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The Cost of Doing Business with a Web Agency

I got asked a really great question last weekend and figure I would expand on it in a blog post. The question was “what’s the difference between a $2,500 project/website and a $15,000 project/website?” This, believe it or not, is one of the most probing questions I’ve ever been asked. Hence, the need to write a blog post on it.

So…what is the difference?

I’ll tell you as I see it, and I want to preface this by saying, my word is not absolute. This is completely my opinion and my thoughts that stem from the experiences I have working at a small agency and a larger one. The smaller agency charged anywhere from $2k – $20k per project and the larger agency charged anywhere from $50k – $250k per project. I would love to say that the difference is level of effort, but that’s not necessarily true. I think what we have to do first, is look at the variances of what we’re talking about. There are many, many variances in agency types or tiers, types of projects or websites, and variances within those projects.

So what kind of an agency is right for your business, what are the pro’s and con’s of each?

Types of Agencies

In the design and development world there are all types of designers and developers ranging from freelancers to mega-web agencies, small design shops to professional engineering firms. There are marketing agencies, social media agencies, and SEO agencies. For the sake of this post, I’m going to concentrate on the different types of website design/development agencies, the ones that do strategy, design, and development. This will be mostly for people or companies looking to get a website designed and built.

  1. Freelancers: These are the hardest ones to put in a category, because like agencies, freelancers can range a great deal. There are the novice freelancers, many of them do projects for next to nothing, sometimes they actually charge nothing. They’re just starting out and want to grow their portfolios. But then, there are other freelancers out there who are phenomenal. Usually these freelancers are expensive and don’t take on many projects because their plate is already full. You can usually find freelancers ranging from the novice to the expert on sites like Upwork or Elance, just make sure to check out their ratings and reviews.
    • Advantages: One person owns the project from start to finish (not being shuffled between people); Almost always less expensive than agencies; Can usually get the job done very quickly
    • Disadvantages: One person owns the project from start to finish (so, stability could be an issue depending on the freelancer), if they run into a speed bump that could mean the end of the project; Skill set is usually limited to one area like development or design, not both — unless you find that unicorn freelancer, they are out there!
  2. Small ‘Everywhere’ Web Agency (2 – 10 employees): These agencies are very common and popping up everywhere (hence, the ‘everywhere’), and like freelancers, they can range a great deal. Most small web agencies don’t have a focus in terms of industry. They’ll work with a lot of companies ranging from lawyers to restaurants to local businesses. The owners often times act as project/account managers and the staff is limited in their experience. That’s not to say that these agencies aren’t good, there are good ones out there, but they mostly do simple marketing redesigns, blogs, and brochure-style websites.
    • Advantages: Prices can range, but usually it’s within a small businesses’ budget. Often times you can get redesigns done for $2k to $10k; These agencies are friendly and will treat you like family, and they’ll go the extra mile to keep you as a client.
    • Disadvantages: They sometimes use templates for design, so you’ll see many clients that have the same navigation bar or search box style; Sometimes they’ll modify themes instead of making custom ones; And often times they don’t have an in-depth process when it comes to the strategy surrounding the project.
  3. Boutique Web Agency (5 – 25 employees): These agencies are the ones that usually have sharp focus in a niche industry, like “we only work with non-profits,” which makes them really great in that one (or two ) specific vertical(s). Their process is somewhat refined and they have a small team. They usually have top-tier talent (one or two rockstars) and project or account managers. They work with medium-sized business and most likely have a few enterprise level clients.
    • Advantages: Focused verticals, know the specific industry inside and out; Refined strategy processes; Top-tier development and/or design talent; Most likely have good project management skills
    • Disadvantages: They have small teams that are most likely working on a number of different projects; May push out the start date depending on workload; Often times rely on the top-tier talent to take the bulk of the projects
  4. Professional Web Firm (25 – 75 employees): These firms are the ones that have focus in a few different industries and market themselves that way, but they’ll also push their own boundaries and take on projects outside their industries (not all the time!). They usually have a sales department (or sales guy) and marketing team. They’ll have dedicated project teams and a handful of project managers. They’ll also have a solid leadership team to motivate and corral the team members when needed. They have processes set in place and incrementally improve them. They consider strategy a big part of the web game and use it to deliver solid projects. They have full day discovery workshops and probably do user testing to confirm hypotheses. They work with big companies and enterprise brands, but still have a few small to medium businesses that they got when they were starting out.
    • Advantages: Custom work, you’ll get a unique website that’s built for your users (hopefully!); There will be an outlined process; Roles and responsibilities will be defined; Strategic thinkers that will use data to make informed decisions; Will assign a dedicated project manager; Top-tier talent
    • Disadvantages: They’re expensive; And they’re not the quickest on project timelines, they plan and plan, and that takes time; Often times they overload their team because of client demands
  5. Mega Web Agency (100+ employees): These are the large agencies that take on a number of different verticals, they almost always have distributed teams and work on some really big projects. They’ll have every type of agency person including user experience designers, digital strategists, marketers, software engineers, strategy partners, and a large leadership team with dozens of years of combined experience. They usually don’t take on projects for less than $250k (I know some that start at $500k or even above!). They work with brand names (think Google) and they’ll do mostly (if not only) custom work.
    • Advantages: Super custom work tailored to your users; Strategy will be the biggest part of the project; They’ll usually work in sprints and test at the end of each sprint to verify concepts and prototypes; Quality Assurance will be meticulous
    • Disadvantages: You need to be a huge company to work with these guys, because they are expensive; There might be a waiting list to work with them; There will most likely be a number of people in on the project at different phases/stages of the project, so you’ll meet new people constantly

What about agencies with 75 to 100 employees?

Good question! Well, this is by no means a complete list. I’ve noticed the farther I go in web services (or just web in general) there are soooo many types of agencies out there. There’s also the Digital Body Shop which usually has anywhere from 50 – 100 employees, and they do a bunch of different projects in different verticals and work with a myriad of industries.

Just remember, this stems from my own experiences and the people I’ve talked with.

Let’s get into project type and what their average costs are with the different agencies.

Types of Projects / Types of Websites

Like agencies, there are definitely a myriad of different projects and websites that can be created, designed, and built. Some are simple, and some are super complex. So, I’ll list out the most common projects most people are likely to encounter and most agencies and/or freelancers would take on. To limit things (because this is already a long post!!), I’m going to just do pricing for the 3 web agencies in the middle: Small Agency, Boutique Agency, and Professional Agency. Please keep in mind, these are averages (prices all depend on the scope) and can realistically range from $1,000 to millions!

  1. Blog: This is perhaps the simplest type of site which mainly consists of a content management system (like WordPress) and updated content coming out on a regular basis.
    • Price:
      • Small: $1,000 – $5,000
      • Boutique: $3,000 – $15,000
      • Professional: $10,000 – $35,000
  2. Microsites: These can be deceiving. Just the term ‘microsite’ sounds small, but I assure you they can be the opposite of that! Microsites are usually when a company wants to promote an event or showcase a certain branch or department of their company. Often times there is video or images, CTA’s (calls-to-action) prompting the user to do something like signup for a service or check out certain resources. They can be cool ways to get more awareness.
    • Price:
      • Small: $2,000 – $8,000
      • Boutique: $5,000 – $25,000
      • Professional: $25,000 – $75,000
  3. Marketing Site: These are called different things, sometimes Informational sites, or Brochure-style sites, but essentially these sites just market your company or cause or whatever! They can be a little trickier than blogs because often times they require implementation of ad-serving, email newsletters, videos, or image galleries. I’ve seen these sites range anywhere from $5,000 to $80k, depending on what’s involved with them.
    • Price:
      • Small: $2,000 – $10,000
      • Boutique: $10,000 – $50,000
      • Professional: $35,000 – $100,000
  4. Site/Application Build: These are a little trickier to price because they almost always involve doing some type of integration with another system. Like integrating with a booking engine or an events registration system. These builds can be complex and should be handled by top-tier talent. Be careful to go with a price that’s too low (there is such a thing!) because they should be priced accordingly – they are hard projects to work on!
    • Price:
      • Small: $8,000 – $20,000
      • Boutique: $35,000 – $120,000
      • Professional: $75,000 – $250,000
  5. Membership Portals / Member-Based Sites: These can be fun projects and if done right can come out really well. With WordPress there are some default membership properties like Editor, Author, Subscriber, etc. But a good agency can do almost anything with these and other CMS’s, like Drupal, let you customize your user roles. But because the needs of a client can vary a great deal depending on what they want their membership site experience to be like can determine how much the project will cost.
    • Price:
      • Small: $5,000 – $25,000
      • Boutique: $30,000 – $150,000
      • Professional: $75,000 – $300,000
  6. Ongoing Support: Obviously this all depends on the size/scope/scale of your digital property and what your needs are, but usually prices start at the following amounts.
    • Price:
      • Small: starting at $100 per month
      • Boutique: starting at $500 per month
      • Professional: starting at $1,000 per month

Again, this is not a complete list. There really are multiple (sometimes endless) types of sites that you could potentially do. You could also have a hybrid of sites, like a Microsite within a Membership-Based Site, oh the possibilities!!

I guess that’s what I like about the web, the possibilities, they are endless!

But I hope this sheds a little light on what types of agencies are out there, what they typically charge for web projects, and what to expect from them if you ever need their services.

So, to answer the original question, I’m not sure what the difference between a $2,500 website and a $15,000 website is. I would say there are different types of agencies that price projects out differently depending on their market size, location, and client type. But with that being said, I really hope that a $100,000 project from a professional agency comes out better than a $10,000 project from a small agency,  but I tell people it’s like buying a car – “You can get a Hyundai Accent for $15k and you could get a Lamborghini for $250k (is the Lambo better? Maybe..) but they’ll both get you from point A to point B!”

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The Wonderful World of Hacking

I’ve always been fascinated by hackers ever since I saw the movie Hackers, which I now know does NOT accurately portray what being a hacker consists of. Hackers are an interesting bunch. Why? Because their reasons for doing what they do can vary the full length of the spectrum.

Let me explain

Back before computer systems and the internet got to be wildly popular, the term “hacker” was used to embody the tinkerers of software or electronic systems. These hackers enjoyed learning (and exploring) all they could about computers and the way they operated. In the beginning, hacker was a term that was used to describe a person who was really awesome at working with computers.

Now…it’s taken on a slightly different and somewhat complex meaning.

When you hear the term hacker, you automatically think of someone who tries to gain entry to a website or system to do something malicious, whether that be stealing information, defacing a website, etc. The term hacker now refers to someone who maliciously breaks into systems for personal gain. But the key phrase within that sentence is personal gain. What is personal gain? Well…it could be just about anything.

SOME OF THE REASONS WHY HACKERS HACK:
  1. Profit – this could be money or this could be web traffic.
  2. Notoriety – some hackers like to hack for the esteem it brings them in the hacking community.
  3. Hacktivism – hackers try to disseminate political or social messages and campaigns to raise awareness surrounding a certain issue or issues.
  4. Hobby – others do it because they want to see what they can break into, how hard it is, and so on.
  5. Because they can – yup, some do it just because they can.

Now, just like hackers hack for varied reasons, there are also several types of hackers out there and their motivations are varied as well.

TYPES OF HACKERS:
  1. Script Kiddies – these hackers are considered (in the hacking world) to be novices. They take advantage of hacker tools and upload scripts to different places (often times, without knowing what that script will do or how damaging it’ll be) for the fun of it. Hence the name, Script kiddies.
  2. Hackers for Hire – these hackers are the mercenaries of the cyber world. People will enlist their services for money.
  3. Cyberterrorists – usually they attack government networks or power/utility grids. These hackers will crash systems and steal government top secrets (aliens, UFO’s, stuff like that!). Very dangerous hackers, very dangerous!
  4. Criminal Hackers – often a part of an organization of hackers, they are very skilled in breaking into systems (often times, without a trace) and either stealing credit card info or personal identification information.
  5. Security Researchers – these guys are the good guys, the ones who find flaws in companies and organizations’ systems and bring them to light without causing harm. They’re also the ones who develop the tools to use against malicious hackers.

Now let’s talk a little bit about the different categories of hackers, they can all be described by colors. I know, pretty cool, huh?

CATEGORIES OF HACKERS:
  1. White Hat Hacker — the good guys!
  2. Black Hat Hacker — the bad guys!
  3. Grey Hat Hacker — kinda the in-betweeners, sometimes for good, other times, not so much.
  4. Blue Hat Hacker — the ones who get paid to uncover vulnerabilities (I feel like these guys should be called the green hat hackers, but that’s just me).

So, now that you have an idea of what types of hackers are out there, and before we get into what types of security threats are out there, let’s take a look at why it’s getting increasingly easier to hack systems and websites.

  • Networks, nowadays, are extremely widespread and we are all connected
  • Lots of hacking tools available
  • Many and many wifi networks that are open
  • Applications have complex codebases
  • Generations of our kids are getting super smart when it comes to computers
  • Anonymity

There are sooo many things that people should be concerned with if they are on the internet, have a website that they manage, pay for products online, or have personal identifiable information online. If you don’t participate in any of the preceding things, then you are a hermit and stop reading this post. Ha!

But hacking happens every single day. Every. Single. Day. Every. Single. Hour. Wrap your head around that! It does happen and if you have not been hacked, then you’re lucky, but it will eventually happen to you unless you take proper action, which I’ll write about in an upcoming post. But (and this list is by no means complete) here are different ways hackers can mess with you or your systems.

TYPES OF ATTACKS:
  1. Brute Force – these attacks are when a hacker keeps on trying to gain access to your login credentials on any number of password protected sites, by continually trying different password combinations. Almost like a guy trying to break down your door. When ramming his foot into it doesn’t work, he’ll try a battering ram, when that doesn’t work, maybe he’ll try to pick the lock. Hence, brute force. These happen on my WordPress sites everyday.
  2. DoS / DDoS – ahh, the infamous Denial of Service or Distributed Denial of Service. This is an attack that’s designed to flood a website or network with traffic overload to render it inoperable. The group Anonymous (which is a network of hackers that primarily hack to bring certain issues to light) is well-known for a series of public DDoS attacks. Interesting group and I would never want to do anything to upset them, that’s for sure!
  3. SQL Injection – SQL stands for Structured Query Language, which is used for communicating with databases. The injections are attacks that “inject” (obviously) malicious code into a database to gain access to that database.
  4. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) – this is a vulnerability which allows hackers to insert client-side (meaning executed by a user’s web browser) scripts into pages on a website or application. Then they can go on and do anything malicious or see certain activity, etc.
  5. Cross-Site Contamination – this is when hackers gain access to a “secure” site by infiltrating it from a site that’s not secure, but on the same server. We see this a lot when people have outdated CMS installs on the same server they have the updated ones on.
  6. Phishing Emails – have you ever gotten an email asking you to update your profile on Facebook, but it looks a little off? That’s because it probably is! Phishing emails are exactly that, they’re when hackers are fishing for information. You’ll get an email that looks a lot like it came from Facebook (the good phishing emails are the ones where you can’t tell the difference) asking you to put in your password or personal information. Hackers are able to log what you do on these sites/emails, so don’t ever click anything in an email unless you absolutely trust the source, but even then you can’t be 100%, be careful!
  7. Social Engineering – this is a method many hackers use that relies on interacting with humans. It’s basically getting a person to be relaxed enough to offer up information they normally wouldn’t give out. So, if you’re ever on the phone with someone (a person you don’t know, like someone claiming to be from the post office or some other government agency) and they ask you what your mother’s maiden name is, don’t give it out unless you are absolutely positive you’re speaking to the proper person.

Again, this is by no means a complete list, but these are some of the common things hackers will try. The best way to protect yourself is by getting a service like Sucuri’s AntiVirus or Firewall plans, making sure to keep your systems updated, and by being informed. Make yourself aware when you’re online and be cognizant of what you are clicking on and activity in general. And luckily, you won’t be another statistic of getting hacked!

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The Black Book of Web Terms

For those of you who are in the business of talking tech, you’re probably familiar with certain web terms like SEO, Full Stack Developer, Adwords, HTML, FTP, Above the Fold, CSS, etc. I’ve put together a list of the most common terms used when talking about everything tech from computer programming to open-source platforms to blogging. I’ve tried to make them as relatable as possible so you can explain these terms to your cyberspace-challenged family at the next Thanksgiving dinner and sound super tech savvy. Terms, acronyms, phrases, and slang are all in the mix, alphabetically ordered for your convenience. If you need more clarification, fill free to reach out!

A:

Above the Fold – this refers to anything that can be seen on a webpage without having to scroll down. It stems from the newspapers where anything in the top fold was considered prime real estate for content and ads.

Adwords – this is the most commonly used ad service powered by Google. It allows account holders to bid on certain keywords relevant to their website and create ads which appear on SERPs. It places ad copy usually at the top or to the right of the search engine result page (SERP). If you look closely at the first two or three results on your next search, you’ll see a little yellow box that says “ad” directly to the left of the link, that is if you use Google. Bing has its own ad service, surprisingly called Bing Ads.

Adsense – this is a little different than Adwords, but connects with it. Adsense allows bloggers and other webmasters to display ads on their sites which can generate income through a CPM (Cost per impression, aka PPM) and CPC (Cost per click, aka PPC). An account holder can get paid through Adsense by taking the ads from Adwords that companies create and pay for and displaying it on their websites. I know this is a little confusing, but all you need to know is Adwords costs money, Adsense can make you money.

Analytics – services that generate statistics about a website’s traffic, patterns, and has the ability to measure conversions. These tools basically track activity on a website.

API – Application Programming Interface – it’s a way for one technology to interact with another technology. Like a Twitter API let’s developers incorporate Twitter data into a website or application, same thing with a YouTube API. This maintains a level of cohesion in the building process.

B:

Back End – refers to everything on the “back-end” of a website, basically what goes on behind the curtain. Back end functionality are the inner workings of a website or application. Also known as server-side, back end is the stuff you don’t see when you look at the webpage. (EX: Have you ever filled out a contact form online? Where does that information go and how does it get there? That’s back end!!) Back end may also refer to a person, he’s a back end developer.

Bandwidth – is a resource in use. If a website has millions of users viewing the site, it will be using a lot of bandwidth. Bandwidth can also be used to describe someone’s availability – a developer just finished their project and has some “bandwidth” to help out on different projects.

Beta – we always hear this product is currently in beta – that means it’s the first “live” phase of a website or a platform. The product is ready for use but the kinks are still being worked out and it’ll improve.

Black-Hat – used to refer to malicious hacking or aggressive SEO strategies.

Blog – if you don’t know what this is, you’ve got problems. But just so you know, blogs started as sort of an online journal and now blogs have turned into complex inbound marketing tools. The internet is like an ocean and companies use pieces of bait called content (blogs) to reel people in with.

Bounce Rate – used in analytics to represent the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from that site after viewing only one page. This is when visitors come to a website and then “bounce” off never going to another page than the one they landed on – hence bounce rate – a low bounce rate is usually good, a high bounce rate is usually bad – usually!!

Browser – this one’s easy. A browser is an application we use to surf the web. (EX: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer (do people still use that, ha!))

C:

Caching – this is when your computer stores a copy of a webpage you previously looked at so it can deliver that page to you faster the next time you view it.

CDN – Content Delivery Network – CDN’s are normally for websites that have lots and lots of images, videos, and rich media. CDN’s will store cached versions of the website on different servers at different locations around the world. This enables the site to be served up quicker when trying to view it. Depending on your location, the server closest to you will show you the website.

CMS – Content Management System – software that makes the management of a website easier for those who aren’t developers. A CMS can have a number of different users, usually called admins, that access the website through a login portal. The user interface opens into a dashboard where admins can publish, edit, and update the website’s content. Examples of CMS’s are WordPress and Drupal, both open source!

Cookie – stored in your web browser, a cookie comes from a website you visited. When you revisit the same website, the cookie will send data back to the server to notify the website of your previous activity.

CRO – Conversion Rate Optimization – the practice of creating great experiences for a website user with the goal of converting them to paying customers.

CSS – Cascading Style Sheets – this is a stylesheet for sprucing up your website pages and making things look pretty. With a .css extension and linked from an HTML (seen below) page, it is the decoration of a website.

D:

Deep Web – a part of the internet that is not indexed by regular search engines. The internet is an ocean as in 90% of its contents are below the surface. For every page a regular search engine indexes, there are many more that are not being indexed. See TOR – the software for trolling the deep web.

DNS – Domain Name System – a unique user-friendly name that identifies a website, like any domain.com and essentially converts the number of the IP address.

DOM – Document Object Model – let me preface this by saying this will be hard to understand! There are objects in an HTML page called elements, things like <title> and <header>, the DOM is basically a representation of the document (often times in the form of a tree) and determines how objects can be manipulated.  It can be considered kind of a theory, and it’s technically an interface. Told you it would be hard to understand. Google it – I dare ya!

Domain Authority – honestly, no one really knows what this is. It’s a secretive algorithm that measures how a website will perform in search engine rankings. Moz has the info you need on Domain Authority.

Drupal – free, open source content management system used to build websites and online communities leveraging modules for functionality.

E:

Element – the components in HTML, they represent content and are wrapped in tags EX:  <p>Paragraph tag</p>, <h1>Heading with the most weight</h1>, <h6>heading with the least weight</h6>, <img src=”this shows an image” />

F:

Favicon – these are the tiny little images and icons that are displayed in the tab of a window next to the title of the actually webpage.

FTP – File Transfer Protocol – a way for files from one computer (usually a personal computer) to be transferred to another computer (usually a server) to be viewed on the internet.

Framework – in development, a framework helps by having a defined collection of tools to pull from for creating websites and web apps. Common activities (e.g. – fixed layouts, responsive markup) are put together and available for use instead of building something from scratch.

Front End – development that involves everything a user sees on a website, sometimes called client-side. Also refers to a person, she’s a front-end developer.

Full Stack Developer – a developer who knows both front-end and back-end development, these developers are extremely skilled and demand a high salary!

G:

GIF – a format file type used most times for animated images and graphics.

Git – a version control system which enables developers to work on projects simultaneously from different computers and store revisions of development history. It’s really good for holding developers accountable!

H:

Hack – there’s two meanings for this. One – is the traditional meaning where your computer gets hacked by a hacker for profit, gain, or notoriety. The Second – is when files are customized by a programmer, but not coded properly. You’ll often hear, “the core files are so hacked we’d have to start from scratch.” – this could mean that the files were hacked by a hacker, but it probably means that some developer who had access to those files changed the code to get the website or program to run the way it needed to run, but they didn’t use best practices.

High-level – this is a business term which means very basic, an overview, not specific or detailed. Your boss comes to you and says, “I’d like a high-level overview of your department’s business objectives for Q4 this year, just something simple.”

HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language – one of the first languages in website building, it leverages components known as elements wrapped in tags (surrounded by angle brackets shown here – <title>My Website</title>) to render certain types of text and images in a file with the extension .html. When rendered on a webpage, the above example would only show My Website. It is the skeleton of pretty much any website and contains different types of content.

HTTP(S) – Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (Secure) – it’s basically a set of rules for transferring information over the internet between browsers and servers. HTTPS is the secure transfer over an encrypted connection.

I:

IP Address – Internet Protocol Address – this is the number associated with a web address or computer.

J:

JS – JavaScript – a scripting/programming language used to create dynamic websites. It can handle user events and movements, alter content, and make for an overall great user experience. JavaScript has become very popular these last few years.

jQuery – a JavaScript library to simplify creating animations and handling events. It’s the most widely used JavaScript library today, and it’s got a great API.

K:

Keyword – any term, phrase, or word typed into a search query in a search engine that shows results.

KPI– Key Performance Indicators – companies use KPI’s to gauge and compare performance, they usually come in the form of some type of data-driven metric like social media reach, profits, or analytics.

L:

Landing Page – a webpage built within a website for the purpose of being “landed” on, usually from email marketing or social media. A landing page is built in hopes of converting users into customers.

Link Bait – content on a website that other sites link to because they find it interesting, unique, funny, and want to link to it.

Link Building – getting other websites to link to your website in hopes of improving your own ranking in a search engine.

M:

Markup – another way to say code, HTML is a markup language. See also syntax.

Meta – often heard in line with the word data, metadata is literally data about data. It helps search engines read parts of your website to determine what type of data it is.

Microsite – this is an individual website with its own domain/subdomain and as its own entity, but often times associated with another larger website. A microsite is usually used to showcase some type of event or new product.

Mockup – a design that shows a user what a website will look like without having to build any of the functionality.

MVP – Minimum Viable Product – for a website, the MVP has just those core features that allow the site to be deployed live. It’s the absolute bare minimum a website can be and still be used.

N:

NAP Consistency – Name, Address, Phone Number – a company’s NAP should be the same across all different local listings and other listings. This will help with local SEO.

O:

OOP – Object Oriented Programming – is a fundamental of computer programming that centers around objects and the methods or functions that control them.

OS – Operating System – are you using a Mac, Windows, or Linux OS? The iPhone’s operating system is iOS, go figure!

P:

Panda – this was an update to Google’s algorithm that aimed at lowering the rank of low-quality sites aka “thin sites”, and return higher quality sites at the top of the SERP.

Penguin – this was another update to the Google algorithm that aimed at decreasing search engine rankings for those sites that were still practicing Black-Hat SEO tactics.

PHP – PHP Hypertext Preprocessor – what?!? yes that first P stands for PHP, it makes no sense, I guess HP was taken! This is a programming language that is normally used with a database like MySQL to build dynamic websites and web applications. Over 80% of the web is written in PHP.

Pogo-sticking – users who search for a keyword and click on the first result they see. Then they don’t find what they want and hit the back button to the results page and click on the second result they see. Then they don’t find what they want again, and this can go on and on, hence the pogo-stick.

Post – an article in a blog.

Q:

QA – Quality Assurance – the act of making sure something works properly. In development, massive regression testing, unit testing, browser testing, and cross-platform testing is usually done.

Query – any question, whether that’s searching in a search box or querying a database to get back info from that database, a query is simply a question.

R:

RFP – Request for Proposal – this is a business term, but it’s when companies contact a web agency in hopes of finding a solution to their web challenge. If a company wants to build a website or do a redesign, they’ll put together an RFP (which basically describes what they’re using now and what they’d like to change about it – high level stuff) and send it to a web firm to get a proposal.

Rich Media – this can be different things, a few examples are images, videos, and animations that usually involve some type of user interaction. Or it can be an image, video, or interactive advertisement.

River – on a blog, it’s the main section of blog posts, not the sidebar.

RSS – Really Simple Syndication, actually it’s Rich Site Summary – RSS feeds allow a webmaster to syndicate someone’s content from a blog or news source to their own site and link back to that blog or news source, the feed will automatically update with any new posts.

S:

Scope Creep – adding incrementally to a project plan or statement of work (SOW), and realizing that the project plan has gotten way too big! The creep refers to adding small things (features, functionality, etc.) to a project and then realizing that the scope (what the project entails) is way over budget or the timeline’s too short.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization – for lack of sounding obvious, this means optimizing a website for the search engine. It’s an organic (meaning free) process of affecting a website’s visibility in SERPs. The strategy for this is extensive and constantly changing, you can check out some of my previous posts on SEO and Search Engines to get a basic look.

SEM – Search Engine Marketing – increasing the visibility of your website through paid advertisements.

SERP – Search Engine Results Page – it’s the page that has all the results on it after you enter a search query and hit enter.

Server – simply put, a server is a computer, but it’s a big one that houses a bunch of different websites.

Sitemap – this is a list of all pages within a website that can be crawled by spiders or by users, normally showing the taxonomy of a website.

Spamdexing – slang term for the use of Black-Hat SEO strategies like invisible text (hiding text between the markup and rendering it invisible), keyword stuffing (stuffing a webpage full of the same keyword), and doorway pages (landing on a page and then suddenly being redirected to another page) for the purposes of high visibility in search engine rankings. This is a very bad thing to do and it’s like committing SEO suicide.

Spider – a program designed to crawl (read) web pages.

SOW – statement of work – a document that tells the client what you plan on doing for their project.

Syntax – properly structured code.

T:

Table – a slang term for putting something on hold. EX: “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, so why don’t we table this month’s content strategy and circle back at a later date.” I hate this term!!

Taxonomy – this is the procedure of organizing and categorizing the different web pages on a website. A website’s hierarchy.

TOR – The Onion Router – this is a free software for online anonymity. It let’s users surf the web much like Google or Bing does, but with no threat of placing cookies on your computer or tracking your movements. TOR is often used to surf the Deep Web.

U:

UI/UX – User Interface / User Experience – UI is what we use when we’re doing some type of action online (e.g. – viewing a website, purchasing an online product). UX is the feeling we get from doing those actions.

URL – Uniform Resource Locater – URL’s are a website’s unique address so that it can be found online.

Usability – criteria that assesses how easy a user interface is to use including learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction. The Nielsen Norman Group has a great post on this topic – Usability 101

User-friendly – this just means that something is easy for us humans to understand! EX: beingajile.com/blog is much easier for us to understand than beingajile.com/wp/13286-aXeS3.3428.php

V:

Virus – much like a cold virus or the flu, a computer virus is a malicious program that likes to harm and reproduce in other hosts (computers).

W:

Webmaster – any person who develops or controls a website.

Widget – a small piece of functionality in WordPress usually found in the sidebar or footer areas.

Wireframe – this is kind of like a blueprint for a website, often done with boxes, it represents a visual framework.

WordPress – an open source content management system designed for developers and non-developers. It has a vast community of developers/non-developers who regularly contribute to making it the best blogging platform out there. It utilizes plugins which are pieces of functionality that help the end user accomplish something (e.g. – embed a twitter feed). This is such an immense platform that the codex has got all the documentation you need to get started.

X:

XML – Extensible Markup Language – defines a set of rules for encoding documents in both human-readable and machine-readable format, it’s also designed to carry and store data.

Y:

Z:

I couldn’t find anything for Y and Z, but I’m sure this will be a constantly updated list. I literally keep a black book of web terms right next to my computer so that when I hear someone say a term I’m not familiar with, I write it down. Please feel free to reach out if you have any input or want to know something more about a certain term. Hope this was helpful.