Do you know your cloud web hosting from your content management system? At Creative Aspects, we’ve been designing and developing websites for over 20 years so we use this terminology day in and day out but we know it can all be very unfamiliar to our clients.
That’s why we try our best to be jargon-free and not “speak geek”.
However, if you did want to delve a little further into web design terms, continue reading this post for 25 terms that will be relevant to your website project.
25 Web Design Terms You Need To Know
Back End
To put it simply, the back end is everything that goes on behind the scenes and it powers what you see and interact with when you visit a website.
Browser
A web browser is a tool you use to access the internet. Some examples include Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.
Call-to-Action (CTA)
If you want people to sign up for your newsletter or add products to their basket, you need to give your site visitors a little nudge in the right direction – and that’s where call-to-actions come into play. CTAs include specific text, banners, or buttons that are designed to push website visitors towards a predetermined action.
Cloud Web Hosting
Web hosting is essentially a way to allow websites to be viewed on the internet. Every website needs to be stored somewhere and at Creative Aspects, we’re proud to work with our hosting partners, Cloudways. Our client websites are hosted in the cloud across multiple servers – instead of the traditional single server – which provides excellent reliability, security and speed.
Content
When talking about your web design project, we’ll mention content a lot. This covers all of the text, photos, and videos that will be included on your site. Most of the time you as the client will provide this content but you could also work together with our copywriting partners to produce the final content.
Content Management System (CMS)
A content management system is basically a tool that makes it easy to manage important aspects of your website – like images and text – without needing to know anything about programming. One of the most widely used CMS platforms is WordPress – which we will talk about later on in this post.
Conversion
A conversion occurs when a visitor to your website completes a desired goal that you have set. This could be someone submitting a contact form on your site, signing up for your email newsletter, and much more.
Daily Backups
Losing your website as a result of server failure or hackers is a horrible experience, not to mention costly. We perform daily offsite backups to the cloud keeping several days of backups of your WordPress website. This enables us to rapidly restore a previous version if anything happens to your website.
Domain Name
A domain name is the address of your website that people type in to the browser URL bar to visit your website. It’s kind of like your website’s online address. For us, our domain name is creativeaspects.co.uk
Favicon
A favicon is a small icon that helps to brand your website. They are normally small square versions of your logo and are displayed on the title bar or tab of a browser. Its main purpose is to help visitors locate your page easier when they have multiple tabs open.
Firewall
A Web Application Firewall (WAF) helps to protect your website by monitoring for malicious traffic and attacks. It acts as a shield for your website and is included as part of our Lightning plan.
Footer
Your website footer is the strip that sits on the bottom of every page of your website. It normally includes your contact information and some links to your most important pages.
Front End
The front end of a website is everything the user either sees or interacts with when they visit the website. It is responsible for the total look and feel of an online experience.
Header
The header sits at the top of every page of your website. It normally contains your company name and logo, as well as the main menu. It helps to give a cohesive feel to your website and serves as the main way for people to navigate around your site.
Navigation
When we mention navigation, we are talking about different ways we can help guide people through your content and around your site. The most obvious navigational tool is the main menu but we can also add links within the text and the footer.
Page Speed
Page speed is the length of time that it takes for a specific web page to load. We’ve talked about how important website speed is before for both Google and your website visitors.
Page Template
A template is a page layout that we create to build a new page on your website. Creating these templates also gives you the power to expand your website without having to create something from scratch each time.
Plugins
Plugins are a piece of software that can be added to your site to extend functionality or add new features. We use plugins to improve SEO, boost performance, add contact forms, social media buttons, create galleries, and so much more. With WordPress, you can find a plugin to do just about anything you want!
Responsive
Responsive web design is about creating web pages that look good on all devices. So whether you’re using an iPhone, laptop, or large desktop computer, the website will automatically adjust to the different screen sizes and still look good.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO is all about getting your website found on search engines like Google when people search for you, your business or your services. We use WordPress plugins and features to optimise our clients websites and generate more organic traffic.
Sitemap
A sitemap is an outline of all the pages on a website. They come in really handy when reorganising or redesigning your website.
SSL Certificate
An SSL certificate is a type of digital certificate that provides authentication for a website and enables an encrypted connection – keeping your visitor data safe and secure. You may have noticed them in the form of a little closed padlock that displays on web browsers. All our website care plans include an SSL certificate.
WordPress
WordPress is the most popular way to create a website – it powers around 40% of websites on the internet! We use WordPress alongside our extensive design and coding skills, business know-how, and 20 years of experience to create websites for our clients.
404 Errors
A 404 error code is shown when someone tries to access a page that does not exist. You’ll normally see a ‘Page Not Found’ message when you mistype a web address or click on a link to a page that’s no longer there. They can have a significant, negative impact on the user experience and search engine optimization (SEO).
Schedule a call today
We hope you’ve found this post useful and feel more comfortable with some of these terms. But don’t worry, we won’t overwhelm you with all this jargon! If you choose to work with us, we speak in plain English and find that it really helps with keeping our clients up-to-date and involved at every stage.
If you have any questions or are ready to move forward with your web project, please get in touch.