affiliate program affiliate link
Affiliate programs enable other sites to sell or publicize your products on a commission basis by placing a link to your site on its page(s). When a visitor follows that link and arrives at your site, your affiliate program "makes a note" of the site that referred him. If that visitor buys something, you pay that affiliate either a percentage of the sale or a fixed amount  according to your agreement.

back link
This link, also known as an inbound link, connects back to a page.

banner ads
A banner ad is a form of online advertising that entails placing an ad on a Web page to attract traffic to the website of the advertiser.

beta
This is the testing stage of a program or site, when users can access it online, report bugs, and give general feedback.

bid
The amount you will pay for a keyword ranking on pay-per-click (PPC) programs on search engines.

blog
A blog is the online version of a personal journal. This can include user-generated content such as comments, favorite Web sites, chat rooms, and article archives. The term comes from the shortened version of "Web log."

browser
Also known as a Web browser, it is a program used to display Internet content. Some examples of browsers include Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Safari.

click through rate (CTR)
The CTR is used in Internet marketing to determine the effectiveness of a link or advertisement by showing a company how many users have clicked on that link. It is most effective if used in conjunction with other measurements like conversion rate. It is also known as the click rate.

cloaking
The practice of deceiving a search engine in order to have the Web site appear in the top results. It may result in the banning of your site.

conversion rate (CR)
The conversion rate (CR) is an important measure of the effectiveness of the online sales effort because it gives the percentage of visitors that deliver the most wanted response (MWR). For example, if four out of every 100 visitors to a site deliver the MWR, the CR for that site is 4%.

cost-per-click (CPC) or pay-per-click (PPC)
The total cost of an advertising campaign divided by the resulting number of unique visitors. It is sometimes also used as a synonym for PPC.

cost per lead (CPL)
The total cost of an advertising campaign divided by the resulting number of new leads.

E-mail marketing
A form of direct marketing which uses e-mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing.

internet marketing
Internet marketing is a component of electronic commerce. It can include information management, public relations, customer service, and sales.

keyword
The term used in a search engine query to find a particular Web site.

keyword marketing
For ad buyers, keyword marketing involves purchasing ad units, typically banners, on a user's search results. For SEO professionals, keyword marketing involves achieving top placement in the actual search listings themselves.

landing page
The Web page that a user visits after clicking a search engine listing. Marketers attempt to improve conversion rates by testing various landing page creative, which encompasses the entire user experience including navigation, layout and copy.

listings
The Web sites that appear on a search engine's results page.

meta tag 
Placed in the head section of a Web page, the tag provides additional information, such as keywords or a title to help search engines index the page correctly. However, many Webmasters use these tags to gain an unfair advantage, which forced search engines to begin disregarding meta tags.

paid listing
A Web site that appears on a search results page by outbidding competitors (as in PPC). The advertiser can pay the search engine a fixed amount to have its ad show up for a specific keyword.

pop-under / popunder / pop under
A type of pop-up that appears behind the current window. The user sees the pop-under when the current window is closed or minimized.

portal
A Web site that functions as a kind of starting page or entry point to the web and has features such as search, free Web-based e-mail, news etc. Well-known examples include Excite and Yahoo.

pay per click (PPC)
An advertising payment model where the advertiser pays only when a visitor clicks on the advertisement. The term CPC (cost per click) is sometimes used in the place of

pay per lead (PPL)
A system where the receiving site pays a certain amount to the referring site for every new lead.

R3
The CollegeBound Network's acronym for "Recruitment, retention, reporting."

ranking
The position of a Web site on the search results page for a particular query. For example, a page that is listed third for the term "bubblegum" is said to have a ranking of 3 for that term.

reciprocal link
An exchange of links between two sites. Contrary to popular belief, reciprocal linking does not necessarily improve a site's PageRank and it can have a negative effect.

return on investment (ROI)
Refers to the percentage of profit or revenue generated from a specific activity. For example, one might measure the ROI of a paid listing campaign by adding up the total amount spent on the campaign (say $200) versus the amount generated from it in revenue (say $1,000). The ROI would then be 500 percent.  

search engine
A service that displays relevant websites, depending on the user's search terms. Web search engines generally have paid listings and organic listings. Some examples include Google and Yahoo.

search engine marketing
The marketing of a website by improving rank in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities.

search engine optimization (SEO)
Activities that are directly or indirectly aimed at improving a page's search engine ranking so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines.

unique visitor
Used to describe one person visiting a site. A unique visitor can have multiple visits to one Web site.

URL
Uniform Resource Locator / Universal Resource Locator. It is a unique Internet address (for example http://www.ReachStudentsOnline.org) that allows a Web page to be located.

vortal
The term is used to describe portals that focus on one specific (vertical) topic. In other words, they target at a specific group of people -- like programmers, SEO specialists etc. -- by providing in-depth information on that topic.

Web copywriting
Similar to offline copywriting, Web copywriting is specifically aimed at an online audience and takes into account how spiders see Web pages. Although there are many who feel copywriters should focus on converting visitors to customers and not be concerned with getting visitors, there are strong arguments for SEO considerations to form part of Web copywriting.