Glossary
Definitions
6 definitions
SEO (search engine optimization)
SEO is the work of making a website appear higher in the unpaid results of search engines for the questions its clients type, through its technical health, its content and the links and mentions it earns.
SEO audit
An SEO audit is a one-off review of a website that lists what stops it from ranking (technical faults, weak or missing content, poor links) and ranks the fixes by impact. It is the usual starting point of SEO work.
SEO retainer
An SEO retainer is a monthly fee paid to an agency or consultant for ongoing work: technical follow-up, content, links and reporting. It is the most common way SEO is sold, next to one-off audits and projects.
SERP (search engine results page)
The SERP is the page a search engine shows after a query: unpaid results, ads, and features such as maps, images, snippets and AI summaries, in an order that changes with the question.
Search intent
Search intent is what a person wants when typing a query: to learn something, to find a specific site, to compare, or to buy. A page ranks when it serves the intent behind the words, not just the words.
Structured data (schema.org)
Structured data is a block of machine-readable facts added to a page, in the schema.org vocabulary, that tells engines what the page is about: a business, an article, a product, a question and its answer.