Ready to build that new website but intimidated by the terminology?
Fear not! Keep The Non-Developer’s Guide to Web Design Terms handy and you’ll sound like a pro in no time.
Alt Tag
Alt tags are the text alternative for an image on a web page. If an image doesn’t load, this text will appear in its place.
Anchor Text
Anchor text is the hyperlinked words on a webpage AKA the words you click on when you click on a link. Anchor text is associated with backlinks and SEO.
Backend
The backend of a website is the part of the site that is hidden from visitors. It is the “server side” that controls how the website works, updates and changes. The backend typically includes information structure, applications and the content management system (see CMS), but can refer to basically anything that can’t be seen by a visitor in the browser. For more information on backend vs frontend click here.
Backlink
Backlinks are the links from other websites to your own. Backlinks are a critical part of SEO, but need to be collected organically. Blackhat backlink strategies are frequently uncovered by search engines and negatively impact any SEO efforts you have made. Backlinks are all about quality over quantity.
Below the fold
Referencing a pre-digital age, below the fold in the newspaper industry means the content below the physical fold in the paper. Below the fold in web design and development represents a similar concept. It refers to all content that cannot be initially seen when the website loads in a standard browser.
Blog
A blog is a regularly updated website or web page that speaks in a conversational tone. A blog is a necessary part of a modern day website and any type of content creation strategy.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that come to your website and leave your domain without clicking through to any other page. Bounce rates are indicators of the quality of a website’s content and the overall user experience. The lower the bounce rate, the better.
CMS (Content Management System)
A content management system, or CMS, is a backend tool that is used to easily post, store and organize a website’s content without interfering with the website design or functionality. Popular CMS choices include WordPress, Drupal and Joomla!. Someone with limited to no coding experience is able to manage a website easily if there is a CMS.
Conversion
When you design a website, you do so with certain goals in mind whether it be a completed purchase, lead generation, etc. A conversion is the successful completion of your predetermined goal by a visitor on your website.
CSS
Cascading style sheets, more commonly known as CSS, are used to define the look of a website’s design outside of the HTML files. CSS has slowly replaced many HTML-based ways of laying out and formatting a website. This is because CSS simplifies a website’s HTML file, which helps boost search rankings.
CTA (Call-to-Action)
CTAs, or call-to-actions, are crucial to a modern website especially if you want to see lots of conversions. CTAs on a website are a button, banner, text or image that calls for the web visitor to click on it, usually leading to a page or information that will lead to a conversion.
DPI
Short for “dots per inch,” DPI is the print resolution of an image. Standard resolution on the web is 72 dpi.
Drupal CMS
Drupal is the third most popular open source CMS (see open source and CMS). Drupal is credited as one of the most powerful CMSs available but also one of the most difficult to use.
Error 404
A 404 error means the page you are trying to reach does not exist. It could be a typo in the URL or the page could have been taken down but the link is still up.
Error 502 Bad Gateway
A 502 bad gateway error means that one server received an invalid response from another server.
Favicon
You know that little icon in the web address bar next to the web address? That’s a favicon. Typically 16×16 pixels, favicons can be .ico, .gif or .png files. To make your own favicon, click here.
Findability
Findability is a term used to describe the ease a website visitor can find information, whether in search engines or on the actual web page.
Fixed Width Layout
A fixed width layout is a website that has a set width that is predetermined by the web designer. This format is becoming more and more outdated as mobile responsive web design becomes the industry standard.
Flat design
The leading web trend for years now, flat design is just how it sounds. Stylistic elements such as drop shadows, texture and gradients aren’t used, giving the website a clean, simple, flat appearance. Minimalism is key in flat design.
Focal Point
The focal point on a website is the image, banner, video, really can be any format of content, that naturally draws the web visitors eye to it first.
Frontend
Frontend is everything the visitor sees on your website, including UX, UI and some languages like HTML and CSS. Also see backend.
GIF
Whether you say it with a hard or soft “G” (the debate continues), GIF stands for “graphics interchange format” and is a picture format that is compressed to reduce transfer time. You may be more familiar with animated gifs, which uses frames to create a type of (very!) short, silent movie.
HTML
HTML is the primary language used to write and create websites. Short for Hypertext Markup Language, HTML is used to provide content on websites, while CSS handles stylistic options. However, HTML can be used to determine how the content is displayed to a certain extent.
IA
IA or Information Architecture, according to Wikipedia, is “the structural design of shared information environments. The art and science of organizing and labeling web sites, intranets, online communities, and software to support findability and usability.” Often confused with UX, IA concerns structure, while UX concerns emotion. For more information, see UX or click here.
Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing is the practice of bringing prospects to you, rather than having to go out to get them. The core concepts behind inbound marketing is to earn customers’ attention, make your company and website easy to find and draws customers in with compelling content. Your website behaves as homebase in most inbound marketing campaigns.
JavaScript
JavaScript is a programming language that makes web pages interactive. JavaScript allows you to impact or manipulate elements that are already in HTML tags. For example, you can use JavaScript to change an image’s color or have it rotate a certain way without changing the web page you’re on.
JPEG
JPEG, like GIF, is a picture format that stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEGs are created using lossy compression, which can shrink the image down to 5% of its original file size but lose some details.
Landing Page
A landing page can be any page on your website that a visitor finds by clicking an online CTA or link. You never, ever want to start a marketing campaign without building a dedicated landing page. A good landing page can be measured by high conversions.
Marketing automation
Marketing automation is a software platform that integrates with your website, CRM and other technologies to streamline marketing on multiple online channels, such as social media, email and websites, and automate outreach and repetitive tasks. Popular marketing automation systems include Pardot, Hubspot and Marketo.
Material design
Material design is a design language developed by Google in 2014. Material design makes use of grid-layouts, padding, responsive animations and transitions and depth techniques like shadows to create web pages and apps that have a real-life paper and ink feeling. Check out this short video for more information.
Meta tag
Not seen by website visitors, meta tags are snippets of text coded into the web page’s header that tell search engines what is on the page.
Navigation
Most often thought of as menus or bars, navigation allows your visitors to travel from one page to another on your site.
Open Source
Open source CMS refers to CMSs like WordPress and Drupal that allow their public source codes to be studied and worked on by anyone around the world.
Pageview
One pageview means a web visitor (or search engine spider) looked at one web page on your site.
Plug-in
Plug-ins are third party code that extend the capabilities of a website. Usually used with a site’s CMS, plug-ins can range from SEO support to analytics to a quiz platform.
PNG
Portable Network Graphics, or PNGs, were created to replace GIFs as the choice lossless data compression picture format. Whereas some details can be lost with a JPEG, that is not the case with PNGs.
Responsive web design
Responsive web design creates websites that respond to their environment. When you choose responsive web design your website is viewable on across all devices of all different sized screens.
SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the activity of affecting your visibility within search engine results page (SERP) without paying. This is also referred to as organic or natural search.
SERP
SERP, short for search engine results page, is the listing of results that are returned on a search query.
Sitemap
The sitemap is a a list of pages on a website, typically organized in a hierarchical fashion, that is accessible by search engine crawlers or users.
User Interface
Abbreviated UI, user interface is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. To have good UI on your website you want to have your users accomplish a task as efficiently as possibly. While design is important, it is all about functionality with UI.
Usability
Usability is the quality attribute that tells how difficult or easy user interface is.
UX
UX, short for user experience, is all about how your web visitors feel on your website. A good UX designer will not only take the site’s navigation into consideration, but more importantly how to facilitate engagement. To do this, they design from the user’s perspective to create a cohesive, desirable and predictable paths and interactions.
Web server
A web server is a large computer that hosts multiple websites and web pages.
WordPress
The most popular CMS option today with 25% of all websites built on it, WordPress is praised for having one of the most user-friendly backends and its expansive plug-in options.
