Glossary of New Media and Online Outreach Terminology
Filed under: Blogging, Email Advocacy and Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Services, Social Media, Social Networking |
If there is another word you’d like to see added to this list, email me at josh@thehatchergroup.com and I’ll be glad to add it.
Avatar – A small (usually about 100X100 pixels) image associated with a profile on a social media website. The avatar can be used for branding and identification, and can also have an impact on the success of the profile.
Blog – A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs. Via Wikipedia.
Blogroll – A list of external links located on the homepage of a blog, generally in the blog’s sidebar.
Bounce Rate – The percentage of web site visitors who arrive at a web site entry page, then leave without going any deeper into the site.
Broken link – When a web page has been moved or no longer exits, or if the server is down and an Internet link cannot find the desired page, it is referred to as a dead link. Dead links on your site can negatively impact your performance on search engines.
Click-Through Rate (CTR) – The percentage of clicks compared to the number of emails opened. Ex: 4,350 clicks from 82,000 opens = 5.3% CTR.
Conversion – The act of converting a web site visitor into a customer or at least taking that visitor a step closer to customer acquisition.
Cross linking – Where two websites provide links to each other, also called link trading or reciprocal linking.
Cross-Post – An article or blog post can be cross-posted on another blog, generally linking back to the source.
Digg/Slashdot Effect – The Slashdot effect, also known as the Digg effect, is the phenomenon of a popular website linking to a smaller site, causing the smaller site to slow down or even temporarily close due to the increased traffic.
Email Blast – An email sent to an organization’s mailing list for the purpose of advocacy, fundraising, driving website traffic, educating members or some combination of the four.
Embedding – Typically in reference to audio or video, embedding is the act of displaying media directly on a website, rather than linking to it.
Forum – An on-line discussion group where people exchange ideas about a common interest. Also called a newsgroup or message board.
Hyperlinks – Hyperlinks are used to link pages of the website, documents, etc. together. Links are used to move through the website and/or to other websites, portals, search engines, etc. on the web.
Keyword – A word that a search engine user might use to find relevant web page(s). If a keyword doesn’t appear anywhere in the text of your web page, it’s highly unlikely your page will appear in the search results.
Keyword density – The ratio of the number of occurrences of a particular keyword or phrase to the total number of words in a page. One element of search engine optimization.
Keyword popularity The number of occurrences of searches done by Internet users of a given keyword during a period of time. Both WordTracker.com and Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool (http://inventory.overture.com) provide keyword popularity numbers.
Keyword prominence – How prominently keywords appear in the text of a web page. Title tags, headers, the beginning of paragraphs and hyperlinks, are just some of the places keywords should feature prominently.
Incoming Links – Links that are directed toward a particular website.
Link bait – Useful or entertaining web content which compels users to link to it.
Link-Building – The process of strategically generating high-quality and relevant incoming links.
List Building – The process of increasing the size of an email list.
Open Rate – The percentage of individuals who open a blast email. For example, if the email was sent to 1,000 people and 275 of them opened it the open rate would be 27.5%.
Outbound links – Links from your web page to another web page.
PageRank – A family of algorithms for assigning numerical weightings to hyperlinked documents (or web pages) indexed by a search engine. Its properties are much discussed by search engine optimization (SEO) experts. The PageRank system is used by the popular search engine Google to help determine a page’s relevance or importance.
PageViews – Viewing of a web page by a visitor. If one visitor goes to three pages on your site this counts as three pageviews.
Podcast – A method of publishing audio files to the Internet for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.
Profile – Individuals and organizations can create profiles on social networking sites, social news sites, social bookmarking sites, forums and other online destinations.
Referrer – When a user visits your website by clicking a link from another website, the other website is called a referrer. The referrer could be a Search Engine or an associate website that provides links to your web page.
Repurpose – To revise pre-existing content for a different delivery format. For example, an organization may repurpose their physical newsletter to create an email or page on their website.
RSS Feed – Acronym for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Syndiction. Alerts users to new information available on Web sites, blogs, and other Internet services.
Search Engine Results Page – Search Engine Results Page or SERP, the page that displays in a search engine when a specific phrase is searched for.
Seeding – The act of submitting links to social news and social bookmarking sites. This process involves selecting a category as well as writing a description and headline for the link.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – A set of techniques that enable your site to appear higher in a list of search engine results.
Social Networking – Most services are primarily web-based and provide a collection of various ways for users to interact, such as chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and so on. Social networking has revolutionized the way we communicate and share information with one another in today’s society. Various social networking websites are being used by millions of people everyday on a regular basis and it now seems that social networking is a part of everyday life. The main types of social networking services are those which contain directories of some categories (such as former classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages), and recommender systems linked to trust. Popular methods now combine many of these, with MySpace and Facebook being the most widely used in North America.
Social Bookmarking – In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine. Examples include <a href=”http://technorati.com
Social News – Social news refers to websites where individual members can both submit links and vote them up or down. These sites are generally designed so the content that gets voted up the most is rewarded with more exposure on the site. Examples include Digg, Reddit and Buzzflash.
Streaming Media – Non-text files, such as sounds, animation and video, that can be viewed or listened to shortly after the downloading process begins, because it is not necessary to download the entire file before viewing it or listening to it.
Tagging – Associating tags or labels with a submission to a social bookmarking or social news website.
URL – An acronym for “Uniform Resource Locator,” this is the address of a resource on the Internet. World Wide Web URLs begin with http://.
Viral Video – The term viral video refers to video clip content which gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing, typically through email or IM messages, blogs and other media sharing websites.
Visits – When someone makes a request for a page on your server for the first time. As long as the same site keeps making requests within a given timeout period (generally 24 hours), they will all be considered part of the same visit.
Web 2.0 – Refers to a supposed second-generation of Internet-based services – such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies – that let people collaborate and share information online in ways previously unavailable.
Webcast – A broadcast that is delivered over the Internet. Participants can view and hear streaming media, and they can participate in real-time online chats.
Some definitions taken and modified from http://www.onlinemedia.co.in/glossary and http://wikipedia.com.
The Feed 
[…] 28, 2008 Filed under: Quick Links, Search Engine Optimization, Social Networking | Bounce rate is defined as: “the percentage of web site visitors who arrive at a web site entry page, then leave without […]