Digital Marketing Glossary.

A/B Testing

Running two versions of something (ad, landing page, email) simultaneously to see which performs better.

Ad Rank

Google's formula for determining where your ad appears in search results. Considers bid, Quality Score, and expected impact of extensions.

Attribution

The process of assigning credit to marketing touchpoints that contributed to a conversion.

Audience Segmentation

Dividing your audience into groups based on shared characteristics to target them more effectively.

Authority

In SEO, how trustworthy and credible Google considers your site based on backlinks and content quality.

Backlink

A link from another website pointing to yours. A key factor in SEO authority building.

Bounce Rate

The percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page.

Brand Awareness

How familiar your target audience is with your brand and what it represents.

Broad Match

A Google Ads keyword match type that shows your ad for related search terms, not just the exact phrase.

CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)

How much you spend in advertising to acquire one customer or conversion.

CPC (Cost Per Click)

The amount you pay each time someone clicks your ad.

CPL (Cost Per Lead)

How much you spend to generate one lead.

CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation)

The practice of improving your website to increase the percentage of visitors who take a desired action.

CTR (Click-Through Rate)

The percentage of people who click your ad or link compared to how many saw it.

Core Web Vitals

Google's page experience metrics: LCP (loading), INP (interactivity), and CLS (visual stability).

Content Marketing

Creating and distributing valuable content to attract and retain a target audience, with the goal of driving profitable customer action.

Domain Authority (DA)

A score (0–100) by Moz predicting how likely a site is to rank in search engines. Not used directly by Google.

Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)

Google Ads that automatically generate headlines based on your website content and user search queries.

E-E-A-T

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness — Google's quality rater guidelines for evaluating content quality.

Email Marketing

Sending targeted emails to a list of subscribers to nurture relationships and drive conversions.

Engagement Rate

The percentage of people who interact with your content (likes, comments, shares) versus those who saw it.

Facebook Pixel

A piece of code that tracks visitor actions on your website and enables retargeting through Meta Ads.

First-Party Data

Data you collect directly from your customers and website visitors, as opposed to data purchased from third parties.

Funnel

The stages a potential customer moves through from awareness to purchase.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)

The practice of optimising your content and brand presence to appear in AI-generated answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews).

Google Business Profile (GBP)

Google's free tool for managing how your business appears in Google Search and Maps. Critical for local SEO.

Google Search Console

Google's free tool for monitoring your site's presence in search results.

Guest Posting

Writing articles for other websites to build backlinks and brand authority.

Impression

One instance of your ad or content being displayed to a user.

INP (Interaction to Next Paint)

A Core Web Vital measuring how quickly a page responds to user interactions. Should be under 200ms.

Intent (Search)

The reason behind a user's search query — informational, navigational, or transactional.

Keyword

A word or phrase people type into search engines. The foundation of SEO and paid search strategy.

Keyword Density

How often a keyword appears in a piece of content relative to total word count. Over-optimisation is penalised.

KPI (Key Performance Indicator)

A measurable value that demonstrates how effectively you're achieving business objectives.

Landing Page

A standalone web page designed for a specific marketing campaign, optimised for a single conversion action.

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)

A Core Web Vital measuring how long it takes for the main content of a page to load. Should be under 2.5s.

Lead Generation

The process of attracting and converting strangers into prospects who have expressed interest in your product or service.

Link Building

The process of acquiring backlinks from other websites to improve search engine rankings.

Local SEO

Optimising your online presence to attract more customers from relevant local searches.

Meta Description

The short description that appears under your page title in search results. Doesn't directly affect rankings but influences CTR.

Meta Ads

Advertising on Facebook and Instagram through Meta's Ads Manager platform.

MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)

A lead that has shown enough interest to be considered ready for sales follow-up.

NAP

Name, Address, Phone Number — must be consistent across all online directories for local SEO.

Negative Keywords

Keywords you exclude from your Google Ads campaigns to prevent your ads showing for irrelevant searches.

Organic Traffic

Visitors who arrive at your website through unpaid search results.

Off-Page SEO

SEO tactics that happen outside your website — primarily backlink building and brand mentions.

On-Page SEO

Optimising elements on your website itself — titles, headings, content, internal links, image alt text.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

An advertising model where you pay each time someone clicks your ad. Includes Google Ads and Meta Ads.

Performance Max

A Google Ads campaign type that uses AI to show ads across all Google channels from a single campaign.

Quality Score

Google's rating (1–10) of your keywords, ads, and landing pages. Higher Quality Score = lower costs and better ad positions.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

How much revenue you generate for every pound/euro/dollar spent on advertising.

Remarketing / Retargeting

Showing ads to people who have previously visited your website.

Rich Snippets

Enhanced search results that include extra information like ratings, prices, or FAQs, generated from structured data.

Schema Markup

Structured data added to your HTML that helps search engines and AI tools understand your content.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

The practice of improving your website to rank higher in organic search results.

SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

The page Google displays in response to a user's search query.

Social Proof

Evidence that others have used and benefited from your product or service — reviews, testimonials, case studies.

Technical SEO

Optimising the technical aspects of your website to help search engines crawl, index, and understand your content.

Title Tag

The HTML element that specifies the title of a webpage. Appears in search results and browser tabs.

Top of Funnel (ToFu)

Marketing aimed at building awareness among people who don't yet know your brand.

UX (User Experience)

How easy and enjoyable your website is for visitors to use. Increasingly important for both SEO and conversions.

UTM Parameters

Tags added to URLs to track the source, medium, and campaign of website traffic in analytics tools.