Website terms, explained plainly
Clear Words Make Better Websites
Each term gets one plain definition and a category, so you can scan by letter or by topic.
Every Term, From A to Z
API integration
A connection that lets your website exchange data with another system, such as a CRM, booking tool or inventory.
AI search visibility
How clearly AI assistants and search features can find, understand and cite your website’s content.
Bounce rate
The share of visitors who leave after one page without taking any action.
Call to action (CTA)
The prompt that tells a visitor what to do next, such as booking a call or sending a brief.
Canonical tag
A line of code that tells search engines which version of a page is the main one.
CMS
The system your team uses to add and update website content without writing code.
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO)
Improving a page so more of the right visitors take the action it was built for.
Core Web Vitals
Google’s measures of how fast, stable and responsive a page feels to real visitors.
DNS
The system that points your domain name to the servers that host your website.
Event tracking
Recording specific actions, such as form submissions or button clicks, to see what people do on a website.
Favicon
The small icon that represents your website in browser tabs and bookmarks.
Google Search Console
Google’s free tool for seeing how your site appears in search and fixing indexing issues.
Headless CMS
A CMS that stores content separately from the website’s front end, so the same content can feed several places.
Headless commerce
An online store where the shopping engine, such as Shopify, runs behind a separately built front end.
Information architecture
How a website’s pages and content are organised, grouped and labelled so people can find what they need.
Intelligent site search
Search that understands what a visitor means, not just the exact words they type.
JSON-LD
The format most often used to add structured data to a page for search engines.
Keyword research
Finding the words and phrases people use to search for what your business offers.
Landing page
A page built around one audience and one action, often for a campaign or a search term.
Mobile-first design
Designing for the phone screen first, then expanding the layout for larger screens.
Mockup
A static visual of how a page will look before it is built.
Navigation
The menus and links that help people move around a website and find what they came for.
Open Graph tags
Code that controls how a page looks when it is shared on social media and messaging apps.
Page speed
How quickly a page loads and becomes usable for the person visiting it.
Prototype
A clickable version of a design that shows how a page or journey will work.
Quality assurance (QA)
Testing pages, forms and journeys across browsers and devices before a website goes live.
Redirect (301)
A permanent forward from an old URL to a new one, so visitors and search value follow.
Responsive design
A layout that adapts to the screen it is viewed on, from phone to desktop.
Shopify metafields and metaobjects
Custom fields in Shopify for product details the standard setup does not cover.
Staging site
A private copy of the website used to review changes before they go live.
Static site
A website built ahead of time into fast, ready-made pages, often with frameworks like Astro.
Structured data
Code that describes a page’s content to search engines, such as an FAQ, product or article.
Technical SEO
The setup behind the pages that helps search engines crawl, understand and index a website.
UX writing
The words on buttons, forms, menus and messages that help people use a website.
Visual hierarchy
The order in which the eye reads a page, set by size, weight, spacing and position.
Webflow
A visual website platform for designing, building and managing marketing and content sites.
Website audit
A structured review of a live website that shows what needs fixing, what can wait and where to focus first.
Website migration
Moving a website to a new platform or structure without losing content, links or search value.
Wireframe
A simple layout of a page that shows structure and content placement before visual design.
XML sitemap
A file that lists a website’s pages so search engines can find them.
YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)
Google’s term for pages that can affect people’s health, money or safety, which are held to a higher quality bar.
Z-pattern layout
A layout that guides the eye across a page in a Z shape, from top left to bottom right.