No jargon wall. Every term gets a plain meaning and the precise technical version, so you can tell what you are actually paying for.
Local SEO
Inbound link
A link from another website pointing to yours, which acts like a vote of confidence in your business.
Technical: A backlink is a hyperlink from one site to another. Search engines treat relevant, authoritative backlinks as endorsements that can improve a site's perceived authority and rankings, while low-quality or spammy links can carry little value or even risk.
Local business citations
Mentions of your business name, address, and phone number on other websites like Yelp, directories, and chamber listings.
Technical: Citations are online references to a business's NAP on third-party sites such as directories, review platforms, and data aggregators. Consistent, accurate citations reinforce a business's legitimacy and help confirm location and relevance signals used in local ranking.
Search keyword or query
The word or phrase someone types into Google, like 'emergency electrician Boise'.
Technical: A keyword is the word or phrase a user enters in a search, representing their intent. SEO targets keywords by aligning page content, titles, and listings with the terms and intent that real customers use, including local modifiers like city names.
Local search engine optimization
The kind of SEO focused on getting found by nearby customers searching for what you offer in your area.
Technical: Local SEO is the discipline of optimizing a business's online presence to rank for geographically relevant searches, centered on Google Business Profile, citations, reviews, and locally relevant content. It targets the map pack and localized organic results driven by relevance, distance, and prominence.
Google local map pack (3-pack)
The little box with a map and three business listings that shows up at the top when you search for something local, like 'plumber near me'.
Technical: The map pack is the prominent local results module Google displays for queries with local intent, showing a map plus a ranked set of business listings (usually three) drawn from Google Business Profile data. Ranking inside it is driven mainly by relevance, distance, and prominence.
Name, Address, Phone number
Your business name, address, and phone number, which need to match exactly everywhere they appear online.
Technical: NAP refers to the core business identity data (Name, Address, Phone) that search engines cross-reference across the web to confirm a business is legitimate and consistent. Inconsistent NAP across listings can dilute trust signals and hurt local ranking.
Proximity ranking factor
How close the searcher is to your business, which strongly affects whether you show up for them.
Technical: Proximity is the distance between the searcher's location and a business, and it is one of Google's core local ranking factors alongside relevance and prominence. Because rank shifts as the searcher moves, no business can rank first everywhere, which is why coverage is measured across an area.
Rate of new reviews over time
How steadily and how often new customer reviews come in over time, rather than a big burst all at once.
Technical: Review velocity is the pace at which a business earns new reviews over a period. A steady, natural flow of recent, genuine reviews supports the prominence signal in local ranking and builds trust, whereas sudden unnatural spikes can look suspicious.
Search engine optimization
The work of improving your website and listings so you show up higher in search results without paying for ads.
Technical: Search engine optimization is the practice of improving a site's organic visibility through technical health, content relevance, and authority signals so it ranks for relevant queries. It targets unpaid results and is a long-term, compounding effort rather than an instant or guaranteed outcome.
Service-area business (SAB)
A business that goes to its customers, like a plumber or landscaper, instead of having a storefront people visit.
Technical: A service-area business serves customers at their locations rather than at a public storefront, and in Google Business Profile it lists service areas instead of, or in addition to, a visible address. This setup affects how proximity and area served are handled in local ranking.
Google Tools
Google Analytics 4
Google's free tool that tracks what visitors do on your website, like which pages they view and whether they contact you.
Technical: Google Analytics 4 is Google's current analytics platform, built on an event-based model that tracks user interactions and conversions across web and app. It measures behavior on your site (sessions, events, conversions), which complements Search Console's view of how people arrive.
Google Business Profile
Your free business listing on Google that controls how you show up on Maps and in local search, including your hours, photos, and reviews.
Technical: Google Business Profile is the free Google product that lets a business manage its public presence across Google Search and Maps, including name, address, phone, categories, hours, posts, products, and review responses. It is the primary data source for local pack and Maps rankings.
Google My Business (former name of Google Business Profile)
The old name for your Google business listing, which Google renamed to Google Business Profile in 2021.
Technical: Google My Business was the prior brand name for what Google now calls Google Business Profile. Google retired the GMB name and standalone app in 2021 and moved management directly into Search and Maps, so the two terms refer to the same listing.
Google Search Console
A free Google tool that shows what searches bring people to your site and how often you appear and get clicked.
Technical: Google Search Console is a free Google platform that reports a site's organic search performance, including queries, impressions, clicks, average position, and CTR, plus indexing status and technical issues. It reflects actual Google search data, not estimates.
Technical SEO
LocalBusiness structured data type
A specific type of website code that tells search engines your hours, address, phone, and the area you serve.
Technical: LocalBusiness schema is a schema.org structured data type used to describe a physical or service business, including properties like address, geo coordinates, opening hours, and area served. Implemented in JSON-LD, it helps search engines and AI systems accurately represent the business.
On-page search engine optimization
Improving the actual content and setup of your web pages, like headings, text, and titles, so search engines understand them.
Technical: On-page SEO covers optimizations made directly within a web page, including title tags, headings, body content, internal links, image alt text, and structured data. It signals relevance and quality to search engines and is fully within the site owner's control.
Structured data (JSON-LD)
Hidden code on your website that spells out details about your business so search engines understand it more easily.
Technical: Schema, or structured data, is standardized markup (commonly written in JSON-LD per schema.org vocabulary) that labels page content so search engines can interpret entities like businesses, products, and reviews. It can enable rich results but does not by itself guarantee higher rankings.
Search engine results page
The page of results you get after you type something into Google.
Technical: A SERP is the page a search engine returns for a query, composed of features like organic links, the map pack, ads, AI Overviews, and rich results. Its layout varies by query intent, which affects how much visibility each position earns.
AI Search
Google AI Overviews (AIO)
The AI-written summary Google now shows at the top of many searches, above the regular blue links.
Technical: AI Overviews is Google's generative summary feature that appears above traditional results for many queries, synthesizing an answer and linking to a handful of cited sources. Being cited depends on content clarity, relevance, and authority, and citation patterns can change as Google updates the feature.
Generative Engine Optimization
Optimizing your website so AI answer tools like ChatGPT and Google's AI answers mention and recommend your business.
Technical: Generative Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring and clarifying content so that generative AI systems (such as AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity) cite or reference a business when answering user questions. It emphasizes clear, factual, well-structured content and authoritative signals rather than traditional rank position alone.
llms.txt (AI access file)
A simple text file you add to your website that gives AI tools a clean, organized summary of your most important pages.
Technical: llms.txt is a proposed plain-text file placed at a site's root that provides large language models with a curated, markdown-formatted guide to a site's key content and links. It is an emerging, non-binding standard, so adoption by AI providers is not guaranteed, but it helps AI systems find and interpret authoritative content.
Metrics
Click-through rate
The percentage of people who see your listing in search and actually click it.
Technical: Click-through rate is the ratio of clicks to impressions, expressed as a percentage, for a listing or result. In SEO it indicates how compelling a title, description, or listing is relative to how often it appears, and it is reported directly in Search Console.
Domain authority (third-party metric)
A score made by outside SEO companies that estimates how strong a website is, but it is not something Google itself uses.
Technical: Domain authority is a proprietary 1-to-100 score created by third-party tools such as Moz to predict ranking strength based on link profiles. It is not a Google ranking factor and Google does not use any single site-wide authority score, so it is best treated as a rough comparative estimate, not a target.
Geographic ranking grid
A map covered in a grid of dots that shows how high your business ranks at many different spots around town, not just from one location.
Technical: A geo grid is a measurement tool that runs the same local query from many simulated points across a geographic area and plots the business's rank at each point on a grid. It reveals how rank changes with proximity and exposes coverage gaps that a single rank check would miss.
Search impressions
How many times your business showed up in search results, whether or not anyone clicked.
Technical: An impression is counted each time a result or listing is displayed to a user in search. Impressions measure visibility and reach, and paired with clicks they yield CTR; in Search Console an impression is logged when your result appears, even if below the fold.
Local search ranking position
Where your business shows up in local search results compared to your competitors for a given search.
Technical: Local rank is a business's position in localized search results, primarily the map pack and Maps, for a specific query and location. It is influenced by relevance, distance, and prominence, and it varies depending on where the searcher is physically located.
Sales
Conversion (completed goal action)
When a visitor does the thing you wanted, like calling you, filling out a form, or booking an appointment.
Technical: A conversion is a tracked, valued action a user completes, such as a phone call, form submission, or purchase. Conversions are the bottom-line measure of marketing performance, and conversion rate is the share of visitors who complete the action, tracked in tools like GA4.
Cost per click
How much you pay each time someone clicks your ad in paid search.
Technical: Cost per click is the amount an advertiser pays for each click in a paid search or display campaign, set by auction and influenced by competition and quality. CPC is a paid-media metric and is distinct from organic SEO, which does not charge per click.
Landing page
The specific web page a visitor lands on when they click your listing or ad, built to get them to take one action.
Technical: A landing page is the page a user arrives at from a search result, ad, or link, often designed around a single goal such as a call or form submission. In local SEO, dedicated, relevant landing pages for services or locations can improve both relevance and conversion.
More terms
AI Overviews
The AI-written answer Google now shows at the top of some searches. Being mentioned there puts you in front of people before they scroll.
Content Management System
The tool a business uses to edit its own website (like WordPress or Squarespace). We sometimes need login access to it to add pages.
Call To Action
The button or line that tells a visitor what to do next, like "Call now" or "Get a free quote."
structured data for Google (JSON-LD)
A bit of hidden code on a webpage that spells out the business details for Google in a format it trusts (name, address, hours, reviews).
Key Performance Indicator
The handful of numbers that actually matter for a client, like calls, map views, or rankings, that we report on each month.
Pay-Per-Click advertising
Paid ads (like Google Ads) where you pay each time someone clicks. Different from SEO, which earns rankings without paying per click.
Return On Investment
What the client gets back compared to what they pay. "One new job covers the fee" is an ROI argument.
tracking tags on a link (UTM)
Extra text added to a web link so analytics can tell where a visitor came from (an email, a post, an ad).
