We are back as promised! This post is all about the terminologies associated with creating a website. In other words, here is everything you need to know before you start speaking the technical language. Fear not; we know it’s daunting to speak to a developer or a UI designer! Some jargons and acronyms you may have already heard of but never bothered to dig deeper; some terminologies that are going to help you look at website creation from a totally different angle. Let’s get started.
E-COMMERCE
It is the new-age way of doing things online! E-Commerce, short for “Electronic commerce” has spread its wings over and across all domains. Whether it is physical or digital products, everything is available online. Payments and bank transactions also happen online! It is thus important to shape up a fully-functional, quality tested, secure and easily accessible website/app to spike sales and gain popularity amongst your customers.
GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE
A simple explanation of this is the interaction between the use of the mouse with the elements on the web page. In other words, it is all the visual interpretation that you see on the website or app. GUI refers to the interaction between you, the user with the web application.
UI – USER INTERFACE
The user interface is the part of providing a rich usability experience. UI contains all the visual elements that go into a website or app. UI determines how commands are given to the program and how the resultant information should be displayed. If the interface is poorly designed, the program will turn out to be a failure in terms of user experience. A simple explanation of UI is the menu on a website’s homepage. Users can select the options (as commands) from the screen. Whichever is clicked upon, the resultant page will be displayed. Remember that UI and UX go hand-in-hand.
UX – USER EXPERIENCE
UX is the all-encompassing concept of user experience. High-quality user experience is a result of the well-blended concept of development, QA, engineering, marketing, graphical and UI design. Ask questions such as “Is the functionality useful?”, “Is it easily accessible?”, “Is it safe to use?”, “Does it serve the purpose?”.. and so on.
DOMAIN NAME
The address of the website as entered in the browser is the domain name of the website. Domain names are formed by rules of the Domain Name System. A few conventional domains are .gov, .edu, .org, .com. For instance, let’s look at the URL – www.rhizomaticweb.com; the part of the network address that identifies the organization is the domain name of the website.
HTML
Hyper Text Markup Language is the primary language used to write web pages. The way through which content is scaled to the website is through HTML. A website that is purely created in HTML is sometimes also referred to as a static website. HTML annotates a document describing its layout and syntax.
CACHE/CACHING
The cache holds on to certain elements of the website to reduce the load time from repeat website visits. Often developers instruct to clear your browser’s cache if a change is made on the website. You’re told to do this because the browser may be holding onto older version and hasn’t accepted the newer changes.
CASCADING STYLE SHEETS
CSS defines the look and feel of the website. CSS is used to simplify and lend uniformity to the site’s HTML files. In other words, it has replaced tables and other HTML-based methodologies that define the format and layout of a website. The most important benefit of using a CSS is the ability to change the style of the site by changing a single file rather than making modification everywhere. This also does not disturb the content anyway.
CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
In order to manage the front-end of the website, it is crucial to have a strong back-end. If there is a strong administration tool available to create, edit, maintain and publish your website’s data, you will be available to run the show smoothly. This administrative tool is the Content Management System. You do not need to have programming skills or technical knowledge to survive it. You can easily create and manage your digital content and utilize the publishing tools to broadcast your content as and when you like. Some popular CMS tools are WordPress, Drupal, SilverStripe, and Joomla.
COOKIES
You must have come across these pop-ups that promptly say that the website uses cookies. Now cookies help the browser remember information about you and keep records for your and the website’s information. This information is stored on the client side and the future reference.
301 REDIRECT
This is the most common way to let search engines know that the website has moved to another location. In doing so, the bookmarked location of your website will point or redirect to the new address when customers come looking for your website.
JAVASCRIPT
Javascript is a scripting language that is used to make web pages interactive and dynamic. It is called “client-side programming” because the source code is processed by the client’s web browser rather than on the web server. Which means the code can run on a page load without communicating to the server. Whether you want to automate simple tasks, update web content on the fly(event-driven) or create complex web pages that behave like desktop software applications, Javascript can be applied anywhere.
VOID
If a transaction has not been completed, “Void” as a transaction is used to cancel it.
BACKLINKS
Now, this is very important. Backlinks are links that connect other website pages to yours. They increase the site’s popularity with search engines and increase footfall to your website. So, make sure the “anchor text” (hyperlink) makes all the desired difference.
METADATA
Metadata is data contained within meta-tags that is available in the header. It is not viewable on the web page but contains all the information about the web page the user is currently on. So for instance, meta tags will have all the information such as topic/title, keywords, description, instructions to search engines and visitor browsers.
As an online store merchant, you must be thinking of ways to improve your online presence and overall sales boost. Perhaps you are doing everything right but still wondering what certain jargons mean and why you should brush up a little closer to these terms. Stay connected as we throw light on some key marketing terms in our next blog post.