Glossary
The words this industry uses
Definitions written for somebody running a business, not for somebody selling marketing. Each one says what it means, why it matters to you, and gives an example.
Being found locally
The map results, and what decides who appears in them.
- Local SEO Local SEO is the work of getting your business to appear when somebody nearby searches for what you sell.
- Google Business Profile A Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows your business on Google Maps and in local search results.
- Local pack The local pack is the box of three businesses with a map that Google shows above the ordinary results for searches with local intent.
Search, on your own site
The parts you control without needing anybody else.
- On-page SEO On-page SEO is everything on a page you control that affects whether it ranks: the words, the headings, the title, the links and the structure.
- Title tag The title tag is the clickable headline of your page in search results, and the text shown in the browser tab.
- Meta description A meta description is the short summary a search engine may show underneath your page title in the results.
- Anchor text Anchor text is the visible, clickable words of a link, which tell both readers and search engines what is on the other side.
- Keyword intent Keyword intent is what somebody actually wants when they type a phrase — to learn something, to compare options, or to buy.
Under the hood
Invisible to a visitor, and decisive for whether pages get indexed.
- Technical SEO Technical SEO is the work of making sure search engines can reach, read and index your pages at all.
- Core Web Vitals Core Web Vitals are three measurements Google uses to judge how a page feels to use: how fast the main content appears, how quickly it responds, and how much it moves about while loading.
- Schema markup Schema markup is structured data added to a page that tells search engines what things on it actually are — a business, a price, a review, an article.
- Sitemap A sitemap is a file listing the pages on your site that you want search engines to find and index.
- Canonical tag A canonical tag tells search engines which address is the real one when the same content is reachable at more than one URL.
Authority and links
What decides the terms too competitive to win on content alone.
Advertising
Paid traffic, what it costs and what changes the price.
- PPC PPC, or pay-per-click, is advertising where you are charged only when somebody clicks your advert rather than when it is shown.
- Quality Score Quality Score is Google's rating, from one to ten, of how relevant your advert, keywords and landing page are to what somebody searched.
- Retargeting Retargeting is showing adverts to people who have already visited your website but did not get in touch.
Turning visits into enquiries
What happens after somebody arrives.
- Landing page A landing page is a page built for one audience arriving for one reason, with one action available.
- Conversion rate optimisation Conversion rate optimisation is improving the share of visitors who do the thing you wanted, rather than trying to get more visitors.
- Click-through rate Click-through rate is the share of people who saw your result or advert and clicked it.
- Bounce rate Bounce rate is the share of visitors who arrive on a page and leave without going anywhere else on the site.