Glossary

 

  • Affiliate - Person who does affiliate marketing, promoting someone else's product for sale, and earning commissions.


  • Affiliate Link - The link an affiliate uses to send a website vistor to the vendor's site. The link is encoded in some fashion, usually with the affiliate's ID number, so that he or she will be given credit if a sale results.


  • Affiliate Marketing - A form of marketing unique to the internet, widely thought to have been introduced by Amazon.Com in the mid 1990s. Vendors pay their affiliates commissions on sales that are made through the affiliate's referrals. Commissions range from as little as 5% to as much as 50%, and occasionally higher.


  • Anchor Text - The text (usually highlighted in blue or some other color) that denotes a link to another website or web page.


  • Autoresponder - Automatic Responder, or Automatic Mailer. Once triggered, it sends out a series of emails on a predetermined schedule. At one time, people bought "leads" and loaded the email addresses into autoresponders. These days, it is more common to ask people to "subscribe" or "opt in" by sending a blank email to the autoresponder, or filling out a form on a web page which then sends a blank email to the autoresponder.


  • Banner Advertising - A once highly effective, and now largely ineffective method of online advertising. They are sort of like internet billboards. They somehow promote a product, and usually tell you to "click here". Most people ignore them.


  • Blog, Blogger, and Blogging - A blog is an online journal or diary or some sort. It is is frequently updated with short "posts" or "entries" that are of interest to the writer (and hopefully to the readers!). A "blogger" is a person who writes a blog, and "blogging" is the act of writing a blog. "Blogosphere" is a term some bloggers use to refer to the general universe of blogs, bloggers, and blogging.


  • CAN-SPAM Act - the 2004 US law that makes sending "spam" or "unsolicited commercial email" illegal, and subject to potentially harsh penalties, including large fines and jail time. If you send ANY business email, learn how to be CAN-SPAM compliant!


  • Cookies - Small text files placed on your computer by websites to keep some information about you, such as your login name or password for that site. Also used by Affiliate Programs to keep track of which Affiliate initially referred you to their website. Cookies in and of themselves are harmless.


  • Directory - Most commonly used to refer to a way of listing of web sites. You submit a listing to the directory, and, if approved by the editors, appear in their listings. Most directories list sites alphabetically, rather than "ranking" sites or pages. You choose which category or categories your web site will appear in, and that is where you are found in the directory. Yahoo! started as, and still maintains a directory. The other most famous one is DMOZ, the Open Directory Project.


  • Double Opt-In - A way of collecting email addresses. Someone asks to be placed on your mailing list (thereby "opting in"), but is not included on the list until they have responded to a confirming email, verifying their desire to subscribe to your list. They have, in effect, opted in twice, so the process is referred to as double opt-in. The idea is to protect you from spam complaints, since everyone on your mailing list had to ask to be there, first by subscribing, and then by confirming their subscription, and validating their email address in the process.


  • Downline - A term usually used by Network (MLM) Marketers, but also used in multi-tiered affiliate programs. Anyone who subscribes through your link, or is placed "under" you by the program is part of your downline. Another term often used to describe your downline is "sub-affiliates". In most cases, you earn some sort of partial commission when anyone in your downline sells a product.


  • Downloadable - Refers to ebooks and software that are delivered straight to your computer by the process of downloading, rather than delivered to you as a physical product through the mail.


  • Ebook - An electronic book which is downloadable. It comes to you as a special type of text file (usually a PDF) that you can then open and read on your own computer.


  • Email Marketing - Sending out one or a series of emails promoting a product or service that you want to sell, or encouraging people to join your downline in some program that you are a member of. Slowly but surely falling into disuse, as its effectiveness drops.


  • FFA or Free For All - A type of website that is "free for all" to post a link back to their own website, or perhaps post an ad. There is little or no editing or screening of the links that are posted. Search engines are thought to penalize the sites they find linking to FFAs, so it is wise to stay away from them.


  • Forum - An online discussion board. People post questions, and others answer them. These are a great way to learn all kinds of things you need to know, and have the added benefit of helping you to get to know other people who are doing business online. They also have a secret benefit that many people overlook. Many forums allow you to post a "signature" with every post, and that signature often can contain the URL of your site. If you keep your posts "on topic" with the "theme" of your website, you'll get some great incoming links to your web site from your own forum posts!


  • Hit - When someone visits your website, you've received a "hit". No comment on the several other definitions of this word, which have nothing to do with internet marketing. Use your imagination.


  • Hit Exchange - A website that asks you to sign up and "surf" the sites of other members, in exchange for which you receive "hit credits" that will display your site to other members. Very popular, but in my opinion, largely a waste of time, unless they are "viral". A "viral" hit exchange allows you to earn credits from the surfing activity of people you have recruited to the program. Once you have enough recruits, you get free (low quality) traffic to your website without doing any surfing of your own to earn it.


  • Hosting - Also referred to as "web hosting". Your "host" is the company that rents you space on their server to display your website. The hosting company in turn has a relatively direct connection to the internet, making your site readily accessible. Low-budget hosting companies may not have direct connections.


  • HTML - Hypertext Markup Language, which is the "code" or "language" used to develop a web page. On any web page, if you click "view source" on your browser's tool bar, you'll see the underlying HTML code which tells a browser what to display on the page.


  • Index - A type of search engine listing in which pages are "ranked" in some way for their relevance to a particular search term. Google is the classic example. Yahoo and MSN now also have highly competitive indexes. These three account for something like 80% plus of all search engine traffic (which is why it is pointless to pay for those services that promise to "blast your site to 8 million search engines" for a fee).


  • Info Product - An internet term referring to some sort of "information product" (usually an ebook or special report) that you write or have ghost-written, and sell over the internet.


  • Internet Service Provider (ISP) - The folks whom you pay every month to be able to have access to the internet. Not to be confused with a hosting company, although quite a few provide both Hosting and ISP services.


  • Javascript - A specialized type of computer language that can be used to display special effects, perform calculations, etc. Learn HTML first before bothering to delve into java.


  • Joint Venture - A type of internet marketing strategy wherein two or more people go together on a project. Most commonly, an unknown will develop a product, and "JV" with a more experienced person who either has marketing skills lacked by the newcomer, or perhaps has a name and reputation, or a large mailing list, that will help to sell the product.


  • Key Word - Used by search engines to index pages. For instance, you might develop a web page using the key word "marketing". The idea is to sprinkle the word throughout the page in such a way that the Search Engines will rank the page highly whenever someone searches for "marketing".


  • Key Word Phrase - Same as "key word", except that it is several words used together, for instance, the key phrase "learn internet marketing". You are trying to "optimize" your page so that it will rank highly in the search engine results for that phrase, and thus turn up as one of the top listings when searchers enter that phrase in the search engine.


  • Link Cloaking - The act of disguising a link, so that it goes somewhere other than the person who clicks it thinks it does. Most commonly used by affiliates to hide the fact you're clicking an affiliate link, and/or prevent thieves from "link hijacking" by snipping off the affiliate code from the link, thereby stealing or circumventing the affiliate's commission.


  • Link Farm Similar in meaning to an FFA. A link farm is a page full of nothing but uncategorized links. Search engines like links that correspond to the "theme" of the site on which they appear. On a "link farm", their is no "theme". Search engines are thought to penalize and poorly rank link farms, and the sites which link to them. You can't be hurt by incoming links from a link farm, but they do you no good, either.


  • Link Popularity - Refers to the number of incoming links to your web site or page. The more links you have coming in, the more "popular" you are. Since links are perceived by the search engines as being "endorsements" of your web site, Link Popularity is analogous to how many friends you have.


  • Link Reputation - Refers to the quality of the sites that link to you. If you have lots of links to your site from poorly ranked or irrelevant sites, you have lousy "link reputation". If you get incoming links from high quality sites that rank well in the search engines, have lots of relevant incoming links themselves, and good "page rank", then you have good Link Reputation.


  • Link Text - The text (usually highlighted in blue or some other color) that denotes a link to another website or web page. Means the same as "Anchor Text".


  • MLM or Multi-Level Marketing. - see "Network Marketing".


  • Network Marketing - First done in the offline world, and also known as "multi-level marketing" or MLM, this is a form of marketing in which you are encouraged to promote the products of some company for commissions. Unfortunately, many of these companies are scams or pyramid schemes, which has given Network Marketing a bad name. Also, most MLMs require you to be a paying customer yourself, so many people end up spending far more than they can ever hope to earn.


  • Niche Marketing - Developing products for sale to a very specific market, or "niche", ideally one without a great deal of competition. Pay attention to this potentially very lucrative concept. The riches are in the niches.


  • Pay Per Click (PPC) - A form of advertising in which you agree to pay the search engine a set amount (usually a few cents, but PPC prices can go as high as several dollars per click in the most competitive markets) for every click. Most people have seen the small ads that appear on the right side of Google results pages. You'll also see them displayed on some pages on my site. Those are all PPC ads. If you click one of them, the person who posted the ad is charged, and Google gets the money. If you click the PPC ads on my site, Google pays me a percentage of what it collects from the advertiser.


  • PDF - Portable Document Format. Did you really want to know that? It's a type of text file readable with Adobe Acrobat and similar readers. Most ebooks are published as PDFs.


  • PopUp and PopUnder - A page that either "pops up" a few seconds after you visit a web page, or "pops under" (i.e., behind) the web page you intend to visit. Annoying. Most people hate them.


  • Reciprocal Linking - Exchanging links with another web site. Because you each link to each other, the links are "reciprocal".


  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - The technique of designing a web page so that it will be ranked well by the search engines for a particular key word or key phrase.


  • SERPs - Search Engine Results Pages. The pages you see after you enter a particular search phrase into the search engine. If your SEO is done right, you'll show up well in the SERPs.


  • Single Opt-In - When someone joins your mailing list and you do not confirm their address using "double opt in", then they have subscribed through "single opt-in". The danger in using this method to develop a mailing list is that you don't know whether the subscription really came from the person who owns the email address. It could have been given you by a malicious competitor who is hoping to earn you a spam complaint by inducing you to send unsolicited email (UCE) to someone.


  • Spyware - A type of hidden program that is downloaded to your computer without your knowledge, and then used to "spy" on you in various ways, for example, by recording your keystrokes, sniffing out personal information such as bank or credit card numbers, or keeping track of which websites you visit. It then secretly transmits that information back to the no good scumbag who put it on your computer and ought to hang by his toenails.


  • Start Page Exchange - Similar to a "hit exchange", except you earn credits by setting the start page in your browser to a specified URL, which in turn displays somebody else's website to you on a random basis. You earn "credits" every time you open your browser, and those credits then earn you the privilege of having your website displayed randomly to other members of the exchange.


  • Traffic - Visitors to your website.


  • Trojan - Used by both Spyware and Viruses. A trojan is a small, invisible program that gets installed on your computer and then does something you won't like, such as sending out emails to everyone in your address book, or stealing your credit card number and secretly sending it to the thief who is using the trojan. The term refers to the "trojan horse" used by the citizens of Troy to invade and conquer a neighboring city by presenting an apparent "gift" (a large statue of a horse) which was hollow and full of soldiers who snuck out and conquered the city.


  • UCE or Spam Unsolicited Commercial Email. As of 2004, it is now *illegal* for US residents to send email to someone with whom they have no prior relationship, if the email has some commercial or business purpose (i.e., to sell or promote something).


  • URL - Uniform Resource Locator is the origin of the term, which refers to the internet address of your website. A URL looks like "https://www.yoursite.com"


  • Virus
    • - A computer program, usually transmitted in an email attachment, intended to do some harm to your computer, or at least annoy you and make your life miserable for a few days. It might reformat your hard drive, scramble your files, or just send a nasty email to everyone in your address book. You don't want to experience viruses firsthand. Get good virus protection software.

  • Webmaster - A term used to refer to the person who operates and maintains a web site.