Now, you’ll be introduced to the key definitions relating to web design. Some of these you may already know, and some might be new to you. In any case, take the time to go through the list to make sure you’re up to date with the common web design terms.

Anchor text: the clickable text used to create a link.

Back end: the section of the website hidden from website visitors that’s used to manage the website.

Below the fold: this refers to the content that cannot be immediately seen once the website loads up. You have to scroll down in order to see the content below the fold.

Bounce rate: the percentage of website visitors that exit the website without performing an action.

CMS: it stands for Content Management System and is the tool used to separate the website from the backend. A popular example of a CMS would be WordPress.

DHTML: an acronym that stands for Dynamic Hyper Text Markup Language. CSS and XHTML are mixed to create a dynamic interactive web page.

External style sheet: a CSS document that can be linked to HTML/XHTML files because it’s written in a separate external document.

HTML: Hypertext Markup Language, which is the most popular and primary coding language to create webpages.

Inbound link: a hyperlink that leads to your website.

IP address: all computers that are conected to the Internet have a numerical designation, which is the IP address.

JPEG: it stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group and is a lossy graphics format for images and photos.

Landing page: it’s the first page a visitor will land on. Typically a specific landing page is built with a specific goal (e.g. to acquire an e-mail address or achieve a sale).

Peter Deltondo Dribble

Image Source: Top Nine for 2018 by Peter Deltondo for unfold on Dribble

Nathan Riley Dribble

Image Source: Type & Layout explorations by Nathan Riley on Dribble

Meta data: it’s data that’s stored in the header and contain vital info about the page. It can be optimized for SEO purposes with keywords.

publicly available source code of a program.

<strongPermalink: for a given blog post, the permalink is the permanent web address.

<strongPageview: when a page receives a new visitor, it’s called a pageview.

<strongPDF: it stands for Portable Document Format, and it’s a way of exchanging documents with others.

<strongResponsive: a website that’s responsive is able to adapt to the screen resolution of the device used. This allows a website to be viewed correctly by a number of device such as desktops, tablets and mobiles.

<strongScript: the part of HTML code that is a script allows the page to be interactive.

<strongSEO: Search Engine Optimization, which is the act of fine tuning your website to improve your search engine rankings.

to edit .txt files you’ll need to use an application call text editor.

<strongURL: it stands for Uniform Resource Locator, and indicates where a particular website or webpage can be found online.

<strongUsability: this refers to how functional the website is in terms of allowing the user to achieve the desired goals. It might be to browse around to buy products, or learn more about your company.

a latest news type page where frequent updates are made.

a computer with installed software that can host websites. This allows other computers connected to the internet to have access to them.

XHTML: Extensible Hypertext Markup Language, which can be used to define the markup elements.

To Sum It Up
Familiarizing yourself with the various web design terms is advantageous, regardless of whether you’re a programmer, the CEO of a company, or the web content writer. The website is one of the most important elements of a business, and not knowing the definitions makes it difficult to have a conversation about it.