Web Design Firm

Web Design Company ABCs: 26 Terms You Need To Know

Last week, the SEO division of our web design company posted the “ABCs of SEO: 26 Terms You Need To Know“, and while the ABCs of web design doesn’t rhyme quite so nicely, these terms are just as useful for web design companies, website developers, and even companies in the process of building their online presence. So without further ado, here are the 26 web design terms that you need to know, from A to Z.

A is for AJAX - An acronym stands for asynchonous javascript and XML; AJAX is a great way to merge data, content, and design into a seamless whole, and it is much more search-engine-friendly than Flash. It is typically used as part of rich web applications - you’ve probably already used it in one of the popular Google Apps or other Web 2.0-type sites.

B is for Browsers - When you are creating a website, it is important to ensure cross-browser compatibility (or to choose a web design company that does). In other words, your site needs to work equally well in the most recent versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.

C is for Content Management Systems - A simple content management system, or tool for managing content, is one of the easiest ways to update your website and to organize/maintain all the media that is already on it.

D is for Domain - Your domain name is the location of your site on the web; for instance, Ocean19.com is our web design company’s domain name and SEOGroup.com is our SEO company’s domain name. A domain can be up to 63 characters long in any combination of numbers and letters, and it can have various extensions like .com, .net, .org, and more.

E is for Encryption - The purpose of encryption is to prevent unauthorized people from viewing data sent on a form over the web; ecommerce and banking websites (among others) need to securely encrypt people’s credit card information and other sensitive data.

F is for Flash - Flash is a multimedia vector animation program that allows the development of rich web content, including embedded videos and other animation. Although websites can be built entirely in Flash, our web design company considers sites that restrict Flash to several creative elements preferable for search engine optimization purposes.

G is for Graphics - All the images and other non-text content on a website can be referred to as that website’s graphics.

H is for HTML - HTML, or hypertext markup language, is one of the key languages of the web. It consists of a set of tags that are used to define the content, layout and the formatting of a web document or website.

I is for Internet Protocol (IP) Address - Internet Protocol is the means by which information is sent from one computer to another on the internet, and the IP address is the means by which each computer is recognized (sort of like an online telephone number).

J is for Javascript - A scripting language that can be embedded into HTML to add dynamic features and rich content (not unlike Flash) to a website, Javascript is not currently capable of being fully indexed by the search engines.

K is for Keywords - At their most basic, keywords (or key terms or key phrases) are the words and phrases that users type into the search engine text box in order to find information. Keyword selection for any website should involve careful research in order to target the visitors that are most likely to convert into customers/clients, and keywords must be placed in several important areas of your website, such as the meta descriptions, titles, anchor text, and more.  A web design company should be capable of search engine optimization or work closely with an SEO company in order to maximize the potential of a website.

L is for Linux - An open source computer operating system based on Unix, Linux (the name comes from the programmer who originally developed it, Linus Torvalds) is mostly used on web servers.

M is for MySQL - A free open source relational database management system often used on the web; it give multiple users access to a number of databases.

N is for Navigation - This is users find their way around, or navigate, through a website is the site’s navigation.  You want your navigation to be as simple and usable as possible in order to provide the best possible user experience; it also makes it easy for them to find whatever it was they came to your site for as well as everything your company has to offer.

O is for Organic Search Results - The results on the SERPs that are not advertising or pay-per-click listings are the organic results.  It has been shown that the vast majority of web users only click on the first three listings on the results pages.

P is for PHP - A server-side language that is capable of drawing on data from a number of different databases and sources in order to create dynamic web pages, similar to Microsoft’s ASP programming language.

Q is for Quicktime - A multimedia format created by Apple, Quicktime is often used to play video clips or display other rich content on websites.

R is for Robot - Also referred to as bots, web robots, search engine spiders, or simply spiders, robots are used by search engines to crawl websites in order to properly index them for the most relevant key terms and phrases.

S is for Search Engine Optimization - Optimizing a website for the search engines is an absolutely part of web development; after all, a site could have the most brilliant design in the world, but if it cannot drive traffic, what is the point?  Search engine optimization is the process of programming elements, selecting and placing keywords, and more that position a website highly in the SERPs.

T is for Tags - Tags refer to both the markup characters that refer to the start or end of an HTML element (but not the element content itself), as well as the tags used for SEO purposes to characterize blog posts, articles, press releases, and more.

U is for Usability - How easy is it to for visitors to find what they are looking for and perform their desired actions? The overall design, the internal linking system, text, and navigation all affect a site’s usability - and if a site is not usable for its visitors, it does not matter how visually pleasing or attractive a website is.  Therefore, working with a web design company that understands usability principles is a must-have in order to build a successful business website.

V is for Visitors - Websites are almost always built in order to drive traffic, so visitors or users are typically the major reason a site is developed in the first place.  The needs of visitors should be considered first and foremost during any web development process.

W is for Web Hosting - Websites are hosted by a web host or web server that provides varying amounts of web space to companies or individuals; you want to be sure your website is hosted with a reputable host (or your web design company can provide one for you) in order to minimize potential problems and prevent downtime.

X is for XML - An acronym for eXtensible Markup Language, XML is sometimes referred to as a meta-language because it is a markup language for writing other markup languages; it allows for the creation of streamlined web applications.  XHTML is HTML reformulated to be compliant with XML standards.

Y is for Yahoo - The second biggest search engine on the web, Yahoo is losing market share to Google but still drives a good amount of traffic to websites; their directory is also one of the oldest and most respected on the web and one of the better paid listings to purchase.

Z is for Zip - “Zipping” a digital file compresses it so it can be more easily downloaded, emailed, or transmitted online.