Student Glossary - Content Marketing Terms

Content Marketing Student Glossary

This is a growing collection of definitions of terms used in Contentrix courses. Whenever you get stuck, this glossary is here to guide you along.

Affiliate Program: A program where a person (an affiliate) is paid a commission to advertise a particular online product, service or web site. The affiliate is given a special referral link to send customers to the target web site. The company pays commission based on hits and/or sales from these links. The amount of commission paid varies. Most programs pay for sales; some programs pay for clicks on their site. Some programs even pay for finding new affiliates.

Anchor Text: The text that is visible in a link to another page. The HTML code looks like this:

<a href="http://mysite.com">Best website in the world</a>

The anchor text is "Best website in the world" and the link would like this on a page:
Best website in the world

Article Directory: A website that accepts article submissions and arranges them in categories, so other website owners can find articles to publish on their own websites.

Autoresponder: An email service or script that allows you to build a mailing list and send out pre-scheduled emails to your list.

Byline: The "about the author" information at the end of an article that often include a link and a call-to-action back to your website. Also referred to as "Resource Box"

Call-to-Action: Each marketing piece should have some sort of call-to-action. This is where you invite/direct your reader to sign up for something, buy a product or act on any type of offer.

Case Study: In the context of content marketing, we are talking about sharing a story of one of your readers or customers and their experience/results using your products products or advice.

Content: Any information or entertainment piece you share with your readers. While we mainly talk about written content, content can come in a variety forms include video, audio, images and more.

Content Marketing: Building traffic, establishing expertise and promoting products through the publication and distribution of content.

Copywriting: The process of writing words to promote a business, person, opinion or idea. It is different from pure content in that copywriting is strictly a persuasion tool, but at Contentrix we teach students to blend content and copywriting for compelling and persuasive pieces.

Description Tag: This meta tag is the element in HTML code that gives search engine spiders an accurate summary of your website. When filling in your description tag, use descriptive words but avoid filler words such as the, at, in, etc. Description should be be up to 150 characters long.

This is what the description tag would look like <meta name="description" content="Your description goes here">

Excerpt: An excerpt is an introduction or summary of an article that appears on the main page or a category page of a site or blog.

Ghostwriter: An individual who writes a piece (article, ebook etc.) but allows another person to be recognized as the author. A ghostwriter is generally paid for their work.

Guest Author: An individual who contributes content to another website, using their own name. A guest author usually contributes their content for free, but gets a link back to their website in return.

Headline: The attention-getting sentence or phrase at the top of all your pages, whether it’s for a sales page, blog post or articles. Headlines are generally in a larger, bold font and the first letter of each word is capitalized.

Information Product: Any product that provides information that the purchaser is seeking. It could be a hard-bound book, ebook, audio, video or combination of these.

Jargon: Specialized language or terminology of a group, trade or profession.

Keyword Link: Same as anchor text. The text that is visible in a link to another page. The HTML code looks like this:

<a href="http://mysite.com">Best website in the world</a>

The anchor text is "Best website in the world" and the link would like this on a page:
Best website in the world
Keyword Phrase: A phrase that a web surfer enters into a search engine to find a site that she is looking for. Website owners attempt to optimize their pages to rank for these phrases in search engines.

Membership Site: An opportunity for recurring income through membership fees. Membership sites provide ongoing content, services or guidance and members pay a weekly, monthly or other recurring fee.

Opener: The part of your content or copy that comes right after the headline. It needs to be compelling and interesting to keep the reader on the page.

Passive Voice: Sentence structure that makes the object of the sentence the recipient of the action. Ex. "The ball was thrown into the house," instead of , "The ball threw the ball into the house."

Power Words: Emotionally-charged words or phrases that are used to create a mental picture or influence the reader. Some examples of power words might be attention, eager, maximize, mind-blowing, etc.

Private Label Rights Content: Often referred to as "PLR". It is pre-written content sold to multiple online business owners who can publish the content. PLR allows buyers to edit, fully brand and monetize the content.

PLR: An acronym for "Private Label Rights".

Pre-Sell: The act of warming up an audience to buy a product. This is often done with content that tackles a problem or issue the target customer has. By the time they finish reading the content, they are more receptive to the idea of buying a product.

RSS Feed: Users can subscribe to syndicated content or RSS feeds from a variety of websites, and then new information from those websites is sent directly to them through an RSS reader. It is similar to receiving e-mail. An RSS reader acts like an “inbox” for RSS feeds. Instead of having to check multiple websites for updates, the new information is located in one convenient place.

RSS Reader: A piece of software or online service that allows you to subscribe to blogs and other sites with RSS feeds. If you don't have an RSS Reader, try Google Reader.

Resell Rights: Pre-written content sold to multiple online business owners who can publish the content. In the case of resell rights, it differs from PLR because the content normally has to be published as is.

Resource Box: Same as "Byline". The "about the author" information at the end of an article that often include a link and a call-to-action back to your website.

Screen Shot / Screenshot: A photo/graphic of a particular web page, software, etc. A screen shot shows what is on the screen.

Search Engine Optimization: Often referred to as "SEO". The method of "optimizing your content" to gain favor in free search engine rankings. At a basic level, it involves creating content, title tags, description tags and incoming links around a select keyword phrase.

SEO: Acronym for Search Engine Optimization.

Staff Writer: In traditional media, this refers to a write on staff of a magazine, newspaper, etc. We use the term to refer to contractors or staff who write regularly, using their own name for a website.

Subheadline or Subheading: Mini-headlines throughout your content, that divide up your content into easy-to-digest sections.

Teleseminar: A teleseminar is basically a seminar done over the phone using a conference line.

Title Tag: The element in html code that defines the title of the document. Your title tag should be up to 60 characters long.

This is what your title tag would look like: <title>INSERT TITLE HERE</title>

Webinar: A webinar is similar to a seminar, but is conducted using webinar software. In addition to allowing participants to listen to content, a webinar may include video and text message options.

White Paper: A relatively short guide that addresses and issue or problem and provides solutions. The term is often used interchangeably with "special report".

White Space: Sometimes referred to as "negative space", it is the unmarked portion of a website. It may be the background, space around images and between paragraphs and text. White space, when used effectively, makes content easier to read.

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