Digital Marketing and SEO Dictionary

API is an acronym for Application Program Interface. An API gives instructions on how components and programs can interact with one another. When you want to connect your application or website to someone else’s software, you’ll usually need to connect via an API.

A Virtual Private Server, or VPS as more commonly known, is a hosting environment in which you are the only one accessing the server’s allotted resources. Those resources are normally defined in the amount of ram, hard drive space and CPU’s you are guaranteed access to. One more common alternative to a VPS is a shared hosting solution. A VPS is typically more expensive than a shared hosting plan.

Moz Local is a directory management service for brick and mortar business locations. It was previously known as GetListed.org before being acquired by Moz in December of 2012.

Moz Local uses their relationships with the top directory aggregation services to push accurate business data out to numerous directory sites. The most important information distributed by Moz Local is your business name, address, phone number and URL, often referred to as your NAPU.

When using Cloudflare you are given the option of to point a CNAME for your domain at a custom URL from your host versus the normal method of pointing an A record for your domain at an IP address. This allows for the host to move your site to different servers on different IP addresses without you ever having to update your DNS settings.

Used in the domain name system (DNS), the Canonical Name (more commonly referred as the CNAME) is used when pointing your site as an alias to another site. This is not the same as domain forwarding.

The “A Record” is used on the DNS of a website when pointing either the main domain or a subdomain of a website to the IP address of the hosting server.

The domain name system (more commonly called the DNS) is the location referenced by web traffic when trying to locate a specific service related to the domain in question (ie. Website, Email, etc). Think of it as the traffic controller for your domain, directing people to their requested destination.

Someone who has a vast knowledge on a certain topic who is often used as the fount of information from which blogs and other content are created. A subject matter expert will be known as the go-to source for any information regarding the topic at hand. For example, most business owners are subject matter experts about their business. Ask them anything related to day to day operations as well as the products and/or services they offer and you should get a very knowledgeable response.

ROI is an acronym for Return on Investment. The simple math formula is:

(Revenue – Expenses – Invested) / Invested = Return on Investment

A series of numbers, separated by periods, that identifies the location of a computer or modem (similar to the street address of a physical location). These numbers are understood by other computers and act as a sort of map for inter-computer communications.

Websites that exist for the soul purpose of displaying company information as a lookup source for those looking for specific information.

Acronymn for Content Delivery Network, process of putting the assetts of a website on a de-centralized server network allowing for people in different geographic locations to access those assets as quickly as possible from servers near them.

Acronym for Secure Socket Layer, used when referring to the security of a website. An SSL certificate can be purchased or configured on a domain which encrypts any data entered or received by the user of the site. Also known as a protocol used to create a secure connection between a user and a website allowing safe communication between the two.

Outdated tactic that replaced reciprocal links, accomplished by a circle of friends linking in a roundabout fashion to each others’ sites in an attempt to gain new links to your site.

The words shown in the top title bar of a website browser application, often used as an indicator of what content will be shown on the corresponding page. Typically used as a ranking factor, although less important these days.

The time it takes to completely load a website, often related to user experience and search engine ranking.

Process of offering compensation for the placement of content or a link on a relevant site pertaining to your industry. Usually frowned upon by SEOs, and a hard tactic to use effectively.

Ability of a website to expand and contract to any device size – does away with the old mobile sites. Required by Google to rank effectively.

Acronym for Accelerated Mobile Pages, type of HTML markup that specifically helps Google cache a very fast version of your website to be shown to mobile searchers.

When performing black hat SEO tactics, a website may suffer from a penalty so bad that Google de-indexes the entire site.

Brief description written on the website and provided to the search engines as a suggestion for the search engine results snippet. Not guaranteed to be used if the search engine determines something else to be more relevant for the searcher.

Meta descriptions can be any length, but search results will only display the first 160 characters. If the meta description exceeds 160 characters, the description will be ellipted.

Process of editing an image to load faster on a website, usually done by increasing file size or image dimensions using a third party tool like Kraken.

Although given a bad rap by Matt Cutts, the writing of quality content to be published on another website with zero expectation of receiving anything in return. Still works.

The process of building a site in such a way that allows for those with impairments to still navigate the site effectively. Has potential to help search engine rankings increase if accessibilty is correctly configured.