The Marketing Glossary

So uh, remember those URL thingies we were just discussing? Sometimes these addresses get changed. Perhaps from http to https, or because of a restructuring of the site (/news/example-article to /blog/example-article), or for SEO purposes. Whenever you change a URL, you want to redirect the old address to the new address. This way, you don’t lose any of the SEO juice from the old address, and you don’t leave any users who stumble upon the old address hanging. The other obvious reason is to tie up loose ends and avoid any broken links on your website. 301 is a permanent redirect, which is what you want to use in all cases regarding SEO.

A family of error codes that essentially mean "Oops, this page can't be reached." The most famous member of this family is the dreaded 404 Error (Not Found), which happens when someone clicks a broken link or types in a URL that doesn't exist anymore. This is exactly why we use 301 redirects to save your users from the digital dead-end of a 4xx error!

(also known as split testing) A method of comparing two versions of a webpage, email, or ad against each other to determine which one performs better. Think of it as a digital bake-off where the winner gets more clicks, conversions, or sales. Not to be confused with “Testception,” which is a test within a test… within a test?

The strategy of optimizing your content to be the quick, definitive answer to a user's direct question. Think of AEO as the reigning champ of voice assistants (like when you yell across the room, "Hey Alexa, how many ounces are in a cup?") and Google's Featured Snippets. It's all about formatting your content often with FAQs or punchy bullet points. So the algorithms can easily grab your specific sentence and serve it up fast. The vibe? "Just give me the quick answer."

Google's way of putting a smart, AI-generated summary right at the very top of your search results. Instead of making you click through three different articles to find a recipe or an answer, the AI just tells you. For marketers, getting your website cited as the source for these AI Overviews is the new gold rush.

Used to describe images and will show up in place of the image if said image fails to load. It is used mainly for accessibility purposes for tools like screen readers, so this text should accurately describe what the image portrays. It is also used by crawlers to assist them with indexing images, thus good for SEO and thus should include the keyword when possible.

The clickable bit in a hyperlink. A common example: Click Here for more info on how to get your neighbor to stop cutting YOUR side of the lawn! The click here would be the anchor text.

Short for business-to-business. It’s when a company sells its products or services to other businesses, rather than everyday consumers. Think selling heavy manufacturing equipment versus selling novelty t-shirts. The sales cycles are typically longer, but the paychecks are usually bigger.

A link from someone else’s website pointing back to yours. In the eyes of Google, a backlink is essentially a vote of confidence. The more high-quality backlinks you have pointing your way, the more the search engine gods will smile upon your site.

A semi-fictional character created to represent your ideal customer. We give them names, jobs, and pain points (e.g., "Manufacturing Mike" or "Marketing Manager Mary"). It helps ensure your marketing speaks directly to the people who actually want to buy your stuff, rather than just yelling into the void.

The process a prospective customer goes through before deciding to make a purchase. The classic breakdown consists of three main phases: the Awareness stage, the Consideration stage, and the Decision stage. Understanding this journey helps you serve the user the right content at exactly the right time because you never want to ask for their credit card on the first date.

This is a prompt on your website that encourages users to take a specific action. Some common CTAs being: “Get A Quote, Call Us Today, Learn More Below”. Some uncommon CTAs being: “Don’t Press This Big Red Button”, “Get A Computer Virus Today”, “Fast, Painless DMV Appointments”.

A tag that lets search engines know which page is the OG. This prevents duplicate content issues if you have two different versions of content on your site, or two different URLS for the same page. It also makes sure you get those sweet SEO kudos if you post a guest blog on someone else’s site (assuming that same blog is already on your site, and assuming they provide a canonical back to your site).

The ratio of clicks to impressions. In other words, the percentage of users who viewed an ad, link, or email, and then clicked on it. The higher the better!

a software that helps users create, manage, and modify content on a website without the need for specialized technical knowledge (bleep boop beep). WordPress is a CMS, for example.

any action taken by a user that is deemed “valuable”. This can be something like a phone call or form fill, or it can be something less direct like a product catalog download. Conversions are whatever you (or your super smart marketing agency) define them to be!

Google’s official grading rubric for how your website “feels” to a user. It measures things like how fast the page loads, how quickly it responds to a click, and whether the layout shifts around while you're trying to read it (because nobody likes accidentally clicking the wrong button).

Exactly what it sounds like: the amount of money you pay an advertising platform (like Google or Facebook) every time someone actually clicks on your ad. Keeping this number low while getting highly qualified leads is the ultimate digital marketing flex.

Cost Per Mille is the cost per one thousand impressions; mille meaning “thousand” in Latin. This is a very useful metric in advertising to both calculate and predict ad/brand exposure. The word “mille”; however, isn’t very useful, as the Latin language sadly passed away years ago.

The process of managing your current and prospective clients. Because no one really has time for all those syllables, "CRM" is also widely used to refer to the software itself (think HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho). These systems are built to assist you with everything from storing prospective customer info and supporting lead nurturing to improving team communication.

Think of this as your website's credit score. It’s a metric from 1 to 100 that predicts how likely your site is to rank on search engine result pages. The higher the number, the more authoritative your site is. Sadly, you can't just pay off your balance to raise this one—it takes time, great content, and good SEO strategy.

The percentage of visitors who actually do something meaningful on your site (like staying for a while, clicking a link, or filling out a form) rather than just leaving immediately. It’s the newer, more optimistic cousin of the old "bounce rate" metric.

Links that point to places not on your site (i.e., other websites). While it might seem counterintuitive to send visitors away from your page, linking out to high-quality, authoritative sources is actually great for your SEO. It shows Google that your content is well-researched, credible, and playing nice with the rest of the internet. Just make sure you set them to open in a new tab!

the number of times a user saw an ad over a given time period. A frequency of 3 would mean that on average, each user saw your ad 3 times. You can use this to determine the ideal number of times someone must see a particular ad before making a decision.

A visual representation of how people go from "Who are you?" to "Take my money!" The top of the funnel is wide, capturing a lot of casual browsers. As they move down through the stages of the buyer's journey (awareness, consideration, decision), the funnel narrows until only your actual paying customers drop out of the bottom.

The latest, greatest, and mandatory version of Google Analytics. It tracks everything users do on your website so you can make smart, data-driven decisions. If your data guy says he is still using Universal Analytics, run for the hills.

The shiny, new, AI-powered prodigy of the search world. While AEO focuses on quick facts, GEO is all about making sure your brand is cited when a user asks a complex question to an AI chatbot (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews). Because AI reads multiple sources to synthesize an in-depth response, optimizing for GEO means writing comprehensive, highly authoritative content. You aren't just giving a quick fact; you are proving to the robot overlords that you are the ultimate subject matter expert.

a method of serving different ads to different users, based on their location. For example, a retail store might have one giant sale campaign, but show Floridians flip flop ads while Alaskans get snow boot ads.

These are organizational tags that rank in order from H1 to H6, sort of like an outline for search engines. For SEO purposes, all pages should have an H1, and only one H1. You can have multiple H2-H6 tags. The H1 should include the keyword and represent the overall topic/title of the page.

If your website's URL is its street address, hosting is the plot of land your website actually lives on. It’s the server space you rent so that your website is accessible to the world 24/7. Without hosting, your beautifully designed website is just a bunch of files sitting on a lonely hard drive in the dark.

a single instance of an online advertisement being shown. If your ad had 100 impressions, it means your ad was seen 100 times. Though this doesn’t mean 100 unique people viewed it as a user can see the same ad multiple times (see frequency), and each time would count as an impression.

Links to other place on your own site. If you are linking to a page that is optimized for a specific keyword, it would be a good idea to include that keyword in the internal link’s anchor text.

Word/s searched into Google to find stuff. Could be one word like “donuts”, could be something more specific like “how to tell if you have bad body odor”. If you are a website that sells donuts or deodorant, you may want these keywords to appear on your site.

A fancy corporate acronym for "the metrics that actually matter." If your goal is to get more leads, your KPI might be form submissions or phone calls. If you're tracking vanity metrics (like Facebook likes) instead of KPIs, you're just flattering yourself.

A standalone web page created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign. While your homepage encourages visitors to explore your entire site, a landing page has one single, laser-focused goal (like getting someone to fill out a form or buy a product). Think of it as a room with only one door, the user either takes the action or leaves!

The process of attracting complete strangers and convincing them to give you their contact information. Whether it’s through a newsletter signup, a contact form, or a downloadable guide, lead generation turns anonymous website traffic into actual human beings your sales team can talk to.

A highly specific search phrase that usually contains three or more words. While a standard keyword might be "sneakers," a long-tail keyword is "red running sneakers for flat feet." They get less search volume overall, but the people searching for them know exactly what they want. Meaning, they are much more likely to pull out their credit cards.

This is the blurb under the title tag on Google search result pages. This has no real bearing for SEO but it does have bearing on UX and click through rates. This should include the keyword you are targeting.

The two sides of the SEO coin. On-page SEO refers to everything you can control on your actual website to improve rankings (like your content, heading tags, and page speed). Off-page SEO refers to actions taken outside of your website to impact your rankings (mainly getting high-quality backlinks from other sites). Think of on-page as building a fantastic restaurant, and off-page as getting local food critics to write great reviews about it.

The visitors who find your website by naturally clicking on a search engine result that isn't an ad. If PPC is paying for a digital billboard to get attention, organic traffic is earning that attention because Google decided your website was genuinely the best answer to a user's search. In short, it's the traffic you earn, not the traffic you buy.

A model of digital advertising where you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad. It’s a brilliant system because you aren’t paying for people to just stare at your ad and scroll past it.

Ever look at a pair of shoes online, and suddenly those exact shoes are following you around on every single website and social media app you visit? That’s remarketing. It’s a strategy where you show targeted ads to users who have already visited your site, gently (or not so gently) nudging them to come back and finish what they started.

A method of building websites so that they automatically shrink, stretch, and rearrange themselves to look gorgeous on any device. Whether that's a giant desktop monitor, a tablet, or the smartphone, you're currently hiding under the dinner table.

The holy grail of advertising metrics. It calculates how much revenue you earn for every dollar you spend on ads. If you spend $1 and make $5, your ROAS is 5:1. If you spend $5 and make $1… it's time to call us.

Code that assists search engines to provide additional information about your website to viewers. Common types are when you Google something and it shows you that it got 3.6 stars and this many reviews, or you type a band and you can see without clicking through that they play at this venue on that date. That's schema ya’ll.

While SEO is all about earning your way to the top of Google organically, SEM is about paying to get to the top via ads. Think of SEO as taking the stairs and SEM as paying the VIP bouncer to take the elevator. Both get you to the penthouse!

Search Engine Optimization. Pivotal for websites if they want to be approved by Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc... This can be achieved in a few different ways, the most straightforward is using keywords. The more “optimized” your site is for Search Engines> the better it will like you > the better you will rank.

Stands for “Search Engine Results Page”. It’s the fancy acronym used to describe the page you see after you type something into a search engine. These typically have 8-10 website links per page, not counting ads, maps and other potpourri.

Here's the boring definition: a digital certificate that authenticates a website's identity and enables an encrypted connection. Yawn. If you go to a website and see a little lock in the URL bar, that website has an SSL. What's interesting is that the omniscient, ever-loving Google prefers websites with SSLs to those that don’t yet have them. So an SSL is good for SEO, good for the soul. Like chicken soup.

Every heart needs a home and every page on your website needs a title. The title tag is an HTML code that allows you to define your web page’s title. This is the blue link you see on Google search result pages, and you can also view it by hovering over the page tab in your browser. This should always include the keyword you are targeting.

The ultimate dynamic duo of web design. UI (user interface) is how pretty your website looks, the colors, the fonts, and the buttons. UX (user experience) is how easy and intuitive it is to use. A beautiful site that is impossible to navigate is like a sports car with no steering wheel.

aka the “slug”, aka the “web address,” aka the digital street address for your webpage. Two things to note here: 1. Keep URLs short when possible. Google likes 'em short n' sweet, like French toast sticks. 2. If you are targeting a keyword for a page, be sure to include the keyword in its URL.

The bare-bones visual guide or skeletal framework of a website. Think of it as the architectural blueprint for your new site before we start painting the walls and picking out the furniture. It outlines where the images, text, and buttons will eventually go, allowing everyone to agree on the layout before getting distracted by pretty colors and fonts.

Different from an HTML sitemap (intended for the user), An XML sitemap is an outline of your site to make those pesky search engine bots’ job easier. It provides an easy-to-crawl list of every page on your site. Structure > everythang.