As with many things IT related, the world of web design is awash with jargon, acronyms, and confusing terms that can bamboozle even the most seasoned professionals.
At Unspun, we believe in plain simple talk, and do our best to help those customers undertaking a new website project by keeping our language simple, and talking about those difficult concepts in a way that makes sense.
In this post, we’ll cover some of the more common web design terms, and hopefully give anyone looking to jump into the world of website projects a head start.
CMS stands for Content Management System. It’s the bit that you log into to make changes to the website, and often it’s a powerful bit of software that's woven throughout the website to help facilitate those changes.
Wordpress, Shopify, Joomla, and the one we use - OctoberCMS are all content management systems, that come with their own methodology for building websites around. Each has their own set of strengths and weaknesses, and the right one to use very much comes down to preference.
The domain name of this website is unspun.digital, and from it hang a number of different services which are accessible via the public address unspun.digital. These services include the website you’re on now, our emails, and a couple of other internal systems like our website monitoring platform.
Domain names are purchased through domain registrars, and securing one is usually as simple as finding a registrar you trust and handing over a few quid. Domains which are already in use are a different matter though, and it’s common practice for desirable domains to be traded for large sums of money, making a decision for a new business one that should be carefully considered.
If the domain name is just the bit at the end of an email address, the URL is the full web address. Standing for Uniform Resource Locator, URLs are usually structured to help indicate what it is you’re looking at. This URL for example is https://unspun.digital/blog/post/the-language-of-websites-a-glossary-of-terms, indicating we’re on a secure connection (https), in the blog section of the website, and viewing a post with the title “The language of websites - A glossary of terms”
At their base level, websites are computer programs, and therefore need a computer to run on. Those computers, and the networks that power them are more commonly referred to as hosting.
While it is possible to run a website from your own laptop, and make it accessible to the public over the internet, this isn’t something that’s recommended, mostly because when you close your laptop the website becomes inaccessible.
Enterprise level hosting is powered by cloud computers (or servers) that live in data centres around the world. It’s also possible to host multiple websites on one server, a practice most commonly used to save costs, referred to as shared hosting.
DNS stands for the Domain Name System. When you type a web address into your browser, behind the scenes the browser sends a request to a DNS name server, which provides the physical address (IP address) of the server hosting the website.
Most commonly, you’ll have an associated admin panel that comes with your purchased domain name, and in here you’ll find DNS settings which govern the link between web address and server IP address.
These DNS settings can be tricky, and need to be carefully managed to avoid any security issues, so it’s common for a company to delegate the management of their domain and DNS to a trusted third party.
A HTTPS connection means you have a secured connection the website you’re viewing (opposed to an insecure HTTP connection). This is usually evidenced by the presence of a small padlock in your browser bar next to the web address.
A secure connection means any information you enter into the website is encrypted, preventing it from being read or “snooped on” in transit.
Websites typically have two distinct parts. There’s the customer facing side, with all the pages, blogs and information on it, which we typically call the frontend because it faces the customer. Then we have the control panel, or admin area, where you'd typically make content updates to your website, which is referred to as the backend, a bit like the back door for employee access to a venue.
Analytics refers to the tracking of user visits and behaviour on a website. The most common analytics platform, Google Analytics works by installing a small bit of code that loads on every page of this website.
This clever code can then report back to an external dashboard, and provide website owners with useful information such as visits over time, most popular pages, as well as flagging any problems with the structure of the content on a site.
SEO is Search Engine Optimisation, which is the act of optimising a website and it’s external reach in order to boost its presence in search results.
SEO is a whole industry in itself, and working to get big websites to the top of Google is a full time endeavour.
When talking about SEO SERPs might be mentioned, which stand for Search Engine Ranking Position. Basically the spot you occupy on major search engines for a particular search term.
If you type “unspun digital” into Google, you’ll see (below any paid adverts), we’re the first thing to come up (as we should be), meaning our SERP for this term is #1.
The way a web page is titled and described plays a big role in how it appears in search results. As such, most CMS’s will allow you to set these when you’re editing the content of a page. There’s best practices to follow for optimum SEO results, and tweaking these are one of the first jobs an SEO professional will do when assessing a new website.
API stands for Application Programming Interface, which we appreciate doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
APIs are like the glue that connects different websites or applications together. Say you have a website selling goods, that upon successful order needs to talk to your accountancy software in order to raise an invoice. This is achieved via an API, where your website contains code that talks to the accounting software in a language they both understand.
UX and UI stand for User Experience and User Interface respectively. UX focuses on how users interact with and experience a website, including factors like ease of use, accessibility, and overall satisfaction. UI refers to the visual elements and layout of the website - everything from button placement to color schemes that users directly interact with.
During the design phase of a website, we’ll often use a prototype, or a mockup to help us communicate design ideas without having to build out a fully featured website with code.
This helps us save time, and iterate on feedback quickly and adjust designs allowing us to reach a design for the website you’re completely happy with. Read about our web design process, or check out our blog titled How Unspun Digital design websites for more info.
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the fundamental building block of websites. It's the code that structures the content on a web page, defining elements like headings, paragraphs, images, and links.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is the code that controls how a website looks. It defines everything from colours on a website, to fonts to layout and animations. Think of HTML as the structure of a house, and CSS as the paint, furniture, and decorations that make it look good.
Javascript is a programming language that adds interactivity, animations, and other special touches to websites.
Whilst a very powerful tool Javascript should be wielded with care on the website because it can add performance overhead, and introduce security issues if deployed incorrectly.
A database is where websites store information that needs to be accessed and updated regularly. In web development, databases are used to store everything from user accounts and product information to blog posts and comments. Common database systems used in web development include MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB.
Responsive design means a website automatically adjusts its layout and content to look good on any device - whether it's a phone, tablet, or desktop computer. This is crucial in today's world where people browse the web on many different devices.
A cache is a temporary storage space that keeps copies of files or data. When you visit a website, your browser saves certain files (like images) in its cache so that the next time you visit, it can load them from your computer instead of downloading them again, making the website load faster.
Cookies are small files a website stores in your web browser to help keep track of certain information. You’re probably familiar with cookie popup banners, which exist to try and limit the scope of privacy invasive user tracking around the web.
While cookies are often used for this purpose, they also help websites out by allowing them to do things like remember checkout states, or keep you logged in between visits.
"Neil at Unspun is probably the most talented man I've ever met."
Amanda
