Marketing terms, defined in plain English
Twenty-six definitions covering the terms that actually come up when you are trying to get found and turn attention into leads. No jargon defended with more jargon, and an honest note where the industry uses a word to mean something vaguer than it sounds.
Written for owner-led service businesses and small manufacturers. If a term here is being used on you in a way that does not match this page, that is worth asking about.
Getting found
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
The work of making your website more likely to appear when someone searches for what you do. It covers content, page structure, technical setup, and links from other sites. SEO gets you into the list of results.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
Optimizing so that answer engines and AI assistants quote you directly rather than just linking to you. Where SEO competes for a position in a list, AEO competes to be the sentence the answer is built from. More in SEO vs AEO vs GEO.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
Making your content likely to be cited inside AI-generated answers, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI results. In practice it means being specific enough to be quotable: named companies, real numbers, direct claims. Generic pages get skipped. See how GEO works.
Organic traffic
Visitors who arrive from unpaid search results. Distinct from paid traffic, which stops the moment you stop paying for it.
Impressions
The number of times your page appeared in search results, whether or not anyone clicked. Impressions are the first number to move when SEO work is starting to take effect, usually well before clicks follow.
Keyword difficulty (KD)
An estimate, scored roughly 0 to 100, of how hard it would be to rank on the first page for a given search term. It is a tool's opinion rather than a fact, and different tools disagree. Useful for comparison, not as a target.
Search volume
The estimated number of times a term is searched per month. Also an estimate. A low-volume term you can win is worth more than a high-volume term you cannot.
Backlink
A link to your website from another website. Search engines treat these as a rough vote of confidence. A small number from relevant, credible sites is worth far more than a large number from anywhere.
Schema markup
Structured code added to a page that tells search engines and AI systems what the content actually is: an article, a FAQ, a local business, a product. It does not change what a human sees. It makes the page machine-readable, which is increasingly what decides whether you get quoted.
Local SEO
The subset of SEO that decides whether nearby customers find you. Weighted heavily toward your Google Business Profile, consistent business details across the web, and reviews. The free local SEO audit checklist walks the whole thing.
Map pack
The block of three local businesses shown with a map above the regular results. Appearing here is usually worth more than ranking first below it, and it is driven mostly by your Google Business Profile, proximity, and reviews. More on Google Business Profile optimization.
NAP consistency
Whether your Name, Address, and Phone number are written identically everywhere they appear online. Conflicting versions make it harder for search engines to confirm you are one real business, which quietly suppresses local rankings.
Leads and the funnel
Lead
Anyone who has given you their contact information or reached out. On its own, a lead count tells you very little.
Qualified lead
A lead who has been checked against real criteria: they need what you do, they fit the kind of customer you serve, they are in your service area, your price range is one they expected, and they can actually decide. Miss one and you have a prospect, not a lead.
Unqualified lead
Someone who contacted you but cannot or will not buy. Usually wrong area, wrong service, wrong budget, or not the decision maker. Unqualified leads cost the same time as qualified ones and produce nothing, which is why the distinction matters more than volume.
MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)
A lead marketing believes is worth sales' time, usually based on behavior like downloading something or visiting pricing. Useful in larger organizations. In a small business it is often ceremony, because the same person does both jobs.
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)
A lead sales has accepted as worth pursuing. The gap between MQL and SQL counts is a useful honesty check on whether marketing and sales agree about what a good lead looks like.
Lead scoring
Assigning points to leads based on fit and behavior so the best ones get attention first. Only works on clean data. On a messy CRM it produces confident nonsense.
Buyer's journey
The path from not knowing they have a problem, through comparing options, to deciding. Different stages need different content, which is why organizing content by journey stage beats organizing it by date. That is the basis of the free content plan template.
Conversion rate
The percentage of people who take the action you wanted. Always ask which two numbers are being divided, because "conversion rate" is used loosely enough to mean almost anything.
Systems and measurement
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
The system of record for your customers and deals. Its value is entirely dependent on whether your team trusts it. Once people start keeping private spreadsheets, the CRM is not just wrong, it is confidently wrong. See the CRM cleanup guide and the free CRM worksheet.
Attribution
Working out which marketing effort produced a given lead or sale. Genuinely hard, frequently oversold, and impossible without a required lead-source field that is a fixed list rather than free text.
Bounce rate
The percentage of visitors who leave after viewing one page. A high rate can mean the page failed, or that it answered the question completely. Read it alongside time on page rather than alone.
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
Of the people who saw your listing or ad, the percentage who clicked. High impressions with a flat CTR usually means your title and description are not doing their job.
A/B testing
Running two versions of something to see which performs better. Requires enough traffic to reach a real result. Most small businesses do not have the volume for it, and would get more from fixing something obviously broken.
Retainer
A recurring monthly fee for ongoing work. The word itself is neutral. What matters is whether there is a written scope attached, because a retainer without one is an open tab that nobody can evaluate.
Four numbers, and the rest is vocabulary
Most marketing jargon exists to describe something simple. If a term is being used on you in a way that cannot be explained plainly, that is usually the point.
The terms worth actually tracking are short: impressions, the queries you appear for, qualified lead count, and what closed. Everything else on this page is supporting vocabulary.
If your marketing is producing activity you cannot translate into any of those four numbers, that is usually a systems problem rather than a marketing problem, and the $499 audit is built to find it.
What is the difference between SEO, AEO, and GEO?
SEO gets you into the list of search results. AEO gets you quoted as the answer. GEO gets you named inside AI-generated responses. They overlap heavily and the same underlying work supports all three: be specific, be structured, and answer real questions directly near the top of the page.
What is the difference between a lead and a qualified lead?
A lead is anyone who has given you their contact details. A qualified lead has been checked against need, fit, geography, budget, and authority, and clears all five. Every qualified lead is a lead. Most leads are not qualified, and reporting them as one number is what makes marketing dashboards misleading.
Do I need to know marketing jargon to hire a marketing consultant?
No, and a good consultant will define terms as they use them without being asked. If someone leans on vocabulary you do not follow and does not stop to explain it, that is worth noticing. Ask them to say it again in plain words.
What marketing metrics actually matter for a small business?
Four: impressions, the specific queries you appear for, qualified lead count, and what actually closed. Page views, followers, and engagement rates are easy to move and rarely connected to revenue.
What does NAP consistency mean and why does it matter?
It means your business Name, Address and Phone number appear in exactly the same format everywhere online. Search engines use those details to confirm you are a single real business. Conflicting versions across your site, social profiles and directories weaken local rankings, and it is free to fix.