The Jargon Buster for NZ Businesses
The SEO industry is notorious for using confusing acronyms and highly technical jargon. This glossary cuts through the noise, explaining the most important SEO terms in plain English so you can understand exactly what your marketing agency is talking about.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)
The process of optimising your digital presence so that AI models (like ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews) cite your business in their generated answers. Also known as GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation).
Alt Text (Alternative Text)
A brief text description added to the HTML code of an image. It tells search engines what the image shows and is read aloud by screen readers for visually impaired users.
Backlink
A hyperlink on another website that points to your website. Google views high-quality backlinks as "votes of confidence" in your site's authority.
Black Hat SEO
Unethical SEO tactics that violate Google's guidelines (such as buying links or hiding text). These tactics can result in severe penalties or your site being banned from Google.
Canonical URL
An HTML tag that tells search engines which version of a page is the "master" copy. It prevents SEO penalties when you have identical content on multiple URLs.
Domain Authority (DA)
A third-party metric (created by Moz) from 1 to 100 that predicts how well a website will rank. It is a useful comparative tool, but it is not an official Google ranking factor.
E-E-A-T
An acronym for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is the framework Google's human quality raters use to evaluate whether content is valuable and reliable.
Google Business Profile (GBP)
The free listing provided by Google that appears in Google Maps and local search results. Optimising your GBP is the most critical factor in Local SEO.
Long-Tail Keyword
A highly specific search phrase containing three or more words (e.g., "emergency commercial plumber in Christchurch"). They have lower search volume but much higher conversion rates than broad keywords.
Schema Markup (JSON-LD)
A specific vocabulary of code added to your website that helps search engines and AI models explicitly understand your content (e.g., tagging a string of numbers specifically as a "Phone Number").
SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
The page Google displays after you type in a search query, containing both paid ads and organic links.
Title Tag
The HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. It is the clickable blue headline that appears in the Google search results and is a major ranking factor.