Web Design Terms

In our last installment of Internet marketing terms, we completed our discussion on affiliate marketing terms most commonly used. In this installment, we’re going to start a discussion on web design terms. This is an area that a lot of new people have problems with because some of the terms are quite slang in nature, especially our first one.

Above The Fold – This one even had me scratching my head when I first heard it. Certainly there are no folds on web pages, are there? Well, above the fold refers to the area of the web page that you can see without having to scroll down. This will greatly vary depending on the resolution of the monitor that the person viewing the web page is using.

For example, if you create a web page with resolution of 800 x 600 on your PC, and somebody views it with a monitor resolution set to 1024 x 768, they are going to see more of your page than you did when creating it because their screen size is larger. This is why you will see many websites with messages on them like “Best viewed at 800 by 600” because that is the resolution they were using when designing the page.

Ad Space – This is a space that is specifically set aside on web pages for ads. Many times you will probably see a number of ads, usually in a column, and at the bottom it will say something like, “Your Ad Here.” This is how many websites make their income, through renting ad space.

ALT Text – This is another term that confuses a lot of people. When designing a web page, if a web designer places graphics on the page, he will usually put what is called alternative text, or ALT text, along with the graphic. The reason this is done is that some web browsers cannot see graphics. This way, the viewer sees something rather than an empty area.

Animated GIF – An animated GIF is a graphic file that has movement to it. The movement can be subtle, such as a mail box opening and closing to very pronounced, such as a girl dancing in place. Animated GIFs were all the rage when they first came out many years ago, but today with things like Flash video, animated GIFs have lost some of their appeal.

Bookmark – This is another one that many new people don’t get, as web pages are certainly not books and even if you did have a bookmark nearby, you wouldn’t know what to do with it. In the world of websites, a bookmark is simply the practice of making a physical note of a website address in your browser favorites so that you can go back to that site any time you want without having to retype the URL in each time you do. The site is then said to be bookmarked.

In our next installment, we’ll go over some more Internet marketing terms having to do with Websites and Web Design.

See you then.