The web can be a big scary place, and it’s easy to get lost in it.

What do all those “buzz” words mean (in laymens terms that is)? And, what the heck should I do when I hear one?

First off, don’t panic. These are just simple terms you can learn easily. Once you do get them down, then feel free to drop them like they are hot, as the cool kids say.

Secondly, let’s start with a few everyday terms:

• URL are the addresses where Websites are found. Each website has a URL, Uniform Resource Locator, assigned to it. Example: http://www.yahoo.com/
• Browser the application you use to visit a URL. Google took it to the streets last year and asked people what a browser was. The results were not pretty. You don’t need to know the intricacies and differences, but there are a bunch of browsers. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, etc.
• Blog a web log, or web journal. Where (anyone nowadays) can record their thoughts, comments, ideas, and more for all the world to view. Having a blog is almost a requirement in this day and age for any [successful] businesses. I bought a new pair of kicks today, and blogged that I felt super-cool.
• Bounce Rate the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. A user clicks a link from twitter, reads the content and bounces from the site.
• Exit Rate the percentage of visitors that leave a website after visiting other pages on the site. A user clicks a link from twitter, reads the content, then visits other pages of this site, and THEN leaves.
• Conversion Rate the ratio of visitors who perform a desired action on a particular website; be that sign-up for a white paper, buy a product, request more info, or other. Conversion % = # of goal achievements / (divided by) the # of visits
• SEO search engine optimization; i.e. Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. This entails everything from doing keyword research for your content, creating awesome content, creating awesome content often, using semantic HTML, and more. This is a full-time job, and is necessary for any company looking to have any success going forward.

Those are some of the more common web terms that you may or may not have know what they meant. Now you can wow your friends the next time you gab about Lindsay Lohan and her escapades by dropping some web knowledge.

Let’s get into some more seldom used terms, shall we?

• Inbound Marketing the fundamental change in marketing. As a business, it used to be all about “Me, me me!,” with the consumer having little to no voice. But with social media, the little guy has a voice, and more than likely they don’t give a hoot about you. Inbound marketing is about creating content that people want to read, and being smart about how you drive business to your web presence. Combining SEO, social media, blogging, link building, and more, this is also a full-time position for any business, or at least it should be. Hubspot.com
• Click-thru Rate how email campaigns are measured in terms of success. Literally it is the # of clicks an email gets / (divided by) the # of recipients. sent to 100 people, and clicked on 20 times, thus CTR = 20%.
• Open Rate how email campaigns were traditionally measured in terms of success. It also is literally the # of opens an email gets / the # of recipients. *** Note: open rate is not concrete at all, it is more of a generalization, and success should not be measured by this. Emails can be view without images, thus not recording an open even though one occurred.
• HTML Hyper Text Markup Language, is the predominant language for the internet. It’s a way to give semantic meaning to elements, such as text, headings, links, quotes, and more. Basically, it gives meaning to <code> so that search engines can understand what’s on a page. <h1>This is the most important content on a page.</h1>
• CSS a language for laying out visually how HTML should appear. HTML describes the content, and CSS gives look and feel to it. p { color:red; }    <p>This p element is red.</p>
• Element what makes up HTML language. Each element can have certain attributes and they can also have content, such as other elements or text. Each element has semantic meaning. The <title> defines the title of each page.
• Wiki a website that allows for easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages thru a browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG editor. wikipedia allows anyone to create and edit definitions for literally anything.
• WYSIWYG a text markup editor that makes it easy for those not comfortable with HTML to edit content on a web page. Although they do not create the cleanest code, they have made strides of late and are much better suited for this. The acronym stands for “What You See Is What you Get.”
• CMS a simplified, centralized way to create, upload, and store web content. Most websites nowadays run on some sort of CMS that allows for WSYIWYG editing to pages, as well as blog functionality, and the ability to upload media to display on the website.
• JPEG a common image format named after the Joint Photographic Experts Group. This format is most widely used when trying to compress a photo, or a highly complex image while trying to optimize file size and keep the best resolution.
• GIF a bitmap image (based on pixel data) format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987. This format is widely used when trying to compress images with large blocks of color, or with logos. Can also contain multiple layers, making for a “semi-video-effect.”
• PNG also a bitmap image format. This comes in two formats, 24-bit and 32-bit, the latter which supports RGBa (transparency). IE6 requires extra JavaScript to handle transparency however.

Again, this is just a basic list of terms that you may hear during a normal day in the web world. To techies, this is foolish, to graphic designers this may be unnecessary, but to the curious / savvy marketer, these are things you should know.