Plain-language definitions for SEO, AEO, GEO, websites, and AI growth.

SEO is the work of making a website easier for search engines to crawl, understand, and rank for the searches your buyers make. It covers technical health, content, on-page signals, and links from other sites. Done well, it brings steady traffic without paying for every click.

Technical SEO covers the parts of a website that affect how search engines crawl, render, and index it: speed, sitemaps, robots.txt, redirects, canonical tags, structured data, and mobile usability. It does not change what a page says. It makes sure search engines can reach and read it.

On-page SEO is the optimization of individual pages for a target search: the title tag, meta description, headings, body copy, internal links, and image alt text. The goal is a page that clearly answers what the searcher wants and makes its topic obvious to search engines.

Local SEO helps a business appear in searches with local intent, such as near me searches and the map results. It relies on a complete Google Business Profile, consistent business details across the web, genuine reviews, and location or service area pages.

Schema markup is structured data, usually written as JSON-LD, that describes a page in the schema.org vocabulary: an organization, a service, a product, an article, or an FAQ. It helps search engines and AI tools read facts without guessing and can make a page eligible for rich results.

Internal linking means linking pages on the same website to each other with descriptive anchor text. Good internal links help visitors find related pages, help search engines discover content, and show which pages matter most.

A canonical tag is a link element in the page head, written as rel="canonical", that tells search engines which URL is the main version when the same or very similar content exists at several URLs. It helps combine ranking signals and avoid duplicate content problems.

Core Web Vitals are Google's metrics for real-world page experience: Largest Contentful Paint for loading, Interaction to Next Paint for responsiveness, and Cumulative Layout Shift for visual stability. They are measured from real Chrome users and are one of many signals Google uses in ranking.

AEO means answer engine optimization. It helps your brand become the answer AI tools quote when people ask buyer questions, using clear and direct answers, structured data, and consistent facts across the web.

GEO means generative engine optimization. It helps AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini include your brand inside longer generated answers and recommendations. It builds on SEO with citable content, clear entity signals, and mentions on trusted third-party sites.

AI Overviews are the AI-generated summaries Google shows at the top of some search results. They combine information from several web pages into one answer and link to their sources, so being one of the cited pages is a new kind of search visibility.

An answer engine is a tool that replies to a question with a written answer instead of a list of links. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews all work this way, and many of them cite the sources they used.

A Brand Hub is a source-of-truth page with a company's official facts: what it does, who founded it, its services, markets, contact details, and preferred citation format. It gives search engines, AI tools, and journalists one accurate place to check facts about the brand.

llms.txt is a proposed plain-text file at the root of a website that gives large language models a short summary of the site and links to its most useful pages. It is a community proposal rather than an official standard, and support varies between AI tools.

AI visibility describes how often, and how accurately, a brand is mentioned or cited when people ask AI tools questions in its category. It is usually tracked by running a fixed set of buyer prompts across several AI tools and recording which brands appear.

Share of Model is the share of relevant AI-generated answers that mention a brand, compared with its competitors. It works like share of voice in advertising, measured across a defined set of prompts and AI tools.

A CMS, or content management system, is software that lets a team create, edit, and publish website content without writing code. WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, and Framer all include one, each suited to different kinds of websites.

Webflow is a visual website builder and hosting platform that produces clean, production-ready code. It suits marketing websites that need a flexible CMS, custom interactions, and content edits without a developer.

WordPress is an open-source content management system that powers a large share of the web. It can run anything from a simple blog to a large business website or WooCommerce store, extended with themes, page builders, and plugins.

Shopify 2.0, also called Online Store 2.0, is the theme architecture Shopify introduced in 2021. It lets merchants build pages from sections and blocks, use app blocks, and add custom content with metafields, all without editing theme code.

Framer is a design-led website builder that publishes websites straight from a visual canvas. It is popular for startup and product marketing websites that need polished animation, fast iteration, and a simple CMS.

Responsive design is an approach where one website adapts its layout to the screen it is viewed on, from phones to large desktops. Layouts, images, and text resize to fit instead of serving separate mobile and desktop websites.

A landing page is a focused page built for one goal, such as booking a call, signing up, or buying, and is usually reached from an ad, email, or campaign. It removes distractions and keeps the message tied to the source that brought the visitor.

Conversion rate optimization is the practice of increasing the share of visitors who take a desired action, such as filling in a form or making a purchase. It combines analytics, user research, and testing changes to copy, layout, and offers.

Paid media is any advertising you pay to place, such as search ads, social ads, display ads, and sponsored content. It buys reach quickly and is judged on costs and returns like cost per lead and return on ad spend.

Retargeting, also called remarketing, shows ads to people who have already visited your website or engaged with your brand. It reminds warm prospects to come back and usually converts better than ads shown to people who have never heard of you.

Customer acquisition cost is the total sales and marketing spend in a period divided by the number of new customers won in that period. Comparing it with how much a customer is worth over time shows whether growth is profitable.

Return on ad spend is the revenue generated by advertising divided by what the advertising cost. A ROAS of 4 means every $1 spent on ads brought back $4 in revenue, before other costs like product and delivery.

A lead magnet is something useful offered in exchange for contact details, such as a checklist, template, guide, or free audit. It turns anonymous visitors into leads you can follow up with.

A funnel describes the stages people move through from first hearing about a brand to becoming a customer, often summed up as awareness, consideration, and decision. Mapping it shows where people drop off and what content or offer each stage needs.

Lifecycle email is automated email triggered by where a person is in their relationship with a brand: welcome series, onboarding, cart reminders, re-engagement, and post-purchase follow-ups. Each message is timed to an action or stage instead of being sent to everyone at once.

Attribution is the method of giving credit for a conversion to the marketing touchpoints that led to it, such as an ad click, an email, or an organic search visit. Models range from last click to data-driven, and the choice changes which channels look most effective.