Talking about SEO can feel like a whole other language. And if we’re being honest, you don’t need to know the ins and outs of every technicality that is SEO. Because really, that’s for SEO experts. However, there are terms you should know to get you by and to understand how instrumental a search strategy is to your business.
To help you get a handle on what’s what, we’ve put together an SEO glossary with definitions and further reading you can look into.
Jump ahead:
SEO basics terms
Content & keyword strategy terms
Technical SEO terms
AI SEO terms
Section 1 – The SEO basics
These are the SEO terms you will hear all the time:
1. Alt text
Alt text stands for alternative text and is always present with an image or video to describe it for accessibility and search engines. It helps Google understand image content while also supporting users who rely on screen readers.
2. Anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable text used in a hyperlink. Search engines use anchor text to understand what the linked page is about, which is why descriptive anchor text is important for both SEO and user experience.
For example, “Learn more about our AI search services” is a stronger anchor text than simply “click here”.
3. Backlinks
Backlinks are links from another website pointing to yours. High-quality backlinks can improve authority and trust signals in search engines. However, poor-quality backlinks can have the opposite effect, making your site look untrustworthy to search engines.
4. Conversion
A conversion happens when a user completes a desired action on your website. That could be filling out a form, booking a consultation or making a sale.
5. Crawl
Crawling is the process search engines use to discover webpages. Google uses bots, often called crawlers or spiders, to scan websites and understand their content.
6. CTA
CTA stands for call-to-action. This is the prompt encouraging users to take the next step, whether that’s getting in touch, downloading a guide or making a purchase.
7. CTR
CTR stands for click-through rate. It measures the percentage of users who click your search result after seeing it in the SERPs. A strong meta title, compelling meta description and high search visibility can all help improve CTR.
8. Engagement Rate
Engagement rate measures how actively users interact with your website. In GA4, an engaged session is when a user spends time on the site, views multiple pages or completes an action such as a conversion. A higher engagement rate can indicate that your content is relevant and aligned with user intent.
9. Indexing
Indexing happens after a page has been crawled. Once indexed, your page can appear in search results. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a week for a page to be indexed – it all depends on whether your website is new or less established.
10. Internal links
Internal links connect pages across your own website. They help users navigate your site while also helping search engines understand your website structure and priority pages. These could be the links in your menu, or hyperlinks added to anchor text.
11. Keywords
Keywords are the words and phrases people type into search engines when looking for information, products or services. Content writers will use these keywords to help search engines understand what your business does and what a web page is associated with. Often also referred to as ‘search terms’, especially when there is more than one word.
12. Meta description
A meta description is the short summary displayed underneath your page title in search results. While it’s not a direct ranking factor, a strong meta description can improve click-through rates.
Our recommended length for meta descriptions is 150-160 characters.
13. Meta title
A meta title is the clickable headline shown in search results. It helps search engines understand your page while encouraging users to click through to your website.
The recommended meta title length is 50-60 characters.
14. Organic traffic
Organic traffic refers to visitors who land on your website naturally through unpaid search results. Unlike PPC, you’re not paying for every click, which makes SEO a long-term strategy for sustainable growth.
15. Search intent
Search intent is the reason behind a search query. This could be:
- Informational: The user wants to learn something, e.g., “What is AEO?”
- Commercial: The user is completing research before they buy, e.g., “Best AEO agency in Leeds”.
- Navigational: The user is seeking a specific destination, e.g., “Log in to Google Ads”.
- Transactional: The user is ready to buy or complete an action, e.g., “ASOS discount code”.
16. SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the process of improving your website so that it appears higher in search engine results, such as Google. Strong SEO helps your business get found by the right audience organically, without relying purely on paid ads.
17. SERPs
SERPs stands for Search Engine Results Pages. This is the page you see after searching on Google. Modern SERPs now include:
- AI Overviews – AI-generated summaries displayed directly in Google search results.
- Featured snippets – Highlighted search results designed to answer a query quickly.
- Knowledge panels – Information boxes that show key details about brands, people or places.
- People Also Ask (PAA) boxes – Expandable question boxes featuring related searches and answers.
- Rich snippets (rich results) – Enhanced listings that include extra information like reviews, FAQs or pricing.
- Discussions and forums – Search results featuring conversations from platforms like Reddit and Quora.
- Image or map packs – Visual or local business results displayed within search results.
- Video carousels – Scrollable video results shown directly on the SERP.
Section 2 – Content & keyword strategy
For both traditional and AI search, content is king. While AI optimised content focuses on prompt research, traditional SEO content relies on good old keyword research. The terms that matter:
18. Content cluster
A content cluster is a group of related content pieces linked around a central topic. This content strategy is also known as a hub-and-spoke model. Your hub is the central topic, and the spokes are separate pages targeting mid to long-term keywords related to the hub.
Content clusters help build topical authority and improve website structure for both users and search engines.
19. Content refresh
A content refresh involves updating existing pages to improve accuracy, relevance and performance. Refreshing content can often deliver quicker SEO wins than starting from scratch.
20. Duplicate content
Duplicate content happens when the same or very similar content appears across multiple pages. This can confuse search engines and weaken rankings, so it’s key for all your web content to be unique.
21. E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. These are quality signals that Google uses to assess content credibility, ensuring it delivers accurate, reliable and high-quality search results to its users.
Learn more about E-E-A-T in our guides:
- You are what you E-E-A-T (Part 1: An introduction)
- You are what you E-E-A-T (Part 2: E-E-A-T it up)
- You are what you E-E-A-T (Part 3: E-E-A-T the leftovers)
22. Evergreen content
Evergreen content stays relevant long after it’s published. Unlike trend-led content, evergreen blogs continue generating traffic over time.
23. Keyword difficulty
Keyword difficulty estimates how competitive a search term is. Highly competitive keywords often require stronger authority, better content and more backlinks to rank well.
24. Long-tail keyword
Long-tail keywords are more specific search phrases, often with lower search volume but higher intent. For example, “SEO agency in Leeds” is more targeted than simply “SEO”.
25. Primary keyword
A primary keyword is the main search term a page is targeting. It should align closely with the topic, user intent and business goals of the page.
26. Search volume
Search volume estimates how many times a keyword is searched each month. While high-volume keywords can drive traffic, relevance and intent matter more than vanity metrics.
27. Secondary keyword
Secondary keywords support your primary keyword by covering related search terms and topics (also known as semantic keywords). They help create more natural, comprehensive content.
28. Topical authority
Topical authority refers to how trustworthy and knowledgeable your website appears on a specific subject area. Publishing high-quality, internally linked content helps build authority over time, which is key to E-E-A-T (see point 11).
Section 3 – Technical SEO
Technical SEO is essential for traditional and AI search engine optimisation. But it’s also a very complex skill. It’s not called technical SEO for nothing. While our resident SEO expert, Darren, could talk all day about the technicalities, we’ll dedicate this section to the terms you should recognise now.
29. 404 errors
A 404 error appears when a webpage can’t be found. Too many broken pages can create a poor user experience and affect SEO performance.
30. Canonical tag
A canonical tag tells Google which version of a page should be treated as the main one. It’s commonly used to avoid duplicate content issues, especially with websites that target multiple countries
31. Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are Google’s user experience metrics focused on page speed, responsiveness and visual stability. Optimising these performance metrics will improve the user experience and, in turn, increase your organic search position.
32. Crawl budget
Crawl budget refers to the number of pages Google will crawl on your website within a given timeframe. Your crawl budget depends on your website’s size and health, as well as the number of backlinks it has.
Through technical SEO work, SEO specialists will improve these elements (for example, resolving site errors and reducing redirect chains), which helps search engines crawl your site more efficiently.
33. HTTPS
HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. HTTPS secures the connection between a website and its users. It’s an important signal of trust and security for both users and search engines.
34. Page speed
Page speed measures how quickly your website loads. Slow-loading websites can negatively impact rankings, engagement and conversions. Google recommends that pages achieve a Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) of 2.5 seconds or less for a good user experience.
35. Redirects
Redirects automatically send users and search engines from one URL to another. Redirects are commonly used during website migrations or when a page is deleted.
36. Robots.txt
A robots.txt file tells search engines which pages or sections of a website they should or shouldn’t crawl.
37. Schema markup
Schema markup is code added to a webpage to help search engines better understand content. It can improve how your pages appear in search results. You can add various types of schema markup, but the most beneficial are the FAQ, Product and Review schemas, as they work best for question-based search queries. Implementing these will increase your chances of being cited in AI Overviews and other AI systems.
38. Structured data
Structured data organises information on a webpage in a way search engines can easily interpret. It plays an increasingly important role in AI search visibility.
39. Technical SEO
Technical SEO focuses on improving the backend structure of a website so search engines can crawl, understand and index content effectively.
40. XML sitemap
An XML sitemap is a file that helps search engines find and crawl important pages across your website. These also help search engines understand your site’s structure and prioritise your content. In website design and development projects, creating a sitemap is one of the first steps we’ll take, as it’ll dictate other things down the line, such as how your navigation is designed.
Section 4 – AI SEO, AEO & GEO explained
With AI search experiences like Google’s AI Overview and ChatGPT becoming more common, SEO terminology is evolving faster than ever. Here’s what you need to know:
41. AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) or AI SEO
AEO involves optimising content so it can appear directly in AI Overviews, LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude and voice assistants. AEO expands on traditional SEO by focusing on:
- Direct answers that AI tools can easily parse, understand and repurpose.
- Conversational language that aligns with how people naturally search, speak and interact with AI tools and voice assistants.
- Search/user intent – focus on long-tail conversational queries that are optimised for ‘dual intent’, e.g., aim to inform, guide and convert in one place.
- Structured data to help both AI models and search engines understand your content to feature it in direct answers.
- E-E-A-T signals – Build out author pages, case studies and unique insights that establish your brand’s authority.
You can read more about how to optimise for LLMs and AI in our guide.
42. AI Overview
AI Overviews (AIO) are AI-generated summaries shown directly in Google search results. These overviews draw on multiple sources to answer the user’s query in one go, rather than through multiple searches.
43. AI visibility
AI visibility measures how often your brand appears across AI-generated search experiences.
44. Citation
In AI search, citations are the sources AI tools reference when generating answers.
45. GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)
GEO is the process of optimising content for generative AI search experiences like ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews.
While there are slight differences in how the industry defines GEO, AEO and LLMO, they all centre around improving visibility within AI-powered search experiences.
46. LLMO
LLMO stands for Large Language Model Optimisation. It focuses on improving how your website appears within AI-generated responses. LLMO is again just another term for AEO or GEO.
47. LLMs
LLM stands for Large Language Model. These AI systems power tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI search experiences.
48. Prompt research
Prompt research examines the questions people ask of generative AI systems. It serves as an extension of keyword research, helping you identify prompt patterns you can structure your content around.
49. Share of search
Share of search measures how visible your brand is in search compared to competitors.
50. Zero-click search
Zero-click searches happen when users get their answer directly in search results without clicking through to a website. In a previous talk, our team revealed that 60% of searches now result in zero clicks, meaning a GEO strategy is more important than ever.
Learn more about zero-click search:
Need help with your GEO & SEO strategy?
At Trio, we develop AEO and SEO strategies designed to improve visibility, traffic and conversions across both traditional and AI-powered search. If you’re looking to make sense of this terminology or take the next step, our team is here to help.
