The jargon, decoded.
Every trade has its shorthand. Here’s the plain-English version of the words that come up when you’re building a website — so nothing in a proposal ever catches you out.
Building the site
- Static site
- Pages built once, ahead of time, and served as plain files. There’s no database to query on every visit, so they load fast and there’s very little to hack or break.
- Astro
- The modern framework we build with. It ships almost no JavaScript by default, which keeps sites quick and light — the opposite of a bloated page-builder.
- CMS (Content Management System)
- The dashboard you log into to edit your own content — news, team, copy — without touching code or waiting on us.
- Headless CMS
- A CMS that handles only the content and hands it to the site separately. You get an easy editor; the site keeps its custom design and speed.
- Responsive design
- One site that reshapes itself to fit any screen, from a phone to a desktop monitor — not a cramped desktop layout squeezed onto mobile.
- Core Web Vitals
- Google’s measures of how fast, stable, and responsive a page feels to a real visitor. Pass them and you’re rewarded; fail and you’re quietly held back.
- Accessibility
- Designing so everyone can use the site, including people on screen readers or keyboards. It’s the right thing to do, and Google treats it as a quality signal.
- SSL / HTTPS
- The padlock in the address bar. It encrypts the connection between visitor and site — non-negotiable now, as browsers flag sites without it as “not secure”.
Getting found — SEO & GEO
- SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
- The craft of helping the right people find you on Google — through fast, well-structured, genuinely useful pages, not tricks.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)
- The newer cousin of SEO: making sure AI assistants like ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers cite you when someone asks. Built on clean structure and clear, factual content.
- Meta description
- The short summary under your title in search results. It doesn’t directly rank you, but a good one earns the click.
- Structured data (schema)
- Hidden labels in the code that tell search engines and AI exactly what a page is — a business, a review, a definition — so they can present it richly.
- Sitemap
- A machine-readable list of every page on your site, handed to search engines so nothing gets missed.
- Alt text
- A written description of an image, read aloud to people who can’t see it and understood by search engines. Good for accessibility and image search alike.
- Backlink
- A link to your site from someone else’s. Google treats it like a vote of confidence — a few from respected sources beat hundreds of junk ones.
- Local SEO
- Everything that helps you show up for “near me” searches and the map results — your Google Business Profile, reviews, and consistent address details especially.
Words & conversion
- Copywriting
- Writing the words on the site so they’re clear, persuasive, and sound like you — the difference between a page that’s read and one that’s skimmed and abandoned.
- Tone of voice
- The consistent personality in how a brand writes. Warm or formal, playful or plain — it should feel like the same person across every page.
- Call to action (CTA)
- The bit that tells a visitor what to do next — “Get a quote”, “Start a project”. A page without a clear one leaves people stranded.
- Conversion
- When a visitor does the thing you wanted — enquires, buys, signs up. The real measure of a site, beyond just traffic.
Hosting & care
- Domain
- Your address on the web — like marketgenie.uk. You rent it yearly; it’s yours as long as you keep it renewed.
- Hosting
- The service that keeps your site online and reachable. We use Cloudflare’s global network, so pages load quickly wherever your visitors are.
- Care plan
- An ongoing arrangement where we keep the site updated, secure, and improving — an active partner, not a host who only appears when something breaks.
- Analytics
- Tools that show how people actually use your site — where they come from, what they read, where they drop off — so decisions rest on evidence, not guesses.
Something here still unclear? Just ask — plain answers, no sales pitch.