Content Marketing Vocabulary for Your International Career

Content marketing is a type of marketing that involves sharing content online (like blog articles, videos, and social media posts) which will promote brand awareness and generate interest in that brand’s products or services.  

People who work in content marketing are responsible for creating and sharing those engaging pieces of content. Job titles within content marketing include: Content Marketing Manager, Social Media Executive, Marketing Assistant, Copywriter, Content Writer and many more.  

If you want to pursue an international career in content marketing, there are some important terms you’ll need to know. Here’s our content marketing vocabulary glossary.  

Essential Vocabulary

Copy/copywriter: Copy is the text on the page – whether online or offline. A copywriter is somebody who writes that text. Copywriting is an essential skill for successful content marketing. 

Editing: The process of fine-tuning content once you’ve written a first draft. Editors make sure that the content fulfils the brief requirements and fits the brand tone of voice. 

Tone of voice: How a brand speaks, what their personality sounds like to you. Do they use lots of short sentences? Or do they use long, flowing sentences with lots of description? For example, do Nike and Netflix sound like the same person speaking?  

Proofreading: Checking written content for typos, grammar and spelling errors. This is sometimes shortened to just ‘proofing’ - for example, ‘Please could you proof this for me before I publish it?’ 

Blog article: A piece of written content on a website. A blog might be an account of a personal experience, an informative ‘how to’ guide, a glossary of terms (like this one) or a list post (sometimes called a listicle).  

Audience: Who you’re writing the content for – and how they’re reading the content. For example, if you’re writing a blog about different types of dog food, you’re writing content for dog owners who are reading this content online.  

Schedule/publish: To schedule something is to prepare and set it up for publication, or ‘going live’. If you work in social media, you’ll often schedule social media posts for weekends, so your company can still share content while you’re not working. To publish something is to share it publicly with the world – once you publish a blog post, everybody on the Internet can read it.  

Heading/subheading: Headings and subheadings are useful tools to break up content for your readers. For example, if you’re writing a post about the best vacation destinations, you might start with a heading, ‘Destinations in Europe’ and then a subheading (or smaller heading) below titled ‘Beach Destinations’. 

Anchor text: This is the text displayed in a hyperlink – readers click on this and are taken to a new page or location. Anchor text should fall into the copy naturally.  

Hyperlink: A link readers can click on to be taken to a new page or different place on the page. 

Alt text: Alt text (alternative text) is text that tells website users what an image contains. This is particularly useful for readers with visual impairments who use screen reader software, or for when images don’t load correctly on the page. 

Title tag: This is the title of the web page that’s displayed in the user’s browser tab. This normally contains SEO keywords.  

Dimensions: The length and width of a digital image, usually measured in pixels. You’ll need to make sure any images you use for your blogs or social media conform to the required dimensions for each platform. 

URL: Uniform Resource Locator – the address of a website displayed in your browser’s address bar. 

Digital marketing: Any marketing you do online that promotes your company’s products or services. This includes sending emails, using social media or your company website, and paid advertising. 

B2C marketing: Business to Consumer marketing – this is where your marketing activities are aimed at your consumer or retail customer.  

B2B marketing: Business to Business marketing – this is where your marketing activities are aimed at another business or corporate customers. 

Brand awareness: How well your brand is known by the general public. An example of a company that has great brand awareness is Google – most people say ‘I’ll Google it’ rather than ‘I’ll look it up on the Internet.’ Your marketing activities should increase your brand awareness. 

USP: Unique Selling Point – what differentiates your company’s product or service offering from competitors.  

CTA: Call to Action – a specific action you want your users to take after consuming your content. What do you want the customer to do after visiting your web page? CTAs might include ‘find out more’, ‘sign up to the newsletter’ or ‘book now.’ 

CTR: Clickthrough Rate – a measure of how frequently users have ‘clicked through’ when presented with a link on a page or in an email. A high CTR is a good sign as it means users are interested in your product or service. 

SEO: Search Engine Optimization – the process of making your web page as attractive as possible to search engines (like Google) so lots of people click through to your page when they search for certain keywords.  

Keyword: Words or phrases that users type into search engines to find web pages relevant to their search. As a content marketer, you’ll need to understand what keywords your consumers are searching for in order to make your content relevant to their needs.  

SERP: Search Engine Results Page – the list of websites that appears when you search for something on Google or another search engine. 

Organic search: Search engine results that are generated naturally (organically) without spend.  

Marketing plan: An outline of a company’s strategy and marketing objectives they want to achieve. 

Marketing strategy: How a company is going to achieve their objectives – what types of content they will create, how they will promote and share it.  

Plagiarism: Copying somebody else’s work and pretending it’s yours. There are lots of tools out there that can detect whether writing has been plagiarized – so don’t do it!  

Infographic: A visual way of presenting information or data – these are often included in blog articles to make facts and statistics look more engaging. 

Google Analytics: Google’s own services that allows you to see how your website is performing – you can look at web page visits, traffic, CTRs, sales and more. 

Traffic: The number of visitors that a website receives. If a website or page has high traffic, it means lots of people are visiting it.  

Influencer: Somebody who has a strong social media following who companies pay to promote or endorse their products. Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing, which sits under the content marketing umbrella.  

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Intermediate / Advanced Vocabulary

Metadata: Data that describes other data. A meta description, for example, is text that describes what content is on a web page. 

Backlink: A link that points back to a website from another website. Building backlinks is part of SEO strategy. 

Domain authority: A domain is essentially a website and all its pages. A website with a higher domain authority means it is better trusted by search engines than a website with a lower domain authority. 

Affiliate marketing: The process by which external individuals or companies (affiliates) are paid commission by a company for generating traffic or sales from their referrals.  

Bounce rate: How many people leave a website after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate indicates users aren’t finding the information they’re looking for when they visit your website.  

Conversions: Users who have changed from just a casual browser on your website to a paying customer or service user.  

Leads/lead generation: A lead is a potential customer. Lead generation is the process of finding more potential customers. 

WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get – WYSIWYG editing software displays a webpage as it will look in a browser while you are editing it.  

Marketing funnel: Also called a ‘conversion funnel’ or ‘sales funnel’, this refers to what stage a potential customer is at in their journey from a lead to a paying customer. ‘Upper funnel content’ refers to content users will see when they are not yet very aware of your product or service. ‘Lower funnel content’ will be much more specific and in-depth. This is content the lead will see when they know lots about your company and are ready to convert – or in other words, to make a purchase.  

Persona: A persona is like an imaginary person or character who you think might be interested in your products or service. For example, if you sell airline cabin-sized luggage, a businessperson who travels a lot for work might be interested in purchasing this. If you create this businessperson character in your mind, thinking about their needs, interests, and preferences, you can write content as if you are speaking directly to that character or persona. This will help you write relevant and engaging content for your desired audience.