Home / Marketing Glossary for UK Local Businesses: Plain-English Definitions

Marketing Glossary for UK Local Businesses: Plain-English Definitions

By Sam · Last updated 11 October 2026 · 7 minute read

Contents

• Search and maps
• Websites and speed
• Analytics and tracking
• Advertising
• Reviews and reputation
• AI search
• Messaging, rules and customer handling
• How to use this glossary
• Frequently asked questions
• Sources

Search and maps

• SEO (search engine optimisation). Improving a website so that it appears in unpaid search results.
• Local SEO. SEO for searches with local intent, such as plumber near me, including map results.
• Google Business Profile (GBP). The free listing that shows your business on Google Search and Maps. See our setup checklist.
• Map pack. The group of local business results shown with a map for many local searches.
• Citation. A mention of your business name, address and phone number on another website. See what NAP is.
• NAP. Name, address and phone number, the three details that identify a local business.
• Directory. A website that lists businesses by category or area.
• Organic results. Unpaid search results.
• Keyword. A word or phrase that people type into a search engine.
• Search intent. What a person wants when they search: to buy, to learn, to find a place or to compare.
• Ranking. The position of a page or listing in the results for a search.
• Impression, click and click-through rate. An impression is a time your result appeared, a click is a time someone chose it, and click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions.

Websites and speed

• Landing page. The page a visitor arrives on, often from a search or an ad.
• Call to action. The button or link that asks a visitor to do something, such as call or book.
• Mobile-first. Designing for phones first, because most visitors use them.
• Core Web Vitals. Google’s measures of page experience. See Core Web Vitals in plain English.
• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint). How long the main content takes to appear.
• INP (Interaction to Next Paint). How quickly a page responds when a visitor taps or clicks.
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift). How much a page moves around as it loads.
• Schema markup. Structured data added to a page that helps search engines understand it.
• Redirect. A rule that sends visitors and search engines from an old address to a new one.
• Domain name. Your web address, such as yourbusiness.co.uk.
• Hosting. The service that stores your website files and serves them to visitors.
• CMS (content management system). Software for editing a website, such as WordPress.

Analytics and tracking

• GA4 (Google Analytics 4). Google’s current web analytics tool, which records visits and actions as events.
• Google Search Console. A free tool that shows how your site performs in Google Search. See why it differs from GA4.
• Event. Anything GA4 records, such as a page view or a click.
• Key event. An event you mark as important to your business, such as a form submission. See GA4 events for small business.
• Conversion. An action you count as success, such as a call, form or booking.
• Session. A visit to your site, as counted by an analytics tool.
• UTM parameter. A tag added to a link so that analytics can show where visits came from.
• Google Tag Manager. A tool for adding and changing tracking tags without editing the website code.
• Call tracking. A way of counting phone calls and where they came from.
• Attribution. The rule a tool uses to decide which source gets credit for a conversion.

Advertising

• PPC (pay per click). Advertising where you pay each time someone clicks your ad.
• CPC (cost per click). What you pay for a click. See what Google Ads cost in the UK.
• Google Ads. Google’s advertising platform.
• Local Services Ads. Google ads where approved local businesses pay per valid lead. See Google Local Services Ads in the UK.
• Negative keyword. A word you tell an ad platform to exclude, so your ads do not show for irrelevant searches.
• Cost per enquiry. Total spend divided by the number of enquiries.
• ROAS (return on ad spend). Revenue from ads divided by what you spent on them.
• Google Merchant Center and product feed. The place where you upload product data for Google Shopping, and the file or connection that supplies it. See Google Merchant Center setup.
• GTIN. The barcode number that identifies a product.

Reviews and reputation

• Review gating. Asking only happy customers for reviews, which breaks Google’s policy.
• Incentivised review. A review given in return for a reward. See the UK rules on rewarding reviews.
• Fake review. A review that claims to reflect a genuine experience when it does not. See how to report a fake Google review.

AI search

• AI search optimisation. Making your business easy for AI tools to find, understand and recommend, sometimes called answer engine or generative engine optimisation. See SEO vs AI search optimisation.
• AI Overview. A summary that Google shows above its results for some searches.
• LLM (large language model). The kind of AI behind chat assistants such as ChatGPT.

Messaging, rules and customer handling

• PECR. The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, the UK rules on marketing by email, text and phone. See UK rules for emailing and texting customers.
• UK GDPR. The UK data protection law that covers how you collect and use personal data.
• Consent. A person’s clear agreement to receive marketing from you.
• Soft opt-in. A limited exception for marketing to existing customers, with conditions.
• SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Records that help receiving systems trust your emails. See why business emails go to spam.
• CRM (customer relationship management). A shared place that records enquiries and customers. See CRM for small businesses in the UK.
• Pipeline. The stages an enquiry moves through, from new to won or lost.
• Speed to lead. How quickly you reply to a new enquiry.
• Missed-call text-back. An automatic text sent after a missed call. See how it works in the UK.
• AI receptionist. A voice assistant that answers your business phone. See AI receptionist for small businesses.

How to use this glossary

If a supplier uses a term you do not understand, ask them to explain it in plain English and to show you where the number comes from. Good suppliers welcome the question. See how to choose a local SEO agency.

Frequently asked questions

What does NAP mean in local SEO?

Name, address and phone number, the three details that identify a local business.

What is a key event in GA4?

An event you mark as important to your business, such as a form submission.

What is the difference between SEO and local SEO?

SEO aims at unpaid search results generally. Local SEO aims at local searches and map results.

What is CPC?

Cost per click: what you pay each time someone clicks your ad.

What is AI search optimisation?

Making your business easy for AI tools to find, understand and recommend.

Sources

• Google, Search Central documentation, checked 11 October 2026.
• Google, Analytics Help, checked 11 October 2026.
• Information Commissioner’s Office, Guidance and resources, checked 11 October 2026.

Sam, Editor at Clariti Digital.

Related guides

• SEO vs AI search optimisation: What stays the same and what changes between SEO and AI search.
• Core Web Vitals in plain English: What Core Web Vitals are and how to pass them.
• GA4 events for small business: Five events every local business should track in Google Analytics 4.