sitemap.xml, the robot more easily understands the website structure.

A place to see all key metrics at a glance. Usually used in Google Analytics, this workspace allows an advertiser to track the key metrics for their business over a period of time and determine how users are interacting with their website.

A word or phrase used in marketing to move the audience to an action. Well-known examples of popular calls to action include "Buy now", "Contact us", "Call today", "Download here", "More information", etc.

A feature in Google AdWords that allows an advertiser to customise their ads based on what their users search for. To enable this feature, a small, special piece of code is placed in the ad text that tells a search engine when a customer uses one of their keywords, or to replace the code with the keyword that triggered their ad.

The measure of how powerful a domain name is, and how it ranks in a search engine. Domain authority is based on three main factors: age, popularity and size.

A system that provides advertisers with the technology to buy ad space through a real-time bidding auction. Essentially, if you want to promote a display ad, you can use a DSP to get your ad onto a third-party website. When a user reaches that website, the DSP technology analyses the user's demographics, interests and hobbies (all collected through the cookies on their computer), compares it with the advertiser's bids, and makes a real-time decision on who wins that ad placement. The DSP algorithm combines ad relevance and interest with the bidding strategy to determine which advertiser comes out on top.

An audience list used specifically for email marketing. An e-mail list can be created in various ways, whether it is opt-in or content subscription (a customer asks to be on the list), gated content (a user must enter their e-mail to download or receive content), or when a user becomes a customer by completing a purchase and including their e-mail in their information.

A form of content marketing sent specifically via e-mail. Email marketing can be used to distribute content, sales promotions or services, or to develop relationships with potential customers.

The favicon is the little image you see in your browser's tab next to the name of the website.

The number of times an ad impresses one person. Often, advertisers will limit the frequency of an ad so that a user does not experience ad fatigue by seeing the same ad too many times, and develop a negative connotation with that advertiser.

The frontend is the 'front end' of your website, the piece that visitors see. Adding or modifying content is done in the backend.

File Transfer Protocol is the method that allows files to be sent from a computer to a server and vice versa.

A platform in Google that tracks and measures various statistics of a website to show an advertiser or business how a user interacts with their website, and how their website performs as a whole.

Google's pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform. AdWords allows you to build, manage and optimise campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords within one account.

Formerly called Google Webmaster Tools, it is a service for webmasters to monitor, maintain and optimise their web presence. Common areas of focus in GSC are site indexing, site traffic and crawl errors.

A platform in Google that manages all tags for a website in one place, allowing the advertiser to easily change, update or add new tags or code snippets to their site without having to go to the website backend.

The title of a page, also called Header tag or H1 tag in HTML, stands out among the rest of the text on a page. Other header tags in HTML are h2, h3, h4 and so on. This represents the hierarchy of titles and subtitles on a page. Google uses these tags when they crawl the back end of a site to get an idea of what that page is about.

Header can have two meanings.

• It is the fixed top of a website. (as placed at the bottom of the footer)
• It is also an HTML encoding that distinguishes between the different headings and sub-headings on a web page. We then talk about H1, H2, H3, ...

The heatmap is a visual representation of what visitors do on the website, what they look at, what they click on. It shows the 'busy' places of the site. One of the most well-known heatmap tools is Hotjar.

Hosting is making web space available on a server. This is where you can store files that make up your website. The server ensures that your website is always available to visitors. So you need hosting if you want a website.
Hosting keeps your website active and visitable, as well as secure through updates.

Hreflang is a piece of HTML code that helps search engines recognise the different language versions of a page. This way, Google immediately directs a visitor to the 'correct' language.

A coding language used to create a website. The letters, symbols and numbers in a text file determine how a website looks and performs.

The number of times an ad is seen by a potential customer. This can be through the results page of a search engine or through display advertising, and a user does not have to interact with the ad to consider it an impression. This is a common metric tracked in pay-per-click campaigns.

Similar to a 'backlink' is a link that directs users to a website from a separate site or a third-party site. Having a large number of inbound links is very beneficial to a website's SEO and domain authority, as it essentially strengthens - or endorses - that website.

With inbound marketing, you attract customers by answering their questions and needs. You offer them the information or experience they are looking for. It is the opposite of outbound marketing,where you 'interrupt' your target audience with content they are not always waiting for.

Collecting and capturing all pages on a given website. This is a common feature of Google Search Console, where Google crawls a website to index all current pages, add new or updated pages and remove deleted pages.

A programming language mainly used in web productions, impersonating animation or motion. Using JavaScript on a website or page makes certain parts interactive, such as the search bar, a video or a live feed.

The most important, measurable variables for the performance of an action, an objective, a campaign or a company are called KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). KPIs provide targets for teams, as well as milestones to measure progress and insights that help the organisation make better decisions.

In Search Engine Optimisation, it is a word or series of words that help form a site's metadata and describe what is on a web page. When used correctly, a keyword should help users find a web page based on their search terms.

Keyword density is the ratio between the total number of words of a web text and the number of times a keyword is mentioned in it.
In the past, people stuck a guide number on this (which sometimes made texts look artificial), but nowadays it is more important to keep the text 'natural' (natural language).

The practice of researching which terms or phrases people often search for. Provided it is done properly, keyword research can help companies rank higher for their target terms.

Anchor text is the text behind which there is a link. It is often 'click here', 'read more' or 'more info'. With Keyword Rich Anchor Text, the link is behind a keyword you want to rank for. This has enormous added value for internal links, while the algorithm just penalises it for external links (because otherwise agreements can be made between websites, to score better on keywords).

The practice of stuffing a page with keywords or phrases in an attempt to manipulate the site's SEO ranking. These keywords often appear out of context or, in some cases, are irrelevant to the page itself. While this used to be a common SEO practice for some companies, Google has since discouraged this practice by lowering SEO scores if caught.

A measurable value set by a company to indicate how well an account is performing and used to evaluate success.

Landing pages are pages on a website aimed at prompting visitors to take a particular action. The page contains text, specific information and targeted CTAs. Visitors usually land on it after a specific search, by clicking on an advertisement or via a link on social media.

It is important that the content of your website (text, images, videos, links...) is clearly linked to the theme of your website and thus provides the right connotation.

A lead is a company or person interested in purchasing a product or service. There has already been an initial point of contact but the company or person has not yet made a purchase.

Lead generation is generating interest among potential customers. In many cases, this involves collecting data so that the potential customer can be approached further.

Actively gathering relevant links from other websites to your website. Link building is a method to rank better for important keywords in search engines, as long as these are not Keyword Rich Anchor Text links, or toxic links.

Longer and more specific searches with multiple defining terms in such as 'creative communication agency in Antwerp'. These types of searches have a lower search volume but a higher conversion rate.

In Facebook, this feature allows an Account Manager to upload an existing customer or subscriber list to Facebook, allowing Facebook to find those existing user profiles and then find other profiles that are similar in demographics, hobbies, interests and occupation, creating a whole new audience for the marketer. This allows a marketer to reach a brand new audience that, because they are similar to existing customers, will most likely be interested in their product.MMarketing Automation

Also calledThin Content (Pages). These are pages with little depth of content and consequently little content value for the user (and for search engines). Examples of Low Content Pages are overview pages, duplicates, copied content from other sites, referral pages,...

Also called description tag. This is the short description of what is on a web page. This text can be seen below the title on the search results page in the search engine. The metadescription has no impact on the SEO score, but all the more on the Click Through Rate (CTR).Google displays the first 150 characters of the metadescription in the search results.

A tag in the HTML of a web page that consists of keywords and phrases that give a brief summary of what the page is about. If properly optimised for SEO, search engines will scan this part of the site to see if that page is relevant to a user's search query. This tag is also limited to ~160 characters.

Software or tool that helps automate marketing processes or actions. It is often used for email marketing, social media, or other tasks that require repetition. Examples of marketing automation software include HubSpot, MailChimp, Marketo and ActiveCampaign.

More and more people are visiting websites via their smartphones. A website is mobile-friendly when it is optimised for mobile devices by means of fast loading time, reduced-size images and smoothly functioning functionalities. When web design develops the website for mobile devices and then for laptop or desktop, we talk about mobile first. A website created for mobile devices only is mobile only.

An online search performed from a mobile device, such as a smartphone. As we saw in 2017, mobile search is starting to dominate the search space, surpassing desktop searches.

In Google Analytics, this is the category of people visiting a site for the very first time. It is common for an account manager to track the number of sessions to a new user's website, so they can see how many new potential customers visit their site.

A value that can be assigned to a rel attribute to tell a search engine that the outgoing hyperlink should not affect the ranking of the link target in a search engine index. This allows a site to link to another site without that site ranking better.

This gives an advertiser control over how information from a website is passed on to social media. For example, a company can set the image, title and description it wants to show on Facebook when someone posts that website's domain on Facebook.

With opt-in, a user explicitly chooses to receive information from an organisation or company. This requires the user to perform an effective action such as ticking an option. A verified opt-in is when the opt-in is verified via an e-mail.
Opt-out requires the user to explicitly confirm that he or she does not wish to receive information. Current GDPR rules no longer allow opt-out.

Users who come to a website of their own accord via a search engine, such as Google or Bing. Unlike paid traffic, these users come to a website without prompting and without being influenced by ads. This is a common metric that business owners strive to increase.

This is how we call unpaid search results, visitors or conversions that get there because the content is seen as relevant or interesting. Organic search results and website traffic is the goal of SEO, making it the counterpart of paid, paid search or cpc (cost per click).

A link coming from your website that allows the customer to leave your website and go to another domain. These are often associated with a NoFollow that removes the inbound link for the other website (See NoFollow).

The number of users who come to a web page through a paid advertisement, usually through a PPC channel such as Google AdWords or Facebook Advertising.

By this we mean the fictional description of a type of customer. When defining target groups, these types of customers are often grouped together in personas.
This combines demographic and social characteristics, personal attributes and goals, challenges and frustrations of a customer. This allows you to target different types of audiences appropriately.

The benefit that a particular investment provides relative to its cost. In technical terms, the formula is (profit cost) divided by cost, but it can be based on a number of metrics. For example, a company's ROI in digital marketing could include the cost of the investment alongside leads and conversions as part of the equation.

A form of marketing that targets users' search engine results in the form of relevant ads and results.

Incorporating factors such as keywords, good copy and backlinks to generate traffic and influence a site's visibility organically. This is done by optimising the content of a web page and increasing its relevance for certain keywords. By doing this, the website is more likely to be shown when a user searches for the targeted keywords.

The list a user gets after typing a query into a search engine. It can be a mix of ads and organic search results.

A software or platform that searches the Internet based on user queries. The search engine then presents the information found in the form of a res.

It is a bot that helps search engines index websites. This allows users to find relevant search results more efficiently.

Through storytelling, you create extra engagement for your brand or product. You present your message as a credible story that is relevant to your target group. This creates a connection, because your target group understands and remembers your information better, creating an emotional connection.

Also called web address, is usually displayed in the address bar of a browser and used to specify and identify a location on the World Wide Web.

A UTM code, a feature that can be managed within Google Analytics, is a small addition of text at the end of a web URL that allows businesses to track their web traffic. UTMs can be integrated with posts on social media, emails and even other web pages to give businesses an idea of what efforts are driving traffic back to their website.

The value proposition is the promise a company or product makes to its customers about the benefit, utility, operation or importance of the product or service. It specifies what makes the product or service attractive, why the customer should buy it and how the product differs from similar products or services.

A single page that lives on a domain within a website on the World Wide Web. It is a document written with HTML and displays data that is usually accessible to everyone.

An address on the Internet consisting of a collection of web pages linked together to host information and data.

A free and open-source content management system that allows companies to integrate plugins, themes and other services into an already existing website. Companies often use it because of its ability to manage and create content.

A tool that allows search engines to better search a website. It is useful for companies with large sites or with a significant number of web pages that are not connected. A sitemap helps organise this data so that it can be properly catalogued by a search engine.

As a web optimisation company, they offer advanced WordPress plugins and services to help the functionality of users' websites. This includes keyword and SEO analysis, Google integrations, and XML sitemap integrations.

A video hosting website and marketing platform that uses Google Adsense to help businesses target ads. Because of YouTube's diverse audience, it is often a good choice for marketers looking to improve their SEO.Still got a term you're not quite sure about? Contact us and we'll be happy to help!