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The Internet Marketing Glossary – Part Two

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This is Part 2 of the Internet Marketing Glossary.  Internet Marketing Terminology explained in plain English. Bookmark this page and return to it as necessary.  Enjoy.

E

E-business- An e-business is defined as any business that is drawing a majority of its income from selling their products or service in an online format.

There are many advantages to running an e-business, as opposed to a traditional business. The start up costs for doing business online are relatively low compared to opening up a store. All you need is an internet connection and a website. There can also be added costs for advertising and setting up a merchant account so you can accept payments.

However, overall, the costs are much lower than opening a store in a building. You can do business directly from your home, and with certain suppliers, you don’t even have to have inventory. Another advantage to doing business online, as opposed to locally, is that you can sell to the entire world instead of just your local community.

E-business can also be used to refer to any business practices that are handled electronically (such as supply chain management, order tracking and processing, and payroll).

E-book- This is a book that can be downloaded and read on a computer. Most e-books are saved in Adobe Acrobat and require Adobe Acrobat reader (a free program) to be accessed. E-books (sometimes spelled ebooks) are quickly becoming the newest way to receive information online. There are many free e-books available on the web, and there are also e-books available for purchase. When you purchase an e-book, you can download it directly to your computer.

E-mail (electronic mail)- E-mail is mail that is electronically sent to your computer. E-mail (sometimes spelled email) is delivered instantly. This feature is one of the main reasons people seek to gain Internet access. E-mail is completely free to use, and allows you to communicate worldwide.

To use e-mail, you need a computer, an online connection, an e-mail account and an e-mail program. The e-mail account can be obtained through your ISP, or from one of several free e-mail services online. These free e-mail services include:

G-mail (www.gmail.com) – provided by Google

Yahoo Mail (www.yahoomail.com) – provided by Yahoo

Hotmail (www.hotmail.com) – a service of MSN

Fast Mail (www.fastmail.fm)

AIM (www.aim.com) – an AOL e-mail service, independent of the AOL ISP

Inbox (www.inbox.com)

Since an e-mail address is the main form of communication online, it is recommended that you choose a memorable e-mail name. Too many numbers and misspellings will make it difficult for others to contact you. Many people use more than one e-mail address to separate their business and personal e-mails.

E-mail Marketing Campaigns- This is a form of direct marketing that uses electronic mail to communicate commercial and fundraising messages. These focus on gathering e-mail addresses of web visitors. These addresses are added to a potential customer mailing list, and the list receives updates on the site, free e-courses, and special offers. Autoresponders are an essential part of e-mail marketing campaigns.

Emoticons- One of the biggest problems with communicating over the Internet is the inability to show emotion. Emoticons have filled that gap by providing ways to use text to describe feelings. The name “emoticon” comes from a combination “emotion” and “icon.” Simply put, they are symbols that are used in chat rooms, message boards, e-mail messages and IM messages to display emotions.

Emoticons are normally used at the end of a sentence in order to convey the feeling associated with that sentence. For example, when a person makes a statement in jest, the “winking” emoticon can be used afterward to imply sarcasm.

Originally, emoticons only made sense if you turned your head to the side. Today many IM programs, chat rooms and message boards employ animated “smilies” to imply emotion. These smilies are normally unique to the platform they are being used on.

Here are several of the most common emoticons:

: )  — Smile

: O – Surprise

: ( – Frown

: P – Tongue stuck out

; ) – Winking

> : ( – Mad

Examples of graphical smilies can be seen at http://www.world-of-smilies.com/.

F

FAQ- A list of questions and answers that are related to a Web site, newsgroup, software or any kind of product or service. Most users can find answers to their questions on the FAQ list, so before contacting customer service or tech support you should check this list.

Flaming- The act of deliberately posting messages to a message board or e-mail list that are hostile and insulting. The messages are called “flames.” A flame may look like a normal message, but it will have a degrading tone and intent. Some flamers are attempting to assert their authority or establish superiority on a subject in a condescending manner. Most often flames are insulting messages that are posted by someone who has strong feelings on the subject matter.

Folksonomy- An open ended labeling system (such as the use of “tags”) that helps Internet users to categorize content online. Folksonomy is used to categorize web pages, online photographs and web links. It is changing the way that people search for information on the Internet.

The key difference between folksonomy and other labeling systems are that users develop the labels. The labels are freely chosen and completely subjective. As a result, the labels that are created are more “organic” to the group of users.

Forums- An Internet forum is a place on the World Wide Web for holding discussions. Normally, forum members will either discuss one specific topic or have a common thread among all of the members. For example, there are discussion groups for Work At Home mothers where they will discuss not only business related topics, but parenting, budgeting and time-management as well.

Forums allow individuals to really connect with one another across distance using the Internet. Unlike e-mail, and messages posted to the forum will be viewable by all forum members. In fact, information posted on forums is part of the public knowledge for years to come.

Forums are supported by many different software platforms, and are very user friendly. For a lot of Internet newcomers, forums are their first entry into using the Internet. Some of the other common terms for forums are web forums, discussion forums, bulletin boards, message boards, discussion boards and discussion groups.

Forward- Redirecting mail from your inbox to another e-mail user. If you have messages from one person that you would like to share with another person, you can forward the messages to the latter. Normally, this is achieved by simply clicking the “forward” button on your e-mail program and entering the second party’s e-mail address. This is also a helpful way of distributing important information.

Certain messages, however, encourage the recipient to forward them on to someone else. These are online versions of chain letters. Most “forwards” as they are called involve both an inspirational message and a promise for good luck if you forward the message on. Chain email is annoying to most recipients and is discouraged as part of good netiquette.

Free Reprint) Articles (FRA)- Articles that are free to publish on web pages. Normally, these articles are distributed by article directories and are categorized by topic. FRAs are used to add content to web pages that will help attract search engine traffic.

For example, if you have a website on which you sell antique dollhouses, you would search for FRAs that deal with your site. Using FRAs is the quickest way to get quality content for a website.

Article directories list available articles in specific categories and normally have a searchable database. Some of the most popular article directory sites are:

www.greatarticlesformoms.com

www.ezinearticles.com

www.goarticles.com

www.articlealley.com

FTP- The standard method for downloading and uploading files on the Internet. The term is an anagram for “file transfer protocol.” There are many FTP public archive sites online that you can access with your e-mail address. Understanding FTP is necessary if you want to create your own website.

G

Ghost site- The name for a web site that is no longer maintained by a Webmaster, but remains online. Some ghost sites continue to be useful because the content may not be outdated. A ghost site will normally include a statement acknowledging that the site will no longer be updated.

GIF or .gif- A compressed graphics file that is used to display images online. Normally, images on web pages are in GIF format, rather than JPG format, so they will load faster.

Graphic- A picture or still image that is generated on a computer. Graphics give websites, forums and e-mails dimension and interest.

H

Handle- A synonym for “login name” or “user name.”

Hardware- All of the electronic components that make up a computer. These include monitors, the hard drive, computers, CD-ROM drives, speakers, keyboards, stylus pens, mice, external hard drives and floppy drives.

Home-based business- Any business where the primary office is located in the owner’s home. Although many home-based business owners work at home exclusively, there are many service based businesses where the owners spend most of their time outside the office, such as interior decorators, truckers and software trainers.

More people are choosing to run home-based businesses than ever before. With the advent of the online business, owning a business from home is becoming easier.

Operating a home-based business has several advantages. First of all, home-based business owners enjoy a level of personal freedom that is impossible in the corporate world. Home-based business owners can work a flexible schedule and save on time and money by avoiding commuting. There are also certain tax advantages to running a home-based business.

HTML- HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a language that was designed for the creation of web pages. While many people directly use HTML to create web pages, there are many intermediary programs that allow you to create websites without using HTML. However, it is helpful to understand how HTML works. There are three main types of mark-ups that are used, structural, presentational and hypertext. Structural markups allow you to set up headings, paragraphs and lists for your web page. Presentational markups can create bold, italic, and underlined text and also change the size of the text. Hypertext markups create a link from one page to another. Keep in mind that when information is in HTML it is “sandwiched” between two tags. For example, if you wanted to make the word “cat” bold, you would write:

<b>bold</b>

The opening tag lets the program know “I want this to appear bold” and the closing tag will establish that you are done with bold.

Some other useful html tags include:

<title>Title</title>

<h>heading</h>

<p>paragraph</p>

<center> to center the text or image </center>

<br>break in paragraph<br>

< i >italicize </i>

<u>underline</u>

<em>emphasize</em>

Hosting- The business of providing the equipment and services that is required to display websites. Hosting also involves maintaining files and providing fast Internet connections. If you run a website or do business on the Web, you need to find a reliable host. Hosting packages are available for very reasonable rates. Do research based on customer service and quality of technical service before choosing a hosting company based only on price.

The Internet Marketing Glossary Part 1

The Internet Marketing Glossary Part 2

The Internet Marketing Glossary Part 3

The Internet Marketing Glossary Part 4

The Internet Marketing Glossary Part 5

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