Common Three Letter Acronyms In Internet Marketing

Common Three Letter AcronymsWhat’s that? You need a CMS and SEO to help your site’s CTR, minimize your CPL and to get an overall better ROI out of your website? Maybe even a little PPC for direct marketing and see if you can get a decent ROAs? Great, we can do that!

Does this type of conversion happen with your website or internet marketing vendor? Not too many people outside of internet marketing can make much sense of these relatively common terms for our industry.

We do our best here at Hall to try and remember that not everyone speaks in the same vernacular that we do, but once in a while we’ve been known to slip some of this alphabet soup into conversation. By reading this list of common TLAs (yes, it’s an acronym for acronyms), at least next time you’ll be a little more prepared.

Website Development TLA’s:

  • CMS: Content Management System – This is a stand-alone website software that lives on a website server and allows users to create, manage and edit their websites. It was created to allow users with little knowledge of web programming languages to make basic updates and edits. CMS examples include WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, WIX, and Squarespace
  • URL: Uniform Resource Locator – Also known as a Web Address, this is the resource that specifies the location of the website on a web server. Most common URLs reference web pages (http), but URLs are also used for file transfer (ftp), email (mailto), database access (JDBC), and many other applications. URL Example: https://www.hallme.com
  • URI: Uniform Resource Identifier – This is a string of characters that is used to identify the name of a web resource. The most common URI on the web is the URL.
  • DNS: Domain Name System – This is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It translates Doman Names into numerical IP addresses used by our computers and other devices. The DNS is an essential component of most internet services because it is the main directory service used to access websites.
  • DB: Database – A collection of organized data. Databases interact with other web applications and have the ability to sort and store information while also allowing new data to be added.
  • FTP: File Transfer Protocol – A typical network protocol that allows users to transfer files from one location to a website server via the internet.
  • SFTP: Secure File Transfer Protocol – A form of encryption that allows users to transfer files over a secure connection from one location to a website server via the internet.
  • SSL: Secure Socket Layer – A set of encryption protocols for providing communications security over a computer network. Also known as TLS (Transport Layer Security).
  • WMT: Webmaster Tools – This is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor and maintain your website’s presence in Google search results.
  • QA: Quality Assurance – This is a method of preventing mistakes or defects in the development process from making it onto a live site.
  • CSE: Comparison Shopping Engine – A type of Internet search engine that evaluates the prices of similar products and suggests related links to internet users. The links that are suggested to users are based on searches they’ve already conducted.
  • WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get – This is a common editor system used in CMS’s. The content of the editor (text and graphics) showed onscreen during editing is set to appear in the same format on the live website once published. Typical WYSIWYG editors have interactive menus for text sizes, fonts, images, line-item styling and text styling.
  • VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol – This is the method used to allow voice communications and multimedia sessions over a network or internet connection.

Internet Marketing TLA’s:

  • SEO: Search Engine Optimization and SEM: Search Engine Marketing – The process of maximizing the number of visitors to a website by ensuring the site appears high up on a list of search results returned by a search engine.
  • SERP: Search Engine Results Page – The listing of the results of a search engine based on the search term input by a user. Results include the Page Title, Page URL and a text description. Results can also include images and map locations, based on the search term used.
  • PPC: Pay Per Click – An internet advertising model designed to direct/attract traffic to a website by paying for top real-estate on search results pages. Advertisers pay the publisher (search engine) when their ad is clicked. Cost is determined by an open auction.
  • CPC: Cost Per Click – A measure of the amount of money spent by advertisers each time an online advertisement is clicked.
  • CPA: Cost Per Acquisition and CPL: Cost Per Lead – When getting a visitor to your homepage isn’t the endgame, cost per acquisition can be used to measure how much money is spent on advertising for each user that completes a task such as purchasing an item or signing up for a newsletter.
  • CTR: Click Thru Rate – The ratio of how often users viewing your ad end up clicking on it. The data can be used to gauge how well your keywords and online ads are performing.
  • CR: Conversion Rate – The percentage of conversions per ad click. Displayed as a percentage.
  • ROI: Return on Investment and ROAS: Return on Ad Spend – The amount of profit made from an ad less the money spent to run the ads. A measure of the profitability of advertising.
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