Web Design Terms: 40 Definitions for Business Owners

Short answer: these are the 40 terms that appear most in website quotes, agency reports and Google emails, each defined in one or two lines. Five groups: design and layout, build and hosting, SEO, AI search, and contract and ownership. Where a term has a measurable threshold, the figure and its source are given.

Design and layout terms

• Above the fold. The part of a page visible before any scrolling. On a 390 by 844 pixel phone it is the first screen; the headline and first button belong here.
• Wireframe. A block diagram of a page with no colour or type, used to agree where content sits before visual design starts.
• Mock-up. A full-colour picture of a finished page, produced in a design tool before any code. Approve the phone mock-up, not only the desktop one.
• Responsive design. A build technique where one page rearranges itself for any screen width. Distinct from mobile-first, which is designing the phone layout first; see mobile-first web design.
• Breakpoint. A screen width at which the layout changes, for example 640, 1,024 and 1,280 pixels. Each breakpoint is a layout the developer must test.
• Call to action (CTA). The button or link that asks the visitor to do the one thing the page exists for: message on WhatsApp, book, buy, download.
• Hero. The first block of a page, usually a headline, a line of support text, a button and an image. The most expensive pixels on the site.
• White space. Empty space between elements. It is a design tool, not wasted area; it sets reading order and separates one idea from the next.

Build and hosting terms

• Domain. The address visitors type, such as example.com.sg. Rented yearly from a registrar. SGNIC, the .sg registry, ran first-year .sg registrations at S$18 or lower in January 2026; standard renewal prices vary by registrar.
• DNS. The records that point a domain to its website, email and verification services. Whoever controls DNS controls where the domain goes.
• Hosting. The server or platform that stores and serves the site's files. Shared hosting, a virtual server, or a platform such as Vercel or Google Cloud.
• CMS. Content management system: the admin area where staff edit pages. WordPress is the best-known; coded sites may use a headless CMS or edit files directly. The choice sets the running cost for years.
• HTTPS and TLS certificate. The padlock. Encrypts traffic between visitor and site; browsers mark sites without it as not secure. Certificates are free from Let's Encrypt and included by most platforms.
• Security headers. Instructions the server sends with every page that limit what the browser will load or run, reducing injection and framing attacks. Checked at securityheaders.com.
• Plugin. A third-party add-on to a CMS. Each one adds features, update duties and a possible entry point for attackers; a monthly maintenance cost follows.
• Core Web Vitals. Google's three page-experience measures, scored at the 75th percentile of real visits: Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1, per web.dev.

SEO terms

• SEO. Search engine optimisation: the work that makes pages appear higher in Google results for the searches your buyers type.
• Indexing. Google storing a copy of a page so it can appear in results. A page not indexed cannot rank; check coverage in Search Console.
• Crawl. A bot visiting pages and following links. Googlebot Smartphone is Google's main crawler since mobile-first indexing completed on 5 July 2024.
• Title tag and meta description. The page title and summary shown in a Google result. Titles of about 50 to 60 characters and descriptions of 120 to 160 characters avoid truncation.
• H1, H2, H3. Heading levels in the page code. One H1 per page stating the topic; H2s for sections; H3s for sub-points. Used by Google and by screen readers.
• Schema markup. Structured data, usually JSON-LD, that labels a page's facts: organisation, address, opening hours, FAQ, product. It makes facts machine-readable for Google and AI systems.
• 301 redirect. A permanent forward from an old URL to a new one. Required for every indexed page that changes address in a redesign; see redesign without losing rankings.
• Backlink. A link from another site to yours. One signal among many; a dozen links from relevant Singapore sites count for more than 1,000 from link farms.

AI search terms

• AI Overview. The AI-written summary Google shows above some results, with citations to the pages it drew from. Appearing in it depends on being indexed and stating facts plainly.
• AI Mode. Google's conversational search tab, where follow-up questions are answered from multiple pages at once.
• GEO. Generative engine optimisation: structuring a site so AI assistants cite or mention it. It builds on SEO rather than replacing it; see GEO vs SEO.
• AEO. Answer engine optimisation. An older name for the same aim, focused on direct answers to questions.
• Citation. A link or named source inside an AI answer. ChatGPT search shows sources at the bottom of a response; getting cited is the measurable outcome of GEO work.
• AI crawler. A bot run by an AI company to read web pages. OpenAI documents OAI-SearchBot for search results and GPTBot for training; each can be allowed or blocked separately in robots.txt, per OpenAI's bot documentation.
• robots.txt. A text file at the root of a site that tells crawlers which paths they may read. Blocking AI crawlers here removes the site from AI answers.
• llms.txt. A proposed file, first published in September 2024, that lists a site's key pages in Markdown for AI models. Harmless to add; no major AI provider has stated publicly that it reads the file.

Contract and ownership terms

• Scope. The written list of pages, features and deliverables the price covers. Anything not in the scope is a change request with its own price.
• Edit round. One cycle of client feedback and agency revision. Quotes state a number, often 2 or 3; what counts as one round should be defined in writing.
• Milestone payment. A payment tied to a deliverable, for example 50% at signing, 40% at design approval, 10% at launch.
• Intellectual property (IP) assignment. The clause that transfers ownership of the design and code to the client. Without it, the agency keeps the copyright and you hold a licence.
• Licence. Permission to use something you do not own: a theme, a stock photo, a font, or a site that stays on the agency's platform. Read what happens to the licence if you stop paying.
• Handover. The transfer at launch of code, admin logins, domain and hosting accounts, and documentation. Check each item against the contract on the day.
• Maintenance retainer. A monthly fee for updates, backups, security patches and small edits. Needed on plugin-based sites; close to zero on static coded sites.
• Data processing. Under Singapore's PDPA, the collection, storage and use of personal data such as enquiry form entries. The site owner is the organisation responsible; see the PDPA checklist.

Terms that are not in a quote but should be

Three items rarely appear as line items and decide most disputes.

• Who holds the domain registrar login.
• Where enquiry data is stored and who can export it.
• What the client receives if the agency closes.

Ask for each in writing before signing.

What cense does

cense writes every quote against these terms in plain language and quotes in full before work starts. The client owns the domain, code, hosting and data, with S$0 monthly maintenance because there are no plugins to patch. See website infrastructure for what is handed over at launch.