Why does an agency need an SEO glossary?
Because clients and non-SEO staff hear terms like canonical, crawl budget or GEO and nod without understanding. A shared glossary makes sales calls clearer, reports easier to read and handoffs with a white label partner smoother. It also shows clients that your agency explains things plainly, which builds trust and shortens the approval of new work.
Core SEO terms
- Organic search
- Unpaid results in a search engine, as opposed to ads.
- SERP
- Search engine results page: everything shown after a search.
- Keyword
- The words people type or say when searching.
- Search intent
- What the searcher wants: to learn, compare, buy or find a place.
- Ranking
- The position a page holds for a keyword.
- Impressions
- How often a page appeared in results, clicked or not.
- CTR
- Click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions.
- Backlink
- A link from another website to yours.
- Anchor text
- The clickable words of a link.
- Domain authority
- A third-party score estimating a site's link strength. Not a Google metric.
Technical SEO terms
- Crawling
- Search engines visiting and reading pages.
- Indexing
- Storing a page so it can appear in results.
- Sitemap
- A file listing a site's pages to help crawling. See Google's overview.
- Robots.txt
- A file telling crawlers which areas not to visit.
- Canonical tag
- Tells search engines which version of a duplicate page is the main one. See Google's guide.
- 301 redirect
- A permanent redirect from an old URL to a new one.
- 404 error
- A page that no longer exists.
- Core Web Vitals
- Google's speed and stability metrics: LCP, INP and CLS. See the thresholds.
- Schema markup
- Code that describes content, such as a business, product or FAQ, to search engines.
- Crawl budget
- How many pages a search engine will crawl on a site in a given time; matters on very large sites.
Local SEO terms
- Google Business Profile
- A business's free listing on Google Search and Maps.
- Local pack
- The map with three businesses shown for local searches.
- NAP
- Name, address and phone number, which should be consistent everywhere.
- Citation
- A mention of a business's NAP on another website or directory.
- Service-area business
- A business that serves customers at their location rather than a storefront.
AI search terms
- AI Overviews
- Google's AI-generated summaries at the top of some results. Google explains how sites appear in its AI features guide.
- AI Mode
- Google's conversational search experience.
- AEO
- Answer engine optimization: making content easy to quote as a direct answer.
- GEO
- Generative engine optimization: earning mentions and citations in AI answers.
- Entity
- A clearly defined thing, like a brand or person, that search systems recognize.
- Citation (AI)
- A link or mention of a source inside an AI answer.
- Zero-click search
- A search answered on the results page without a click.
Agency and business terms
- White label SEO
- SEO delivered by a specialist and sold under your agency's brand. See the full guide.
- SEO reseller
- An agency reselling standardized SEO packages from a provider.
- Retainer
- A recurring monthly fee for ongoing SEO work.
- Wholesale price
- What the agency pays its white label partner.
- Markup
- What the agency adds on top of its cost.
- Gross margin
- The share of the selling price the agency keeps.
- NDA
- A non-disclosure agreement protecting client information.
- Non-solicitation
- A clause stopping a partner from approaching your clients.
Want to put these terms into practice? Start with the technical SEO audit checklist or how to sell AI search optimization. For the service itself, visit the white label SEO for agencies page.
Frequently asked questions
Can I share this glossary with clients?
Yes. It is written in plain English for exactly that purpose.
What is the difference between AEO and GEO?
AEO focuses on direct answers; GEO focuses on mentions and citations in AI-generated responses.
Is domain authority a Google ranking factor?
No. It is a third-party estimate, useful for comparison but not used by Google.
What is the most important technical term for clients?
Indexing: if a page is not indexed, it cannot appear in Google at all.
How often is this glossary updated?
When search features change, especially around AI search.
About the author
Juan José Giraldo is a senior SEO specialist with 5+ years of experience. He works on technical and local SEO for 600+ US car dealerships and supervises the SEO of 18 US e-commerce stores. He runs White Label SEO LATAM from Medellín, Colombia, and delivers white label SEO for agencies in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Read more · LinkedIn.