GLOSSARY · PLAIN-ENGLISH DEFINITIONS
What we mean when we say it
Short, opinionated definitions for the terms that come up on every discovery call. If something isn't here, ask on the call and it'll get added.
MARKETING
AOV
Average Order Value, total revenue divided by total number of orders in a period.
Read →CAC
Customer Acquisition Cost, the total cost of acquiring one new paying customer, calculated by dividing all sales and marketing spend in a period by the number of customers acquired in that period.
Read →CAPI
Meta Conversion API, Meta's server-side tracking channel that lets you send conversion events directly from your server to Facebook's ad system, bypassing the browser-side tracking gaps caused by iOS ATT and ad blockers.
Read →Conversion rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who do the thing you want, enquire, buy, or call, the single number that tells you whether traffic is actually turning into business.
Read →CRO
Conversion Rate Optimisation, the practice of improving the percentage of site visitors who complete the desired action (purchase, signup, enquiry), typically through testing and iteration.
Read →Klaviyo flows
Automated email and SMS sequences in Klaviyo that fire in response to customer events, welcome series after a first signup, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase, win-back, and so on.
Read →LTV
Lifetime Value, the total gross profit a customer generates across all their orders, before subtracting acquisition cost.
Read →Performance Max
Google Ads' automated, AI-driven campaign type that places ads across all Google inventory, Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Maps, Gmail, from a single asset group plus a goal.
Read →ROAS
Return On Ad Spend, the revenue generated per pound of ad spend, expressed as a multiple (e.g., 7.69x ROAS means £7.69 of revenue per £1 spent).
Read →Server-side tracking
A tracking architecture where conversion events are sent to ad platforms (Meta, Google) from your server instead of from the visitor's browser, restoring the data lost to iOS ATT, ad blockers, and intelligent tracking prevention.
Read →PERFORMANCE
Core Web Vitals
Google's set of three user-experience performance metrics: LCP (Largest Contentful Paint, loading), INP (Interaction to Next Paint, responsiveness), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift, visual stability).
Read →Mobile-first
Mobile-first means designing and building for the phone screen first, because that is where most small-business visitors actually arrive, then scaling the layout up to desktop.
Read →Page speed
Page speed is how quickly a page loads and becomes usable; it affects both how many visitors stay and how Google ranks you, especially on mobile.
Read →PRICING
Fixed-price build
A web build with a single agreed price for a fully scoped deliverable, where the agency carries the risk of estimate overruns rather than the client.
Read →Retainer
A recurring monthly fee paid to an agency for an agreed scope of ongoing work, typically across design, development, and marketing.
Read →SEO
301 redirect
A 301 redirect permanently points one URL at another, used in migrations and rebrands so old links and accrued Google rankings carry over to the new address instead of breaking.
Read →Alt text
Alt text is a written description of an image in the page code; it lets screen readers describe the image to blind users and helps Google understand what the picture shows.
Read →Backlink
A backlink is a link from another website to yours; Google treats relevant, trustworthy backlinks as votes of confidence that help you rank.
Read →GEO
GEO (generative engine optimisation) is structuring a website so AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity can read it, trust it, and recommend it when someone asks for a business like yours.
Read →Google Business Profile
A Google Business Profile is the free listing that puts your business on Google Maps and in the local results, showing your hours, reviews, photos, and a link to your site.
Read →Keyword research
Keyword research is finding the actual phrases customers type into Google, with rough search volumes, so pages get built around demand that exists instead of guesses.
Read →Local SEO
Local SEO is the work of ranking for 'near me' and town-name searches and appearing in Google's local map pack, so nearby customers find you before they find a competitor.
Read →Meta description
A meta description is the short summary shown beneath your page title in Google's results; it does not move rankings directly, but a sharp one wins more of the clicks.
Read →Schema markup
Schema markup is structured data added to a page's code that labels exactly what each thing is, a price, a review, a service, an FAQ, so Google and AI engines can display and cite it accurately.
Read →SEO
SEO (search engine optimisation) is the work of getting a website to rank in Google's unpaid results for the things customers actually search, so traffic arrives without paying per click.
Read →SHOPIFY
Abandoned cart
An abandoned cart is when a shopper adds items but leaves before paying; a sequence of recovery emails wins back a meaningful share of that otherwise-lost revenue.
Read →Liquid
Shopify's open-source templating language, used to add dynamic logic to theme files, loops, conditionals, variable rendering, and access to shop data like products and customers.
Read →Shopify 2.0
The current architecture for Shopify themes (released 2021) which introduced sections everywhere, JSON templates, app blocks, and a more flexible content model than the legacy theme system.
Read →Subscription commerce
An ecommerce model where customers pay on a recurring schedule (monthly, quarterly) to receive products, instead of paying per order.
Read →WEB BASICS
CMS
A CMS (content management system) is the admin area that lets you edit your own site's words and images without calling a developer; WordPress and Shopify both include one.
Read →Domain name
A domain name is your website's address, like valker.co.uk; you register it (usually annually) and it is yours to keep and point at whatever site or email you like.
Read →Favicon
A favicon is the small icon shown in the browser tab, bookmarks, and history; a proper custom one is a small but real signal that a site was finished by someone who cared.
Read →Hosting
Web hosting is the service that stores your site's files and serves them to visitors; every live site needs it, and it is the one genuinely unavoidable recurring cost of having a website.
Read →Responsive design
Responsive design means one site that automatically reshapes itself to fit any screen, phone, tablet, or desktop, rather than a separate, stripped-back mobile version.
Read →SSL / HTTPS
SSL (the padlock and the https:// in the address bar) encrypts the connection between your site and its visitors; browsers and Google now flag sites without it as 'not secure'.
Read →WORDPRESS
ACF
Advanced Custom Fields, a WordPress plugin that adds structured, typed custom fields to posts, pages, and custom post types, plus a clean PHP API for reading them in the theme.
Read →Block theme
A WordPress theme built around Gutenberg blocks and the Full Site Editor, where layouts and content are composed in the block editor rather than coded directly in PHP templates.
Read →Headless WordPress
A WordPress setup where the front-end is a separate framework (typically Next.js) pulling content via WordPress's REST or GraphQL API, while editors still work in the WordPress admin.
Read →Want it explained on a call?
30 minutes, no pitch deck.