Evenbound's Inbound Marketing Vocab List

Whether you're new to inbound marketing or have been in the game awhile, it never hurts to bulk up on your inbound knowledge. The inbound marketing industry has a ton of terms and vocab words that aren't used anywhere else, so if you've always wondered what ROI or PPC stand for, we've got answers. Let this be your ultimate Inbound Marketing Vocabulary list, with simple definitions to some of the most common inbound marketing terms:

A/B Testing

A method of testing different variables of your marketing materials to see which option encourages a better response from site viewers and users. A great example of A/B testing is trying out different colors on your call-to-action button to see which color gets a better response rate.

Analytics

When it comes to inbound marketing, analytics are the numbers we monitor to see how our site and inbound marketing strategy is working. Site analytics tell you how many people have visited your website, where those visitors are coming from, and what pages they're looking at. Analytics on social media posts and digital advertisements tell you how many people have interacted with your posts and ads. We monitor analytics to see which inbound marketing efforts are successful, and which could use a little bit more work.

B2B

B2B stands for the words "business to business." This refers to a business that provides a good or service for another business, rather than for the average consumer. Manufacturers who create materials that other companies use to build a bigger object, like a car, are a good example of B2Bs.

B2C

B2C stands for the words "business to consumer." This is the type of business that provides goods or services directly to consumers, like a clothing or grocery store.

Bounce Rate

A bounce rate is a type of analytic that measures how long a site visitor stays on your webpage. A short bounce rate means that people aren't staying on your website for very long, and are "bouncing off." We use this analytic to tell us which pages of our website could use a little bit more work to draw more viewers in for longer.

Call-to-Action

Also known as a CTA, a call to action is a button that encourages a site visitor to take an action, and become a lead. Usually a CTA comes along with a form that captures a visitor's contact information. The CTA will encourage visitors to download a content offer, subscribe to a newsletter, or call a company for more information.

Click-Through Rate

A click-through rate or CTR is the analytic used to measure how often people click through to your website or landing page from an ad or search engine. A higher click-through number means more people are making it to your site from your ad, and marks a more successful ad or landing page.

Conversion

In inbound marketing, a conversion happens when someone who's just casually visiting your site fills out an information form, clicks a call to action, and becomes a lead. They become a lead once you have their information, and the fact that they were willing to convert means they're likely more interested in the product or service you have to offer.

Content Calendar

A content calendar is a calendar that outlines your blog topics or content ideas for a certain period of time. Typically, a content calendar will include a post title, a description, a keyword, and a date that the content should be posted.

Content Clusters

A newer term, content clusters are a way of organizing your content marketing strategy for optimal linking and client understanding. You start with a pillar page of content, which provides a general overview of one topic that's important to your target buyer. Then, you link other, more in-depth content pages about that same topic to the pillar page. That way, visitors can choose what they want to know more about, or they can opt for a simple overview. It's an easy way to organize content that makes sense for search engines and human readers.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is one of the key ways to support a strong inbound marketing plan. It's a way of putting helpful content out on your blog, your social media platforms, and in your emails that solves pain points of your target audience, and draws them further into your website, increasing the chances that they convert to leads.

Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is any kind of content, whether it's a photo, blog, or infographic, that's always relevant to your key buyer. This is content that doesn't have a season and is always true and helpful. Evergreen content is a big part of an effective content marketing strategy because you can use it any time. It's highly shareable, easy to link to, and the perfect content for when you need to get something out in a pinch.

Keyword

Keywords are probably the most well-known inbound marketing vocab term, but they're simply words you want to rank well for on search engines. For example, if you're a local roofer, keywords like asphalt roof, GAF shingles, and roofers in MyTown, USA, would be relevant words you'd want to rank for. For an effective keyword strategy, you'll want to do some research to make sure you're ranking for words your target audience is searching for.

Landing Page

A landing page is the page site visitors "land' on when they click through from a search engine or advertisement. Effective landing pages usually have a form and a call-to-action button so that they can easily convert site viewers to leads.

Lead

A lead is a site viewer that has converted by submitting their contact information. Typically, leads are established after they sign up for a newsletter or download a gated content offer, and have to submit their email address in return for the content.

Mobile Optimization

Mobile optimization refers to the practice of ensuring your website and digital content show up attractively on mobile devices. It also refers to making your mobile site more indexable by Google's search engines. Since more and more consumers are using mobile devices to search the web, mobile optimization is increasingly important.

Organic search result

An organic search result is one that shows up naturally on search engine results pages based on Google's algorithm ranking. Organic results are not paid for, and organic results that show up on the first page of results are the most desirable, as they're the most likely to receive clicks.

PPC

PPC stands for "pay-per-click," a style of Google advertising in which businesses create ads, but only pay for the advertisement if someone clicks on it. For pay-per-click ads, you can bid on certain keywords that are relevant to your products or services.

ROI

ROI stands for "return on investment." A relatively simple ratio, your return on investment is the money you net, minus the money you spend on your inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing offers a notoriously high ROI when implemented properly, because it doesn't cost much, but can be leveraged to boost your revenue exponentially.

Target buyer/audience

Your target buyer or target audience is essentially your ideal client. They're the person who definitely needs your product or service, and has the funds to pay for it. Most inbound marketing strategies are formed around the pain points and lifestyle of each business's target buyer or audience.

We hope this vocab list helps figure out some of the more difficult industry terms. If you've got any more questions about inbound marketing, whether you want to know how it works, or how it can work for you, be sure to get in touch.