For the small business owner, starting the process of having a website designed and built can be unsettling. You’ll almost certainly entrust the task to a professional in web design in Columbia, SC, but you still want to be somewhat knowledgeable about what’s going on. Unfortunately, the world of web design is filled with acronyms and other terms that you simply won’t understand unless you take the time to investigate them yourself and find out what they mean! Since we know you probably don’t have time to do that, we thought we would help you out by defining four of the most common acronyms and terms that you’ll come across on your website design journey.
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1. HTML and its variations
You’ve almost certainly heard of HTML, and you probably know it has something to do with the coding for websites—the behind-the-scenes, technical symbols, text, and numbers that tell an Internet browser how your organization’s site should look and function. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, and it’s a complex system of “tags” used in the text code of a website to tell the browser what colors, fonts, positioning, headings, graphics, motion, and any number of other elements to use to build your website’s appearance. As the Internet has evolved, HTML has evolved with it, and today website design in Columbia, SC uses HTML5, the version that was finalized in 2014.
2. Mobile Friendly, Mobile Optimized, Responsive Design
We’ve included these three different terms as one because they really refer to one big concept: Making sure that your website looks great and is easy to use no matter what type of device the visitor is on. Obviously, this topic became enormously important when smartphones and iPhones gained the ability to browse the Internet, and web designers scrambled to start building versions of their clients’ websites that were optimized for viewing and navigation on a tiny screen.
Generally, “mobile friendly” refers to a design that works well on a regular computer or a small screen. “Mobile optimized,” on the other hand, describes a design that is specifically created for mobile device browsers. “Responsive design” is the ideal in today’s environment, and it describes a website that automatically adapts, or “responds,” to the best possible format for the visitor’s browser, whether he’s on a desktop computer, a laptop, an iPad, or a smartphone.
Be sure your website is ready for mobile device users.
3. Landing Page
This is an incredibly important part of your website, and one that is directly tied to its SEO (search engine optimization). When your digital marketing professional decides what keywords to focus on in your SEO campaign, he will create a landing page associated with each of those keywords. The idea is that when a search engine user looks for pages related to that keyword, he will be directed not to your website’s home page, but to another page on your site that is “about” that specific topic. After showing the visitor that you know exactly what they’re looking for and can provide it for them, your website invites them to navigate to the rest of the site or get in touch with someone from your organization directly.
4. META Data
The customization of META data is a big part of what differentiates websites that are optimized for the search engines from those that aren’t. When Google indexes a web page for search results, by default it takes the first line or so of text on that page to use as the page title and description on its search results page. That text may or may not tell a searcher what they need to know about your organization before they arrive at your website. A much better strategy is to provide Google with a carefully designed page title and brief description (the META description) to encourage visitors to click through to the page. There are many other types of META data, but these are the most visible on the search results pages.
Hopefully these definitions will help you feel a little more confident as your partner in web design in Columbia, SC works with you to create a great website. To work with a team offering over 14 years of success in digital marketing, call or email us at PalmettoSoft today.
