Marketing Terms Employers Want You to Know
by Miles Thomas
In today’s abysmal job market, there is little room for error. This is especially true for recent college graduates, who are at an immediate disadvantage due to the high saturation of the market. As such, recent grads need to give themselves every advantage possible if they hope to stand out to employers. Here’s 8 online marketing terms that all job-seekers should make themselves familiar with to give them the edge over their competition.
1.) Bounce Rate – Simply getting people to visit your page is not enough to help a website rank highly on search engine results pages (SERPs). A Bounce Rate is a measurement, usually presented as a percentage or ratio, of a site’s visitors that either leave soon after or remain idle long enough to assume that they aren’t really viewing the page. A low Bounce Rate means that a websites homepage, or entry page, is effective in making visitors interested in staying and viewing the content, while a high Bounce Rate means that the entry page is not effective in retaining visitors.
2.) Anchor Text – The term Anchor Text refers to the part of a hyperlink’s HTML that determines what the link itself says. For example, if a web designer puts a hyperlink on their page with HTML that determines ‘Follow me on Twitter’ as the link’s Anchor Text, then the link will show up as such rather then the actual address. Anchor Text is important in two facets: 1.) It is more aesthetically acceptable for a website in terms of usability, and 2.) it helps not only visitors determine what exactly the link is directing them to, but it is believed that having the proper words in your Anchor Text will produce higher SERP rankings.
3.) Search Engine Algorithm – Throughout the years of the internet age, the methods that search engines have used to sort and rank the pages in their results pages have changed in an attempt to counteract websites using underhanded methods to improve their SERP rankings. A Search Engine Algorithm is a complex formula that search engines use to rank the relevance of sites in regards to the search criteria. These formulas are kept secret by the top search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc.) and take into account a multitude of factors, including inbound links and keyword density, so as to rank the websites accurately and without outside influence.
4.) Backlinks – One of the main factors taken into consideration for the algorithms used by many search engines is the number of Backlinks, or inbound links, that a website has. Put simply, a Backlink is is a hyperlink to a website that is located on another website. They are not counted both ways between the two websites involved, however. For example, if Website A has a backlink that leads to Website B, then Website B would likely have a higher SERP ranking.
5.) SEO – The term Search Engine Optimization refers to the overall process of a website attempting to increase its position in SERPs. Some commonly used tactics include cross-linking with other sites to increase backlinks and having a high density of regularly searched words. Search engines have recognized that websites place a high value on a high ranking in their SERPs. and as such have determined what they believe to be acceptable methods of increasing rankings as well as unacceptable methods. These are known as white hat techniques and black hat techniques, respectively.
6.) SEM – Whereas SEO is the process of increasing your position in SERPs, Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is the process of turning that higher position on SERPs into increased website traffic. SEM also refers to gaining more traffic through advertisements on search engines, determined by the search criteria as well as past searches. An increasingly important dimension of SEM also includes social media marketing, where companies use popular social media engines to further increase the value of their product, service, or brand.
7.) PPC – Website owners trying to move up in SERPs aren’t the only ones who see money to be made through SEM. Pay Per Click, or PPC, is a type of advertising where the advertiser pays the website that their ad is published on every time it gets clicked. Though not obligatory on websites with algorithms that produce natural results such as Google, having a PPC agreement with a website can be advantageous; the website wants your ad to be clicked so they get paid, increasing the chances it will be put in an ideal and visible location.
8.) Digital Marketing – The term Digital Marketing is the most broad of this entire article, encompassing all of the aforementioned terms. Digital Marketing refers to marketing and advertising through the use of any device with the ability to connect to the internet, be it computer, phone, tablet, etc.
It is almost comical to think that at one point many business owners considered the internet and e-commerce era to be a fad that would pass. Today, society puts such a high emphasis on the importance of technology that if a business does not take advantage of Digital Marketing in some facet, be it anything from a company website to social media handles, chances are that they are going to be left in the dust for someone more willing to adapt and survive.
Miles Thomas is interning at KAS sales and marketing recruiting firm specializing in staffing top marketing job seekers throughout the United States. CEO Ken Sundheim also does entry-level marketing job consulting.
Are you a recent college graduate and want to write for this blog; Please apply through KAS Placement’s corporate LinkedIn page.
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