Contractor marketing terms, explained simply.
Every acronym and bit of jargon a contractor needs to understand their marketing, in plain English. No fluff, no upsell.
SEO terms
Backlink
A link from another website to yours. Backlinks remain one of Google's strongest ranking signals; quality local and industry links help you outrank competitors and even national franchises.
Citation (NAP)
A mention of your business Name, Address, and Phone number across directories like Yelp, Angi, and the BBB. Consistent NAP data is a foundational local SEO signal.
Crawl Budget
How many pages Google is willing to crawl on your site in a given period. New, low-authority domains get little crawl budget, which is why backlinks and unique content matter for getting pages indexed.
Google Business Profile (GBP)
Your free business listing that powers Google Maps and the local results, managed in Google Business Profile. For home services it is often worth more than your website. Optimizing it is step one, we keep a full GBP optimization checklist.
Google Map Pack
The block of three local business results with a map that appears at the top of local searches. It captures roughly 44 percent of clicks for local queries, which is why dominating the Map Pack is a core goal of contractor SEO.
Indexing
When Google stores your page so it can appear in search results. A page can be discovered but not indexed if Google deems it thin or low priority, fixed with unique content and authority.
Keyword Intent
The goal behind a search. Buyer-intent queries like 'roof replacement cost' lead to jobs; research queries do not. We target the searches that end in a phone call.
Local SEO
SEO focused on ranking in a specific service area rather than nationally. It relies heavily on your Google Business Profile, local citations, reviews, and city-level content. It is the single highest-ROI channel for most contractors and the reason we recommend starting with SEO before ads.
Long-Tail Keyword
A longer, more specific search phrase (e.g. 'foundation crack repair in Austin') with lower volume but higher intent and far less competition, ideal for local contractors.
Organic Traffic
Visitors who arrive from unpaid search results. Unlike paid traffic it keeps coming after the work is done, which is what makes SEO a compounding, owned asset.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
The practice of earning higher rankings in Google's unpaid search results so customers find you without you paying per click. Google spells out what it rewards in its Search Essentials. For contractors it is almost entirely local. See our full breakdown of SEO for contractors.
Paid Ads terms
Google Guaranteed
A green checkmark badge Google awards to vetted Local Service Ads advertisers. It signals trust and lifts call volume, and it is a key reason LSA performs well for trades like roofing and foundation repair.
Local Service Ads (LSA)
Google's pay-per-lead ad product for verified local businesses, shown above regular search ads with a Google Guaranteed badge. You pay per lead, not per click. We manage LSA alongside search inside our Google Ads service.
Lookalike Audience
A Meta or Google audience built to resemble your existing best customers, used to find new prospects who behave like the people who already hire you.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
Advertising where you pay each time someone clicks your ad, most commonly Google Ads. It delivers leads immediately but stops the moment you stop paying, unlike SEO. We compare the two in SEO vs Google Ads for contractors.
Quality Score
Google's 1-to-10 rating of your keyword, ad, and landing-page relevance. Higher Quality Scores lower your CPCs and improve ad position.
Retargeting (Remarketing)
Showing ads to people who already visited your site or engaged with your content. Since most visitors do not convert on the first visit, retargeting is central to how Meta Ads close warm leads.
Metrics terms
Bounce Rate
The percentage of visitors who leave after viewing one page without interacting. High bounce on service pages usually points to slow load, weak messaging, or poor mobile experience.
Call Tracking
Using unique phone numbers per campaign to attribute calls to the exact ad or keyword that produced them. Since most contractor leads are calls, call tracking is essential to optimizing spend.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The percentage of people who click after seeing your ad or search listing. Higher CTR usually means better targeting, stronger copy, and lower costs.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of visitors who take the action you want, a call or form submission. A strong contractor landing page converts 3 to 5 percent or more, which is why a converting website matters as much as traffic.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
What it costs in marketing to win one actual customer (a booked job), not just a lead. This is the number that determines whether a channel is profitable.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
The average amount you pay for one ad click. Home services has some of the highest CPCs on Google. CPC alone is a vanity number, what matters is cost per lead and cost per booked job.
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Total ad spend divided by the number of leads generated. A far more useful number than CPC. You can estimate your own economics with our ROI calculator.
Lead-to-Job Close Rate
The percentage of leads your sales process turns into booked jobs. Marketing fills the pipeline; your follow-up speed and close rate decide the revenue. Model it in the ROI calculator.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
Revenue generated divided by ad spend, often shown as a multiple like 4x. A healthy contractor Google Ads account targets at least 3x to 4x once it is dialed in.
Web terms
Canonical URL
A tag that tells search engines which version of a page is the primary one, preventing duplicate-content confusion. Every page on a well-built site sets its canonical correctly.
Core Web Vitals
Google's set of page-experience metrics (loading, interactivity, visual stability) that are official ranking factors, with thresholds documented on web.dev. Slow sites rank worse and convert worse, so we build on a fast, modern stack.
Landing Page
A focused page built for a single offer and a single action, used especially for ad traffic. Sending Google Ads to your homepage instead of a dedicated landing page is one of the most common and costly mistakes.
Schema Markup
Code built on the open schema.org vocabulary that helps search engines understand your pages and can unlock rich results like FAQs and star ratings, which Google reads as structured data. Every page we build ships with the right schema.
General terms
Exclusive Territory
Our core model: one client per state per industry. When you claim a territory we never work with a competing company in it, so every ranking, lead, and review compounds for you alone. We explain the logic in exclusive territory marketing.
Ready to claim your territory?
Every state we take on is one less slot available. Get yours before your competitor does.