WordPress glossary - terms you absolutely need to know!

Our WordPress glossary, which contains everything you need to know about the most popular CMS!

WordPress Glossary:

A

ALT text

The ALT text is a short description of an image. It helps your website to be accessible by translating the visual content on your page into speech for blind users. The image is then replaced by your inserted ALT text when read aloud.

Affiliate Program

An affiliate program is a type of contract that you can conclude with various companies. It is a type of cooperation and serves to provide benefits to both parties.

We also offer an affiliate partnership with WPspace. For more information, click here.

Application

Application, or app for short, comes from the English word "application" and simply stands for an application. These applications are programs consisting of computer software that enables the user to perform certain functions. You may already be familiar with the word from using a cell phone. Here, all programs that you download to your cell phone or use on your cell phone are generally called apps.

B

Backup

Backup simply means data backup. This backup is created as a copy on the respective storage source and can be generated manually or automatically. Backups are important for securing data and restoring it if necessary.

Operating time

The operating time, also known as uptime, describes the time that computers and networks are online or in operation. In relation to websites, this is usually the 24-hour period that they are online each day. In order to achieve optimum results, your website should be online and available to visitors at all times. The operating time is also important in terms of SEO, as Google includes this in its ranking.

C

Cache/Caching

In the IT sector, the cache is a so-called temporary storage or buffer that your computer creates. When you create or update your website, your search engine creates a kind of copy of your website. When updating, you must therefore ensure that you empty the cache after saving in order to replace the cached image with your new changes. These caches are also saved when accessing different websites in order to avoid time-consuming reloads when accessing external servers.

Call-to-action

A call-to-action is a link that visually prompts you to do something. For example: Click here. Call-to-actions can be displayed as advertising banners, links, buttons, etc. and are designed to get users to click on them.

Content

Content generally stands for the content of something. The content of a website consists of texts, images and videos, as well as multimedia documents and other media forms.

Conversion rate

The conversion rate is the ratio between the total number of visitors to your website and those who have completed your goal, e.g. a sale. In other words: with a high conversion rate, you can be sure that you are doing everything right in terms of marketing. However, if it is low, you should think again about your marketing, the design of your website or your target group and adapt your website accordingly.

Cookie

Cookies are text files that are stored in every computer's web browser. They store data that can be used to analyze the search behavior of the computer's users. Since the GDPR of December 1, 2021, website owners must inform users that their website uses the cookies provided by their computer to improve their website with the help of this data. Users must then decide in what form they want to allow this, or whether they want to opt out altogether. However, if cookies are disabled, the user may not be able to access some of the website's functions, as they need the missing data records to display results.

Crawl

Cloud hosting is similar to web hosting in that it stores your website or data on an external source. Unlike web hosting, however, your website is not located on a server, but on a hoster's cloud. The advantage of the cloud is, on the one hand, optimal capacity and customizability, as well as often higher security and a cheaper alternative to web hosting.

A content management system is a program (e.g. WordPress) that enables and simplifies content creation, editing and organization.

D

File name

Each file is automatically given a name when you save it. You can either use this name or create your own. You can use this name to find the file again and identify it from others on your computer.

Domain

One Domain is the Internet address you use to call up websites. It is very briefly and concisely the name of the website and, more precisely, what comes after the @ or directly after the www. At WPspace, for example, the domain is wp-space.de.

E

Elementor

Elementor is a WordPress plugin that makes it possible for beginners to create websites using themes and page builders. As it is controlled by drag & drop functions, it is very easy to use and gives the creator the opportunity to create the website according to their own preferences.

Es gibt die kostenlose Version von Elementor, mit der du bereits deine Website gestalten kannst. Das Pro Abonnement von Elementor* bietet dir weitere Funktionen, die dir den Alltag erleichtern.

F

Favicon

A Favicon is a small icon, usually 16 x 16px in size. The favicon often contains a part of the logo or individual symbols. The favicon can be seen, for example, in the browser tab next to the website title.

Footer

Generally speaking, the footer is the foot of your website. It is usually created once and used on all subpages. This can save you a lot of work. Most companies legally link their privacy policy, legal notice and terms and conditions here. The footer is a bar, similar to the header, which takes visitors to the website to various subpages. However, you can also stack several footers on top of each other and use them on the subpages as you wish.

If you have any questions about creating a footer, take a look at the article "Elementor - Becoming a pro is easy".

G

Glossary

A glossary is a collection of technical terms. It serves as a kind of list that explains the technical terms to you as a visitor and presents the topics in an understandable way.

H

Homepage

A homepage is the start page of a website. It contains all the important information about the website, e.g. the company philosophy, the sales product and initial call-to-actions.

I

IP address

The IP address is the individual network address of your device. It is assigned to every device that is connected to a network. IP addresses identify the devices in the network and make them accessible.

J

K

Keyword

Keywords are focus or key terms that the user enters in the Google search bar. They are an important point in SEO, as all texts on the website are focused on them. In order to be displayed on Google, your ranking must be rated highly by Google. However, Google can only find and search you, also known as crawling, if you mention and address certain terms. So before you start writing a text, e.g. in your blog, you must first of all carry out keyword research on your topic, because only then will the direction of your text be decided.

L

Loading speed/page speed

The loading speed/page speed indicates how quickly your website loads when the user accesses your link. It is particularly important for the user-friendliness of your site, because the faster your website is called up, the more likely users are to stay on your site.

Landing page

The landing page is a page you land on when you click on an ad or a link, for example. The landing page is intended for users to perform a specific action. It is therefore an important marketing tool that can be used in a targeted manner. If required, you can read here what the most important points of a Landing page are.

M

Managed WordPress hosting

Managed WordPress hosting first and foremost means web hosting with the WordPress platform in focus. The word "managed" here primarily means that the host or hosting agency takes full care of the technology behind your site. Your website is therefore not only stored on the host's server, but the latter is also constantly updated, maintained and backed up. You can find more advantages and reasons for managed WordPress hosting here. WordPress hosting tariffs - WPspace® (wp-space.de)

Matomo

Comprehensive web analysis with Matomo makes it possible to understand and interpret user behavior on a website. It can track where your visitors come from, which page they click on afterwards and which page they leave. It is also GDPR-compliant, provided you have set it up correctly.
You can find out exactly how to set up Matomo here: Install Matomo in just 5 minutes: Quick and easy (wp-space.de)

N

O

Onepager

One-pagers are websites that manage without any subpages. They contain all information in a single HTML document and often even an imprint and contact forms. The one-pager has the great advantage that you don't have to create a complicated website as a beginner and can create all important company information on one page.

P

Pagebuilder

A page builder gives the creator of a website the opportunity to design it exactly according to their preferences. It works like a construction kit for the layout of your website. To put it bluntly, a page builder is a page builder that makes it easier for you to work on your website. The best-known WordPress page builders include Elementor and Divi.

Pagespeed

See: Loading speed

Plugin

A plugin is an additional tool that extends your basic program. These software programs act like an additional tool that you buy to expand your toolbox. Depending on the provider, plugins are free or chargeable and extend your basic software application with a wide range of functionalities.

Q

R

S

Shared hosting

Translated into German, shared web hosting simply means that you share the server costs with many different users. Although this is the most cost-effective type of web hosting, it requires a great deal of technical know-how, just like do-it-yourself web hosting.

T

U

V

W

Maintenance

To ensure that websites are always secure and up to date, you should regularly carry out a WordPress maintenance perform maintenance. Maintenance includes performing open updates of the WordPress theme, WordPress plugins and WordPress core, creating regular backups and checking and fixing security risks.

Web hosting

With web hosting, providers give you, the customer, storage space on their servers to create your website. You can imagine this as follows: The host owns the drawer, in this case the server, in which you store your website. When a user accesses your website, they must access this drawer or server. In most cases, hosting also includes additional services, such as a certain level of support when creating the website and for further questions.  

Website

Web pages are the many different subpages of a website. 

Website

The term website describes a complete Internet presence. In most cases, it consists of several subordinate web pages.

WordPress

WordPress is a content management system that was programmed by Matthew Mullenweg in 2003 and is now being continuously developed as open source software. It was originally intended purely as a web application for blogs, but is now considered one of the most popular pieces of software for creating websites. With the help of various plugins, online stores are now also possible in addition to the well-known blog.

WooCommerce

As a free plugin for WordPress, WooCommerce is one of the most popular tools for creating online stores. With a large variety of other plugins, some of which are subject to a fee, WooCommerce extends WordPress to the extent that the interface of your website can be variably adapted to your store, even without knowledge of HTML and CSS. Thanks to its huge international community and its advantage of being one of the more cost-effective store systems, WooCommerce is also growing steadily on the German market.

X

Y

Z