A working reference for the marketing concepts that come up in client conversations. Definitions written for business owners and operators, not for SEO students.
Glossaries
- SEO Glossary: 40+ terms covering technical, content, local, and AI search.
- Marketing Acronyms Glossary: CPC, CPA, CAC, LTV, ROAS, ROI, CRO, CTR, CWV, GA4, GBP, GSC, GTM, OTA, RSA, PMax, and the rest.
Local SEO
- Local SEO Ranking Factors 2026
- What Is Local SEO? A 2026 Field Guide for Service Businesses
- Google Business Profile Optimization Checklist
- Google Business Profile Categories Explained
- NAP Consistency for Local SEO
- Local Citations Explained
- How to Get More Google Reviews
- Local Link Building Strategies
SEO foundations
- What Is Technical SEO
- On-Page SEO Checklist 2026
- How to Do an SEO Audit
- How to Do Keyword Research
- Internal Linking Strategy for SEO
- What Is a Backlink and How to Earn Them
- Schema Markup Explained
- Core Web Vitals Explained: LCP, INP, CLS
- Mobile SEO Best Practices 2026
- What Is E-E-A-T in SEO (2026)?
- How Long Does SEO Take to Work? An Honest Timeline
AI search + the future of SEO
Industry-specific SEO playbooks
- SEO for Contractors and Home Services
- SEO for Healthcare Practices
- SEO for Restaurants and Hospitality
- SEO for Real Estate Professionals
Content marketing
Paid media + analytics
- Google Ads Quality Score Explained
- Negative Keywords in Google Ads Explained
- How to Audit a Google Ads Account: The 12-Question Framework
- What Is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?
Web design
Buying marketing services
Free tools
- ROAS Calculator — actual ROAS, break-even ROAS, target CPA, gross-margin profit/loss.
- CAC + LTV Calculator — customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, LTV:CAC ratio, payback period.
- Marketing Cost Calculator — cost per lead per channel, blended CAC, channel mix across Google Ads, Meta, SEO, email, referrals.
- GBP Optimization Scorecard — 25-item Google Business Profile scorecard with weighted scoring and gap recommendations.
Concepts worth knowing the difference between
- CPA vs CAC. Cost-per-acquisition is the cost of one conversion. Customer acquisition cost includes the full sales cycle: marketing + sales overhead. The two can differ by 3x or more depending on the sales cycle.
- Reported CPA vs real CPA. Reported CPA is what your ad platform tells you. Real CPA is what you actually paid per qualified lead after filtering voicemail spam, bot clicks, duplicate conversions, and unqualified form fills.
- ROAS vs break-even ROAS. ROAS is revenue divided by ad spend. Break-even ROAS is the minimum return your campaigns need to be profitable on a gross-margin basis (1 ÷ gross margin). The ROAS calculator shows both.
- SEO vs GEO vs AEO. SEO is optimizing for traditional Google blue-link rankings. GEO is optimizing for AI engine citations. AEO emphasizes the question-and-answer format that gets surfaced in featured snippets and voice search.
- Local SEO vs national SEO. Local SEO targets queries with geographic intent (winning the map pack on “[service] [city]” queries). National SEO targets queries that can be served anywhere.
- LTV revenue vs LTV gross profit. Lifetime value calculated on revenue is much larger than lifetime value calculated on gross profit. The unit-economics relevant number is gross-profit LTV; revenue LTV is a vanity number.