A
- AggregateRating
- A schema.org type representing an aggregated review score. Used to get review stars in Google search results, only for genuine reviews.
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- AI Overview / SGE
- Google's AI-generated summary at the top of some search results. Reduces clicks to underlying sites but increasingly cites them. Strong content with clear answers is more likely to be cited.
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- Alt text
- The HTML attribute that describes an image for screen readers and search engines. Should be descriptive ("plumber fixing burst pipe") not stuffed ("plumber Manchester emergency plumber best plumber").
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B
- Backlink
- A link from another website to yours. Google uses these as votes of confidence. Quality (relevance + authority of the linking site) matters far more than quantity.
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- Bounce rate
- Deprecated in GA4. Old metric: % of single-page visits. Misleading for service businesses where the goal is often a phone call after one page. See our guide.
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C
- CLS, Cumulative Layout Shift
- A Core Web Vital. Measures how much the page jumps around as it loads. Google's "Good" threshold: under 0.1.
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- Core Web Vitals (CWV)
- Three Google ranking metrics: LCP, INP, CLS. Measured from real users via Chrome telemetry. See our guide.
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- CPA, Cost Per Acquisition
- How much you spend in ads to get one customer. Healthy: 15-25% of customer value. Above 30% usually signals a leak somewhere.
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- CPC, Cost Per Click
- How much you pay each time someone clicks your Google or Facebook ad. UK trades typically £1-£8, professional services £2-£10, legal/insurance £5-£25+.
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- CPL, Cost Per Lead
- Cost per form submission or phone call from ads. Lower than CPA (most leads don't close). Sensible benchmark for trades: £20-£60.
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- CTR, Click-Through Rate
- % of people who saw your listing/ad and clicked. For organic search positions: position 1 ~30%, position 3 ~10%, position 10 ~2%. Below benchmark = your title/description needs work.
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- Conversion rate
- % of visitors who take a desired action (form submit, phone call, purchase). Service businesses: healthy is 4-10% on landing pages, 1-3% on homepages.
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- Core update (Google)
- Major changes to Google's ranking algorithm, rolled out every few months. Can cause traffic swings of 20-80%. Recovery usually requires content quality improvements.
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- Crawl
- When Googlebot visits and reads your pages. Frequency depends on your site's authority, freshness and crawl-rate setting. New sites get crawled less often.
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E
- E-E-A-T
- Google's Quality Rater Guidelines: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust. Not a direct ranking factor, but content judged low on E-E-A-T tends to rank worse over time, especially in YMYL niches.
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G
- GA4, Google Analytics 4
- Replaced Universal Analytics in 2023. Event-based model, less straightforward than the old version. Free.
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- Google Business Profile (GBP)
- Your business's listing in Google Maps and the local map pack. Formerly Google My Business. The single highest-leverage local SEO surface. See our optimisation guide.
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- GMB, Google My Business
- Old name for Google Business Profile. Renamed in 2021. Same product.
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- Google Search Console (GSC)
- Google's free tool showing which keywords you rank for, click-throughs, technical issues. Essential. Most businesses leave it disconnected.
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H
- H1
- The main heading of a page. Should match search intent and use the primary keyword naturally. One H1 per page.
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- Hreflang
- HTML attribute telling Google about language/regional variations of a page. Essential for multi-country sites. Not relevant for single-language UK-only sites.
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I
- INP, Interaction to Next Paint
- A Core Web Vital (replaced FID in 2024). Measures how fast your page responds when someone clicks/taps. Good threshold: under 200ms.
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- IndexNow
- A protocol (used by Bing and Yandex) to instantly notify search engines about page changes. Faster than waiting for the next crawl. Worth implementing on any content-heavy site.
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J
- JSON-LD
- The format Google prefers for schema markup. JavaScript-readable structured data in the page
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K
- Keyword
- A query someone types into Google. Each keyword has volume (searches per month), difficulty (how hard to rank), and intent (informational, navigational, commercial).
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L
- LCP, Largest Contentful Paint
- A Core Web Vital. How long the biggest visible element takes to render. Good threshold: under 2.5 seconds.
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- Lead
- A potential customer who has expressed interest, form submission, phone call, chat enquiry. Not yet a customer.
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- LocalBusiness schema
- A schema.org type that tells Google you're a local business. Includes name, address, phone, hours, geo coordinates. Essential for local SEO.
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M
- Map pack / 3-pack
- The three local business listings shown at the top of Google search results for local queries. Gets 70%+ of clicks for those queries. Ranking here is the prize for local SEO.
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- Meta description
- The short summary shown under your title in search results. Not a direct ranking factor but heavily affects CTR. Should be under 160 characters and include a call to action.
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- MQL, Marketing Qualified Lead
- A lead who has shown enough interest (downloaded something, requested a quote) that marketing thinks they're worth contacting. Distinct from SQL.
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N
- NAP
- Name, Address, Phone. Must match exactly across your website, Google Business Profile, Yell, Bing Places, Facebook, etc. Inconsistencies hurt local rankings.
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- Noindex
- A meta tag telling Google not to index a page. Used for thanks pages, internal pages, duplicates. Different from robots.txt disallow (which blocks crawling, not indexing).
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O
- Organic search
- Unpaid search results. Distinct from "Ads". Drives most clicks on most queries (60-80%).
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P
- PageSpeed Insights
- Google's free tool that scores your page speed and shows Core Web Vitals. Run any URL through it: pagespeed.web.dev.
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R
- Rank tracking
- Monitoring your position in Google search results for specific keywords over time. Tools: AccuRanker, SE Ranking, Sistrix.
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- Remarketing / retargeting
- Showing ads to people who already visited your site. Works because most visitors don't convert first visit. Effective when combined with a clear offer.
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- robots.txt
- A text file at the root of your site telling search engines which pages they may crawl. Misconfigured robots.txt can hide your whole site from Google by accident.
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- ROAS, Return on Ad Spend
- Revenue ÷ ad spend. Expressed as a multiplier (4× ROAS = £4 revenue per £1 spent). Healthy service businesses: 4×+. Below 3× usually unsustainable.
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S
- SA302
- HMRC's annual tax calculation. Not relevant to SEO, but if you're self-employed and need a mortgage, see our mortgage sites. Skip this entry.
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- Schema markup
- Structured data telling Google what a page is about. Common types: LocalBusiness, FAQ, Service, Review, Article. See our guide.
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- SEO, Search Engine Optimisation
- The practice of getting more visitors from organic search. Three pillars: technical (site speed, schema, crawlability), on-page (content, keywords, links), off-page (backlinks, citations, reviews).
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- SERP, Search Engine Results Page
- The page Google shows after a search. Mix of organic results, ads, map pack, featured snippets, knowledge panels, AI Overviews.
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- Sitemap
- An XML file listing all the pages on your site. Helps search engines discover and crawl them. Submit to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
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- SQL, Sales Qualified Lead
- A lead validated by sales as worth pursuing, they fit the buyer profile and have shown buying intent. Higher confidence than MQL.
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- SVR, Single Visitor Rate
- Not a standard term. If you meant SVR (Standard Variable Rate), that's a mortgage term, see our mortgage sites.
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T
- TTFB, Time to First Byte
- How long the server takes to respond to a request. Should be under 600ms. Slow TTFB usually = slow hosting or unoptimised database.
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U
- UTM parameters
- Tracking codes added to URLs (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign) so analytics can see which traffic source brought each visit. Essential for measuring campaign ROI.
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W
- WCAG, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
- The international standard for web accessibility. AA conformance is the practical target for most sites. UK Equality Act 2010 makes basic accessibility a legal requirement.
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- Webmaster Tools
- Old name for Google Search Console. Bing still uses the term (Bing Webmaster Tools).
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Y
- Yoast
- Popular WordPress SEO plugin. Strong on on-page SEO basics, schema, sitemaps. Alternative: Rank Math (often preferred for new builds).
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