If you own your own business, chances are you’ve been told of the importance of online marketing. You’ve probably even been contacted by companies who promise to help you get conversions, improve your search ranking, and manage your Adwords campaigns.

But do you know what any of that actually means? If the answer is no, don’t worry. It’s not rocket science! In fact, many of the basic strategies and terms associated with online marketing are quite simple once you know what they are and what they mean.

That’s why we’ve compiled a list of 15 popular marketing terms to know to help you understand the field a bit more and improve on your marketing efforts:

AdWords

Adwords is the search and display pay per click program created and administered by Google. We generally recommend small to medium-size business owners start with an Adwords budget of at least $300 per month.

Backlink

A link to your website from another website. Google treats backlinks as a high priority in search results because backlinks show the content on your site is authoritative and useful.

Blog

The blog, or weblog, is the heart of content marketing. Blogs allow the owner of a website to add fresh new content to their site on a regular basis. Organic Google search results give preference to sites that regularly add new content. Small to medium-sized business owners should consider blogging to be a top priority in their online marketing efforts. Topics should be relevant to the specific industry and blogs should be at least 300 words in length and fairly free of errors. Just one new blog added to your site monthly will provide 12 new pages to your site each year.

Conversions

Conversions are the percentage of website visitors or those that interact with an advertisement who complete a pre-set action such as filling out an online contact form, calling your business or making a purchase. Conversions are measured against the number of people who actually click on the page or ad.

Directory

Directories are online indexes of websites often categorized by specific industry. Completed and accurate directory listings are an important part of digital marketing because they will aid with local organic search rankings and often provide valuable backlinks to your site.

Keywords

Keywords are the words or terms that web users input into search engines while looking for content. It is essential that your website content and titles use accurate keywords that generally match how users will find you.

Landing Page

Individual web pages on your site where users will “land” when clicking on an online ad or other related links off your site. Landing pages are often used to convert users to potential business leads.

Mobile Friendly Design

Mobile friendly websites are websites that are easily displayed and read on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Search engines like Google and Bing place a heavy emphasis on delivery search results based on the mobile friendliness of your site. Sites without mobile friendly design will not show up as often and as high in search results as competing sites with mobile friendly design.

Organic Search Results

Search engines such as Google and Bing return organic search results when users search specific terms. Organic (or unpaid) results are based on dozens of factors, including the age of the website, worthiness of the content, closely matched keywords and whether your site is mobile friendly.

Pay-Per-Click

Pay per click, or PPC, is a type of paid search engine marketing that places ads for your business at the top or bottom of organic search results in all the major search engines. PPC advertisers pay for their ads based on the number of users who click on their ads.  

Rankings

Ranking is the position your website content is found in organic search results based on specific keywords. Keyword rankings often change from week to week or even day to day based on a number of factors.

Responsive website design  

Responsive web design is creating web pages that respond to the type and size of display it’s being viewed on. For the best organic search results, websites should respond and display correctly on the largest of monitors to the smallest of smartphones.

SEO

Search-Engine Optimization, or  SEO, is the process used in the development of websites that analyzes the content, technical design, and configuration of the site to provide the very best in search engine positioning. SEO strong website rank better in search engines.

Social Media

Social media refers to websites or mobile apps that allow users to generate and share content such as photos, videos and blogs within their social networks. The most common social media channels today include Facebook, Google +, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Social media is key for promoting your business, as it shows you have a strong online presence and are active. It’s also a good way for you to connect with customers and potential clients.

WordPress

WordPress is an online website creation platform with a powerful content management system that is easy to use for even the most novice of website user. Idea Marketing Group builds all of our websites on the WordPress Platform.

Now that you have a better understanding of online marketing, it’s time to put that knowledge into action! If your business doesn’t already have a website, that’s the first place to start. It doesn’t have to be fancy or elaborate, but an optimized and responsive website is key to marketing your business and growing your brand.

As a web design agency, we have years of experiencing building custom WordPress website for companies in a variety of industries. Explore our portfolio to see examples of sites we’ve built for clients nationwide.

If you’re not quite sure where to start with marketing, we can help with that as well! Check out our monthly marketing packages to learn how our team can help you grow your business with social media management, personalized blogs, landing pages, SEO optimization, and Google AdWords management.