Marketing Terms, Explained Plainly
Marketing has its own jargon, and a lot of it gets thrown around without ever being explained. Here are the terms that come up most for local business owners, defined plainly — no marketer-speak.
Google Business Profile (GBP)
The free listing that shows up on Google Maps and in local search results — your name, address, hours, photos, and reviews. Formerly called "Google My Business." If you've ever searched a business and seen a box on the right with a map, star rating, and "Open until 6pm," that's a Google Business Profile.
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
The percentage of people who see something — an ad, a search result, a link — and actually click it. If 100 people see your Google listing and 4 click through to your website, that's a 4% CTR. Higher generally means what people see is genuinely relevant and appealing to them.
Local SEO
The practice of improving how well your business shows up in local search results — "plumber near me," "best coffee in [town]" — as opposed to general SEO, which is about ranking nationally or globally. For most local businesses, local SEO matters far more than general SEO.
Citation
Any online mention of your business's name, address, and phone number — even without a link. Directory listings (Yell, Thomson Local), news mentions, and other business listings all count. Consistent, accurate citations across the web genuinely help local search rankings; inconsistent ones (an old address still listed somewhere) can quietly hurt.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of people who take the action you actually wanted — booking, buying, calling — out of everyone who visited or saw your marketing. A website with lots of visitors but a low conversion rate usually has a real, fixable problem somewhere in the experience, not a traffic problem.
Organic vs Paid
"Organic" means results or traffic you get without paying directly for that placement — a genuine search ranking, a shared post. "Paid" means you paid for the placement directly — a Google Ad, a boosted post. Both have real value; the mistake is assuming paid always outperforms organic, or that organic is always "free" (it usually costs real time instead).
Trade Area
The realistic geographic area your customers actually come from — not your whole town, necessarily, but the radius where people would genuinely choose you over driving further. Understanding your real trade area (rather than assuming it) changes how you should think about local competitors and local advertising.
Schema Markup
Hidden code added to a website that helps search engines understand exactly what's on the page — this is a review, this is a price, this is a FAQ — rather than guessing from the visible text alone. You never see it as a visitor, but it's part of why some search results show extra detail (star ratings, prices) directly in Google.
Bounce Rate
The percentage of website visitors who land on a page and leave without clicking anything else. A high bounce rate isn't automatically bad — someone finding your phone number instantly and calling is a "bounce" too — but combined with a low conversion rate, it's often a real sign something on that page isn't landing.
NAP Consistency
Short for Name, Address, Phone — the practice of making sure these three details match exactly, word for word, everywhere your business appears online. "12 High Street" listed as "12 High St" in one place and "12 High Street" in another sounds trivial, but genuinely confuses search engines about whether it's the same business.
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Get your free report →None of these terms are complicated once explained plainly — the jargon is usually the hardest part, not the underlying idea.