Your guide to digital marketing jargon
We get it, digital marketing jargon is the worst
If you’ve ever felt like digital marketing conversations sound more like alphabet soup than actual advice… you’re not alone. SEO, PPC, CTR, ROI, CMS – it's like someone just started mashing the keyboard!
We totally get how overwhelming it can be when you're just trying to grow your business, and suddenly you're thrown into a world of acronyms, dashboards and ‘conversion funnels’. It’s not you, it’s the jargon - we're here to cut through it!
Let’s decode the big one’s first
These are the terms you’ll hear everywhere. They sound scarier than they are, we promise!
→ SEO: Search engine optimisation: This is all about making sure your website shows up when people search for things on Google. The better your SEO, the more likely someone will find you when they search “best coffee shop in Guildford” or “Surrey yoga classes”. It’s free visibility, basically!
→ PPC: Pay-per-click: This is the opposite of SEO – instead of trying to show up organically, you pay for a spot. Think Google Ads, where you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. It can work brilliantly if your website is doing its job (which…might need its own blog post).
→ CTR: Click-through rate: This tells you how many people actually clicked on your content (like an ad, or email link) compared to how many actually saw it. It’s a nice little insight into whether your message is landing or just floating off into the internet void.
→ ROI: Return on investment: Are you getting more money back than you’re putting in? ROI is the maths behind whether your marketing is actually working. It’s what every business owner cares about (and rightly so!)
→ CTA: Call To Action: This is marketing speak for “tell people what you want them to do next.” Book a call, sign up to the newsletter, buy the thing – whatever it is, make it clear!
Then there’s the platform-specific terms
Each platform loves to make up its own terms – here are a few worth knowing.
→ Reach: How many individual people saw your post
→ Impressions: How many times your post was seen (so if one person saw it three times, that counts as three impressions)
→ Meta Business Suite: This is the backend for Facebook and Instagram where you schedule posts, check insights, and try not to cry over engagement stats. It's free and powerful… once you know your way around.
Website Words That Sound More Complicated Than They Are
I’m sure we’ve all tried to fix something on our site, or come away from a conversation with a web developer and thought ‘what just happened?!’ Now, there are some parts we need to leave to the professionals, but it’s good to know the baseline terminology!
→ CMS: Content Management System: This is just the platform your website is built on. WordPress, Squarespace, Wix…those are all CMSs. If you’ve ever added a blog post or updated your hours, you’ve used one!
→ Bounce Rate: How quickly someone lands on your website and leaves again. High bounce rate? It might mean your site isn’t giving them what they expected. Or it’s just ugly (sorry).
→ Landing Page: A page designed to do one thing – get people to sign up, buy, or click. Not your homepage, not your “About” section, just a focused page with one job.
Why Does Any of This Matter?
Once you understand the language, it becomes so much easier to make smart decisions - and best of all? You’ll stop wasting money on stuff you don’t actually need!
Not ready to dive in solo?
That’s what we’re here for. Whether you need help making sense of your analytics or just want someone to do the thing, drop us a message or sign up to the Dreaming Digital newsletter for weekly inspo straight to your inbox 💌