Digital marketing is full of technical jargon. But if you want to grow your business online you need to really understand the terms. It is surprising what you think you know but actually the devil is always in the detail.
Here is a guide to help you decipher some of the most commonly used terms. Once you are armed with the terminology you can start ensuring that your digital marketing will generate the visitors and leads you need to grow your business.
Digital marketing terms
- Analytics
Used in the digital marketing context this term refers to the tracking and reporting of your digital activity. Google Analytics is the most widely used service giving in depth information in real time. - Backlink
A backlink can also be call an “inbound link” or “incoming link”. They are created when one website links to another. Backlinks are important for SEO as they represent a vote of confidence from one website to another. The process of earning backlinks is know as link-building and is an essential element for improving the ranking of your website in search engines. - Business blogging
Business blogging is a marketing tactic that uses blogging to get your business more online visibility. Through a business blog you can demonstrate the expertise of your company and build trust in your brand. The key to business blogging is to blog regularly. Every time you publish a blog you create a new web page and therefore one more opportunity for your website to rank in search engines and appear for queries your customers are entering in the search engines. - Content marketing
The creation and promotion of content assets for the purpose of generating brand awareness, traffic growth, lead generation, and ultimately customers. Content assets include the content on your website, your blog post, ebooks, infographics, and on material used on your social media channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc) - Customer relationship management (CRM)
Customer relationship management is an approach for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple, to improve customer retention and ultimately drive sales growth. A CRM system that is integrated into your digital marketing is an essential business tool to deliver business growth. - Conversion rate optimisation (CRO)
In digital marketing, conversion rate optimisation is a system for increasing the percentage of visitors to a website that convert into customers. CRO is often a huge untapped opportunity for marketing teams. Just increasing your CRO by 1% has the potential to dramatically turn round the growth of your company. - Call-to-action (CTA)
A call-to-action aims to persuade a visitor to perform a certain act immediately. “Read more” and “Register Today!” are some common examples. The call-to-action is the one thing you want people to click on your page. Without a call-to-action your visitor may to forget to do what you want them to do and move on to other things. Adding more CTAs to your website will increase the number of leads generated. - Click-through rate (CTR)
The ratio of users who click a hyperlink compared to the number of total of users who viewed it. CTRs can be used to measure the success of web pages, email marketing, PPC and remarketing. - Digital marketing
Digital marketing is the umbrella term for all of your online marketing efforts, including your website, SEO, social media, email, and paid activity. - Email marketing
Business use email marketing as a way of communicating with their audiences. Email is often used to promote content, discounts and events, as well as to direct people towards the business’ website. Email marketing remains one of the most cost effective tools to generate results from your digital marketing. Email marketing has an ROI of 4,300% - Evergreen content
In digital marketing evergreen content is content that is always relevant and interesting but does not become dated. You need this type of content on your website in order to be found online by search engines. Once you have nailed this you will produce lasting results for your company. - Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing refers to the ‘full-funnel’ approach to attracting, converting, closing, and delighting customers using online content. - Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing which focuses on influential people rather than the target market as a whole. It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, and orients marketing activities around these influencers. Influencer marketing is going to continue to be a driving force for brands looking to grow their audience and improve sales through social media in 2018. - Infographic
An infographic (information graphic) is a representation of information in a graphic format designed to make the data easily understandable at a glance. It is a popular form of content marketing that can turn otherwise boring subjects into a more captivating experience. Used well infographics can really help your customers through the buying process. - Keyword
A keyword is word or phrase that your audience uses to search for relevant topics on search engines. - Landing page
Technically a landing page is any webpage that someone lands on after clicking on a online marketing call-to-action. But to get the best results from your digital marketing a landing page should be a dedicated, campaign-specific webpage that drives your visitors to complete a single marketing goal or call-to-action. - Marketing automation
Marketing automation refers to the software that exists with the goal of automating marketing actions. Automating repetitive tasks such as emails, social media, and other digital marketing activity will save time and money thus improve your bottom line. - Meta description
The meta description is the few lines of text that appear on the search engine results page. Improving your meta descriptions is one way to improve your - Online PR
Online PR is the practice of securing earned online coverage with digital publications, blogs, and other content-based websites. It’s much like traditional PR, but in the online space. - Organic traffic
This is traffic that is generated to your website which is generated by a Search Engine. Organic traffic is the best type of traffic! - Paid Traffic
Paid search is when a company bids on keywords and makes advertisements around those keywords to be displayed on search engines. These results appear separately, either on the top, bottom or right side of a search results page. Paid traffic also encompasses any form of paid advertisement that directly points to your website. - Pay per click (PPC)
A method of driving traffic to your website by paying a publisher every time your ad is clicked. One of the most common types of PPC is Google AdWords. - Remarketing
Digital remarketing is a tactic that involves showing ads to people who’ve already visited your website or used your mobile app. This strategy is a particularly cost-effective way to increase your sales conversions because you’re reaching out to customers who have already expressed interest in your products or services. - Return on investment (ROI)
The percentage of profit or avoided costs generated by an expenditure. Traditionally tracking ROI from marketing has been hard to calculate because tracing exactly which sales are the result of which marketing expenditures is very difficult. However, when you start using a marketing automation tool you will be able to see which digital marketing activities are converting your visitor into leads and ultimately into customers. Then you can concentrate on those digital marketing activities that give you the best returns. - Search engine optimisation (SEO)
The process of optimising your website to ‘rank’ higher in search engine results pages, therefore increasing the amount of organic traffic that your website receives. - Social media marketing
The practice of promoting your brand and your content on social media channels to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads for your business. - Social media monitoring
The act of proactively monitoring and tracking applicable social media activity.
Now you know the most important terms to succeed online you should start by reviewing your digital marketing strategy. Download our digital marketing checklist to help you make sure your strategy is helping your online growth.
