Website Design Jargon Buster
We know that web design is often shrouded in mystery. Website Designers like to hide in their own jargon and many find it difficult to speak in plain English.
At E Marketing Support Ltd we avoid speaking in technical jargon when talking to our customers. By speaking to you in plain English we can provide you with the information you need to make the correct decisions for your business.
However, we also understand that the use of some words and phrases is unavoidable. We know that many of our customers want or need to understand what they mean and how they affect them.
As part of our honest and transparent communication policy we have provided the following glossary of website design terms and phrases that can help to demystify the products and services we offer.
Accessibility - What is Accessibility?
Web accessibility relates to how people with disabilities can use your website. There are many tools available to people with different kinds of disabilities. Website owners have a legal responsibility to ensure that their website meets certain requirements enabling these tools to work successfully. We are happy to discuss how this law affects you and your website.
Bandwidth - What is Bandwidth?
Bandwidth is word used a lot within computing. When web designers talk about bandwidth we are referring to the amount of data that can be transferred from our computers (or servers) to your website visitors computer.
Each time someone looks at a page of your website they transfer or 'download' all of the text and images that make up that page from our server to their own computer. Each time this happens a small amount of bandwidth is used up.
Websites that get thousands of visits (or 'hits') every month will need a high bandwidth allowance. At E Marketing Support Ltd we can take care of how much bandwidth you need and ensure that you have enough.
Bandwidth allowances are very rarely a problem for our customers because our hosting packages have high bandwidth allowances.
Browser - What is a Browser?
A web browser is a software application which enables you to display websites on your computer. The most common web browser in the world is Microsoft Internet Explorer. Other popular examples include Mozilla FireFox, Safari (by Apple) and Opera.
Web browsers convert the website code that website designers write into readable website pages.
It is essential to ensure that your website works in all popular browsers otherwise you might be excluding a large percentage of visitors. At E Marketing Support your new website will go through a full testing phase to ensure compatibility with all major browsers.
Content Management - What is Content Management?
Within website design 'content management' relates to the system that allows a website owner (you) to update, edit and maintain the content of their website without having to know how to write website code. Sometimes content managment systems (CMS) are called admin areas or admin zones.
Our content management systems are often built bespoke, so that they provide access to the exact areas of the website that the customer needs to amend on a regular basis. We also work with a number of branded content management systems to ensure that our customers get the best content managment system for their business needs at a price that is affordable.
CSS - What is CSS?
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. Web designers use CSS to control a whole host of things, including page layout, colours & fonts. The best web pages use CSS. Using it correctly means pages take less time to download, are easier to change in the future, print out wihout problems and are compliant with accessibility considerations. E Marketing Support Ltd make use of CSS technology on all new websites.
Dynamic Content - What is Dynamic Content?
Dynamic content is the opposite of static content. The content of dynamic webpages is 'created' each time the webpage is viewed. In the simplest terms this basically means that the page checks your content management system to ensure the most up to date content is displayed to website visitors. If you make a change via your content managment system, the dynamic page will display those changes as soon as you tell it to.
E Marketing Support Ltd can advise customers whether the use of dynamic content is cost effective based on how frequently a site needs to be updated, and the nature of the changes required.
Flash - What is Flash?
Adobe Flash (formerly "Macromedia Flash"') is a popular way of adding animation and movement to webpages. Flash can be interactive but in our experience is most commonly used for advertisements, banners and other web page components as a way of integrating video clips and animation into a page.
E Marketing Support Ltd are able to offer development of flash animation and related services.
HTML and (X)HTML - What is HTML and (X)HTML
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It is the name of the code that most website pages are written in. Web pages are written in a code which is translated by your computer (more specifically your browser - see above).
(X)HTML stands for Extensible HyperText Markup Language. It is a development of HTML and is the language most often used by E Marketing Support Ltd to write webpages. (X)HTML is the recommended language of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
HTTP - What is HTTP?
HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. In the simplest terms it is the process used for transferring the content of a webpage to your computer from the computer (or 'server') the webpage is stored on.
Hyperlink - What is a Hyperlink?
Hyperlinks are most often used to link different webpages together. When you navigate through a website by clicking on certain text or images, it is the hyperlink that directs you from one page to another or sometimes just to a different part of the same page. Hyperlinks can be images, text or other elements of a page.
JavaScript - What is JavaScript?
JavaScript is another website code (or language) used by website developers. It provides additional functionality to that offered by (X)HTML. It is most often used alongside (X)HTML to add 'dynamic' features to a webpage, one example is adding the time and date.
MySQL - What is MySQL?
Officially pronounced 'my ess-queue-ell' rather than 'My Sequel', MySQL is a popular database system used to create webpages dynamically. The content of pages are created/checked each time they are viewed, this is sometimes known as database driven.
In the simplest terms MySQL databases are most often used on more complicated websites where the owner updates page content themselves. The text and images that make up the website are stored in a database instead of on the pages themselves. Each time a page is viewed the page knows to look at the database for what should be displayed. These type of pages are called dynamic pages (see PHP below.)
The website owner is able to changes to content of the MySQL database using their Content Management System. The changes they make are reflected on their website immediately.
E Marketing Support Ltd makes extensive use of MySQL technology wherever relevant. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of database driven websites with all new customers.
PDF - What is a PDF?
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. PDFs can be a very useful way of electronically saving Sales Literature, Product Manuals or other material which is usually printed. You can allow visitors to download PDFs from your website.
E Marketing Support Ltd can help you to make the best use of PDFs for your website and other marketing requirements.
PHP - What is PHP?
PHP is a recursive initialism, which is a complicated way of saying it stands for Hypertext PreProcessor even thought the letters are in a different order. It is another website code (or language) that adds further functionality to webpages not offered by the standard (X)HTML code.
Dynamic webpages can be written using PHP code. The PHP code enables a webpage to look at a database to determine its content (text and images etc). It also allows visitors to submit content to the website owner via the website, for example via a 'contact us' form or a quotation request form.
S.E.O. - What is SEO?
S.E.O. stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is basically the process of changing a website (and it's code) so that it ranks as high as possible in search engines such as Google and Yahoo when particular words and phrases (known as keywords) are searched.
So for example if you sell mens shoes from a shop in London you will want to appear in the search results when someone searches 'mens shoe shop in London' or 'mens shoes for sale'.
E Marketing Support Ltd can optimise your website so that when these terms are searched, your website is listed.
Static Webpages - What are Static Webpages
Static webpages are pages that are created once and stay the same until a website designer changes them. The content doesn't change each time it is viewed and can't (normally) be updated by the website owner. They are the opposite of dynamic web pages (see above).
Valid Web Pages - What are 'valid' Web Pages?
Valid web pages are checked against certain rules and regulations set out by the W3C (see below), to ensure that they comply to accepted standards. The rules relate to how the website code is written, so it might not be immediately obvious if a page is valid or not.
Having a website written in valid code is essential. It can affect how a page is displayed on different computers, how search engines rank your website, how disabled people are able to interact with your website and much more.
E Marketing Support Ltd strongly recommend ensuring that your new website is written in valid code.
W3C - What is the W3C?
The W3C is the main international standards organisation for the World Wide Web. They are the body who set the rules about how website code should be written.
Webmaster - What or who is the Webmaster?
The webmaster is the person responsible for designing, developing and sometimes marketing and maintaining a website. If you have a website with us and you don't have someone in house who looks after your website on a full time basis, then we are your webmaster.
Webmasters can also be known as Web Developers or Web Administrators.
Web Statistics - What are Web Statistics?
Web Statistics or Web Stats measure, collect, analyse and report on how frequently a website and/or webpage is visited.
E Marketing Support offer web statistic packages that translate the information collected by your website into something understandable. A monthly or quarterly report can be sent to you detailing things like how many visitors your website has had, what countries they came from, how popular each webpage is, what search terms (or keywords) visitors searched in order to find your website and much more.
Website Hosting - What is Website Hosting?
If you have a website, it will be stored (or 'hosted') on another computer (or server) somewhere. Each time a visitor views your website the host server is accessed by the visitors computer and a copy of the website is transferred to them (or downloaded.)
E Marketing Support Ltd offer extremely reliable and competitively priced hosting services with many optional extras such as webmail, maintenance contracts and translated web statistic reports.