Whenever you’re new to something, there’s always a learning curve. I remember when I first started with online communities, there were some crazy acronyms I needed to learn, more than just LOL (laugh out loud in case you didn’t know that one).
When you’re new to business, it’s the same thing. To help you out, Ian Lurie over at Conversation Marketing came up with a list of 33 internet marketing terms that you should know. And yes, if you do any sort of business on the internet, then you my friend are an Internet Marketer.
Here are the ten that I get asked most frequently (in alphabetical order since that’s how Ian created his list)…
Analytics. Taking traffic data and other information about your web site, analyzing it, and then providing insight. Note that a raw report is not analytics.
Hit. Any one file downloaded from your site one time. A single page of a web site, viewed once, may generate 30 or more hits. Great if you need to impress your boss. Lousy as a measure of web site traffic.
Pageview. Any one page of your site completely loading any one time. If I visit your web site and look at 3 pages, that will count as 3 page views.
Ping. Originally a networking term, in internet marketing parlance ‘ping’ means notifying the world that you’ve updated your web site. Pings are usually sent automatically to sites such as Technorati.
RSS. A type of text file that delivers a list of headlines and content directly to feed readers and other software. Stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’.
SEO. Search Engine Optimization. Working to insure your web site will get as high a ranking as possible in the unpaid search results in the major search engines.
Social media. A term coined by someone who wanted to publish more books. Usually refers to the many blogs, bookmarking sites and other sites that allow visitors to interact with each other and the web site owner. May also refer to a drunk journalist at a party.
Unique visitor. Any one visitor coming to your site any number of times in the time period. If I come to your web site 30 times in a month, I still only count as one unique visitor.
Visit. Any user visiting your site any one time.
Web 2.0. See ‘social media’, above. Refers generically to any site that looks cooler than sites before 1999. Seriously. I have no idea what this phrase means. [ed note: I've always heard it explained that Web 2.0 is any website with user (or member) generated content]
Be sure to check out the original article for the full 33 internet marketing terms that you should know. You never know, it could just help your learning curve.
