Common Website Design Terms

Website Design and Marketing Terms

If you’ve had a website for your business for any length of time, you’ve probably heard common web terms bantered around. Particularly terms or phrases you’ve heard used but aren’t quite sure what they mean. Terms like:

Domain name
CMS
Hosting provider
Updates
Maintenance
nuqDaq ‘oH puchpa”e’

All are common in the web design industry. Alright, the last one is actually a Klingon phrase from Star Trek, but you get the point. These terms can be confusing. And that confusion makes it tough to form any decision pertaining to your website and marketing.

It’s important to have an understanding of common website terminology. For example, website design, website hosting, and marketing terms are all typically used. Therefore, understanding the specifics of a website and your company’s overall marketing, it’s essential you know them too. In this article, we’ll go over some of the common terms most often used. Words pertaining to website design, website hosting terms, and marketing.

A Domain Name Reigns

Domain names are the foundation of any website. They provide users with an easy-to-remember address that can be used to find a site and its content. A domain name is something like FullScopeCreative.com or Google.com.

A domain name is broken into two parts: second-level and top-level. The top-level part of a domain name is the extension, meaning everything after the period. For example, .com, .org, .net, and .biz. The second level is that part that is unique to your business. Such as the fullscopecreative in fullscopecreative.com or google in google.com.

It’s a clever idea and best practice to make sure that your domain name follows a couple of simple rules:

Easy to remember
If you have to add a number to the end of the domain name, odds are people won’t remember it too well. When I first started in web design, one of the clients I worked for had a domain name like companyname1.com. The odds of people remembering the “1” at the end is rather low.
Short
Do you really want to have to type in “http://llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk/” to go visit the Isle of Anglesey, Wales? Yes, that’s a real domain name. I guess that’s not really easy to remember either.
Correct top-level or extension.
If you are a for profit business, you shouldn’t have a website ending in .org.

Domain names can be purchased for $15 – $50 per year. This typically depends on the security that has been added. It’s not a horrible idea to purchase your company name in several extensions. We have several clients who own their company name in .com, .org, .net, .biz, and .info. The benefit in registering all the extensions is it prevents someone else registering one and stealing traffic from your site.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is essential in today’s digital world. Properly optimizing web content for search engines, businesses can increase their visibility and attract more traffic from potential customers. As a result, SEO has become an integral part of any successful marketing strategy. Websites looking to gain an advantage over the competition need to know SEO.

SEO consists of many different techniques that allow businesses to optimize their websites accordingly. These include:

Keyword research and analysis
Site structure optimization
Meta tag optimization
Website performance optimization

Additionally, SEO also requires ongoing maintenance This ensures all aspects are updated as needed. Plus, the content remains relevant in the ever-changing digital landscape. When these practices are incorporated, companies can achieve higher rankings. Higher rankings on results pages increases overall traffic to the company website.

The Key to Keywords

Keywords are a major factor in SEO success. Keywords are words or phrases that describe the content of your website. They play a huge role in how your website ranks on search engine results pages. An effective keyword strategy is essential for helping potential customers find your site when they search online.

When choosing keywords for your website, it’s important to think like an average consumer. Imagine what words someone would use to find information related to what you offer. Your goal should be to create a list of relevant keywords that accurately represent the content on your site—then make sure those words appear in strategic places throughout the site itself.

Keep in mind, the phrasing and wording you use to describe your business could be different from what your customers and clients would use. For example, I use to describe Full Scope Creative as “web developers.” But people searching for a business similar to Full Scope, “web designers” is a much more popular search term.

There are tools available, such as SEMRush, to help with keyword research. With SEMRush, you’ll be able to find the volume and keyword difficulty that each keyword has. The volume is the estimate of how many times on average a search is performed each month.

Not all keywords equal. Some are easy to rank. Others, not so much. The keyword difficulty (KD) is the rough estimate of how difficult a word will rank. The KD is a score of 1 – 100. The higher the number, the harder it will be to rank for that particular keyword. On average, the higher the search volume for a keyword is, the higher the KD will be. Likewise, the lower the volume, the lower the KD.

Getting The Most From Your Web Host(ing)

A key (and often overlooked) component of a reliable website is who you use as the website hosting provider. Basically, website hosting is storing and serving of the various files that make up a website.

Website hosting providers are companies such as Full Scope Creative and Evolve Web Host. Other popular hosts you’ve possibly heard of are GoDaddy, HostMonster, HostGator, and Dreamhost.

The server computers that host a website are usually off-site in a large datafarm. Here, they are properly secured and kept in a climate-controlled environment. Website hosting can be paid for on a monthly or yearly basis. Your fee should include at least the following features:

24/7 tech support
SSL certificate
Dedicated IP address
Plenty of storage space (no less than 5gb)
cPanel or DirectAdmin login
mySQL Database support

It’s important to keep track of who is hosting your website. A common occurrence is when a company will need to make updates to their site but have no idea how to get logged in to their site (or who the hosting provider even is). Before pandemonium strikes, please take note. The website hosting provider for your website does not need to be the company that built the site.

As with many things in life, “You get what you pay for.” Website hosting is no different. There are hosting providers available that are ridiculously cheap, for a few dollars a month, or even free.

The problem with these providers tends to be their technical support is less than stellar. It’s common for the lower cost hosting providers to have server outages as well. When those server outages happen, your website won’t be available for web users. Your web host should be able to offer at least a 99.99% uptime guarantee.

Getting Cozy With Your Content Management Systems

Content management systems (CMS) are an important part of modern website development. These CMSs allow website owners to easily maintain their websites, without having to learn coding or design principles. A CMS should offer users a variety of features that make it easier to control the look, feel, and functionality of their website.

The most common types of CMSs are based on web technologies like HTML and CSS. This allows users to build websites quickly and efficiently by simply dragging-and-dropping elements on a page layout. Content Management Systems also provide tools for managing content such as:

Blogs
Forums
eCommerce stores
Photo galleries

Additionally, CMSs offer access control features so website owners can control who has access to certain pages or areas of the site.

WordPress is the most popular content management system available on the world wide web. WordPress offers a wide range of features that make it an excellent choice for users who are looking for an easy-to-use platform to build a website.

With its intuitive user interface, WordPress allows users to quickly and easily:

Create content
Manage media
Customize themes and plugins
Integrate with other services like Facebook or Twitter

Additionally, because of its open-source nature, users have access to countless resources. This will help getting them started with building their own website.

WordPress also offers an extensive variety of plugins that can be used to extend the functionality of your website. Plugins allow you to add new features such as event calendars or contact forms, all without any coding knowledge required. (How cool is that?)

Cool, New WordPress System Updates

Speaking of WordPress, one of the key features that makes WordPress such a secure CMS are the system updates. These are updates to the main WordPress system, the themes, and the plugins used on the site.

WordPress system updates are critical for keeping a website running smoothly and securely. Without regular updates, websites could suffer from several issues, including performance issues and security threats. WordPress has made staying up to date with system updates easier than ever with a streamlined process for downloading the latest versions of its software.

Here’s the key to making sure your WordPress website is running at optimum levels. As soon as the latest system software update becomes available install it pronto. Once you’ve updated your WordPress software, you may also want to consider updating any plugins and themes that have been installed on the site too. Doing this will help to ensure compatibility and stability between all the different components of your website.