The terms, in plain English.
42 definitions, each one sentence first and then the part that matters for a business, with a link to where the thing is actually done on this site.
GEO (generative engine optimisation)
GEO is the practice of making a business and its content visible, understood and cited inside AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews.
Answer engine
An answer engine is a search system that replies with a written answer drawn from sources, rather than a ranked list of links.
AI crawler
An AI crawler is a bot that reads websites on behalf of an AI system, either to train it or to fetch pages when it answers a question.
robots.txt
robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of a website that tells crawlers which parts of the site they may and may not read.
XML sitemap
An XML sitemap is a machine readable list of a site's pages, with the date each last changed, that search engines use to discover and prioritise crawling.
Crawlability
Crawlability is whether a search engine or AI crawler can reach and read a page at all.
Indexation
Indexation is a search engine adding a page to its index, the database it answers queries from, after crawling it.
Canonical tag
A canonical tag is a line in a page's HTML that names the one URL a search engine should treat as the official version of that content.
Structured data (schema markup)
Structured data is machine readable information embedded in a page, usually as JSON-LD using schema.org vocabulary, that states plainly what the page is about.
Rich results
Rich results are search listings enhanced with extra elements such as star ratings, prices, FAQs or images, drawn from a page's structured data.
Entity (in search)
An entity is a thing a search engine knows about as a distinct object, such as a company, a person or a place, rather than as a string of words.
NAP (name, address, phone)
NAP is a business's name, address and phone number, which must be identical everywhere they appear for local search to trust them.
Local SEO
Local SEO is the work of appearing in search results for people near you, or searching for a place, including the map results.
Programmatic SEO
Programmatic SEO is generating many pages from one template and a dataset, so that each page targets a specific search with its own data.
Thin content
Thin content is a page with little or no substance of its own, which search engines decline to index or rank.
Internal linking
Internal linking is the set of links between pages on the same site, which carries both visitors and ranking signals from page to page.
Topic cluster
A topic cluster is a pillar page on a broad subject linked to a set of posts on its sub topics, each linking back, so the group ranks as a whole.
Pillar page
A pillar page is the single comprehensive page on a subject that a topic cluster's posts all link to.
Redirect (301 and 308)
A redirect is a server response that sends a visitor and a search engine from one URL to another, permanently (301 or 308) or temporarily (302 or 307).
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are Google's three measures of a page's real world experience: loading (LCP), interactivity (INP) and visual stability (CLS).
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
LCP is the time from starting to load a page until its largest visible element, usually a hero image or headline, has rendered.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)
CLS measures how much a page's content moves around while it loads, which is what makes a button jump just as you tap it.
TTFB (Time to First Byte)
TTFB is the time between requesting a page and receiving the first byte of the response, which is the server's share of the wait.
Static site (SSG)
A static site is one whose pages are generated in advance as finished HTML files and served from a cache, rather than assembled by a server on each request.
Headless CMS
A headless CMS stores and edits content separately from the website that displays it, delivering the content through an API.
WordPress
WordPress is the most widely used website platform, an open source content management system that runs a large share of the web.
PWA (Progressive Web App)
A PWA is a website built to behave like an app: installable on a phone's home screen, working offline, and able to send notifications, without an app store.
Mobile first
Mobile first is designing and building for the phone screen before the desktop, because that is where most visitors are.
API (application programming interface)
An API is the defined way one piece of software lets another send it requests and receive data, which is how systems talk to each other.
Webhook
A webhook is a message one system sends to another the moment something happens, instead of waiting to be asked.
Systems integration
Systems integration is connecting separate software systems so data moves between them automatically and consistently.
Website maintenance
Website maintenance is the ongoing work of keeping a site secure, updated, backed up, fast and online after it launches.
Workflow automation
Workflow automation is software carrying out a repeatable business process, such as routing an enquiry or issuing an invoice, without a person doing each step.
AI agent
An AI agent is a system in which a language model decides which tools to use and in what order to reach a goal, rather than following a fixed script.
LLM (large language model)
An LLM is a model trained on very large amounts of text that can read, write, summarise, classify and reason over language, the technology behind ChatGPT and Claude.
RAG (retrieval augmented generation)
RAG is the technique of fetching relevant documents from your own data and giving them to a language model alongside the question, so its answer is grounded in your facts.
Human in the loop
Human in the loop is designing an automated or AI system so that a person reviews or approves certain outputs before they take effect.
Prompt injection
Prompt injection is an attack in which text fed to a language model, such as a web page or an email, contains instructions the model then follows as if they came from its operator.
Payment gateway
A payment gateway is the service that takes a payment on a website, handles the card or Mobile Money transaction, and settles the money to the business.
Mobile Money (MoMo)
Mobile Money is payment from a balance held against a phone number, which in Ghana means MTN MoMo and Telecel Cash, and is the most common way people pay online.
Ecommerce website
An ecommerce website is one that sells directly: a catalogue, a cart, a checkout that takes payment, and the order handling behind it.
Product schema
Product schema is structured data on a product page stating the name, price, currency, availability and rating, so search engines can show the product as a rich result.