Marketing glossary
40 terms local business owners run into, in plain English. Each links to the lesson that explains it.
- 10DLC
Short for "10-digit long code," an ordinary US local phone number used to send business text messages. Under the A2P 10DLC standard set by US carriers, anyone texting customers from software over such a number must register a brand and a campaign first.
- A2P messaging
Application-to-person messaging: texts sent from software (a booking system, a CRM) rather than typed by a person on a phone. US carriers apply stricter registration and content rules to A2P traffic.
- AEO (answer engine optimization)
Making your business information easy for "answer engines" to use as a direct answer, whether that's a featured snippet, a voice assistant or an AI-written reply. In practice it's almost the same work as GEO and good SEO.
- AI Mode
Google's conversational search mode, which answers longer questions with an AI-written response and links. It began rolling out to everyone in the US in May 2025 and breaks questions into many related searches ("query fan-out").
- AI Overviews
The AI-written summary that appears at the top of some Google search results, with links to the pages it drew on. Google reports its traffic inside Search Console's normal Performance report.
- Backlink
A link from another website to yours. Links from relevant, reputable sites help search engines judge how well known a business is. Google lists links as one input to local "prominence."
- Bing Webmaster Tools
Microsoft's free dashboard for site owners, similar to Google Search Console. Its AI Performance report (public preview since February 2026) counts how often your pages are cited in Copilot and Bing AI answers.
- Canonical URL
The main version of a page when the same content is reachable at several addresses (for example with and without "www"). You can signal it with a
rel="canonical"link so search engines consolidate the duplicates.- Citation
It has two meanings. In local SEO, a citation is any online listing of your business name, address and phone (Yelp, BBB, directories). In AI search, a citation is a link an AI answer shows as its source.
- Conversions API (CAPI)
Meta's server-to-server way of sending conversion events (a booking, a purchase) from your systems to Meta. Meta says these events are processed like events from the Meta Pixel, and many advertisers use both.
- Core Web Vitals
Google's three measures of how a page feels to real visitors: loading (LCP, good at 2.5 seconds or less), responsiveness (INP, good at 200 milliseconds or less) and visual stability (CLS, good at 0.1 or less).
- CPC (cost per click)
What you pay on average each time someone clicks your ad: total spend divided by clicks.
- CPL (cost per lead)
What you pay on average for each new inquiry (a call, form or message): total spend divided by leads. For most local businesses it tells you more than CPC does.
- CPM (cost per mille)
What you pay for 1,000 ad impressions. "Mille" is Latin for thousand. Common on Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads.
- Crawler
A program that visits web pages automatically to read them, also called a bot or spider. Search crawlers like Googlebot, Bingbot and OAI-SearchBot build the indexes that search engines and AI assistants look things up in.
- CTR (click-through rate)
The share of people who click after seeing your listing or ad: clicks divided by impressions. A 2% CTR means 2 clicks for every 100 views.
- E-E-A-T
Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness: how Google describes the qualities of reliable content. Google says trust matters most and that E-E-A-T itself isn't a specific ranking factor.
- Entity
A distinct, identifiable thing, such as your business, a person or a place. Search engines and AI tools try to connect every mention of the same entity, which is easier when your name, address and phone match everywhere.
- GEO (generative engine optimization)
Making your content more likely to be used and cited in AI-generated answers. The term comes from a 2023 research paper. Google treats it as part of SEO, not a separate discipline.
- Google Business Profile
Your free business listing on Google Search and Maps (formerly Google My Business): name, address, hours, photos, reviews and more. Google tells site owners to keep it up to date for its AI features as well as local results.
- Grounding
When an AI assistant looks up current web pages or listings and bases its answer on them, instead of relying only on what it learned in training. Grounded answers usually show their sources.
- Knowledge panel
The information box Google shows for a well-known entity, such as a business, person or place. Google generates it automatically from sources across the web, and verified representatives can suggest changes.
- llms.txt
A proposed text file (from September 2024) that summarizes a website for AI tools. Google says Google Search ignores it, and the crawler docs from OpenAI, Perplexity and Anthropic we checked don't mention it (as of October 2026).
- Local pack
The map and short list of businesses that Google shows for local searches like "plumber near me." Google ranks it on relevance, distance and prominence. Also called the Map Pack.
- Map Pack
Another name for the local pack: the map and short list of businesses at the top of local Google results.
- NAP
Name, address, phone number. Keeping your NAP identical across your website and every listing helps search engines and AI tools recognize that all those mentions are the same business.
- Opt-in
A customer's clear permission to receive messages from you, such as marketing texts. US rules require prior express written consent before sending autodialed texts that advertise, and you must stop when someone opts out.
- Pixel
A snippet of code from an ad platform (such as the Meta Pixel) placed on your website to record actions like page views and form submissions, so the platform can measure and optimize your ads.
- Query fan-out
Google's name for how AI Mode and AI Overviews split one question into several related searches across subtopics, then combine the results into one answer.
- Review gating
Asking only customers you expect to be happy for a review, or filtering people before they can leave one. Google's policy prohibits selectively soliciting positive reviews.
- Review incentive
Anything offered in exchange for a review, such as a discount, gift card or entry into a draw. Google prohibits incentives for reviews, and the FTC bans paying for reviews that express a particular sentiment.
- Rich result
A search listing with extra visual details, such as stars, prices or images, that structured data can make a page eligible for. Google doesn't guarantee them and has retired several types, including FAQ rich results in 2026.
- ROAS (return on ad spend)
Revenue from ads divided by what the ads cost. A ROAS of 4 means $4 in revenue for every $1 spent. It ignores your other costs, so it isn't the same as profit.
- robots.txt
A text file at the root of a website that tells crawlers which pages they may visit, defined by the RFC 9309 standard. Well-behaved bots follow it, but it doesn't lock anything.
- Schema and structured data
Structured data is code that labels facts on a page in a standard way. schema.org is the shared vocabulary for those labels (types like
LocalBusiness, properties liketelephone). Google recommends writing it as JSON-LD, a separate script block.- Search Console
Google's free tool that shows how your site performs in Google Search: searches, clicks, indexing problems and, since 2026, a Generative AI performance report for AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions.
- SEO (search engine optimization)
Making your website easy for search engines to crawl, understand and rank, so the right people find and click through to you. It's still the groundwork for showing up in AI answers.
- Sitemap
A file (usually sitemap.xml) that lists the pages on your site you want search engines to find. You can submit it in Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools and reference it in robots.txt.
- TCPA
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, the main US law on telemarketing calls and texts. The FCC applies its autodialer rules to texts, so marketing texts sent with an autodialer need prior express written consent.
- Training crawler
A bot that collects web content that may be used to train AI models, such as GPTBot or ClaudeBot. Google's equivalent control is the Google-Extended robots.txt token. OpenAI and Google say blocking these doesn't remove you from their search results.
Sources
- A2P 10DLC — Twilio Docs (checked Oct 2026)
- Enforcement Advisory: TCPA rules apply to text messages (DA 16-1299) — Federal Communications Commission (checked Oct 2026)
- Conversions API — Meta for Developers (checked Oct 2026)
- Core Web Vitals and Google Search results — Google Search Central (checked Oct 2026)
- About knowledge panels — Google Search Help (checked Oct 2026)
- Tips to improve your local ranking on Google — Google Business Profile Help (checked Oct 2026)
- AI features and your website — Google Search Central (checked Oct 2026)
- Optimizing for generative AI features in Google Search — Google Search Central (checked Oct 2026)
- Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content — Google Search Central (checked Oct 2026)
- Introduction to structured data — Google Search Central (checked Oct 2026)
- Generative AI performance report — Search Console Help (checked Oct 2026)
- Prohibited and restricted content — Google Maps User Contributed Content Policy (checked Oct 2026)
- FTC final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials — Federal Trade Commission (checked Oct 2026)
- RFC 9309: Robots Exclusion Protocol — RFC Editor (checked Oct 2026)
- Overview of OpenAI crawlers — OpenAI (checked Oct 2026)
- The /llms.txt file proposal — llmstxt.org (checked Oct 2026)
- Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools — Bing Webmaster Blog (checked Oct 2026)