If you are new to the world of Search Engine Optimization, you may be somewhat confused and downright intimidated by the heavy use of acronyms that your fellow internet marketers are using. If you have been in the industry for a while, there is even a chance that you have forgotten some of the key meanings behind the expressions you are using. This article will provide the ABC’s of Internet Marketing Acronyms, which are crucial for you in your understanding. After providing the definitions for a set of acronyms, a brief explanation will be provided for one that I find most important.

API         Application Program Interface

BTF         Below The Fold

CMS       Content Management System

DMOZ   Directory Mozilla

DMOZ was launched in 1998 and is the largest internet directory subject to human approval by volunteer editors.  Directories provide a form of organization on the web with the goal of presenting high quality content. This particular directory offers free submission and powers the directory services of search engines like Google and AOL.

EPC        Earnings per Click

FTP         File Transfer Protocol

GIF         Graphics Interchange Format

H1          Header Tag 1

While their importance may be on the decline in the eye of search engines, “H1” Header Tags can still be beneficial within your HTML text.  The heading tags range from H1 which defines the most important heading all the way down to H6 which is the least important.  The code for this tag is simply <h1>Heading Goes Here</h1>.

ICANN  Internet Committee for Assigned Names and Numbers

Js            JavaScript

KEI          Keyword Effectiveness Index

LTK         Long Tailed Keywords

Long Tailed Keywords contain three or more words, and are extremely specific to the content on your web page. These particular keywords are more likely to convert into sales than that of one or two word phrases. For example, if you own a local barber shop in Virginia, it will be much easier to rank for “Barber Shop Richmond Virginia” compared to “Barber” in the search engines.

META    Short For Meta Tag

NSI         Network Solutions

OS          Operating Systems

PPC        Pay-Per-Click

META tags can take the form of META titles, description, and keywords. Including a specific keyword near the front of title tag is one of the most important factors in optimizing your webpage for SEO purposes. The META description usually shows up as a brief snippet in the search engine results page and can help with the click through rate to your site. As far as the META keywords go, don’t worry about them. They are no longer valuable in the world of internet marketing.

QDF       Query Deserves Freshness

RSS         Really Simple Syndication

SERP      Search Engine Results Page

TLD         Top Level Domain

URL        Uniform Resource Locator

Many individuals have difficulty distinguishing between a website’s URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and Domain Name.  It is very simple to identify the difference as the domain name is included in the URL. For example, let’s take a look at the website of Internet Marketing company, WebpageFX. The URL for a great analysis tool, CrawlerFX, is  “http://www.webpagefx.com/seo-tools/crawlerfx/” while their domain name is “webpagefx.com”.

VoIP      Voice over Internet Protocol

WYSIWYG           What You See Is What You Get

XHTML  Extensible Hypertext Markup Language

Y!            Yahoo

ZIP          Zipped File

Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) is the version of HTML that followed HTML 4. It is an organized set of rules for the definition of information and data that is shared on the web. XHTML requires confirming to stricter standard to allow documents to move seamlessly into the future. This form of HTML should be compatible with majority of the older browsers.

Scott Redgate is an internet marketing fanatic who loves to blog in his free time.