Every term we use, explained the way we explain it to neighbors — no jargon, no fluff. Taught on video by Ferris the fox and The Professor, written down here for reference. Link to it, share it, steal it for your team meeting.
This glossary grows with every episode of Ferris & The Professor, our video series where a fast-talking fox and a patient bull explain one marketing term at a time. Educators, business groups, and newsletters are welcome to link to or cite any definition with attribution to Chicago Tech Solutions.
The practice of making a business easy for AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to recommend: clear facts on your website, structured data, real reviews, and answer-style content the AI can quote.
Writing and structuring content so that answer engines – Google AI Overviews, featured snippets, and voice assistants – can lift your answer directly. One question, one clear answer, marked up with schema.
The discipline of earning visibility in organic search results through relevant content, technical health, and authority signals like links and reviews.
The block of three business listings Google shows on the map for local searches. Position is driven by proximity, review signals, profile completeness, and local relevance of your website.
The free Google listing that powers your appearance on Maps and the Map Pack. Weekly photos, posts, accurate hours, and review replies keep it ranking.
Invisible code – usually JSON-LD – that tells search engines and AI exactly what a page is about: a business, a service, a menu, an FAQ. The name tag robots read.
Name, Address, Phone. Keeping them identical across your website, Google, Yelp, and every directory. Inconsistent NAP erodes local ranking trust.
A link from another website to yours. Search engines treat quality backlinks as votes of confidence; a few real local links beat hundreds of spammy ones.
Any online mention of your business name, address, and phone – even without a link. Directories, maps services, and chamber listings all count toward local credibility.
The reason behind a search. Buying intent (plumber near me) needs a service page; learning intent (how to fix a faucet) needs a helpful guide. Pages win when they match intent.
A page built for one audience and one action – for example, roof repair in Orland Park with photos, local reviews, and a single call-to-action.
The percentage of visitors who take the action you want – call, book, order. Doubling conversion beats doubling traffic, and it is usually cheaper.
Google metrics for page experience: loading speed, interactivity, and layout stability. Slow, janky pages lose both rankings and customers.
A broad change to how Google ranks results, shipped several times a year. Sites built on helpful content and real signals barely move; sites built on tricks swing wildly.
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness – the qualities Google evaluates, especially for health, finance, and safety topics. Demonstrated through credentials, reviews, and first-hand detail.
The AI-written answer Google places above traditional results. It cites sources – being quotable, structured, and factual is how you become one of them.
The steady rate at which a business earns new authentic reviews. A consistent trickle every week outperforms a burst followed by silence – and fake reviews get removed.
The share of people who see your listing and click it. Better titles and meta descriptions raise CTR, and higher CTR reinforces rankings.
Links between pages on your own site. They guide visitors and pass authority – a hub page linking to its town pages, and blog posts linking to services.
Showing ads only to people who already visited your site. Done politely – frequency caps, fresh creative – it reminds rather than stalks.
Paid ads on search or social where you pay per click. Works best when landing pages convert and organic channels are already healthy.
A plain-text file at your site root that summarizes your business and key pages for large language models – a sitemap written for AI.
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Want a term added? Email marketing@chicagotechsolution.com — we add what Chicago business owners actually ask.