So you are a content writer – someone who knows the art of blogging, crafting sharp press releases, ebooks, and other marketing materials.
Further, you know SEO best practices and use them well to make the content user-centric and discoverable.
However, are you aware of the buzzing terms of the content marketing industry? Can you speak the language of a true content marketer and present your ideas and suggestions to your potential clients like a pro?
Well, just like any other industry, there are many abbreviations and jargon that are frequently used in the content marketing arena. Being aware of these will help you ace your game and better map out your content strategies.
Today, the editorial team of Shape My Content has drafted an ultimate content marketing glossary for you. This includes both known and lesser-known jargon that content writers and consultants should know. Take a read and make your notes.
Content Marketing from A to Z
Above the Fold
Above the fold is the word taken from print journalism. It depicts the content printed in the top half of the front page of a broadsheet newspaper and is visible when the paper is folded.
Ad Space
Ad space is an advertising space on websites that list out advertisements which may consist of banners, texts, and videos.
Adsense
Adsense is a program run by Google that lets publishers in the Google Network serve advertisements on your website. It consists of texts, images, videos, or other interactive media advertising targeted to your site audience for which Google pays you.
Advertorial
Advertorial is a content-focused advertisement, which is written like an editorial piece.
Aggregated Content
Content taken from several sources and accumulated at a single place is called aggregated content. This may include reuse of content, content curation, or news aggregation services.
ALT-TAGS
ALT-TAG or Alternative tag is a short description for any image, webpage, or object. It helps Google to find images or access websites using text-to-speech tools for the visually impaired.
Anchor Text
Anchor text is a clickable text used in HTML hyperlink that appears as blue underlined text, which takes you from one webpage to the other.
Astroturfing
Astroturfing is an unethical method of using fake or covert user comments and reviews to promote your brand. Paid reviews are one such example of astroturfing in the content marketing industry.
Backlinks
A backlink is the reference which is hyperlinked that directs you from one webpage to another. Google uses it to rank a website as a part of algorithms in SEO.
Backlinko
Founded by Brian Dean, Backlinko is a go-to online destination to learn actionable tips and tricks on SEO.
Bad Neighbourhood
Bad neighbourhoods include websites that use unethical practices to rank themselves in the top position. It includes link farming or cloaking.
Bio
Bio is a short description left at the end about the author of the blog. It helps experienced content writers get better content marketing opportunities.
Black Hat SEO
Like the bad neighbourhood, black hat SEO describes unethical practices or techniques to get ranked. Websites using black hat SEO techniques are penalized by Google.
Boilerplate
Boilerplate is the technical language or content used to construct legal documents. The standard text included in company documents or web pages is the “fine print.”
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who navigate away from a website after viewing one page of the website.
Brand Evangelist
People who have strong positive feelings about your brand are brand evangelists. They are often asked to write a review or editorial about your brand/service/product.
Brand Voice
Brand voice is the consistent and purposeful use of words, tone, composition, or verbiage to express the core message and values.
Business Blogging
As per HubSpot, Business Blogging is a marketing tactic that uses blogging to get your business more online visibility. A business blog is a marketing channel (just like social media, direct mail, email marketing, etc.) that helps support business growth.
We at Shape My Content are adept at business blogging – check our list of content marketing services here!
Buyer Persona
A buyer-persona is a user-centred research-based profile that represents a targeted user type. It may include certain attributes of the targeted user type such as likes, dislikes, concerns, issues, demographics, preference, etc. that helps create efficacious content copies.
Read our blog to know how you can build a buyer’s persona.
Call-To-Action
It is an action phrase to convert potential customers into actual ones such as “Sign Up” or “Buy Now,” which is usually in the form of a button.
Canonicalization
Web Pages with more than one URL can pose an issue for Google in terms of which one to rank. The practice of assigning multiple URLs to one webpage is called canonicalization.
Clickbait
Clickbait is a deceitful content placed to attract people to click on a link but doesn’t deliver quality content.
Click Paths
Click paths show the pages a user used to enter the site, where it clicked, and which link is used to exit the site. This shows the entire journey or path that a user followed while browsing the site.
Click Through Rate
Click through Rate (CTR) is the percentage that represents how many readers will click through the given link in content and take the intended action. It’s a part of both digital marketing and content marketing glossary.
Cloaking
Cloaking is yet another unethical practice intended to get a higher ranking. Here a page has different content than what is seen or clicked by the visitor.
CMS or Content Management System
A CMS is a system used by businesses to manage content. WordPress is the most popular content management system followed by Shopify, Drupal, Squarespace, Wix, Joomla and many more.
Content Curation
Content curation is a handpicked collection of content from various sources in one format around a specific topic to promote your brand. The content is intended to be shared with fans.
Content Farm
A content farm or content mill is a website publishing a high number of low-quality content with the purpose of generating income.
Content Shock
Sounds funny? Well, content shock is when users are bombarded with more than enough content that they can handle. It often leads to a devaluation of content, making it difficult for marketers to convey their message.
Copywriting
Copywriting is an act of writing exclusive pieces of content for the purpose of brand promotion and advertisement. It includes targeted and user-focused words and phrases that instigate the users to take action.
Conversion
Conversion occurs when your visitor takes action to complete a desired goal such as filling a form, making a purchase, or subscribing to the newsletter.
Crowdsourced Content
Crowdsourced content is the content produced by experts or groups of people of common interest whom the target audience trusts.
Data-Backed Content
Data-backed content refers to the content with data to support the claims. Such content helps to create a stronger copy and establishes authority.
Tip- You can use tools like Factbrowser to get industry-specific data.
Dead Link
Dead link refers to a hyperlink on the website which directs the user to a page that has been deleted or moved. It is also called an “Orphan Link” that arises due to a temporary condition at times when the server is down.
Digital Sharecropping
Digital sharecropping occurs when you build your online presence on a platform that you don’t own where the credit is given to the platform, not you—for instance, Facebook, Google+, Medium, or Tumblr.
Dummy Content
Dummy content, also known as filler text, is the fake content used in place of actual content depicting the normal word distribution.
Drupal
Drupal is a content management system used by organizations that are non-profit or charity.
Duplicate Content
Content that appears on more than one website or webpage is called duplicate content. Using duplicate content may affect your ranking.
Go through our blog to know about duplicate content, its impact, and ways to cut it down from your website. You can use free tools like Small SEO Plagiarism Checker and Duplichecker to find plagiarism instantly.
Dwell Time
Dwell time is the amount of time a user stays on your website.
Earned Media
Earned media is publicity or recognition you receive from the third party such as news articles, or customer reviews, or social media mentions.
Ebooks
Ebooks are well-researched long-form content types focused at generating more leads.
Echo Chamber
The echo chamber is a situation where the information is reinforced or amplified inside a defined system. It is a brand noise, information, or idea which is for the brand, by the brand, about the brand and is reverberated across different platforms.
Editorial Calendar
Editorial content determines, outlines, and plans the publication of content, which acts as a guide for the organization. It lets you know what content to write, when to write, and how to write.
Email Marketing
Using content to create a commercial message and sending it to a group of people or potential customers in its broadcast sense is called email marketing.
Evergreen Content
High-quality content that remains valuable and useful throughout the course of time is called evergreen content. Such content never goes out of trend.
Experimental Content
Any content that’s unpredictable, new, and untested is called experimental content, which organizations must include in their website.
FAQ
FAQ stands for frequently asked questions. Many websites include this section to provide answers to commonly asked questions about the products/services like specs, lifespan, guarantee, or other important aspects.
Feature
A feature is a detailed piece of content that is intended to provide more information about a subject or topic than the typical content sources.
Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease
It is a system to know how much a piece of content scores in terms of readability. The system considers certain elements such as sentence length, structure, and word complexity. The higher the score, the easier it is to read the content.
Forum
Forum or message board refers to platforms that allow online discussions through posting messages. They are different from chats.
Ghost Blogger/Writer
A ghost blogger/writer is one who writes for others and doesn’t receive any credit for the content written. Sometimes the writing is credited to some other person.
Grey Hat SEO
Grey Hat SEO lies between black hat and white hat SEO techniques to which many professionals would disagree. The practice includes purchasing old domains, duplicate content, link buying or purchasing followers. It is considered as an ill practice which can be penalized by Google. Definitely a part of both SEO and content marketing glossary.
Guest Blogging
The practice of regularly publishing blogs for others on different sites to increase your own exposure is called guest blogging.
Hashtag
A word or phrase preceded by a hash (#) sign particularly used on social media platforms to identify messages on a specific topic.
Heat Map
A heat map is a data visualization technique that shows where users interact with a page using different patterns and colour schemes.
Hidden Text
Hidden text or link is invisible text inserted to manipulate Google rankings and is seen as deceptive. It includes using white text on white background, locating text behind images, setting font size to 0, or hiding a link by linking a small character such as hyphen in the middle.
Hosting
Hosting is a service that allows organizations, individuals to access their website via the world wide web. Owners get a space for the website to be published on the internet either on the lease or for a fee. Hosting enables website owners to edit website content, share files, and hyperlink pages without the need of knowing programming languages.
How-to Guides
A how-to guide is a specific writing format that guides about how to do a task. It could be in the form of a blog, infographic, or video.
Hook
The hook is a catchy phrase placed at the beginning of the content intended to attract readers that leaves them wanting for more.
Hyperlink
A hyperlink is a link embedded in anchor text that directs the readers to some other webpage. It provides supporting resources within the piece of content.
Impression
An impression denotes each time your webpage is viewed by visitors. Usually, it is organic, but some companies charge per impression.
Inbound Links
A link on another web page either embedded in anchor text or the URL that directs readers to your website is called inbound links.
Influencer content
Influencer content is created in collaboration with the experts in the subject matter and industry authorities. This form of content works closely with earned media.
Infographic
A visual display of complicated information is called information. It is easily understood and memorized as compared to text.
Pro Tip- You can use tools like Canva and Piktochart to create eye-catchy infographics!
Internal Linking
Next in our content marketing glossary is internal linking.
It is a hyperlink between two pages on the same website – it helps users to better navigate the website.
Jargon
Jargon are catchwords that make sense to a community but are unknown to people outside a community. For example, many of the terms of this content marketing glossary will be industry jargon for non-marketers.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
A Key Performance Indicator or KPI is a metric that evaluates the success of any business. For content marketing, the metric includes reach, engagement, sentiment, and conversion.
Keyword
Words and phrases that people type into a search bar to find something on the internet are called keywords, which are used by SEOs to optimize a web page. Keywords are important when you are to craft an SEO friendly copy.
Kill Fee
Kill fee is an amount of money you get paid by the publisher for a copy of content that a publisher decides not to publish. It is usually a percentage of the amount paid had your copy been published.
Knocking Copy
Knocking copy includes an advertising content that a company uses to discredit the product of a competitor against their own product unfavorably.
Landing Pages
A landing page is an entry point for a website where a visitor lands after clicking on the website from an email, ads on Google, Bing, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Landing pages are designed keeping a single focus called call-to-action.
Lean Content
Lean content is a high impact content that provides targeted information that conveys the brand message on a deeper level.
Lede
The first sentence or a two of any blog or article is called lede.
Tip – You must make sure that it is impactful and compelling.
Linkbait
Linkbait is a provocative content. It is crafted with the intent to draw as many readers as possible on your website.
Link Farm
A link farm is a website or a group of websites where the majority of content is a hyperlink. It is created to increase the link popularity or another website by increasing the number of incoming links.
Link Reclamation
Link reclamation is the process of finding, fixing, and replacing broken links directed to your website. It also replaces the links that are no longer valuable for your website.
Link Rot
Link rot is a phenomenon that causes the links to break. It happens when websites go offline completely or when websites migrate to a new CMS or link structure.
LinkedIn is a social networking platform – it is geared to connect business professionals where employers post jobs and job seekers post their CVs.
Load Time
Load time is the time that a website takes to completely load.
Tip- Companies must make sure that the load time of their website is less. If a website takes more time to load it detracts the users.
Meme
Many people never mention memes in their content marketing glossary, but we know it deserves mention!
A meme is a funny content that spreads quickly and has a greater reach. It consists of funny images, videos, or text. The word Meme has come from Biologist and Author Richard Dawkins.
Mentions
Mentions or brand mentions are important in inbound marketing. If you have seen instances where a specific brand is mentioned across different social media platforms, it is brand mention. There could be press mentions as well. These are published in the form of reviews, complaints, feedback, and posts to educate your audience.
Microblogging
Microblogging deserves a special mention in our content marketing glossary. It is a specific form of blogging, representing a combination of instant messaging and content production. It is shared to improve engagement.
Mirror Sites
Mirror sites are replicas of a website on different servers. This happens when a website can’t handle the large volume of traffic.
Multipurpose Content
Multipurpose content is crafted with the intent to be recycled, reused, reformed, or reformatted.
Native Advertising
Native ads consist of content that is cohesive with the page or platform it is published. Usually, these are paid ads to match the look and feel of the platform they appear.
Newsjacking
David Meerman Scott coined the term “Newsjacking,” which involves content crafted around trending news stories to get the website noticed.
Online Press Release
An online press release is a written document made for the media or press by a brand to announce something that’s newsworthy. It could include news such as the launch of a new product or service, or opening of a new branch, awards or honors, new initiatives, or releasing surveys.
Online Reputation Management
Online reputation management is the practice of taking control of online conversations and monitoring it to ensure people find the right content about your brand. It creates a balance and counteracts misleading trends, thus helping to protect online reputation.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing web content that includes optimization of title tags, content, internal links, and URL. It considers technical excellence, impactful content, and flawless user experience.
Outbound Links
Outbound links are those links on your website that directs them to different sites. It is vital in content marketing to improve the visibility and credibility of your content.
Tip- Make sure you have outbound links to more authoritative sites as it will help you rank better on Google.
Permalink
Permalink is a static hyperlink on a website that remains unchanged for years. It is less susceptible to link rot in the long term.
Permission Marketing
Permission marketing is a word coined by Seth Godin. It refers to a type of advertising practice that gives the audience the liberty to receive a promotional message. One of the common forms of permission marketing is choosing to receive updates as a part of an email list.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is an unethical practice of representing another author’s language, thoughts, ideas, or expression into one’s own work. It is considered a violation of integrity and a breach of ethics.
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital audio files, or you can say it is audio programming that users can download for easy listening. Podcasts are great forms of content for those users who don’t like to read much.
Popup
Popup notification points towards graphical control that communicates and leads users to a specific event. Toasts, notification bubbles, desktop notifications, snack bars, or passive popups are some types intended to draw in more customers. It may demand immediate attention or prompt users to act.
PPC
PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click, a part of internal marketing where the advertisers or companies pay each time a user clicks their ad. It is a technique to buy visits to your website.
Tip- Make sure that the content you craft for PPC ad copies should be compelling and impactful.
Q&A
Q&A is a short form of question and answer. Like FAQs, many companies include a Q&A section on the website that allows users to engage by asking questions. Users ask questions and people who are experts or knowledgeable in the field post their answers. Quora is one of the most popular Q&A platforms.
Q-Sort Technique
Q-sorting is a practice where people’s opinions are taken by giving them a question. They are asked to sort and rank their opinions or views based on statements presented. The practice is intended to identify groups of people who share a similar ideology on a topic.
Qualified Leads
A lead is said to be qualified when it has shown interest in brand offerings and is likely to become a customer based on the marketing efforts.
Qualitative Media Effect
Qualitative media effect is a way of measuring the impact of an advertising medium through which the content is delivered and spread worldwide.
Quality Score
The quality score evaluates the ad’s quality, keywords, landing page, and other marketing factors. The higher your quality score, the lower your ad’s price, and the better is the position.
Rational Appeals in Advertising
A rational appeal in advertising is a strategy that emphasizes more on the practical reasons and functionality to purchase a product or service.
Remarketing or Retargeting
Remarketing or retargeting is a strategy that digital marketers use to serve ads to users who already visited their website but had not taken any specific action.
Repurposing
Repurposing is a strategy where existing content is taken, recycled, and published on different mediums. For instance, a blog is repurposed into a video and posted across various social media platforms.
Review
The review refers to public opinion or view about your offerings. It can be negative or positive, depending on the user experience.
ROI
ROI or return on investment, refers to the income generated from your marketing efforts. It depicts whether you are getting your effort and money’s worth from your marketing campaign.
Schema.org
Schema.org is a collaborative community activity to create and promote structured data schemes on the internet, webpages, and email addresses. This term is part of both SEO and content marketing glossary.
Scrapper
A scrapper is a software tool that you can use to extract content from a website to be used somewhere else. It is another form of duplication, which is penalized by Google.
Seeding
Seeding is the practice of distributing messages in a small group intended to create publicity.
Soft Bounce
A soft bounce is a situation where emails are not delivered due to any temporary reason, such as full inbox or server error.
Sweating Your Content Assets
Sweating your content assets means getting maximum benefits out of the content existing on your website, either by reusing or recycling it.
Syndicated Content
Syndicated content is a term used for content taken from one provider to be made available to those who have subscribed to it. RSS feed is a good example of syndicated content.
Tags
Tags are small descriptions attached to a webpage, image, or video that helps users locate the content on Google.
Targeting
Targeting is a marketing practice where tailored messages are triggered for specific audiences. This is done with the view of creating brand awareness and improving the sales of the brand. It requires a great deal of research to tailor such messages and understand the target.
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is a practical approach to proper management of information where webpages are lumped together to form a hierarchical structure. Important yet often ignored term in a content marketing glossary.
Tentpole Content
High-value pieces of content that draw in significant traffic are known as tentpole content.
Traffic
The number of visitors visiting a website is denoted by traffic. It is important that your website has great traffic to increase the reach of your brand.
UGC
UGC or User Generated Content refers to the content created by the users. It consists of the content posted by the users, which could be in any form such as images, videos, texts, and audio.
URL Rewriting
URL rewriting is a technique that considers alternative URLs shorter than the original one to make it more search-friendly.
Pro Tip- You must add keywords in the URL as it will help you rank on Google.
USP
USP, or Unique Selling Proposition, is the unique feature of the brand/products/services that distinguishes it from its competitors.
Pro Tip – To craft unique content copies for a brand, USP should be the prime focus.
Video Blogging/Vlogging
Yet another important term from our content marketing glossary is video blogging. Also known as vlogging, video blogging is when video content is posted on different social media and video sharing websites.
Video Marketing
Video marketing involves the usage of videos in place of written content. It helps in promoting a brand as videos to increase user engagement.
Vertical Search
Most content marketers use vertical search to search a narrow subset of content intended to receive the most relevant results possible.
Virality
Virality refers to the possibility of the content to go viral on the internet. It evaluates whether a piece of content will become popular overnight or not. The content may include videos, posts, stories, or any other marketing material.
Visual Content
Visual content is primarily image-based. The most common visual content includes pictures, diagrams, infographics, charts, screenshots, online videos, memes, PowerPoint presentations, and slide decks.
White Paper
A white paper is a well-researched and in-depth piece of content that acts as an authoritative source intended to educate the audience about the products and services.
White Space
White space refers to the blank space on the website left to enhance the aesthetics of the website.
Word of Mouse
Right, this content marketing glossary has some super interesting terms!
Content or information spread online by the click of the mouse through the internet is called the word of mouse.
Zerys
Zerys is an online marketplace and content production platform.
The Last Jargon in Our Content Marketing Glossary, Zoom
Zoom is a popular video conferencing tool that simplifies collaboration within multiple teams.
So, that’s our content marketing glossary – we hope this will help!
Keep visiting this space for the latest content marketing posts and industry updates.
