Glossary
Plain definitions of the terms we work with — AI agents, retrieval-augmented generation, technical SEO, answer engine optimisation and the rest. Each one states what the thing is, how it actually works, and where it gets oversold.
Terms by category
Written to be accurate rather than promotional. Every entry ends with a stated limitation, because a definition that only lists benefits is an advertisement.
AI & Automation
AI Agent
An AI agent is a software system that uses a language model to decide which actions to take to reach a goal, then takes them using tools such as APIs, databases or messaging platforms. Unlike a chatbot, which only replies, an agent can look things up, change records and complete multi-step tasks.
Read the definition →WhatsApp Business API
The WhatsApp Business API is Meta's programmatic interface for sending and receiving WhatsApp messages at scale. It lets businesses connect WhatsApp to their own systems — a CRM, a store, an AI agent — and is distinct from the free WhatsApp Business app, which is manual and single-device.
Read the definition →Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
Retrieval-augmented generation is a technique where a language model retrieves relevant documents from your own data before answering, then writes its response using that retrieved material. It grounds answers in verifiable sources instead of the model's training data, which is how AI systems answer accurately about private or recent information.
Read the definition →Workflow Automation
Workflow automation is the use of software to run a business process end to end without manual handoffs — routing information, applying rules and triggering actions across systems. It replaces the manual copying, chasing and status-checking that sits between the steps of a process rather than the steps themselves.
Read the definition →Search & Growth
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the practice of making a website easy for search engines to crawl, render, index and understand. It covers site architecture, page speed, mobile rendering, structured data, canonical tags, sitemaps and indexation control — the mechanics that determine whether good content can rank at all.
Read the definition →Programmatic SEO
Programmatic SEO is the practice of generating many search-targeted pages from a structured dataset, each covering one variation of a repeatable query pattern — a service in a city, a product for a use case, a comparison between two tools. One template, many pages, each genuinely useful for its own query.
Read the definition →Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Answer engine optimization is the practice of structuring content so search and AI systems can extract a direct answer from it. It targets featured snippets, voice results and AI Overviews by pairing an explicit question with a short, self-contained answer that makes sense when lifted out of the page.
Read the definition →Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Generative engine optimization is the practice of making a brand more likely to be surfaced and cited by AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI Overviews. It focuses on being present, quotable and corroborated across the sources those systems retrieve from, rather than on ranking in a list.
Read the definition →LLM Optimization (LLMO)
LLM optimization is the practice of structuring a website's content and metadata so language models can accurately understand, summarise and represent it. It covers machine-readable facts, consistent entity data, extractable writing, and files such as llms.txt that give models a curated summary of a site.
Read the definition →Entity SEO
Entity SEO is the practice of establishing a brand, person or product as a distinct, recognised entity in a search engine's knowledge graph. It relies on consistent naming, structured data with stable identifiers, and corroborating references across the web so an engine resolves every mention to one thing.
Read the definition →Schema Markup
Schema markup is structured data added to a web page, usually as JSON-LD, that describes the page's content in a vocabulary search engines understand. It states explicitly what a page is about — an organisation, a service, a FAQ, a product — instead of leaving engines to infer it from the text.
Read the definition →Search Experience Optimization (SXO)
Search experience optimization combines SEO with user experience and conversion design. It optimises the whole path — from how a result appears in the SERP, through page speed and clarity on arrival, to whether the visitor completes what they came for — rather than treating the ranking as the finish line.
Read the definition →Voice Search Optimization
Voice search optimization is the practice of structuring content to be selected and read aloud by voice assistants. Because a voice result returns one answer rather than a list, it targets conversational long-tail phrasing, concise spoken-length answers, local relevance, and structured data marking which passages are speakable.
Read the definition →Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Conversion rate optimization is the practice of increasing the share of visitors who complete a desired action — an enquiry, a signup, a purchase. It works through research into why visitors do not convert, followed by tested changes, rather than through applying generic best practices.
Read the definition →Product & Engineering
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are three Google metrics measuring real-user page experience: Largest Contentful Paint for loading, Interaction to Next Paint for responsiveness, and Cumulative Layout Shift for visual stability. They are ranking signals and, more importantly, direct predictors of whether visitors stay.
Read the definition →Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
A minimum viable product is the smallest version of a product that delivers real value to real users and produces evidence about whether the idea works. It is a learning instrument, not a cut-down version one — the point is answering the riskiest assumption with the least build.
Read the definition →Design System
A design system is a shared set of components, tokens, patterns and rules that a product's interfaces are built from. It covers both the design files and the coded components, so a decision made once — a colour, a spacing scale, a button behaviour — applies everywhere without being re-decided.
Read the definition →Comparisons
Where a definition is not the question and the real one is which of two options to pick.
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