As a marketer myself, I know there are no two things marketers love more than buzzwords and content.
And seeing as how content marketing isn’t going away, it’s worth getting to know the jargon.
If you need to get up to speed with some of the terminologies, here’s a quick glossary:
Above the Fold
Above the fold refers to the portion of a webpage that is visible (without scrolling) when the page is first loaded.
It’s an important concept because the content that’s above the fold need to persuade users to further engage with the page.
For example, a blog post might have the hero image, headline and first couple sentences above the fold.
Analytics
The collection, measurement, and analysis of Internet data for the purpose of improving future strategies. Analytics tools like Google Analytics help you discover which content is attracting more traffic or getting more shares.
Algorithm Update
Google uses a very complex algorithm to value and rank content. Changes to their formula are called “algorithm updates.”
Google’s algorithm is what determines how valuable your content is, and where it should rank relative to similar articles. So, any updates to this core formula can have massive implications to your content marketing.
Attribution
The customer journey isn’t linear. Instead, people bounce back and forth between a company’s website, social pages, and blog.
But how much business did each of those channels generate? That’s where attribution can help.
“Attribution models assign a value to various touch points a lead had with your company before converting. For content marketing, this means understanding the blog posts, white papers, social content or another type of content that a person engaged with before becoming a lead or customer.”
B2B Marketing
B2B marketing simply refers to business-to-business marketing. The idea here is that a business is selling a product or service to other businesses.
For example, MailChimp sells email marketing services to small businesses. Salesforce sells cloud-based CRM solutions to enterprise businesses.
For content marketers, operating in a B2B industry is much different from a B2C role.
B2C Marketing
Short for “business to consumer marketing,” B2C marketing is when a business uses various marketing strategies to promote its products or services directly to consumers, rather than to other businesses.
Buyer Journey
The buyer journey identifies the different stages prospects move through, from first discovering a company to becoming a customer. From the “awareness” and “consideration” stage, through to the “decision” stage, prospects have different content needs.
Blog
Short for a web log, a blog is web page content that is updated frequently, featuring articles, opinions, discussions, and links to other useful pages. They strengthen brand personality and credibility, drive traffic, boost SEO, and build customer relationships.
Buyer Journey
The buyer journey identifies the different stages prospects move through, from first discovering a company to becoming a customer. From the “awareness” and “consideration” stage, through to the “decision” stage, prospects have different content needs.
Call to Action (CTA)
An image, a button, or a line of text meant to prompt the user to take the desired action. This could be to share your content, subscribe to your blog, or download an ebook.
Case Study
Aimed at building customer trust, a case study is a written account of a real customer’s experience with a business, showing how a product or service effectively helped a customer overcome a specific problem.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The percentage of users that click on a link, button, or ad. The data can help you see which content types and subjects engage your readers more.
Content Curation
Gathering, organizing, and presenting content that is relevant to your audience or is focused on a particular topic.
Content Shock
A debatable concept used by some marketers to describe how content marketing may not be a sustainable strategy for some businesses. Similar to “information overload,” it’s the idea that we’ll be so flooded with content we’ll start to turn away from it.
Content Marketing
Creating, publishing, and promoting valuable free content to attract prospects and convert them into customers. It aims to inform, educate, and entertain prospects to increase brand trust and loyalty.
Content Strategy
The process of planning, developing and delivering content. It involves creating, distributing, and promoting content on appropriate channels to attract and engage prospects and support the buyer journey.
Conversion Rate
The measurement used to see how many visitors complete a specific action, such as sign up to your newsletter or make a purchase.
Copywriting
The production of written text for marketing or advertising purposes. The copy should highlight the benefits of a company and its products and services, and persuade readers to take a particular action.
Customer Persona
Also referred to as “buyer persona,” the customer persona is a description by a business of their ideal customer, based on existing customers’ demographics, behavior, and motivations. It helps businesses create appropriate, targeted content.
Ebook
Often used by marketers to generate leads, an Ebook is a downloadable piece of informational content that is longer than a whitepaper, from 20 to 100 pages long.
Editorial Calendar
Keeping you focused on your content marketing goals, an editorial calendar details what subjects your content should cover, the content format, and when and where to publish each piece.
Evergreen Content
Content that remains relevant to your audience in the long term. For this reason, it has more long-term marketing value.
FAB
FAB stands for features, advantages, and benefits. FAB statements are used in copywriting to help potential customers understand why a product or service is a better buy than competing offers.
Ghostwriting
Content produced by a writer, which is then credited to another person. The original writer agrees to forfeit the credit to get paid for writing the content.
Hashtag
Frequently used on social media platforms, a hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the hash symbol (#). Users can insert a hashtag to associate their posts with content on similar topics or search for content based around a hashtag.
HTML
Short for Hyper Text Markup Language, HTML is the universal language used to build every web page online. It gives web pages their structure and helps search engines crawl and index web content.
Inbound Link
A link on another website that points to a page on your website. Google often uses link data like this to rank your website. Links from “quality” websites can help you appear higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Infographic
These are graphic visual representations of data or other information that can be easier to consume than chunks of text.
Keyword
Keywords or keyword phrases are words that searchers type into search engines to find specific information. They are also included in the content to show search engines that your content is relevant. The overuse of keywords can now harm your search engine rankings.
Landing Page
A page on a website designed to receive visitors directly from organic or paid links on other online channels. The goal of the landing page copy and design is to encourage visitors to take a specific action.
Lead
A prospective customer that has shown an interest in a business, a product, or a service. Typically, leads are captured when they respond to an ad or a call to action within content.
Newsjacking
Creating content based around a news story to draw attention to your content. This type of content can rank well in SERPs.
On-Page Optimization
SEO techniques that are applied directly to a web page to improve visibility in search engines. On-page optimization strategies include keyword optimization and inserting HTML meta tags.
Personalization
This is tailoring your content to match specific segments of your audience. It can involve delivering content to different channels depending on your marketing goals.
Promotion
Any type of marketing communication that aims to inform or persuade a target audience of the merits of a company, product, or service. Promotion also refers to any act of drawing attention to existing content.
Quality
In terms of content, quality refers to any content that is original, well written, concise, and delivers value to the target audience. Quality content also addresses the needs of the target audience, increases user trust, and is highly shareable.
Quantity
The frequency a brand publishes content depends on the content needs of the audience and the brand’s ability to consistently create quality content. Content marketers should focus on creating high quality content, rather than publishing a high quantity of content.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO covers all strategies that are aimed at making a website easier for search engines to index and rank. The purpose of writing SEO articles is to make content and websites rank higher in search engine results pages.
SEM
Short for search engine marketing, SEM is the practice of using paid advertising to increase the visibility of a business and its content in search engine results pages.
Using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ to increase brand awareness, promote content sharing, generate leads, and boost SEO.
Snackable Content
This is typically short-form and visual content such as infographics, images, videos, and short blog posts. It’s designed to quickly and clearly convey an idea or message.
Storytelling
Storytelling in content marketing is a powerful way of writing that includes a narrative to help readers identify with a brand and see the benefits of its products or services. Compelling stories engage consumers, elicit emotion, and foster brand loyalty.
Technical Content
Content that aims to communicate more complex information to readers that need help to accomplish a specific goal. Technical writers can transform complicated, jargon-heavy content – such as user guides – into accessible content.
Templates
A content template is a pre-made design that provides a framework for writers, covering all the information that should be included within a web page or article. Using templates improves content consistency and output.
URL
URL, short for Uniform Resource Locator, is the unique address assigned to a page on the World Wide Web. URLs, shown in the browser address bar, send users to a specific page or resource online.
User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is any content created by members of the public, rather than by employed professionals. UGC – such as a product review or customer photo – is more authentic than company-generated content, so it helps to build brand trust.
Visual Content
As opposed to text, visual content is used by marketers to make an instant impression. Videos, animations, slide presentations, and infographics are also highly shareable.
Website Content
Any content, including written copy, images, graphics, animations, audio, or video that is accessible to visitors when they visit a website.
Whitepaper
Used to generate leads and show industry expertise, a whitepaper is an extended article that is often offered to users as a download to build a marketing database.