Web 2.0 Glossary Of Terms
Web 2.0 refers to the current state of the Internet. It defines a new and more interactive engagement with information and other users across the Internet through the use of social networks, digital video and audio recordings, blogs and user designed profile pages. Success in this new marketing paradigm is measured by your connectivity, content, and participation online, rather than the size and marketing budget of your site. We bring together the technologies of Web 2.0 in our All Inclusive Package to help our clients business’ thrive in this environment.
Welcome to Web 2.0!
Article Publishing: an easy and popular method for promoting yourself online and positioning yourself as an expert in your field. The more relevant content you have on the Internet, the easier it is for Search Engines to find you and pair you with your ideal clients.
Autoresponder: automatic emails that are programmed to respond to an email sent to it. For example, you can set up an autoresponder so that when a visitor signs up for something on your site they are automatically sent a “thank you” email. You can also set up complex autoresponder series that regularly send information to your email list over a certain period of time. For example: you could schedule newsletters to go out to your clients once/month.
Blog: a combination of the two words “web” and “log”. It refers to a dynamic website that is updated on a regular basis with new content. Individuals may use personal blogs to “log” their daily musings on a given theme. Practitioners and small business owners use blogs to share valuable information with their potential clients or followers on a regular basis. For example, a Nutrition Consultant may share recipes and nutrition facts with her readers on a daily basis to grow her following (i.e. her client base).
Blog Page: pages within a blog. There are usually navigation tabs at the very top of the site that allow the Reader to change between pages on the blog. One of these pages captures all the different blog posts that have been made over time. Other pages may contain more static information that tells about the author of the blog.
Blog Post: new content that is updated to a blog. Readers can comment on a blog post and begin online discussions on the topic. Blog posts can contain text, audio, video and/or photos.
Blog Radio: a new form of radio that allows anyone to star in their own online radio show. This is a great way to grow a following of people interested in what you have to share.
C-Panel: a behind-the-scenes website management system. In this admin panel you can manage your email addresses, view statistics, install extra modules to your website and many more useful functions.
Domain Name: the technical term for a website address. It is also known as a URL (Universal Resource Link). For example, our Domain Name, or URL is www.Empire123.com.
Domain Registrar: the company through which you purchase a domain name. Go Daddy is a popular company to use for this. When you purchase a domain name from them you are hiring them to register your chosen domain name with ICANN: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
E-Commerce: otherwise known as electronic commerce: the ability to buy and sell products or services virtually. In order to sell your products or services online you need four primary components to complete sales transactions: a shopping cart, merchant account, merchant gateway, and bank account. See also Shopping Cart, Merchant Account, and Merchant Gateway.
EZines (pronounced “e-zeen”): describes small magazines and newsletters distributed by any electronic method, such as via email.
Keyword: a word or phrase used to search for something online. These search terms, or keywords, are then matched up with relevant sites, records, articles, and other information pertaining to those words. It is imperative to know which keywords to use for your business website so that Search Engines can direct ideal visitors to your site based on the matching search terms. In our All Inclusive Package we begin with keyword research as this is the foundation of SEO. See also Search Engine and Search Engine Optimization.
Merchant Account: one of the 4 component of an e-commerce system. It is the component that enables you to receive credit card payments. Whether you have a brick-and-mortar business or an online business, you need a Merchant Provider to receive credit card payments. See also E-commerce, Shopping Cart, and Merchant Gateway.
If you are a new merchant and want to receive credit card payments though your business, check out: New Merchant Accounts
If you already have a Merchant Account established and want to get a better rate, check out: Established Merchant Accounts
Merchant Gateway: one of the four components of an e-commerce system. Merchant Accounts are paired with a Merchant Gateway to ensure your e-commerce system can receive and manage payments securely. Authorize.net is an example of a Merchant Gateway. See also E-commerce, Shopping Cart, and Merchant Account.
Plug-in: a computer program that can be added to your website or blog to increase its functionality. These plug-ins interact with a host application (a web browser, for example) to provide very specific functions on demand. See also Website, Blog, and Web Browser.
Podcasts: a series of audio or video digital media files that you can download (or publish) and listen to through the internet via the RSS feed. See also RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication): a channel used to publish blogs, news headlines, audio, and video content that are updated on a regular basis. This information is published in a standardized format through “feeds” or “web feeds”. Publishers can use RSS feeds to automatically syndicate their content. Readers can use these to subscribe to favorite websites. See Figure 1.
Figure 1. This is the symbol for RSS feeds.
Search Engine: a tool used to search for information on the Internet. Search Engines use “spiders” or “web crawlers” to browse the web and index all the available information.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): strategies that can be used to drive more niche-specific traffic to your site. You need to know what Search Engines are looking for and how they work to optimize your site. As a general rule, you will get more traffic to your site when you are on the first page of Google. Using SEO strategies helps you achieve this. See also Search Engine.
Shopping Cart: one of the four components of an e-commerce system. It is a service that represents your products to your potential customers and walks them through the sales process from purchase to check out to the final thank you note. Many shopping carts also have contact management systems associated with them so that you can keep in touch with your customers and share valuable new products with them after their creation. If you’re looking for a good all-in-one shopping cart system, click here for the one we use. See also E-commerce, Merchant Account, and Merchant Gateway.
Social Bookmarking: a way to bookmark or save the location of a website within an online profile. The benefit of this is that you can then share your bookmarks with others.
Social Media: rich and interactive content that is distributed through channels to large audiences. It is intended to be distributed through social interaction.
Social Network: a community of people who are interested in connecting with others online and sharing about their personal or professional interests. Social networking has encouraged new ways of connecting and sharing information. Examples of these are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Social Networking Optimization: the process of leveraging social networking sites to grow your online following, increase your strategic partners, and attract more direct referrals. See also Social Network.
Splash Page: an introductory page of a website that is either timed to move onto the home page after several seconds, or is set up to invite visitor interaction, requiring the visitor to click on the page to enter into the rest of the website. See also Website.
Squeeze Page: a web page that is designed to invite visitors to sign up for a special offer, or to receive a free gift, by providing their name and email address.
Widget: a type of plug-in that has been installed into Wordpress to allow specific functionality within the sidebars. See also Wordpress.
Themes: templates that include a variety of different aesthetics and functionality for your website. See also Website.
URL (Universal Resource Locator): the address of a web page on the World Wide Web.
Web Browser: a computer program used to gather and present information to users on the internet. Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox are examples of web browsers. They work in conjunction with Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo. See also Search Engine.
Website: a series of pages that are connected with a common domain name or URL and is accessible via the Internet.
Wordpress: a specific kind of blog platform that allows you to make changes to your site with limited knowledge of HTML and other web coding formats. Wordpress sites that are hosted on a server can be optimized by adding specific plug-ins to instantly update the Search Engines whenever new content is posted. See also Blog, Plug-ins, and Search Engines.
To check out how these terms are translated into action in our Internet Marketing Packages, click here.
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