Intro

When you’re a web designer, you have to use a lot of jargon. It’s part of the job, but it can be overwhelming for new designers and non-designers alike. Here are some basic terms that will help you understand what your designer is talking about:

Footer

A footer is a section at the bottom of your website that contains links to pages, your social media, and often a newsletter sign-up form. The footer is secondary navigation and non-primary pages (like privacy policy) tend to be placed here.

Landing Page

A landing page is where you intend visitors to ‘land’ via an external link (for instance in an email or Pinterest Pin). Landing pages tend to include a large amount of content, multiple sections, and numerous links. Homepages and sales funnel pages are usually landing pages.

Navigation

The site navigation is (usually) the bar at the top of your website with all of the links to your pages. You can include additional things like your logo, a search bar, a cart and drop-down menus. The navigation is often designed as three lines when your site is loaded on mobile.

Responsive

A responsive website design responds to different device sizes to look good on every device. An example of responsive design is a 3 columns layout on a desktop becoming a 1-column layout on mobile. It is necessary for all websites to be responsive as the majority of web users are browsing on mobile.

SEO

SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimisation’. Essentially, SEO refers to the processes of increasing the visibility of your website online (aka trying to rank highly on google). SEO practices include things like increasing website speed and using keywords.

Sitemap

A sitemap is a way of showing the structure of your website in an easy-to-understand layout. It clearly shows the connections between the pages on your site. You can create a visual sitemap to help you plan out how your site will work.

A sitemap is also a ‘map’ of links that search engines use to index your website content.  Sitemaps are important because they tell search engines which pages exist, what they’re about, and how often they’re updated, which lets them crawl through your site more effectively and efficiently.

White Space

Whitespace means the empty spacing between elements on the page. The space is not necessarily ‘white’, as your background can be any colour! Sufficient white space creates an aesthetically pleasing website. Not enough can make it illegible and cluttered.

Wireframe

A wireframe is a sketch of the layout of your website. It helps to demonstrate where every element (for example an image or a paragraph) will go, and enables you to see the plan of the whole length of a page at one time.

Conclusion

These terms should help you whether you are speaking to your web designer, or DIY-ing your own site! These terms can be found in pdf form in my free website project planner + MUCH MUCH MORE!

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