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A Shield to Jargon: Website Vocabulary You Should Know Before You Build Yours

If you are planning to get your website designed, you should be prepared to basket the website industry’s technical jargon hurled at you. We’re sure your website designers will break these terms into simple words for easy comprehension, but studying them early quickens up the process of your website.
Below is a basic glossary of terms that will help you understand what your website designer/website developer is talking about. From the difference between design and development to what a call-to-action does, we have said it all.

1) Website

A website is a collection of linked web pages that have text, images, videos and buttons. It contains specific information about you or your organization. Websites are written in a language called HTML and all the information is stored in a server.

Eg – www.google.com

Here is a detailed guide on websites. 

2) Web Page

A web page is a single page of a website. It is like one specific page of a book whereas the entire book is a website. Many web pages are linked together under a domain name to form a website. 

Eg – www.google.com/images

3) Domain Name

You type a www dot something dot com. The ‘something’ is what we call a domain name. The domain name is like the name of your business used to identify you. We, humans, type in the domain name and the browser converts it into a set of numbers called the IP address which is identified by the computer language. 

Eg – Google

Here is an in-depth article about domains. 

4) Web Browser

The data(text, images..) of your website is stored in a server. So when you type in a domain name, there needs to be a person who goes to the server, collects information and displays it on your screen. A browser is an application on your computer/mobile device that acts as a bridge between the server and your computer.

Eg – Google Chrome

5) Web Server

Like your computer stores your personal files, servers store the files necessary to display a website. Web servers are designed for computer to computer contact. It is a centralized big computer with more space, speed and power that stores information of websites and passes it to browsers when asked. 

6) URL

Shops have an address to identify its location, similarly, Uniform Resource Locator is the address of your website on the World Wide Web. The domain name is a part of a URL. Each web page has a unique URL.

Eg – If Gmail is the domain, www.gmail.com is the URL.

Website Vocabulary 1

7) Website Design/UI

 During the making of your website, the first step is to decide how it should look on the screen i.e the layout, placement of components like text, images and so on. This is called website design or website UI(User Interface). It is the point of communication between the user and the computer.

8) Website Development

To get the website UI in place, it needs the support of back-end development. A puppet is website design and its puppeteer is website development. Website development is the building and maintenance of your website behind the screen to make it look great, work fast and perform well on the screen. It is developed by using coding languages like HTML.

9) Home Page

Home page is the first page of your website that the user will see. Home pages are designed to attract, inform and retain users as initial impressions are long-lasting.

10) Landing Page

A landing page is also a first page through where the user enters your website. Landing pages are often customized with respect to ongoing marketing campaigns. Unlike home pages, these pages are more persuasive. They are tightly focused to prompt the user to take a specific action (buy,sign up/follow).

11) 301 Redirect

When a store gets relocated, it has a board with information about the new location to redirect the visitors outside the old store. Same way, 301 redirects are used if you change your domain name. They are used for smooth transitions from outdated URLs to the correct ones.

12) 404 Page Not Found

When a particular web page does not exist, a 404 error page is displayed. It may be because the user typed in the wrong address or the page actually does not exist on the server. It is also displayed when the web page is moved elsewhere and the 301 redirect is not put in place.

Website Vocabulary 2

13) Site Menu Bar

The menu bar is usually the top most component of websites that allows users to move around different pages of the website such as – home, about, contact. In most cases, this menu bar is the primary navigation. All contents of the website might not fit into the menu bar but the ones that are important and will be most interesting to the users are placed here.

14) Call-to-Action

Call-to-actions are buttons placed on your website to let users interact and navigate from one page of the website to the other. Words used on these buttons are action oriented or persuasive to urge the user. These buttons are intended to guide the users through a flow of information.
Now that you have a basic understanding of websites, do you think it is time to set up a meeting with your website designers yet? If you are still unsure about it all, comment below and we will help clear the fog in your head.

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