Website terms, explained for business owners
These are the words a web designer, a hosting company or Google's own tools might use with you. Each term is explained in a sentence or two for business owners, with a link if you want the longer version.
- 301 redirect
- A permanent forward from an old address to a new one. When a site is rebuilt, redirects keep old Google results, bookmarks and links from other sites working. See fix or rebuild your website.
- 404 page
- What a visitor sees when the address they opened does not exist, for example after a page was deleted or renamed. A good one points people to the pages they were most likely looking for instead of a dead end.
- Accessibility
- Building a site so people with disabilities can use it too: readable contrast, text descriptions for images, buttons that work with a keyboard or a screen reader. More in website accessibility for a small business.
- Alt text
- A short written description of an image. Screen readers read it aloud, and Google uses it to understand what the photo shows, so "water heater replaced in a basement in Elgin" beats "IMG_2041".
- Backlink
- A link to your website from another website. Links from real, related sites, such as your suppliers, a trade association or the local news, help Google trust that your business is real and relevant.
- Call to action
- The one thing you want a visitor to do next, such as "Call now" or "Get a quote", and the button that does it. One clear call to action on each screen works better than five competing ones.
- Citation
- Any listing of your business name, address and phone number on another site: Yelp, Bing Places, Apple Maps, the chamber of commerce. Matching citations help Google trust your details. See keeping your name, address and phone the same everywhere.
- CMS
- Content management system: the software that lets you change text, prices and photos without touching code. WordPress is the best known one; Wix and Squarespace have their own built in.
- Conversion
- A visitor doing what you hoped: calling, sending the quote form or booking a time. Your conversion rate is the share of visitors who do it, and it usually matters more than raw traffic.
- Core Web Vitals
- Google's three measures of how a page feels to use: how fast the main content shows up (LCP), how quickly the page reacts to a tap (INP) and how much the layout jumps while loading (CLS). Our free website checker runs Google's own test for you.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
- How much the page jumps around while it loads, for example when a photo pushes the text down just as someone goes to tap a button. Google counts a score of 0.1 or less as good.
- DNS
- The settings that tell the internet where your domain points: which server shows the website and which one receives your email. Moving a site to a new host usually means changing a few DNS records.
- Domain name
- Your address on the web, like yourbusiness.com. You rent it by the year from a registrar, and whoever's name is on the registration controls it, so it should be yours. See who should own your domain.
- Favicon
- The small icon in the browser tab and in phone bookmarks. A missing one makes a site look unfinished.
- Google Business Profile
- Your free listing on Google Maps and in the map results, with your hours, photos and reviews. It and your website do different jobs: Google Business Profile vs. website.
- Hosting
- The computer that stores your website and sends it to every visitor. Good hosting is fast, backed up and kept up to date. See website hosting, explained.
- HTTPS and SSL
- The padlock in the address bar. It encrypts what visitors send to your site, such as a quote form, and browsers mark sites without it as "not secure". Most hosts include the certificate at no extra cost.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
- How quickly the page responds when someone taps or clicks. Google counts 200 milliseconds or less as good.
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
- When the biggest thing on the first screen shows up. PageSpeed Insights measures it on a simulated mid-range phone over a slow connection, so real visits on Wi-Fi are often faster. Google's target is 2.5 seconds or less. See how fast your website should load on a phone.
- Local pack
- The block of businesses with a map that Google shows for searches like "plumber near me". Your Google Business Profile decides whether you appear there. See showing up in near me searches.
- Local SEO
- Search engine optimization for searches with a place in them, said or implied: "roofer in Huntley", "HVAC near me". It covers your Google Business Profile, your website and your listings elsewhere. Start with a local SEO checklist for one afternoon.
- Meta description
- The short summary under the page title in Google's results. Google may write its own from your page if the description is missing or does not match the search.
- NAP
- Name, address, phone. SEO shorthand for the three details that should read exactly the same on your website, your Google profile and every other listing.
- PageSpeed Insights
- Google's free speed test for any web page, with separate results for phones and computers. Scores of 90 and up count as good.
- Quote form
- A form that collects what you need to price a job: what, where, when, and often a photo. It lets people reach you after hours or when they cannot talk. See a contact form that gets replies.
- Responsive design
- A layout that rearranges itself to fit any screen, from a small phone to a wide monitor, instead of shrinking a desktop page down.
- Schema markup
- Code in the page that tells Google facts in a form it reads directly: your business type, address, phone and hours. Also called structured data. Our LocalBusiness schema generator writes it for you, and the guide to schema markup explains what it can and cannot do.
- SEO
- Search engine optimization: making it easy for Google to understand your pages and show them for the searches your customers actually type.
- Service area business
- A business that goes to its customers, such as a plumber or a roofer, instead of having customers come to a storefront. Google lets you hide your street address and list the towns you serve: service area businesses on Google Maps.
- Sitemap
- A file that lists every page of a website so search engines can find them all. It is usually at yourbusiness.com/sitemap.xml and is submitted to Google through Search Console.
- Tap-to-call link
- A phone number on the website that starts a call when someone taps it on a phone. For most service businesses it is the most important button on the site. See the tap-to-call button.
- Title tag
- The page's name as it appears in the browser tab and as the blue headline in Google's results. Each page should have its own, starting with what the page is about.
- Viewport tag
- One line of code that tells a phone to show the page at its real size. Without it, phones show the desktop page shrunk down, and people have to pinch and zoom. It was missing on 19 of the business sites in our check of 119 websites around Elgin.
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