Local Marketing Glossary

In this local marketing glossary, you’ll find a ton of helpful terms and definitions that will give you a better understanding of the ins and outs of local marketing. From “geotargeting” to “review management,” these terms cover all the basics and beyond.

Whether you’re new to local marketing or just want to brush up on your knowledge, this glossary is a great resource to get you up to speed!

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301 Redirect

A 301 redirect lets search engines know that you permanently moved your content to a new URL. Searchers will automatically be redirected. Search engines will add the new link to the index, and links pointing towards the old URL are automatically forwarded. This is critical for your search marketing.

404 Error

Even if the browser was able to connect to the necessary server, this error number indicates that the server was unable to locate the requested page. There must be some technical error if one of your pages returns a 404 Error, so you need to investigate what’s going on.

A - B

A/B Testing

In order to optimize marketing efforts, this approach involves contrasting two versions of a single variable to see which performs best. This is frequently done through calls-to-action (with variations in colors or language), landing pages, and email marketing (with variants in the subject line or copy) (variations in content).

Above The Fold

Above the fold refers to anything that is immediately displayed on the screen without scrolling after your website loads. Not all text that appears after the user scrolled down is viewable.

Ad Group

A group of advertising that are targeted towards the same keyword set is known as an ad group. One or more ad groups are included in each PPC campaign. Ads in an ad group are connected in some way.

Alt Text

Stands for “alternative text,” appears on the user’s screen in place of a failed to load image. Search engine crawlers are assisted in their work by an exact alt that is connected to the core keywords and content. Screen readers also make use of Alt Text to aid those who are blind in understanding an image.

Analytics

Analytics primarily involves finding and sharing significant data patterns. When used in the context of local marketing, it refers to the process of reviewing the information from one’s initiatives (website visitor statistics, social media, PPC, etc.), analyzing trends, and creating useful insights to help one make more informed marketing decisions.

Anchor Text

You add a hyperlink to your HTML document to link it to another page. The anchor text should contain words linked to the page title or keywords of the page that loads when someone clicks the link. There are numerous hyperlinks in the blog article you are currently reading, which may be easily identified by the blue color of the anchor text.

Apple Maps

This is the default map system developed by Apple. It’s the second most popular map app for mobile users after Google Maps. It’s important to add the local business to Apple Maps as well as they continue to gain traction.

Authority

A term used to characterize the influence of a domain, a website, a source of citation, a review, or other organizations. According to theories, some websites are perceived by search engines as being more credible than others, giving credible websites a greater power to affect search engine results.

Average Star Rating

The score that appears next to a company’s entry in any directory that displays customer evaluations, such Yelp and Google. It may take up to two weeks to receive an updated review score once someone writes a new review because the review score is derived using user ratings and a number of other criteria.

B2B Marketing (Business-To-Business)

Strategies and techniques that a business uses to reach out to other businesses, keep in touch with them, and sell their products and services. In B2B marketing, most of the people who buy are top executives or directors at other companies.

B2C Marketing (Business-To-Consumer)

Strategies, practices, and tactics that a company uses to get customers to buy its products or use its services. B2C campaigns don’t just focus on the value or benefit of a product; they also try to make the customer feel something.

Behavioral Marketing

With the use of behavioral marketing, you may target customers based on their past behavior. After a lead is entered into your CRM, you continue to monitor their online activity. As a result, you can send highly tailored marketing messages to targeted audiences. Data collection and analysis are ongoing processes in behavioral marketing.

Bing Places

A free tool that allows companies to show up in Cortana and Bing search engine results. It is appropriate for chains with numerous locations, service providers without a physical store, and companies with storefronts.

Blogging

Bottom of the Funnel

The term “bottom of the funnel” describes a point of the sales process where leads are just about to close as new clients. They have identified an issue, looked at potential solutions, and are almost ready to purchase. A call from a sales representative, a demo, or a free consultation are often the next actions for leads at this level, depending on the sort of business trying to close the lead.

Breadcrumbs

In the context of websites, a “breadcrumb” refers to a certain kind of secondary navigation scheme that shows the user where they are located on the website. Most commonly found on websites that have a considerable amount of content that is arranged in a hierarchical manner.

Brick-And-Mortar Marketing

Brick-and-mortar marketing is a way to market a business that has a place of business. With offers, promotions, signs, rewards programs, events, etc., the goal is to get more people into a business’s storefront and bring in more customers. As more people go online to look up products, services, and stores, brick-and-mortar businesses have to change their marketing strategies to include more digital ones.

Business Category

A business category identifies a company and links clients to it when they look for certain goods or services. On directory websites, company categories are useful in organizing businesses.

Buyer Persona

A fictionalized version of your ideal customer that is based on market research and real information about your current customers. It helps marketers like you figure out who you want to reach, and it can also help sales reps figure out if a lead is worth following up on.

Business Listing

A business listing is the information and contacts for a company that is online listed. A business listing often includes details about the establishment, including its name, address, phone number, website, hours of operation, and photos. Google Business Profile is a good example with the most listings.

C - D

Call Tracking Number

A phone number that is used to measure how well certain marketing efforts work and to find out where leads come from. Call tracking numbers must be used carefully by local businesses so that they don’t get in the way of the company’s basic business data.

Call-To-Action

A call-to-action (CTA) is a web link that encourages a visitor to go to a landing page and become a lead. CTAs are important for marketers because they are the “bait” that gets a website visitor to become a customer. So, you can see why it’s important for a call-to-action to make a very appealing, valuable offer if you want more visitors to become leads.

CAN-SPAM

“Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing” (CAN-SPAM) is what the law is called in full. It’s a U.S. law that was passed in 2003. It sets the rules for commercial email and commercial messages, gives people the right to ask businesses to stop sending them emails, and spells out the penalties for breaking the law. For example, because of CAN-SPAM, businesses must have a “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of every email.

Centroid

A term used to describe a geographic or activity center in local search marketing. Google’s search results are tailored to show the nearby companies no matter where a user is physically situated when they conduct a local search. This is sometimes referred to as “user-as-centroid phenomenon” or “proximity to the site of search. Currently, the centroid is most frequently understood as a descriptor of human users in relation to geographically specific points.

Churn Rate

A number that shows how many customers you keep and how much they are worth to you. Churn rate is a very important metric, especially for companies with recurring revenue. Divide the number of customers you lost during a certain time period by the total number you had at the start of that time period. For example, if a company had 500 customers at the beginning of October and only 450 at the end of October, their customer churn rate would be 10%.

Citation

It’s a web-based reference to a company’s name, address, phone number, and other essential information that can be found online. You can either have structured citations such as business listings on local business data platforms, or can be of an unstructured nature, like simple mentions of a business on a blog, news site, website, or other online publication.

Citation Campaign

The practice of auditing, cleaning up, and building citations for a local business on a variety of local business data platforms.

Claim

Verifying your business information with a local search engine and taking ownership of your business listing on that search engine. Lessens the chance that spammers or competitors will take over. The search engine, platform, or app usually needs to be set up with a PIN.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

This important metric shows how many times your ad or CTA was seen and how many times it was clicked on. It takes the number of clicks and divides it by the number of impressions to get the percentage rate.

Closed-Loop Marketing

An important part of inbound marketing, it refers to the system of tracking, and showing how marketing efforts have affected business growth. When done right, it allows you to see how much of what you spend on marketing leads to new business.

Contact Form

People can use a form to get in touch with your company. They type in their name, email address, and a question or comment. With contact forms, you can get contact information from prospects and turn them into leads. You can also add a contact form to a marketing campaign to get leads that are relevant.

Content Management System (CMS)

A web app that makes it easy for people who aren’t tech-savvy to create, edit, and manage a website. Helps users edit content and do other “behind-the-scenes” tasks, such as making content searchable and indexable, creating navigation elements automatically, keeping track of users and their permissions, and more.

Conversion

In the context of local marketing, it involves transforming a prospect into a lead, a lead into a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL), or a SQL into a client. You define the specific touchpoint that conducts the conversion. This allows you track and assess success and Return on Investment (ROI). It’s an important KPI for businesses to track when running campaigns.

Conversion Path

Conversion paths are website-based events that capture leads. A conversion route consists of a call-to-action (usually a button that details an offer), a landing page with a lead capture form, and a thank you page with a content offer. A website visitor receives a content offer in return for their contact information.

Conversion Rate

The percentage of visitor who took action that you wanted them to do on a single web page, like filling out a form. It provides an indication on how well the pages are performing.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

The process of increasing the conversion rate of your website through the use of design strategies, essential optimization principles, and testing. It entails designing an experience for your website visitors that will turn them into buyers. CRO is most commonly used to web page or landing page optimization, but it may also be applied to social media, CTAs, and other aspects of your marketing.

Cookie

A cookie is a little text file that stores and collects specific information. A cookie is put with the user in digital marketing to collect information about their interaction with your site so that you can track and promote future interaction. Cookies are required for digital marketing campaigns and analytics.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

A metric used to determine the cost of acquiring leads through paid campaigns. They are usually charged by the network for each completed acquisition. In other words, it’s the cost of specific activity or series of actions that leads to conversion. It will almost always be a sale, a sign-up, an app download, or a form submission.

Cost-Per-Lead (CPL)

The cost of acquiring a lead for your marketing business. This has a significant impact on CAC (client acquisition cost) and is a statistic marketers should pay close attention to.

CTR (Click-Through Rate)

This metric can be used to gauge how well your keywords and ads, and free listings, are performing. It counts the total clicks, divides them by total impressions, and shows the percentage rate.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

A metric that determines how much a company spends to gain new consumers. CAC is a critical business metric that represents the overall cost of sales and marketing efforts required to persuade a client to purchase a product or service.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

A software solution that allows business owners to conveniently track all communications and cultivate connections with leads and clients. A CRM replaces the multiple spreadsheets, databases, and apps that many organizations use to track client data. As a result, there is more organization, efficiency, better time management, and satisfied clients.

Data Aggregator

Local data aggregators are websites and apps that publish information on local companies to numerous listing websites and apps at once. Although the spread of these aggregators is extraordinarily broad, not every listing or placement is assured because each platform functions more like a market, which relies on the availability of corporate information.

Direct Traffic

When someone writes or pastes your URL into Google Analytics to visit your site directly, hits a bookmark, or otherwise ends up on your website by visiting a link that Google Analytics cannot see, this is referred to as direct traffic.

Display Advertising

Display advertising targets specific users. You can generate traffic to your website by placing a display ad on a website. The display network can choose suitable sites for your ad (contextual advertising) This would boost brand awareness. Retargeting shows your ad to previous site visitors, which increases conversions and sales.

Do-Follow Link

Do-follow links are those that let Google and other search engines point back to your website or blog. So, every time you put a dofollow link on your site, it can point back to you. This strengthens your authority by showing search engines what other sites, blogs, and posts link to you.

Domain Authority

A number that estimates your website’s SERP ranking. The greatest score from 1 to 100 signifies ranking probability. Your linked data determines your score. Google and other search engines see sites with many backlinks as authorities. High-quality backlinks boost domain authority.

Duplicate Content

According to Google, it refers to ”substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.” To put it more simply, duplicate content occurs when the same or extremely similar content appears in multiple places on the internet.

Duplicate Listing

Having more than one listings for a single entity on a given platform is not well looked at by Google or other major search engines. Although some company models may be suitable for many entries for practitioners, departments, or other entities at a same location, Google specifically permits just one claimed listing per discrete entity. Violations of this policy, whether deliberate or unintentional, may result in penalties and concerns with ranking. Issues with duplicate listings must be resolved.

E - G

Email Marketing

A marketing strategy that uses emails to highlight a company or item. Engaging and assisting your prospects as they progress through the conversion funnel is your main objective. Campaigns for lead nurturing frequently involve sending segmented and tailored mail to several mailing lists. Your lists are based on the lead lifecycle and audience demographics. Lead behavior initiates the transmission sequence and content.

Engagement Rate

The metric displays how actively people are using your social networking pages, website, or app. Social media calculations are straightforward. The engagement rate is calculated by adding up the likes, shares, and comments and dividing the total by the number of followers you have. You must first specify the behaviors that constitute engagement before you can calculate your website’s engagement rate.

Evergreen Content

No matter when readers encounter it, evergreen content continues to be valuable to them. In other words, it can be referred to years after it was first published, and the reader will still find it useful. Local businesses should look into spending sometime in creating evergreen content since has tremendous SEO value.

Facebook Local Page

A Facebook page specifically created for one of your business locations is known as a “local page.” For physical establishments with various locations or service-based enterprises, the Facebook local page is essential. The local page strives to educate customers about the regions they cover.

Featured/Rich Snippet

Rich snippets are short pieces of data extracted from markup such as microdata that are displayed as a component of a search engine result. Rich snippets are also known as featured snippets. Text, star ratings, pricing ranges, and other aspects are some examples of data that can be included in rich snippets.

Geo Modifier

Also known as a geographic modifier, location modifier or location qualifier, this is the part of a search term which references a location. Examples of keywords with geographic modifiers would be “plumber London” or “plumber near me”, rather than just “plumber”.

Geotagging

The process of adding geographical identification data to various media such as a website, image, video, SMS messages, QR code or RSS feed. Geotagging helps search engines make the connection between your content and the location of what it depicts.

Google Business Verification

You will need to validate your Google Business profile before you can manage it. You can demonstrate that you are authorized to manage the business profile by validating your profile. Verification can be done via email, phone call, letter, or video.

Google Keyword Planner

Offered by Google, the Keyword Planner assists you in researching keywords and determining the best keywords to target in your search advertising. The tool is simple, but there are numerous other software alternatives for obtaining more keyword data and suggestions.

Google Local Service Ads (LSA)

Google’s progressive introduction of a paid lead generating program in which Google operates as a go-to tool for Internet consumers and service-oriented enterprises.

Google Maps

An online mapping service that provides traffic data in real time, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets, and street maps. Additionally, it provides route planning for those using public transportation, bicycles, cars, planes, and foot. It allows users to search for locations and businesses and browse their descriptions, ratings, and additional information from Google Business Profiles, which is crucial for local SEO.

Google Business Profile (GBP)

A free tool that allows local businesses to create profiles on Google to advertise company details like their products, services and their basic information such as address, phone number, email address, social network links, and more. You can also use it to provide updates, photos and posts relating to the business and monitor how people are interacting to them on Google, and make your profile visible in Search and Maps.

Google Business Profile Insights

A GBP tool that provides data on business profile views, searches and actions from both organic search results and Google Ads. It includes metrics on search queries, direction requests, phone calls, and what a business is best known for.

Google Business Profile Messaging

A GBP tool that allows customers to get in touch with a business in real-time, from the Business Profile.

Google Business Profile Messaging

A GBP tool that allows customers to get in touch with a business in real-time, from the Business Profile.

Google Business Profile Products

A GBP tool that enables companies without the option to use Google Merchant Center to link product feeds to manually add product inventory. Depending on the business category, you will have access to GBP Products.

Google Business Profile Q&A

A feature of Google Business Profile that allows customers to inquire about a local business and receive responses, as well as offers the owner or representative a chance to respond. Through this feature, anyone with a Google account can ask the company questions, and all questions and answers are displayed on the listing.

Google Business Profile Services

A Google Business Profile option for a business to add the services it offers, along with descriptions and prices. When local customers search on Google for a service that a business offers, that service may be highlighted in their GBP profile as a justification. This is really important for service oriented businesses as it gives Google the opportunity to understand their line of business and thereby improve its relevance.

Google Posts

A Google Business Profile tool which allows businesses to provide updates and promote offers from their Business Profiles, which show up in the local panel on Google search and on Google Maps.

Google Search Console

A tool that allow webmasters to check indexing status and optimize their websites’ visibility. It lets you to analyze, monitor, and optimize your Google search results, as well as troubleshoot problems.

Google Tag Manager (GTM)

A free tag management system that lets you manage and deploy marketing tags (bits of code or tracking pixels) on your website (or mobile app) without having to change the code.

Google Trends

A tool that lets people keep track of consumer trends and how popular certain keywords are. Can be a useful tool for local SEO campaigns that need to find more keywords.

H - L

Impressions

The CPM payment model is based on how many times an ad is seen. You can also keep track of how many people visit your website. When the URL of your webpage shows up on a search engine ranking page (SERP), it means that your website made an impression.

Inbound Link

A link from another site to yours is called a “inbound link.” Most of the time, the blog that receives the link is the one that generally refers to “inbound”. Websites that get a lot of links from other sites may do better in search engine rankings. They also help people get traffic from other websites that link to them.

Inbound Marketing

This all about getting customers’ attention, making the business easy to find online, and bringing customers to the website by making content interesting and useful. By making sure the content you publish is relevant to your customers’ interests, you’ll naturally draw in visitors who you can then convert, close, and please over time.

Justification

A local justification is an extra snippet of text that Google may provide next to a company listing in the local packs, local finders, or on Google Maps to let users know that a certain aspect of the listing precisely satisfies their query.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

Marketers use key performance indicators (KPIs) to track how close they are to reaching their marketing goals. KPIs include the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), the sources of blog traffic, and the number of times the homepage is viewed. Choose KPIs that show how your business and marketing are performing.

Keyword

Keywords are the phrases that search engines use to rank pages in their search results. Choosing the keywords you’ll use to optimize a page takes two steps. You’ll need to make sure the keywords get a lot of searches and aren’t too hard to rank for. After choosing the right keywords you want to rank for, you’ll need to use both on-page and off-page techniques to optimize the right pages on your website.

Keyword Research

This is the process of finding out what search terms people use to find your brand or products. Find out what words people type into a search engine to get a certain result, and then optimize your content for these keywords.

Knowledge Panel

When you search for people, places, organizations, or things on Google, the knowledge panels give a summary of the information that is available on the topic a searcher is interested in. They are meant to give people a quick overview of the information they are looking for.

Landing Page

A landing page is a page on a website that has a form that is used to get leads. Landing pages are the gatekeepers of the conversion path. They are the only thing that stands between a website visitor and a lead. Smart inbound marketer will make landing pages that appeal to different personae at different stages of the buying process. A big job, for sure, but one that pays off big time.

Lead/Lead Generation

Someone or some business that has shown interest in a product or service in some way. In exchange for a coupon, they may have filled out a form, signed up for a blog, or given their contact information.

Lead Nurturing

The process of sending a series of messages (emails, social media posts, etc.) to a lead over time to qualify it, keep it interested, and move it down the sales funnel. This is sometimes called “drip marketing.” Inbound marketing is all about giving valuable content to the right people. Lead nurturing helps this by giving leads information that is relevant to where they are in the buying process.

Lifecycle Stages

These are stages that show how you relate to your audience, and they can usually be broken down into three stages: becoming aware, evaluating, and buying. What’s important to know about each of these stages is that not every piece of content you make is appropriate, depending on which stage your audience is in at the time. That’s why dynamic content is so great: you can give each visitor content that’s right for where they are in their journey.

Lifetime Value (LTV)

Customer lifetime value is a way to measure sales in digital marketing. The goal is to figure out how much money you can expect to make from a customer in total. Customer LTV is one of the most important metrics for companies that are growing. Measure both your customer acquisition cost (CAC) and your revenue per customer, and then figure out how long it takes for you to get your money back from your investment in getting new customers.

Local Links

Local link building is the process of getting links from local websites that are relevant to your business. Local link building can help you improve your organic positions for terms that indicate a local search, or “local searches,” and reach a larger local audience.

Link Profile

This is also sometimes referred to as backlinks. Google looks at where the links come from, what the anchor text is, and how the links were made. A good link comes from a website with a lot of authority and was set up on its own. These links will help your site get a good link profile and move up in the rankings.

Link Building

The process of building a link profile for a website. Links are important because they give search engine crawlers a place to go. Internal links go between pages on your site, while external links go to pages on other sites. Backlinks are links from other sites to your site; you can’t control these but can influence how good they are.

Local 3-Pack

Google’s most popular way of showing local search results right now is a list of three businesses. Note that as Google makes more money from paid search, many 3-packs of results that used to be free are becoming partially paid packs of results. This can sometimes extend to 7-pack or even 10-pack.

Local Backlinks

A local website linking to your own which helps increase the authority of your domain in the eyes of search engines. Local business directories, periodicals, and blogs are just a few of the places local SEOs can find local backlinks.

Local Business Schema

A standardized format called schema (or structured data) that is used to provide details about a web page so that search engines may show relevant results. Local business schema contains opening times, department sections, reviews, reservation or ordering systems, payment areas, and other actions.

Local Finder

Local Landing Page

When a user first accesses your website, they visit a landing page. In the context of local SEO, it is one that provides information about a particular shop location or branch and may be optimized for that particular place. Local landing pages are crucial for websites of businesses with many locations because each location’s local landing page may differ.

Local Pack

A feature of Google that shows a map and information about the top three nearby local businesses. For instance, if a user searched “dentists near me,” three dentists would be shown that are close to where they were at the time. Businesses can use various strategies to rank in the local pack to receive a lot of local traffic and brand visibility.

Local Search Intent

Any query in which a search engine assumes the user is looking for a local result.

Local Search Ranking Factors

The components that contribute to the rankings of a local business. These can change over time but tend to focus on Google Business Profile, on-site SEO, reviews and links.

Local SEO

In the same way that SEO affects how visible a website is in a search engine’s organic results, local SEO does the same for local searches. Local SEO varies from other types of SEO as it concentrates on optimizing for display by search engines when people enter local searches for its products or services, such as by incorporating the name of a town or city or by adding the phrase “near me,”.

Location-Based Marketing

Location-based marketing is a way to reach out to people in a certain area. With location-based marketing, for example, a customer’s mobile device’s location is used to directly let them know about a product or service.

Long-Tail Keyword

A long-tail keyword is a search phrase with three or more words that is very specific. It usually has a head term, which is a more general search term, plus one or two other words that make the search more specific.

LTV:CAC

The ratio of lifetime value (LTV) to customer acquisition cost (CAC). Once you have the LTV and the CAC, compute the ratio of the two.

M - P

Meta Description

Meta descriptions are the first thing that shows up when a search result is displayed. They aren’t always visible, but if you hover over the description, it will show up.

Middle of the Funnel

This is the stage a lead moves into after they find a problem. Now, they want to do more research to figure out how to solve the problem. Case studies or product brochures are good examples of middle-of-the-funnel offers. Basically, anything that puts your business in the picture as a solution to the problem the lead is trying to solve is a good middle-of-the-funnel offer.

Mobile Marketing

This is the process of making marketing work best on mobile devices so that visitors can get personalized information that is time- and location-sensitive and helps promote goods, services, and ideas.

Mobile Optimization

Mobile optimization is the process of making sure that your website is easy to read and use on a mobile device. This can be done by making a separate mobile website or using responsive design in the layout of the first site. Google’s algorithm now favors sites that are easy to use on mobile devices. If your site isn’t fully optimized for mobile devices, your ranking on mobile searches is likely to drop.

Name Spam

Name spam refers specifically to any manipulation of the business name, such as keyword stuffing.

NAP

Local search engines evaluate the accuracy of the data in their own indexes using Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) information. To determine legitimacy, they either collect it from other data sources or use web crawling. Consistent NAP information is good for local customer acquisition as well as search engine rankings.

NAP Consistency

Refers to key local business information (NAP) is consistent all across the web. Customers won’t get lost or confused if a business’s contact information is the same everywhere on the web. Consistency also helps search engines put together a group of correct, reliable information about a local business.

Niche Marketing

Process of channeling all marketing efforts towards one well-defined segment of the population.

No-Follow Link

A no-follow link is used when a website doesn’t want to pass search engine authority to another website. It tells search engine crawlers not to follow linked websites or give them credit. All of the major search engines recognize the ‘no-follow’ attribute in some way.

On-Page Optimization

This type of SEO is based only on a page and the different parts of the HTML that make up the page. Making sure that the desired keyword is in important parts of the page (like the content, title tag, URL, and image tags) will help the page rank for that phrase.

Off-Page Optimization

This refers to incoming links and other outside factors that affect how a page is indexed in search results. Off-page optimization is made up of things like linking domains and even social media. The good news is that it’s powerful. The bad news is that an inbound marketer can’t do much about it. If you make content that is useful and interesting, people are likely to share it and link to it.

Online Reputation

Refers to the reputation of a business, person, product, service or any other element online. A company’s online reputation is affected by the content an organization distributes.

Outbound Link

Outbound links are links on your website that go to another website. They are often used to add more context to a piece of writing and link the reader to another source that has important information about the topic at hand. Some people call outbound links “authority links.” This is because writers often use outbound links to link to authoritative sources to back up the information in their articles.

Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing is basically all the traditional ways of marketing, like TV and radio ads, printed ads, flyers, cold calling or emailing, telemarketing, and any other way of marketing where the customer doesn’t ask for anything but still gets an offer.

Page View

A request for to load a single web page on the Internet. Marketers use them to look at their website and see if any changes make more or less people view it.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Advertisers pay a publisher (usually a search engine, social media site, or website owner) a certain amount of money every time someone clicks on their ad. For search engines, PPC ads show up when someone searches for a keyword that is on the advertiser’s list of keywords.

Productized Services

The process of offering a business’ services pre-packed and hyper-focused, at a set price, for the customer to purchase. You will sell your services just like other companies would sell their products.

Prominence

One of the three pillars of local search, alongside relevance and proximity. These pillars serve as the foundation for Google’s local algorithm, which controls the local pack and rankings. For prominence, the algorithm is asking, “Which businesses are the most popular and the most well regarded in their local market area?”

Proximity

One of the three pillars of local search, alongside relevance and prominence. These pillars serve as the foundation for Google’s local algorithm, which controls the local pack and rankings. For proximity, the algorithm is asking, “Is the business close enough to the searcher to be considered to be a good answer for this query?”

Q - S

Qualified Lead

A contact who agreed to hear from your business, learned about your product or service, and is interested in finding out more. Marketing and Sales often have two different kinds of qualified leads (MQLs for Marketing and SQLs for Sales), so be sure to talk to your sales team about the kinds of leads you plan to give them so they know what to expect.

Reach/Reachability

Refers to how many people you can reach with your advertising. Reachability is the number of people you might be able to reach. This includes people who get your emails, follow you on social media, and buy from you directly.

Relevance

One of the three pillars of local search, alongside proximity and prominence. These pillars serve as the foundation for Google’s local algorithm, which controls the local pack and rankings. For relevance, what the algorithm is asking is, “Does this business do or sell or have the attributes that the searcher is looking for?”

Reputation Management

The process of how businesses handle or change what people think about it when they see it online. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your business does when it comes to managing your small business’s reputation. It’s ultimately about how people feel about your business.

Responsive Design

This is the process of making a website that changes depending on how it is being viewed. Instead of making a separate website for each device it could be viewed on, the site recognizes the device your visitor is using and automatically generates a page that is responsive to the device the content is being viewed on. This makes websites always look like they are optimized for screens of any size.

Review Gating

The process of asking a consumer for feedback and, based on their response, determining whether to ask them to leave a Google review. This directly violates Google’s review policies and may result in severe fines.

Review Management

The practice of generating, and responding to, customer reviews, either manually or with the help of software.

Review Spam

A fake customer review about a particular business which can include fictitious positive or negative statements made about a business for the purpose of helping or harming its reputation or rankings.

Reviews

A customer’s summary of their experience at a particular business. Reviews can be left on search engines, apps or websites, and are often simultaneously assigned star ratings. Google-based reviews are believed to impact Google’s local rankings.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the process of making a website show up higher in search results. An inbound marketer can change where a page shows up in search engine results. Search engines look for things like title tags, keywords, image tags, and structure of internal links, just to name a few.

Search Intent

Also called user intent, is the reason why a user does a certain search on the web. Google tries to figure out why someone is searching for something before showing search results to make sure they are the most relevant. Informational, transactional, commercial, and navigational are the main types of keyword search intent.

Service Area Business

A term frequently used to describe go-to-client businesses that travel to customers’ locations to render services, like plumbers, cleaners, or gardeners.

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Contract that lists the things that one party has agreed to give to another. This agreement can be between a business and its customers, or it can be between two departments in the same business, one of which provides a regular service to the other.

Structured Citation

Business listing information built into the structure of a pre-existing digital platform or database, usually a business directory.

T - Z

Third-Party Reviews

User reviews that are collected by third-party websites, such as Google, Facebook and Tripadvisor, which are independent of the business.

Top of the Funnel

The very first step in the buying process is called “top of the funnel” or “TOFU.” At this point, leads have just realized they have a problem and are looking for more information. So, an inbound marketer will want to make content that helps leads figure out what the problem is and what the next steps are to solve it.

Unclaimed Listings

Where a listing for your business already exists on a business directory, but you do not have control over it.

Unique Visitor

In marketing analytics, a “unique visitor” is a person who has been to the website at least once and is counted only once during the time period of the report. So if a user goes to the website more than once, they are only counted as one visitor.

UTM Tracking

UTM code is code that is added to URLs so that different actions can be tracked. UTM codes are often used in local SEO to keep track of metrics about Google Business Profile listings.

Value Proposition

You promise that buying your product or service will give the buyer a clear value. That is a statement of value. A value proposition tells a potential customer what they’ll get out of buying your product and gives them a reason to do so at the same time. It’s more than a marketing slogan because it explains what the solution is and how it helps the user. Your product’s value proposition should be unique so that customers will think of your product when they hear it.

Word-Of-Mouth (WOM)

The process of getting information from one person to another. Technically, the term means talking to someone face-to-face, but today it also means talking to someone online. WOM marketing doesn’t cost much, but it does take work and makes use of many inbound marketing techniques, such as product marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing.

XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a list of all the important URLs in your website’s structure. It’s like a “floor plan” for the site, which is especially helpful when the site changes. It also helps web crawlers from search engines figure out how the site is set up.

Local Marketing Glossary​

Glossary Index

#

301 Redirect

Further reading

404 Error

Further reading

A - B

A/B Testing

Further reading

Above The Fold

Further reading

Ad Group

Further reading

Alt Text

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Analytics

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Anchor Text

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Apple Maps

Further reading

Authority

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Average Star Rating

Further reading

B2B Marketing (Business-To-Business)

Further reading

B2C Marketing (Business-To-Consumer)

Further reading

Behavioral Marketing

Further reading

Bing Places

Further reading

Blogging

Further reading

Bottom of the Funnel

Further reading

Breadcrumbs

Further reading

Brick-And-Mortar Marketing

Further reading

Business Category

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Buyer Persona

Further reading

Business Listing

Further reading

C - D

Call Tracking Number

Further reading

Call-To-Action

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CAN-SPAM

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Centroid

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Churn Rate

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Citation

Further reading

Citation Campaign

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Claim

Further reading

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

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Closed-Loop Marketing

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Contact Form

Further reading

Content Management System (CMS)

Further reading

Conversion

Further reading

Conversion Path

Further reading

Conversion Rate

Further reading

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Local Marketing Glossary