Glossary

The words that come up when you buy a website, in plain language. Each one says what a developer worth paying does with it.

• Hero image
• Tagline
• Call to action (CTA)
• Navigation (menu)
• Header
• Footer
• Favicon
• Logo (and wordmark)
• Colour palette
• Font pairing
• Section
• Landing page
• Alt text
• Domain
• Hosting
• Responsive (mobile-friendly)
• Contact form
• SEO (search engine optimisation)
• Meta description
• Animations
• Static site

• Hero image

  The big picture at the top of your home page, usually the first thing visitors see.

  • Use a wide, landscape photo. At least 1920 pixels across, and wider than it is tall.
  • Avoid text baked into the image. It won't resize well on phones and screen readers can't read it.
  • A photo of your actual place or work beats a stock photo every time.

  What a good developer does: A developer crops, compresses and serves it at the right size for each device so the page loads fast.

• Tagline

  A short line, usually under ten words, that says what you do or what you stand for.

  • Say what you do, not how great you are. 'Family dentist in Riverside' beats 'Excellence in care'.

  What a good developer does: A developer or copywriter tests a few and picks the one that makes people click.

• Call to action (CTA)

  The button that tells visitors what to do next, like 'Book now' or 'Get a quote'.

  • Use a verb. Say what happens when they click.
  • One main action per page. Two competing buttons means neither gets clicked.

  What a good developer does: A developer wires it to something that works: a booking system, a form that emails you, a phone number that dials.

• Navigation (menu)

  The list of links, usually at the top, that takes visitors to your other pages.

  • Five links or fewer. If you need more, your site is probably too big for a template.

  What a good developer does: A developer decides what goes where based on what visitors are actually looking for.

• Header

  The strip across the top of every page that holds your logo and menu.

  What a good developer does: Nothing, usually. This is the part that's free.

• Footer

  The strip at the bottom of every page with your copyright line and a repeat of the menu.

  • Real sites usually put a privacy policy and terms link here. This one doesn't have those.

  What a good developer does: A developer adds the legal links, social links, and anything a search engine wants to find on every page.

• Favicon

  The tiny icon that shows in the browser tab next to your page title.

  • This tool doesn't make one. It's the sort of detail that separates a real site from a template.

  What a good developer does: A developer makes one from your logo in the several sizes browsers and phones expect.

• Logo (and wordmark)

  Your brand image. A wordmark is a logo that's just your name in a particular font.

  • Upload a PNG or SVG with a transparent background if you have one.
  • Wide logos work better in a header than tall ones.
  • If you skip this, the site uses your name as a wordmark. That's fine.

  What a good developer does: A designer, not a developer, makes a logo. Anyone who bundles a logo into a $500 website is giving you a font.

• Colour palette

  The small set of colours a site uses: one main colour, one for buttons, and a few greys.

  • Dark text on a light background is readable. Everything else is a risk.

  What a good developer does: A designer picks colours that match your brand and checks that text is readable on every one of them.

• Font pairing

  The two typefaces a site uses: one for headings, one for everything else.

  • A plain font for body text is always safe. Save the personality for headings.

  What a good developer does: A designer picks fonts that suit your business and licenses them properly.

• Section

  One horizontal band of a page with its own purpose, like 'our services' or 'get in touch'.

  What a good developer does: A developer decides what sections a page needs and in what order, based on what you want visitors to do.

• Landing page

  A page built for one purpose, usually for people arriving from an advert or a search.

  What a good developer does: A developer builds landing pages for specific campaigns and measures which ones convert.

• Alt text

  A hidden description of an image that screen readers read aloud and search engines index.

  • Describe what's in the picture. 'Our team outside the shop on opening day', not 'image1.jpg'.

  What a good developer does: A developer writes proper alt text for every image. This tool uses a generic one.

• Domain

  Your web address, like yourbusiness.com. You rent it yearly from a registrar.

  • Register it yourself, in your own account. Never let a developer own your domain.

  What a good developer does: A developer connects the domain to the hosting. You should still own it.

• Hosting

  The computer that stores your website files and hands them to visitors' browsers.

  • A site like the one this tool makes can be hosted for free. A site with a database or a booking system usually can't.

  What a good developer does: A developer chooses hosting that fits, sets it up, and keeps it running and secure.

• Responsive (mobile-friendly)

  A site that rearranges itself to fit phones, tablets and desktops.

  • Most visitors to a small-business site are on a phone. Check the phone view first.

  What a good developer does: Every template is responsive now. It's not a selling point; it's the floor.

• Contact form

  The name, email and message boxes on a contact page.

  • The form this tool makes doesn't send anything. It needs a service behind it.

  What a good developer does: A developer connects it to something that delivers the message to you and filters spam.

• SEO (search engine optimisation)

  The work that helps your site show up when people search for what you do.

  • For a local business, your Google Business Profile matters more than anything on the site itself.

  What a good developer does: A developer sets up the technical side and a specialist works on what you rank for.

• Meta description

  The short blurb Google shows under your page title in search results.

  • This tool uses your tagline. A real site has a written one per page.

  What a good developer does: A developer writes one for every page, aimed at the searches you want to win.

• Animations

  Things fading in as you scroll, cards lifting when you hover, a shadow under the menu. Decoration that makes a template feel finished.

  • In this tool it's the "Upgrade to Pro" button on the preview step. One click, free, and the site does nothing new.
  • If a quote lists "animations", "interactions" or "polish" as a line item, ask to see the site with them switched off. Then ask what the difference costs.
  • Real motion design, where movement guides your eye to the thing that matters, is a skill. A fade-in on scroll is not it.

  What a good developer does: A developer decides whether motion earns its place at all, and makes sure it respects people who have asked their device for less of it.

• Static site

  A site that's just files: pages, pictures and styles. No database, no login, no server code.

  • That's what this tool makes. It's fast, cheap to host, and hard to hack. It also can't do much.

  What a good developer does: A developer decides whether static is enough for you, or whether you need something that does more.