Glossary of Web Terminology

Reasonably plain English explanations of some of the jargon.

accessibility

On the web, "accessibility" refers to the extent to which information can be reached and used by everyone, including people with disabilities. See Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

blog

Short for "web log". Your business website can include a blog, or you can have one as a stand-alone website.

browser

If you are reading this, you are using a browser. It’s the software that enables you to find and use web pages. Examples are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari.

content

The information that your website contains. Your website content can be in various formats such as text, images, downloadable files, video files and audio files.

content inventory

A document that lists and describes your website’s content. A typical use for a content inventory is to help you plan the migration of content from your old website to your new one.

content management system (CMS)

A system that enables people without specialist technical skills to add, edit or delete website content. When a site has a content management system, its content is in a database rather than "hard coded" into its pages.

conversion rate

The ratio of enquiries, sales or other specified actions to the total number of unique visitors to your website.

design

There is more than one type of design. In everyday use it generally refers to visual design, which you might call the "look and feel" of your website. Web industry people also use it other contexts such as interaction design, user experience (UX) design, usability, information architecture, and database design.

domain name

The part of your website’s address (URL) that comes after "www", up to and including the extensions for the type of organisation and country.

downloadable file

A file that you can download (i.e. transfer from a server) from a website. You would typically use downloadable files for content that is too lengthy for people to read from a web page or simply more suited to paper. Examples are brochures, product specification sheets and company reports.

extranet

A "private website" that you make available to specific people, or groups, such as your customers and suppliers.

functionality

The things that you can your website can do, the activities that people can perform when they can use it.

functional specification

A planning document that describes what your website will do and how it will work. A functional specification provides web developers and designers with the information to give you a quote or proposal and choose appropriate technologies and create the site to work as you intend.

graphic

A picture, logo, icon, photograph, diagram, map, coloured shape or other visual element on your website. Commonly interchanged with “image” in everyday conversation.

headline

The phrase or sentence at the top of a web page that summarises the topic of that page.

hit

A useless and widely misunderstood website statistic. To display a complete web page, the server needs to download a number of unique electronic files such as image files. A hit is recorded for each download. If you want to increase the hits your website gets, simply add more images to it. Hits are different to other statistics such as unique visitors or page views and give you no meaningful information about your website traffic.

HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is code used to create websites. When someone visits your website, their browser “reads” its HTML and displays web pages that a human can understand.

image, image file

An electronic file that displays a picture, photo, diagram, map, animation or other visual element on a web page. Common image file formats are JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), BMP (bitmap), GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), and EPS (Encapsulated PostScript). The term is commonly interchanged with "graphic" in everyday conversation.

information architecture (IA)

The way that information on your website is organised, the structure of your website.

internet protocol address (IP address)

A unique set of numbers that identifies an individual device, such as a personal computer, server, router or printer that is connected to the Internet.

intranet

An "internal website" that is available only to staff within your organisation.

inverted pyramid

A writing technique that puts the main point first. The inverted pyramid technique works well because when people read online they tend to scan quickly, looking for key points.

keyword, key phrase

A word or phrase that is relevant to the topic of a particular web page. Keywords and key phrases are collectively known as search terms.

link, hyperlink

Text, graphic or images on a website that you can click to see another web page or another part of the same page. Links use HTML code, which your browser reads.

page rank, PageRank (PR)

PageRank™, usually simply called page rank, or PR, is a technique that Google uses to evaluate the relative importance of an individual web page.

page view

When someone looks at a page on your website, that’s a page view. Quite different to a hit, because one page view can record multiple hits.

paper prototyping

Paper prototyping uses paper sketches of web pages to design and evaluate how a website interface will work. Paper prototyping lets you try out interface design ideas with users quickly and cheaply.

pay-per-click (PPC)

A form of online advertising in which the advertiser pays when someone clicks on the advertisement.

persona

A fictitious, but representative of real life, person who uses your website. As a tool for user-centred website design a persona helps website planners to identify requirements and organise, design and test the proposed website. Also used in the management phase of the website lifecycle to provide guidance about what content and structure will help real users.

really simple syndication (RSS)

Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. A method of converting information on a website into a "feed" which can then appear on other websites or be sent in an email message.

search engine

A system that identifies and indexes website content so that people can find information that matches keywords.

search engine marketing (SEM)

Collective term for activities that aim to improve a website's visibility on search engines result pages (SERP).

search engine optimisation (SEO)

A range of techniques and activities for improving a website's position in search engine results.

search engine results page (SERP)

The page a search engine displays with results of a search query. In common use, SERP can also mean the complete listing of all results for a particular search.

search engine spider

Software that gathers information about websites for a search engine. Also called a "web spider", "web crawler" or "bot" (short for "robot" - software that automatically does repetitive tasks). The spider follows links from site to site, and page to page within a site, "reading" the content as it goes.

site map, sitemap

Literally a "map of your site". A visual representation of the structure and page hierarchy of your website. There are different ways of presenting site maps, for example you can use a spreadsheet, a word document or a diagram.

social media marketing (SMM)

A close relative of social media optimisation (SMO). Using social media as a specific marketing channel or medium. For example, creating content that people can share and talk about on social media with your aim being to attract more visitors to your website.

social media optimisation (SMO)

When you using social media tools and techniques to make your web content more visible and engage with a wider audience. For example, your website could include buttons that connect to your Facebook business page and Twitter profile and widgets that allow your website visitors to “like” and “retweet” your content.

traffic

A fairly general term that describes visitor activity on your website. In everyday conversation it usually refers to the number of visitors that your websites.

uniform resource locator (URL)

Uniform Resource Locator. The address of a file on the Internet. For example, each page on your website has a unique URL, as do downloadable files and images.

unique visitor

A single person, defined by the IP address of their computer, who visits a website during a defined period. For example, if you visit the same website three times this month using the same computer, you will be counted as one unique visitor for the month.

user-centred design (UCD)

A website design approach that puts the needs or wants of the user ahead of those of the organisation.

user experience (UX)

The quality of a user's interaction with a website, or simply what people experience when they use your website.

visual design brief

A document, or section of a document, that sets out the visual objectives of a website and gives the visual designer guidelines or instructions about brand imagery, choices of colours, graphics and other visual elements.

Web 2.0

A handy label that refers to a “second generation” of World Wide Web culture and technology, in which collaboration, sharing and participation take over from one-way communication.

web analytics

The use of web statistics to track and understand how people interact with a website after they have arrived.

web page

A set of related content organised under a unique URL on the World Wide Web. One or more web pages make up a website.

website

A set of one or more web pages.

website designer

A business or person that designs websites.

website developer

A business, or person, that builds websites. A web developer designs, writes and tests program code, and takes care of other technical aspects of creating and publishing a website. Web developers often provide a range of related services such as search engine optimisation, web content writing, and website and email hosting.

website lifecycle

The life of your website. It starts with intial preparation and proceeds through other phases that include analysis and documentation, resource selection, content creation, build, test and launch, and management.

website statistics

Data about the usage of your website.

wiki

A type of website designed to allow multiple authors to collectively create and edit and publish its content.

wireframe

A stripped-down ("low fidelity") diagrammatic representation of the content and features that will appear on a web page.