Resources
SEO and digital marketing glossary
Short, clear explanations of terms that come up often in SEO, advertising, analytics and web design. Follow the links for the full guide, the related service or a free tool.
66 terms
#
- 301 redirect
- A redirect that signals a URL has moved permanently to another address. It helps pass most of the old address’s value on to the new one.
- Read the full guide →
A
- A/B test
- A method of showing two versions of a page or ad to different visitors at the same time to see which performs better.
- Read the full guide →
- Accessibility (WCAG)
- Making a website usable by everyone, including users with disabilities. WCAG is the widely accepted set of international guidelines for it.
- Read the full guide →
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
- Structuring content so it answers a question directly and briefly, in order to appear in featured snippets and voice assistant answers.
- Read the full guide →
- AI bot management
- Deciding, through robots.txt and other directives, under which conditions AI crawlers such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot may crawl a site.
- Read the full guide →
- Anchor text
- The clickable text of a link. It describes the target page; it should be distributed naturally and in balance, since overusing the same phrase creates risk.
- Related service: Backlink Packages
B
- Backlink
- A link from another website to yours. Links from high-quality, relevant sites act as a trust signal for search engines.
- Read the full guide →Related service: Backlink Packages
- Bounce rate
- The share of visits that arrive and leave without any interaction. In Google Analytics 4 it is read as the opposite of the engagement rate.
C
- Canonical URL
- A tag that tells search engines which address is the main page when several URLs carry the same or very similar content.
- Read the full guide →
- CLV (Customer lifetime value)
- The total profit a customer is expected to bring over their relationship with a business. It helps decide how much acquiring a customer can cost.
- Read the full guide →
- Content calendar
- A working plan that sets in advance which content is published on which channel, on which day and for what purpose.
- Related service: Social Media Management
- Conversion
- A visitor taking the intended action: submitting a form, calling, buying. Without conversion tracking, ad and SEO success cannot be measured.
- Core Web Vitals
- The three metrics Google uses to measure page experience: loading speed (LCP), responsiveness to interaction (INP) and visual stability (CLS).
- Read the full guide →
- Corporate identity
- The whole that gives a brand a consistent visual language across its logo, colors, typography, stationery and digital applications.
- Related service: Corporate Identity
- CPC (Cost per click)
- The average amount paid each time an ad is clicked. Calculated by dividing ad spend by the number of clicks.
- Crawl budget
- The amount of crawling a search engine bot allocates to a site in a given time. On very large sites, unnecessary pages can use it up.
- CRO (Conversion rate optimization)
- Testing and improving pages, forms and messages so that more of the existing visitors take the target action.
- Read the full guide →
- CTR (Click-through rate)
- The percentage of impressions of a result or ad that turn into clicks. A practical way to gauge title and description quality.
- Read the full guide →
D
- Digital marketing
- The set of activities that promote a brand and reach customers through online channels: search engines, ads, social media, email and content.
- Read the full guide →Related service: Digital Marketing
- Disavow
- A tool for telling Google to ignore backlinks that look harmful or spammy. It should be used carefully and only when genuinely needed.
- Related service: Backlink Packages
- Domain authority
- A third-party tool score that estimates how strongly a domain may perform in search results. It is not a metric Google itself uses.
- Related service: Backlink Packages
- Duplicate content
- The same or very similar text appearing on more than one page or site. Search engines struggle to decide which page to rank.
- Read the full guide →
E
- E-E-A-T
- Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. The framework Google uses when assessing content quality; it matters most for topics such as health and finance.
- Read the full guide →
- Email marketing
- Maintaining customer relationships and supporting sales through newsletters, campaigns and automated flows sent to subscribers with permission.
- Read the full guide →
F
- First-party data
- Data a business collects directly and with consent from its customers: form entries, purchase history, email subscriptions. It has gained importance as third-party cookies decline.
- Read the full guide →
G
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
- Work aimed at getting a brand mentioned accurately and reliably as a source in generative answers such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI overviews.
- Read the full guide →Related service: GEO Consulting
- Google Ads
- Google’s platform for paid advertising across search, display, shopping and video, formerly AdWords. Pay-per-click is the common model.
- Read the full guide →Related service: Google Ads Management
- Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
- Google’s event-based web and app analytics tool, used to measure visitor behavior, conversions and traffic sources.
- Google Business Profile
- The free profile of a business shown in Google Search and Maps. Address, opening hours, photos and reviews are managed here.
- Read the full guide →
- Google Search Console
- A free tool that shows how a site performs in Google Search: clicks, impressions, average position, index status and crawl errors.
H
- H1 tag
- The HTML tag for a page’s main heading. It is usually used once per page and should state the topic of the page clearly.
- Read the full guide →
- Headless CMS
- A setup that separates content management from the front end: content is managed in one interface and delivered to different sites and apps through an API.
- Read the full guide →
- Hosting
- The server service on which a website’s files are kept so they can be reached over the internet. Speed and uptime directly affect SEO and sales.
- Read the full guide →
I
- Index
- The database of pages a search engine has crawled and can show in results. A page cannot appear in searches before it is indexed.
- Read the full guide →
- Internal linking
- Links that pages on the same site give to each other. It helps pages get discovered and spreads ranking strength across the site.
- Read the full guide →
K
- Keyword
- The phrase users type into a search engine and that your page aims to satisfy. Search intent and competition matter as much as search volume when choosing one.
- Read the full guide →
L
- Landing page
- A page, usually reached from an ad or campaign, designed to lead a visitor to one action with distracting elements removed.
- Lead
- A person who has shown interest by leaving contact details through a form, call or message but has not yet become a customer.
- llms.txt
- A proposed text file in a site’s root that summarizes the site and lists its key pages so AI systems can understand it quickly.
- Read the full guide →
- Local SEO
- Work that makes a business visible in searches and map results in its area: the business profile, reviews, local content and consistent information.
- Read the full guide →Related service: SEO for Doctors & Clinics
M
- Meta Pixel
- A tracking code added to a site that measures conversions, enables retargeting and builds audiences for Facebook and Instagram ads.
- Related service: Facebook Ads
- Mobile-first indexing
- Google crawling and indexing mainly the mobile version of a site. A missing or slow mobile experience can hurt rankings overall.
- Related service: Web Design
O
- Organic traffic
- Visitors who reach a site from search engine results without paid ads. One of the most basic measures of SEO work.
P
- Performance Max
- A Google Ads campaign type that serves across Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail and Maps from a single, AI-assisted campaign.
- Read the full guide →
- Programmatic SEO
- An SEO approach in which many pages are generated automatically from a template and a data source. It risks thin content if each page does not add real value.
- Read the full guide →
Q
- Quality Score
- A 1-10 rating Google Ads gives to how well a keyword, ad copy and landing page fit together. It influences ad cost and position.
- Related service: Google Ads Management
R
- Remarketing
- A method of showing ads again to people who visited a site but did not convert, to bring them back.
- Read the full guide →
- Responsive design
- A design approach in which a website automatically adapts its layout to different screen sizes such as phone, tablet and desktop.
- Related service: Web Design
- ROAS (Return on ad spend)
- The revenue earned for every unit spent on ads. Found by dividing revenue by ad spend; read it alongside the break-even ROAS to judge profitability.
- Robots.txt
- A text file in a site’s root that tells search engine bots which areas may be crawled. It is a crawl directive, not a tool for removing pages from the index.
- Read the full guide →
S
- Sales funnel
- A model of the stages a person passes from first noticing a brand to buying: awareness, consideration, decision and loyalty.
- Search intent
- What a user actually wants to do when searching: learn something, reach a site, buy, or compare. Content should match that intent.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
- The combination of technical, content and link work that helps a website appear more visibly and rank higher in search engines such as Google without paid ads.
- Read the full guide →Related service: SEO Consulting
- SEO audit
- A thorough analysis of a site’s technical, content and link health that lists problems and opportunities in order of priority.
- Read the full guide →
- SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
- The page a search engine returns for a query. Besides organic results it can hold ads, the map pack, featured snippets and AI overviews.
- Social media management
- Running a brand’s social accounts consistently through strategy, content planning, design, publishing, community management and reporting.
- Read the full guide →Related service: Social Media Management
- Structured data (schema markup)
- Code that labels page content in a standard format so search engines can understand it more clearly. It can make rich results (FAQ, product, ratings) possible.
- Read the full guide →
T
- Target audience
- The group of people most likely to be interested in a product or service, defined by traits such as age, interests, location and need.
- Technical SEO
- Infrastructure work that improves a site’s crawlability, indexing, speed and mobile compatibility. It is the ground the rest of SEO builds on.
- Related service: SEO Packages
- Title and meta description
- The headline and description a page shows in search results. They influence click-through more than ranking, and should be unique for every page.
- Read the full guide →
- Topic cluster
- A content structure that connects a main topic page with related articles on subtopics, to show completeness and authority on a subject.
- Read the full guide →
U
- UTM parameters
- Tags added to a link that let analytics tools tell which source, medium and campaign a visitor came from.
- UX / UI
- UX is the whole experience a user has while using a site; UI is the visual interface of that experience. Good UX directly affects conversion rate.
- Read the full guide →
V
- Video SEO
- Optimizing videos with titles, descriptions, captions, thumbnails and structured data so they can be found in YouTube and Google searches.
- Read the full guide →
X
- XML sitemap
- A file that gives search engines a list of the important pages on a site. It helps new and updated pages get discovered faster.
Z
- Zero-click search
- A search where the user finds the answer on the results page itself and clicks through to no site. It has become more common with AI overviews.
- Read the full guide →
No term matches your search.
Not sure how a term applies to your site?
Tell us about your situation and we will explain what it means for you.