Jargon Buster: Digital Marketing Terms Explained

Are you unsure what a specific term means? Don’t worry, you aren’t alone. The world of digital marketing involves many different terms – this jargon buster will take you over three of the important meanings. Let’s begin.

 

Blogger Outreach

It seemed important to begin with Blogger Outreach for obvious reasons. Blogger Outreach is the process of developing a rapport between blogs, bloggers, authors and websites. From here, steps are put in place to create genuine, high quality content that also allows for the mention of a service, website or product. It also falls under the umbrella term of influencer marketing – since influencing is one of the factors involved.

Example: My blogger outreach campaign is proving to be very successful.

 

What is Trust Flow?

Often abbreviated as TF, Trust Flow is a metric designed to measure how trustworthy a webpage is, this is done by analysing the in-bound links. This is how a Trust Flow score is determined, and it can change on a regular basis, all determined by those sites linking to the page in question. Provided by Majestic, Trust Flow is a reliable metric to determine the quality and weight of a specific page of website.

Example: My friend’s website has a trust flow of 50, that is very impressive indeed.

 

What is Domain Authority?

Regularly abbreviated as DA, Domain Authority is a scale from 0-100 which is designed to measure how important a website is. Various factors involve how the score is calculated, specifically, the number of high quality in-bound links plays a major role. The scoring system was developed by Moz, allowing for a better understanding of what weight a website or page (Page Authority) link actually has.

Example: My website’s domain authority has increased from 22 to 35.

 

What is Citation Flow?

Another measuring score developed by Majestic, Citation Flow, also known as CF, is a score which ranges from 0-100. It is designed to measure the strength a website or link has. Both Trust Flow and Citation Flow work together, both using the same algorithm, providing a clearer picture when attempting to understand the weight of a specific link.

Example: I’ve just checked my website metrics, and to my delight the citation flow appears to be 40.

 

SEO

Short for Search Engine Optimization – it is a word that is used in general towards the elements involved with making a website friendly towards a search engine. From attracting links to making a website mobile compliant, these are two examples that would fall under the term – SEO.

Example: I have hired a digital marketing agency to help prepare an SEO strategy for my website.

 

Blog

Often run by an individual or group of people, a blog is a website that can stretch to any niche. The views of those involved with the blog provide regular updates, these might include photographs or written content.

Example: My blog is growing, I am really happy.

 

Blogger

An individual who routinely keeps a blog up-to-date with written content or photographs. The induvials(s) often have a passion for the subject at hand – this can range from fashion and technology to gaming or golf (no topic is out of bounds).

Example: Dave is a blogger from England who has a passion for food.

 

Ranking

This word helps to describe where a website ranks within a search engine, including the position and page for a given keyword.
Example: My website is ranking well this month on Yahoo.

 

Black Hat

The strategy of mass-link building often through dubious means, such as forum spam, for example. Black Hat tactics ignore search engine guidelines with the primary aim of ranking a website.

Example: Black Hat isn’t as effective as it once was.

 

White Hat

Unlike Black Hat, White Hat is regarded as the clean and natural methods employed to a marketing strategy. These include blogger outreach and social media marketing.

Example: My digital marketing strategy is White Hat, it is natural and effective.

 

Google PageRank

Now deceased, Google PageRank was a tool that provided a simple insight into a website’s authority – it ended on April 15, 2016. Ranging from -1 to 10, the higher the rating, the more potential weight a website would have as an authority. Domain Authority is now one of the major metrics that website owners use, since it is more accurate.

Example: My website once had a Google PageRank of 8.

 

Nofollow Tag

The Nofollow Tag can be assigned to link by using HTML. Ultimately, this tag tells a search engine not to influence the ranking of the link of which was given the tag. Affiliate links are often made nofollow by a website user, since there is little point in providing them unnecessary weight.

Example: I recently made all of the links on my website ‘nofollow’. 

 

DoFollow Tag

The opposite of Nofollow, the Dofollow HTML tag tells a search engine to flow weight across to the given link, helping to add influence, thus, potentially improving ranking and authority.

Example: I recently decided to make links within comments ‘dofollow’ to help allow the passing of link influence to those who spend time to garner discussion.  

 

DMOZ

Once highly respected within the digital marketing community, DMOZ was an authoritative web directory. However, over the years, directories lost the appeal with other advancements, such as deeper accuracy within search engine results. Google began to penalise a variety of directories that were regarded as link farms – created primarily to manipulate search results for those listed. DMOZ continued to appeal to many, but in as of Mar 17, 2017, dmoz.org deceased.

Example: My website was once listed in the DMOZ web directory.

 

Algorithm

Search engines, such as Google, use a variety of complex mathematical rules that help to provide accuracy when listing websites – this is known as an algorithm. As search engines continue to evolve, so does the algorithm.

Example: Google’s algorithm is far better today that it once was.

 

We will continue to add more subjects and definitions to this digital marketing jargon list. If you have any you feel should be added, be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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