Glossary of Common Web Design Terms
Omega2webdesign keep the terminology simple and talk to you in plain English. However, we understand that not everyone does, so have produced simple explanations of common web design terms to help you cut through the jargon and better understand it.
Terms are listed alphabetically:
Alt-tags:
Some web browsers do not display the images on a web page. If this happens the image should have a caption, or alt-tag, saying what would normally appear. These also help search engines locate and index a page.
Browsers:
A piece of software allowing pages to be viewed on the internet. The most common are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS):
A modern way of designing websites separating design from content. This makes the page load faster, allows a consistent appearance across the site and easier for search engines to read what’s on a page.
Description
Each page should have a few lines of text summarising the content. Though not visible to visitors the description text is picked up by search engines.
Domain Name (URL):
The web address of a website.
Flash™:
This is a file type to allow animation or movement to be included on graphics or imagery.
H1 Tags:
Page headings and other prominent text are often used by search engines to rank a page. These headings are given a separate attribute, or tag, to the main body of text on a page.
Indexing A Site:
A search engines will rank a website by its content. With so many websites on the internet a page’s rank in relation to others becomes vitally important. This is indexing and is constantly changing.
Keywords:
Each page has a number of words or phrases attached to it. These may or may not be visible when viewing a site but are vital in allowing search engines to assess the content of a site and rank it accordingly.
Meta-tags:
Meta-tags are used to specify a page’s title, description and keywords. These are essential in helping search engines locate the page.
Search Engine:
A system that regularly looks around the internet and collects a list of sites. Users can then search for relevant sites by entering chosen words and phrases.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO):
This is a process to improve a website to promote key messages and making it more relevant to people surfing the internet. A well presented site without good search engine optimisation may not be found by search engines.
Sitemap:
A sitemap is a document detailing the various pages on a website and how they link to each other. This helps both visitors find pages and search engines to index a site.
Social Networking:
The practice by which internet users build relationships and bookmark important sites with like minded people.
Web hosting:
The files concerned with displaying a website on the internet need to be stored on a web server. The service of providing this storage is called web hosting.
Webmail:
A facility allowing users to send and receive e-mails via their website. This facility can be of particular use for users operating remotely rather than from a central location.
Websafe:
A term given to fonts and/or colours which are compatible across browsers. Not all fonts are readily available on the internet.
Xhtml:
A language used to construct websites which allows a consistent appearance across a range of browsers.
