A brief overview
A concise A-Z Glossary of important regularly used terms.
Part of our responsibility as industry professionals is to provide education to our clients. This not only aims to bring clarity to topics that might be complex for some, but also offers transparency to the terms we use when speaking with clients - or terms they may hear when shopping for an agency to work with. And wow, so many terms... far too many to list here. However, we felt it important to share a collection of important terms that may be useful to our clients.
ADA Compliance Website
Short for Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design, developing your website with ADA Compliance in mind at a minimum accomplishes two things. It allows people with disabilities to navigate and participate on your website, as well as inherently makes your website more search engine friendly.
Branding Graphic Design
Branding refers to your logo, color scheme, typography choices, etc.
Caching Website
With a website, creating a cached version allows the site to load faster for your users. While resulting in a better user-experience, this also allows your site to be inherently more search engine friendly.
Call-to-action (CTA) Website
As we design and build out your website pages, we want to ensure we provide quality call-to-actions to your users to help guide them either throughout your site, or to key areas that we would like them to go to.
Content General
While this can refer to images and graphics as well, we mainly refer to your written copy as your content.
Content Management System (CMS) Website
Building a website in a CMS can be beneficial for a number of reasons: dynamic sitemaps, quick access to make updates, tying in third party tools for image optimization and forms, etc.
Domain Name & Domain Registrar Website
One of the core items necessary when building a website, you first need to choose a domain registar - and then purchase your domain from that registar. When purchasing your domain, be sure that you are getting Domain Privacy as well to avoid getting fake bills in the mail. We recommend purchasing your domains through CloudFlare (RIP Google Domains).
Landing Page Website
While this can refer to any page on your website, we use this term to refer to pages that are separate from your main website and are hidden from Google that users can only get to if they scan your QR code or see one of your ads. These pages can be geared toward a specific promotion or service you offer and are aimed at giving the user all the information they need to make a quick, informed decision as to why they want what you are offering.
Logo, Logomark, Logotype Graphic Design
Your logo might include both a logomark (icon or glyph) along with your typesetting, or just be the text alone. As long as there is a good reason behind the decision, one option is not necessarily better than the other. We just want to make sure that your finished logo provides scalability, flexibility, and is unique to you.
IP Address Website
As it refers to your website, the IP Address is attached to your hosting solution and looks like a string of numbers. When pointing your new website live, we need to update your domain records to point to the website hosting IP address.
Meta Data Website
While certain bits of meta data have fallen by the wayside (for example, meta keywords), other bits of meta data are imperative to inform social media platforms, Google, and other platforms that can read your website on what to do with that information. For example, what image can show when someone sends your website address in an iMessage.
Mockup / Composition (comp) Graphic Design
When working on a design for you, we create a mockup or comp to share progress. This might be a static version of what your website could look like, or how we envision your business cards being printed.
Pantone Color Graphic Design
Much less common in smaller markets, Pantone Colors had been the standard in color selection values when developing branding for clients. These values ensure that anytime your color is printed using Pantones, it looks the same every single time. Despite it being less of a requirement these days, we generally opt to still provide Pantone colors when designing logos.
Responsive Website
Thanks to all the various device sizes we have these days, from small phones through large tablets, we need to develop websites that can scale across the various device sizes used by your audience.
Schema Website
Aimed at search engines, Schema helps inform Google of certain information on your business to help better display your details. From simple things like your social media profiles or phone number through more complex items like FAQs, adding schema to your website is necessary at a minimum on the basic level.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Website
Certainly a popular term, how your website is built directly impacts your SEO. If your site is built with a sloppy foundation, it can be much more difficult to make it more search engine friendly.
SSL Certificate Website
Now a requirement to avoid a penalty from Google, SSL Certificates are intended to keep user sessions secure when browsing your website, filling out your forms, or buying something online. Most service-based websites can benefit from any of the free open-source SSL certificates available.
Usability Website
We want to make sure your website is as user-friendly as possible. The designs we create are aimed at being creative and unique; however, we must keep usability in mind with to avoid cumbersome navigation.
Web Standards Website
Building a website properly according to Googles web standards allows the site to not just be inherently more ADA compliant, but also more search engine friendly as well.
Website Hosting Website
After your website design is completed and moved into development, all those files need to live somewhere. That is where website hosting comes in. Think of website hosting as your house, where your domain name is just the address that helps people get to your house.
Vector / Raster Graphic Design
Vector art allows you to scale the design as large as you would like without losing quality. Raster art can only be scaled down. There are many uses for vector art; however, logo design may be the most important.