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Marketing, SEO & AI Search Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the marketing, SEO, and AI-search terms we use with clients.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
Structuring content so it can be pulled directly into an answer by Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or Perplexity. AEO favours self-contained, factual passages and clear Q&A formatting over keyword density. The goal is to be the source an AI quotes, not just a page that ranks. Learn more .
AI Overviews
Google's AI-generated summaries at the top of some search results. They compress multiple sources into one answer and cite the pages they drew from. Getting into AI Overviews requires clear, fact-led passages, a topical authority signal, and crawl access for GoogleBot and Google-Extended.
Anchor Text
The visible, clickable words of a hyperlink. Descriptive anchor text helps users and search engines understand what the linked page is about. Over-optimized exact-match anchors on external links can look manipulative and trigger spam filters.
Attribution
Assigning credit for a conversion to the marketing touchpoints that influenced it. Common models are first-touch, last-touch, linear, and data-driven. The model you choose changes which channels look profitable, which is why it matters more than most marketers admit.
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
The total cost to acquire one paying customer: total marketing and sales spend divided by new customers in a given period. For service businesses, CAC should typically be recovered within one to three months of recurring revenue.
Canonicalization
Telling search engines which version of a duplicate or near-duplicate page is the preferred one, usually with a rel="canonical" tag. It consolidates ranking signals onto a single URL and prevents index bloat from parameters, pagination, or HTTP/HTTPS variants.
Citations (Local)
Mentions of a business's name, address, and phone number on directories and third-party sites (Yelp, Yellow Pages, industry listings). Consistent citations reinforce the NAP trust signal Google uses to rank local businesses. Learn more .
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)
A Core Web Vital that measures how much visible content unexpectedly moves during page load. Google flags CLS ≤ 0.1 as Good, 0.1–0.25 as Needs Improvement, and > 0.25 as Poor. The most common causes are images without dimensions, web-font swaps, and animations on layout-affecting properties.
Content Cluster
A group of related pages built around one central pillar page, all interlinked. The pillar covers a broad topic; each cluster page goes deep on a sub-topic. The structure tells search engines you actually know the subject rather than just touching on it.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action (form submission, call, purchase) out of total visitors. A small rate improvement is often worth more than a large traffic increase, which is why we optimize this before scaling ad spend.
Core Web Vitals
Three Google metrics used as ranking factors: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Field data from real users is gathered via CrUX and used for ranking; Lighthouse provides lab data for diagnostics.
Crawl Budget
The number of pages a search engine will crawl on a site within a given timeframe. For most small and mid-sized sites it is not a concern, but wasting it on low-value, duplicate, or parameter URLs can leave important pages uncrawled on larger builds.
CrUX (Chrome User Experience Report)
Google's public dataset of real-world Core Web Vitals collected from opted-in Chrome users. It reflects field data rather than lab simulation, which is why CrUX scores are the ones that feed into the page-experience ranking signal.
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
Clicks divided by impressions, expressed as a percentage. In search, a strong title and meta description lift organic CTR. In paid media, it feeds into Quality Score and affects cost per click.
Domain Rating (DR)
An Ahrefs metric (0–100) estimating the strength of a website's backlink profile relative to others. It is a third-party proxy for authority, not a Google signal. Most useful when comparing link profiles during competitor or prospecting analysis.
E-E-A-T
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust — the framework Google's Quality Rater Guidelines use to assess content quality. Pages that show first-hand experience, cite credentialed authors, earn mentions from trusted sources, and disclose conflicts of interest rank better, especially in YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) categories.
Entity SEO
Optimizing for the people, places, brands, and concepts that search engines store in their knowledge graph, rather than just keyword strings. Consistent naming, sameAs links, and structured data help Google disambiguate and connect your brand entity.
GBP (Google Business Profile)
The free Google product that powers Maps listings, local pack rankings, and the knowledge panel that appears in branded searches. For most local businesses, a fully optimized GBP moves the needle faster than anything else in local SEO. Learn more .
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
Optimizing content to be cited by AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. It rewards factual, citation-ready passages over keyword density. llms.txt, FAQ schema, and brand-mention volume are the leading signals right now. Learn more .
Grounding
Tying a language model's output to verifiable external sources (live web pages, a document store) so its answers reflect real, current facts rather than memorized or invented ones. Grounded AI answers cite the sources they used, which is why crawlable, factual content earns citations.
Hreflang
An HTML attribute (or sitemap/header equivalent) that tells search engines which language and region a page targets. Missing return tags or invalid locale codes are the most common hreflang mistakes and the usual cause of wrong-language results.
Impressions
The number of times a page, ad, or listing was shown to users. In Google Search Console, an impression is counted each time a URL appears in results a user views. Clicks divided by impressions gives CTR.
INP (Interaction to Next Paint)
A Core Web Vital that replaced First Input Delay in March 2024. INP measures the longest delay between a user's interaction (click, tap, key press) and the next visual update. Good ≤ 200ms, Needs Improvement 200–500ms, Poor > 500ms.
Internal Linking
Links between pages on the same domain. A deliberate internal-linking structure passes ranking authority around the site, helps crawlers find pages, and tells Google which pages you consider most important through link frequency and placement.
Klaviyo
An email and SMS marketing platform used primarily by e-commerce brands on Shopify. DEM builds Klaviyo flows (welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase, win-back) and custom segments driven by purchase history and behavioural data. Learn more .
Knowledge Graph
Google's database of entities (people, places, organizations, things) and the relationships between them. It powers knowledge panels and lets Google understand search meaning beyond keywords. Consistent entity signals help a brand earn a place in it.
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
A Core Web Vital measuring when the largest above-the-fold element finishes rendering. Good ≤ 2.5s, Needs Improvement 2.5–4s, Poor > 4s. Usually improved by CDN caching, image optimization, font preloading, and removing render-blocking resources.
LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization)
Optimizing a brand and its content to be surfaced inside large language model answers. It overlaps with GEO and AEO and relies on consistent entity signals, factual prose, third-party mentions, and machine-readable structure. Learn more .
llms.txt
A proposed standard file (served at /llms.txt) that gives large language models a curated entry point to a website. It lists pages grouped by theme (About, Services, Docs, Policies) in Markdown. Perplexity, Claude, and ChatGPT agents read it.
Local Pack
The block of three business listings with a map that Google shows for local-intent searches, above the organic results. Rankings depend mainly on Google Business Profile completeness, proximity, reviews, and NAP consistency. Learn more .
LSI (Local Search Intent)
When a search query explicitly or implicitly targets a geography — "dentist near me" or "marketing agency Toronto," for example. Google resolves these with a map pack before the organic results.
Meta Description
The short HTML summary of a page that search engines often show beneath the title in results. It is not a direct ranking factor, but a clear, benefit-led description improves click-through rate, which can indirectly help rankings.
NAP (Name, Address, Phone)
The three data points that must match exactly across a business's Google Business Profile, website, and directory citations. NAP inconsistency suppresses local rankings because Google uses it as a trust signal. Learn more .
Pipeline-driven attribution
A reporting approach that tracks every lead from first-touch channel to closed-won revenue, rather than stopping at form submissions. It is the only way to optimize meaningfully in B2B and long-sales-cycle service markets.
Programmatic SEO
Generating large numbers of SEO pages from a structured data source — one page per city, product, or use-case, for example. Done well it captures long-tail demand. Done poorly it creates thin, doorway-style content that Google penalizes.
Quality Score
A Google Ads metric (1–10) estimating the relevance of keywords, ads, and landing pages. A higher Quality Score lowers cost per click and improves ad position. It is one of the few levers in paid search that makes your budget go further without increasing spend. Learn more .
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
An AI architecture that retrieves relevant documents from an external source at query time and feeds them to a language model so its answer is grounded in those documents. RAG is why clear, crawlable, factual content increases the odds of being cited.
Retargeting
Showing ads to people who have already visited your site or engaged with your brand, using a tracking pixel or audience list. Because the audience already knows you, retargeting typically converts at a higher rate and lower cost than cold prospecting. Learn more .
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
Revenue generated for every dollar of advertising spend (revenue divided by ad spend). A 4:1 ROAS means $4 back for every $1 spent. Break-even ROAS depends on margin, so a "good" number looks different for every business. Learn more .
Schema (structured data)
A markup format (usually JSON-LD) that describes page content in a machine-readable way using Schema.org vocabulary. Google uses it to render rich results directly in the SERP: review stars, FAQ accordions, business hours cards, event listings.
SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
The page a user sees after running a search. Modern SERPs include blue-link organic results, ads, the map pack, AI Overviews, "People Also Ask" boxes, images, videos, and knowledge panels. Ranking on page one is necessary but no longer sufficient — what sits above the fold matters more than the ranking number.
SERP Features
The non-standard elements that appear in search results alongside or instead of blue links: featured snippets, People Also Ask, image and video packs, the local pack, sitelinks, and AI Overviews. Each is a separate visibility opportunity with its own optimization approach.
Topical Authority
How thoroughly a site covers a subject, built by publishing many interlinked pages that go deep on a topic rather than just touching on it. Strong topical authority helps a site rank for competitive terms and earn citations from AI engines.
TTFB (Time to First Byte)
How long the browser waits for the first byte of the HTML response from the server. Good ≤ 600ms, Needs Improvement 600–1500ms. Improved by CDN caching, geographic proximity, and server-side optimization.
UTM Parameters
Tags appended to a URL (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, and more) that let analytics tools attribute a visit to a specific campaign, channel, or creative. Consistent UTM conventions are the only way to get accurate marketing attribution across channels.
Vector Embeddings
Numerical representations of text (or images) that capture meaning, so that semantically similar content sits close together in a high-dimensional space. They power semantic search, RAG retrieval, and how AI engines decide which passages are relevant to a query.
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