At the heart of a great working relationship lies open communication and a deeper mutual understanding between our clients and the Foremost Media team. We realize that our industry lingo can sometimes come across as foreign, and even with our best efforts to clarify things, it’s natural for confusion to arise when discussing website updates or new features.
This glossary is meant to help bridge that gap and present our most commonly used website terminology in plain and client-friendly language.
Website Structure & Content
CMS - Short for Content Management System, which includes platforms like WordPress, nopCommerce, Shopify, Umbraco and DNN (DotNetNuke), as well as the many other systems out there that make it possible to manage and update website content.
Child Pages - Any page nested under another page. Often this references pages that are displayed in a dropdown menu when you hover a main navigation item.
Header - The top section of a website, usually where you'll find the logo and main menu, along with other elements like phone numbers, search functionality or social media icons.
Footer - The bottom portion of the website, often containing the company address, links to important site pages, possibly social media icons and other helpful resources.
Slider - This is the colloquial term we at Foremost Media commonly use to describe a page element that rotates or scrolls through banner-style images.
Modal - Sometimes called a “pop-up,” this is a type of user interface element that appears on top of a webpage or application screen and requires the user to interact with it before returning to the main content.
Design & Development
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP - Programming languages used to build and power websites.
Stylesheet - A CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) file that contains the code used to guide the presentation of webpage elements. Examples include specifications for font size, colors and handling of decorative elements.
Plugins - Pieces of software that can be added to a website to extend its functionality without modifying the core system. For example, plugins can power contact forms on a WordPress site or handle shipping calculations on a nopCommerce site.
Website Functionality, Security, Integrations & Connections
SMTP - Stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and is responsible for sending outgoing messages from your website, such as notifications generated when a contact form is submitted.
reCAPTCHA - A Google service that helps protect websites from spam and abuse by verifying that a user is human and not an automated bot. It may present a simple challenge, like a checkbox, or use invisible reCAPTCHA, which assigns a “risk score” based on user behavior to help identify potential bots without disrupting most users.
API - Short for Application Programming Interface, this is a set of rules and tools that allow different software applications to communicate with one another. For example, you may wish to get real-time UPS rates for your online store. Those rates are requested and returned to the website via the UPS API.
API Keys - API keys are unique codes (like digital passwords) used to identify and authenticate an application or user when accessing an API. A common use case is retrieving a list of company dealers, where a zip code search returns dealers within a set radius.
Marketing & Visibility
SEO - Short for Search Engine Optimization, it’s the practice of improving a website so it ranks higher in search engine results (like Google or Bing), helping people find the site organically, without paid ads.
Meta Title (Title Tag) – The clickable headline that appears in search engine results. It should accurately describe the page’s content and include the target keyword.
Meta Description – A short summary (about 150–160 characters) that appears below the meta title in search results. It helps users decide whether a page is relevant to their search.
On-Page SEO – Optimizations made directly on your website, including content improvements, meta tags, headings and internal links.
Anchor Text – The clickable words within a hyperlink. Clear and descriptive anchor text helps search engines understand what the linked page is about.
Alt Text (Alternative Text) – A written description of an image that is used by search engines and screen readers. It supports accessibility and helps improve image-related SEO.
Sitemap – A file that lists all pages on your website to help search engines crawl and index your site more efficiently.
Schema Markup (Structured Data) – Code added to your website to help search engines better interpret your content and display rich results (such as star ratings or FAQs).
Page Speed – A measure of how quickly your website loads. Faster sites tend to rank higher and provide a better user experience.
If you’d like more information or need clarification on any of these terms, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.