Glossary
Plain-English definitions for the terms agencies love to throw around. Search it, filter it, and share a link to any term.
A permanent redirect that sends people and search engines from an old address to a new one, keeping most of the old page's SEO value.
When a shopper adds products to their cart but leaves without buying. Reminder emails and ads can win many of them back.
Designing websites so everyone can use them, including people with disabilities. WCAG is the global standard used to measure it.
How Google decides where your ad shows and what you pay. It is based on your bid, the quality of your ad and landing page, and other factors.
In Meta ads, the level where you choose the audience, budget, schedule and placements for a group of ads.
Meta's automated campaign options, which use machine learning to find buyers with less manual setup.
Shaping your content so AI tools and search features can easily pull it out as a direct answer.
When an AI answer links to or names your website as a source.
A Google Ads feature for Search campaigns that uses AI to match your ads to more searches and tailor the ad text.
The AI-written summary Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to its sources.
A change Google makes to how it ranks pages. Big ones are called core updates, and they can move rankings up or down.
A short written description of an image. It helps people using screen readers and tells search engines what the image shows.
The clickable words in a link. They give people and search engines a clue about the page the link points to.
A way for two pieces of software to talk to each other, like an app pulling data from your website.
Improving an app's listing so it ranks higher and gets more downloads in the App Store and Google Play.
How credit for a sale or lead is shared between the ads, searches and visits that led to it.
The group of people your ads can reach, based on things like location, interests or past visits to your website.
The average amount a customer spends per order.
A link from another website to yours. Links from trusted, relevant sites are one of the strongest signals in SEO.
The rules that tell Google Ads how to bid for you, such as maximising conversions or hitting a target cost per acquisition.
Visits where someone leaves without engaging. In GA4, it is the opposite of engagement rate.
When your business is named on another website, in a review or in an AI answer, with or without a link.
The return on ad spend you need just to cover product costs, fees and ad spend, before you make any profit.
A keyword match type that lets Google show your ad for searches related to your keyword, not just the exact words.
The top level of an ad account, where you set the goal and budget for a group of ads.
A tag that tells search engines which version of a page is the main one, so near-duplicate pages do not compete with each other.
Shopify's approved way to customise the checkout, replacing older code edits.
The share of people who see your ad and click it. A higher CTR usually means your ad matches what people want.
Software that lets you edit your website without code. WordPress and Shopify are common examples.
What is left from a sale after product costs, fees, shipping and ad spend. It shows what each order really earns.
Any valuable action someone takes, such as buying, calling or filling in a form.
The share of visitors or clicks that turn into a conversion.
Testing and improving your website so more visitors take action, such as enquiring or buying.
A way to send conversion data from your website server straight to Meta, so tracking keeps working when browsers block cookies.
Google's measures of how fast, stable and responsive a page feels to real users.
What you pay in advertising to win one lead, sale or customer.
What you pay, on average, each time someone clicks your ad.
What you pay in marketing to win one lead.
How search engines discover pages, by following links and sitemaps with automated programs called crawlers or bots.
The images, videos and words in an ad. On Meta, creative is one of the biggest drivers of results.
An app built from one shared codebase that runs on both iPhone and Android.
The total profit you expect from a customer over the whole relationship, not just their first order.
A score from third-party SEO tools that estimates how strong a website's links are. Google does not use it, but it is a handy benchmark.
Short for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. Google uses these ideas to judge whether content is reliable.
In GA4, the share of visits that last longer than 10 seconds, include a key event, or view two or more pages.
A clearly defined thing, like a person, business or product, that search engines and AI tools understand and connect to other facts.
A short answer Google shows at the top of some results, taken from a web page.
Information you collect directly from your customers, like email addresses and purchase history.
How many times, on average, each person has seen your ad. When it climbs too high, people start to tune out.
Work that helps your brand get mentioned and cited in answers from AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.
Google's free analytics tool, which tracks how people find and use your website.
Your free business listing on Google Search and Maps, with your address, hours, photos and reviews.
Where you upload your product data so your products can appear in Google Shopping ads and free listings.
A free tool for adding and managing tracking codes on your site without editing the code each time.
A setup where the store's front end is built separately from the platform that runs products and checkout.
The service that stores your website files and delivers them to visitors. Good hosting makes a site faster and more reliable.
One showing of an ad or search result on someone's screen.
When a search engine stores a page so it can appear in results. A page that is not indexed cannot rank.
A link from one page on your site to another. Good internal links help people and search engines find your important pages.
What GA4 calls an important action you want to track, such as a purchase or a form submission.
A word or phrase people type into a search engine. SEO starts with knowing which keywords your customers use.
A page built for one goal, usually where people arrive after clicking an ad or an email.
The type of AI behind tools like ChatGPT and Gemini. It learns patterns from huge amounts of text.
A potential customer who has shown interest, such as by filling in a form or calling.
A proposed file that gives AI tools a simple guide to a website's most important content. It is not an official standard yet.
Work that helps a business show up in local searches and on Google Maps, such as searches for a plumber near me.
A longer, more specific search phrase. Fewer people search it, but they often know exactly what they want.
A Meta audience of people who share traits with your existing customers.
The short summary under a page title in search results. It does not directly affect rankings, but a good one earns more clicks.
A small piece of code on your website that tells Meta which people who saw your ads went on to take action, such as buying.
The simplest version of a product that solves the core problem, so you can launch, learn and improve.
An app built for one platform, such as iOS or Android, using that platform's own tools.
A word or phrase you tell Google Ads not to show your ad for, so you stop paying for irrelevant clicks.
Visitors who arrive from unpaid search results, rather than from ads.
A Google Ads campaign type that uses automation to show your ads across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Gmail and Maps.
A file listing your products, prices, stock and images. It powers Shopping ads and marketplace listings.
A website that works like an app, with features such as offline use and a home screen icon.
A message an app sends to a phone, even when the app is closed.
Google's 1 to 10 rating of how relevant your keyword, ad and landing page are. A higher score can lower your costs.
Showing ads to people who have already visited your website or interacted with your business. Also called retargeting.
The share of customers who come back and buy again.
A website layout that adapts to any screen size, from phones to large monitors.
How much revenue you make for every dollar spent on ads. A ROAS of 4 means $4 back for every $1 spent.
A small file that tells search engine crawlers which parts of a site they should not visit.
What someone actually wants when they search, such as to learn, compare or buy. Pages rank best when they match it.
The list of real searches that triggered your Google Ads. It is the best place to find wasted spend.
Short for search engine results page. The page of results you see after you search.
Shopify's enterprise plan, with more control over checkout, automation and wholesale for larger stores.
The design template that controls how a Shopify store looks and works. Themes can be customised or built from scratch.
Google ads that show a product photo, price and store name, pulled from your product feed.
Code added to a page that describes its content in a standard format, so search engines and AI tools understand it. Schema markup is the most common type.
The clickable headline of a page in search results. It is one of the most important on-page SEO elements.
Tags added to the end of a link so analytics tools can tell which campaign sent the visitor.
How easy and enjoyable a website or app is to use.
A file that lists the important pages on your site, so search engines can find them quickly.
A search where people get their answer on the results page and do not click through to any website.
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