If you’ve ever sat in a meeting with a web agency and nodded along while they talked about “domain authority” and “canonical tags”, this post is for you.
SEO has more jargon than almost any other industry. Some of it matters. Some of it is used specifically to make simple things sound complicated, so you keep paying someone to do them. Here’s a plain English guide to the terms you’ll actually encounter, with honest notes on which ones you should care about.
The basics
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): The process of making your website show up higher on Google when people search for things related to your business. That’s it. Everything else is a subset of this.
SERP (Search Engine Results Page): The page you see after you type something into Google. The list of results. Agencies love this acronym because saying “search engine results page” every time is admittedly a mouthful.
Keywords: The words and phrases people type into Google. If you’re a plumber in Bolton, your keywords might include “plumber Bolton”, “emergency plumber near me”, or “boiler repair Bolton.” Keywords are just what your customers search for.
Organic traffic: Visitors who find your website through unpaid search results. As opposed to “paid traffic”, which is people who clicked on an ad. When someone says “organic”, they mean free — the visits Google sends you without you paying for each click.
Ranking: Where your website appears in search results for a given keyword. If you’re “ranking first” for “fabrication Manchester”, your site is the first result. Being on page two means almost nobody will see you — less than 1% of people click through to page two.
On-page SEO terms
These are things that happen on your actual website.
Meta title (or title tag): The headline that appears in Google’s search results for your page. It’s not necessarily the same as the big heading on your page — it’s set separately in your website’s code. It’s one of the most important SEO elements because Google uses it to understand what your page is about, and it’s the first thing searchers see.
Meta description: The two-line summary that appears under your meta title in search results. Google doesn’t use it directly for ranking, but a good meta description convinces people to click. Think of it as a tiny advert for your page.
H1, H2, H3 (headings): The headings on your page, organised by importance. H1 is the main heading (you should only have one per page), H2s are subheadings, H3s are sub-subheadings. Google uses these to understand the structure and topics of your content. They’re also important for accessibility.
Alt text: A text description added to images that tells Google (and screen readers for visually impaired visitors) what the image shows. If you have a photo of your workshop, the alt text might be “CNC machining workshop in Manchester.” Google can’t see images the way we can, so alt text helps it understand your content.
Internal links: Links from one page on your site to another page on your site. When your services page links to your contact page, that’s an internal link. They help Google find and understand all your pages, and they help visitors navigate your site.
Anchor text: The clickable text in a link. If a link says “our SEO services” and links to your SEO page, then “our SEO services” is the anchor text. Using descriptive anchor text (rather than “click here”) helps Google understand what the linked page is about.
Schema markup (structured data): Extra code added to your website that tells Google specific facts about your business — your opening hours, your address, your reviews, your services. It doesn’t appear on the page itself, but it can make your search results look richer (showing stars, prices, FAQs, and so on).
Off-page SEO terms
Things that happen elsewhere on the internet that affect your site.
Backlinks: Links from other websites to your website. If a local newspaper mentions your business and links to your site, that’s a backlink. Google treats these a bit like votes of confidence — the more reputable sites that link to you, the more Google trusts your site. Quality matters far more than quantity. One link from your local council’s website is worth more than a hundred links from random directories.
Domain authority (DA): A score invented by a company called Moz (not by Google) that estimates how likely your site is to rank. It goes from 1 to 100. It’s a useful rough guide, but it’s not an official Google metric — don’t let anyone convince you it is. Google doesn’t use DA in their algorithm.
Citation: A mention of your business name, address, and phone number on another website. Common on directories like Yell, Thomson Local, and industry-specific listing sites. Citations help Google verify your business is real and located where you say it is.
Google Business Profile: Your free business listing on Google that appears in maps and local search results. Technically this is its own thing, not strictly “off-page SEO”, but it’s where a lot of local SEO happens. If you haven’t claimed and completed yours, stop reading this and go do it now.
Technical SEO terms
The behind-the-scenes stuff.
Crawling: How Google discovers your website. Google sends out automated programs called “crawlers” (or “spiders” or “bots”) that follow links across the web, reading pages as they go. When a crawler visits your site, it reads your content and adds it to Google’s index.
Indexing: After Google crawls your page, it stores it in its index — think of it as Google’s massive library. If your page isn’t indexed, it can’t appear in search results. You can check which of your pages are indexed using Google Search Console.
Crawl budget: The number of pages Google will crawl on your site in a given time period. For most small business websites (under a few hundred pages), this isn’t something you need to worry about. It becomes relevant for very large sites with thousands of pages.
Site speed (Core Web Vitals): How fast your website loads and how smoothly it works. Google measures specific things like how quickly the main content appears, how soon the page responds to clicks, and whether things jump around while loading. Faster sites rank better and convert more visitors into enquiries.
SSL certificate: The thing that puts the padlock icon in your browser’s address bar and changes your URL from http:// to https://. It encrypts the connection between your visitor’s browser and your website. Google considers it a ranking factor, and visitors trust sites with it. Most hosting includes this for free now.
Mobile-friendly (responsive design): A website that works properly on phones and tablets, not just desktop computers. Google primarily uses the mobile version of your site for ranking, so if your site is hard to use on a phone, your rankings will suffer. Over 60% of web traffic is now mobile.
Canonical tag: A piece of code that tells Google “this is the main version of this page.” Useful if you have similar content accessible at multiple URLs. You probably don’t need to know this unless you have a complex site. Mentioning it here because agencies love to bring it up.
404 error: The page a visitor sees when they try to access a URL that doesn’t exist on your site. A few 404s are normal (old pages that have been removed), but lots of them can indicate a problem. Google Search Console will tell you about these.
Redirect (301): When an old URL is set up to automatically send visitors to a new URL. If you change your page structure or move content, redirects make sure people (and Google) end up in the right place instead of hitting a 404 error.
Which ones actually matter for small businesses?
If your head is spinning, here’s the short version. For a typical small business trying to get found locally, focus on these:
Google Business Profile. Complete it, keep it updated, get reviews. This is the single biggest lever for local visibility.
Meta titles and descriptions. Make sure every page on your site has a unique, descriptive title that includes what you do and where. This takes an hour to sort out and makes a real difference.
Site speed. If your site takes more than three seconds to load, fix it. Everything else you do is undermined by a slow site.
Mobile-friendliness. Test your site on your phone. If it’s awkward to use, that’s costing you enquiries and rankings.
Reviews. They’re a ranking factor for local results and they build trust. Ask every happy customer.
Everything else — backlinks, schema, canonical tags — matters, but it’s second-tier stuff. Get the fundamentals right first and you’ll already be ahead of most of your local competitors.
If you want help making sense of what your site actually needs, our SEO services page explains how we approach it. And if you want to see how your site stacks up right now, have a read of our post on why your competitors might be ranking higher for some specific things to check.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important SEO term to understand?
For small businesses, understanding “keywords” is the most important starting point. Keywords are simply what your potential customers type into Google. If you know what your customers search for, you can make sure your website uses those same words and phrases. Everything else in SEO builds from that foundation.
Do I need to understand technical SEO to run a small business website?
No. You should know the basics — make sure your site is fast, mobile-friendly, and has proper meta titles — but the deeply technical stuff like canonical tags, crawl budgets, and schema markup can be handled by your web developer or SEO provider. Focus on the fundamentals and leave the technical details to whoever manages your site.
What is the difference between on-page and off-page SEO?
On-page SEO is everything on your actual website that you can control — your page titles, headings, content, images, and site speed. Off-page SEO is everything that happens elsewhere on the internet that affects your rankings — backlinks from other websites, directory listings, reviews, and social media mentions. Both matter, but on-page SEO is where you should start because you have direct control over it.