I read something today about retail media and how people were using it poorly. It mentioned Attention and Influence and that really grabbed me.
The marketing world is on a slippery slope.
The slope towards hyper short term ROAS figures & daily sales targets against daily media spent. Adjustments made in real time always following data, blindly.
A slope driven by those who stand to profit from it, those whose employment depends on it and those that clearly don’t truly understand the relationship between the advertising £ and ROAS.
If there is spreadsheet or dashboard with figures that seem to correlate, well that is the box ticked for those that read the reports. Job done.
Much has been written about ‘Short and Long’ and its incredibly compelling, yet still it’s a daily battle for those of us advising on the best use of a client’s advertising budget.
There are undoubtedly low consideration products with massive latent demand that can build healthy businesses in a short term ROAS world, but in my experience of 30 years in the game and seeing the results of all sorts of campaigns, these are the exceptions not the rule.
There are so many categories that are hugely competitive or have longer consideration windows. This is where relying on solely short term ROAS is frankly a nonsense. There may be data, but the data is most definitely being interpreted wrongly to the detriment of the brand spending the money.
If we want someone to buy a product, one that’s been around a long time and has multiple competitors, or a new product that no one has heard of, we must influence the purchaser in our brands’ favour and we do this by grabbing their attention.
This is what the Mad Men did it in the 60’s. Grabbing the attention of the consumer and influencing them, turning them on to products they never even knew existed and didn’t know they needed. They told compelling stories that drew the audience in. This process didn’t happen in one day, it was a process that occurred over time, and it most definitely wasn’t linear, but you can be sure that healthy sales built over time. In modern talk, they were building the top of the funnel with thousands if not millions of potential customers. In those days the demand was harvested in bricks and mortar retail but let’s not be mistaken the bricks and mortar were the last step on the journey not the first.
There is so much talk about Offline and Online when it comes to ROAS. Offline is largely unattributable, it doesn’t fit the short term ROAS model, so is inefficient. I’ve been in meetings and heard countless stories of marketing departments discounting media choices based purely on the fact it was unaccountable in a short term ROAS model, it clearly had little if any worth to the bottom line. Online is clickable & measurable and that dashboard looks amazing. There are short term ROAS figures aplenty. We can see the sales right here and now.
My head hurts when I think about this.
In my world there is a shift towards understanding that the likes of YouTube don’t really sell product today. Thank goodness, it’s a drum I have been banging for years. But, but, but it’s a digital medium so it must work on a short term ROAS basis, it’s digital, that’s what digital does right? We have a dashboard. Sadly, the danger is as soon as YouTube figures don’t look great in the dashboard it gets culled. Little thought of what YouTube may be contributing to the bottom line that we can’t attribute is taken into consideration. We can’t put it in a chart, so it doesn’t make the cut.
Please, let us stop talking about Online and Offline. It’s misleading. The burgeoning TV streaming market is the perfect example. It is TV but its digital (the targeting capabilities are simply awesome), so is it ‘Online’ or ‘Offline’? It’s piped into your lounge and broadcast on that 55-inch TV, which also offers the viewer an option to watch YouTube, the legacy ‘online’ medium, alongside good old Linear TV, the bastion of ‘offline’ mediums. All three end up being viewed on the same TV in the same lounge – the difference is purely the type of content the viewer chooses to access. ‘Online’ or ‘Offline’ is irrelevant, each medium has incredible ability to grab attention and influence the viewer, but they all will look weak on a short-term ROAS Model.
Yes, we need to harvest demand that we are generating, 100%, that’s your short term ROAS right there. However, we must remember there will be far more demand to harvest and it will be far easier to convert at the bottom of the funnel if we grabbed their attention and influenced them further up the funnel.
Right, I’m off to brush up on classic Don Draper lines for my next pitch.
saintnicks have been appointed by Mitsubishi Pencil Company UK (MPCUK), a leader in innovative writing instruments, to handle its POSCA and uni-ball brands.
Together, both MPCUK and saintnicks will harness the power of storytelling and dynamic creative content to bring MPCUK’s uni-ball and POSCA brands closer to its customers.
Through a series of innovative campaigns and brand activations, we will be reinforcing the brands’ trusted reputations for high-quality pens and creative markers, while fostering a connection with audiences through relatable, inspiring narratives.
“We’re incredibly excited to team up with saintnicks,” said Hannah Hurling, Head of Marketing at MPCUK. “Both uni-ball and POSCA have always been about enabling creativity and self-expression, and saintnicks’ expertise in storytelling and bold creative ideas makes them the perfect partner to bring our vision to life.”
The uni-ball brand was established in 1979 and is owned by the Japanese Mitsubishi Pencil Company, which has a rich legacy dating back to 1887. Today, uni-ball is a leading name in the UK stationery market, renowned for high-quality writing instruments that combine innovation with reliability. The brand’s commitment to quality, performance and design has made it a favoured choice among students, professionals, and creators, solidifying its reputation as one of the most well-known brands in the UK market.
For over 30 years, POSCA has accompanied creativity in all its forms, quickly becoming a favourite tool for artists worldwide. Initially embraced by graffiti artists, the brand’s popularity quickly spread beyond urban spaces. Today, POSCA markers are recognised globally for their vibrant colours and versatility, making them ideal for a wide array of applications—from street art and fine art to illustration, portraits, and home crafts.
The collaboration comes at a time when consumers are seeking more authentic connections with the brands they choose. MPCUK has long been a trusted name in writing and artist tools, offering consumers writing pens and creative markers that combine quality, style, and reliability. The new partnership is set to enhance the brand’s visibility, reinforce its connection with customers, and celebrate the art of writing and the power of creativity.
This article has previously appeared on the ADLIB Blog.
Understanding Agency salaries in the South West is pivotal for job seekers and employers alike in 2025. This guide provides essential insights into the factors influencing pay scales and highlights the importance of considering additional benefits beyond salary to attract top talent.
For a detailed breakdown of digital marketing salaries in the South West, view our comprehensive salary guide or get in touch for a chat.
At ADLIB, we’re always keeping close to market trends and how things can fluctuate between organisations. Here, we aim to provide an overall range of salaries based on the spectrum of roles within the South West agency world. Factors that can influence one’s salary: the size of business and team, their location, the size and number of accounts you may be working on, management responsibilities, the industry sector, and specific marketing skills, will all have an impact.
If you choose to make a comparison, consideration should be paid beyond job title. It is worth noting that salary isn’t everything, and there are lots of other important factors to consider.
To attract the best talent, employers should also focus on:
This guide provides salary bandings for various sector roles and their respective job titles, including:
To attract and retain top-tier talent in the South West, consider the complete package: competitive salaries, hybrid working patterns, and a supportive, inclusive work environment.
Written by Tony Allen, Head of Marketing, Digital & eCommerce recruitment at ADLIB.
– Senior Appointments & Strategic Growth | Agency & In-house Marketing.
This article has previously appeared on the ADLIB Blog.
Understanding Digital Marketing salaries is pivotal for job seekers and employers alike. This ADLIB Digital Marketing salary guide provides essential insights into the factors influencing pay scales and highlights the importance of considering additional benefits beyond salary to attract top talent.
The following is based on information collated through working in this industry day in, day out, client briefs taken and placements made by ADLIB in the South West. We stress the importance of context when making salary comparisons based on job title. In many cases, there is a significant variance between the bottom end and top end of salaries paid.
This guide provides salary bandings for various sector roles and their respective job titles, including:
If you choose to make a comparison, consideration should be paid beyond job title. For example, take into account the business proposition, any client base, specialist knowledge, time of establishment and management responsibilities. All of which will influence salary.
While salary is a key factor, it’s not the only consideration. To attract the best talent, employers should also focus on:
To attract and retain top-tier talent, consider the complete package: competitive salaries and a supportive, inclusive work environment.
Written by Tony Allen, Head of Marketing, Digital & eCommerce recruitment at ADLIB.
– Senior Appointments & Strategic Growth | Agency & In-house Marketing.
Stuff, the Bristol based creative studio, played a key role in the official launch of Brabazon at a prestigious event in London, officiated by Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Stuff has been working with YTL Developments (UK) Limited for the past 5 years, looking after the advertising, marketing, branding and design needs for Brabazon – the exciting redevelopment of the former Filton Airfield.
For the launch event, we were responsible for creating and producing an impressive array of marketing materials to fill the Royal Lancaster Hotel’s Westbourne Suite, highlighting the scale and ambition of the project to the 250 plus guests.
Alongside this, we produced a dramatic 90 second film that captured the rich history of the site and showcased all of the exciting developments coming over the horizon at Brabazon. The film was played on stage as the climax of the afternoon’s proceedings, marking the signing of the investment agreement between the UK and Malaysian governments.
Joe Baker, Managing Director of Stuff said “We’re very proud of all the great creative work we produce for Brabazon and to be part of such an incredible project and historic moment.”
Independent brand consultancies, FutureKings and Mr B & Friends, are celebrating their first collaboration, working together on Heidi’s brand campaign that launched this month.
Heidi exists to help you find the exact ski holiday you deserve. Heidi burst onto the scene in 2018 when its founders, brothers Marcus and Alexander, frustrated with how restrictive a typical package ski holiday could be, decided there had to be a better way. So, with a winning combination of super-clever tech and a lovely team of passionate skiers, Heidi was born. It’s now the fastest growing ski travel business in the UK. Not only is the product something very different, Heidi as a youthful, challenger brand, is shaking up a very traditional ski holiday industry.
FutureKings has been Heidi’s brand and creative agency for 3 years, helping them rebrand from SkiZoom to Heidi in 2021. Since that time, their revenue has rocketed from £8m in 2021, to £40m in 2024.
Heidi secured £5.6m in growth funding through PE houses Mercia Ventures and Active Partners, and one of the strategic objectives was to raise brand awareness.
FutureKings and Mr B & Friends formed a collaborative team that brought expertise from both agencies together; existing knowledge of the Heidi business, people and brand via FutureKings, with the added muscle and fresh perspective of a creative team from Mr B & Friends.
Sarah Cramer, Brand Marketing Director at Heidi added, “Through extensive research we learnt that what skiers really want from a ski holiday, is freedom. It was an emotional benefit our customers already valued from Heidi, even though we’d never talked about it in that way before.
FutureKings and Mr B & Friends have helped us unlock that and bring it to life, through an animated winter wonderland. Over a series of ads, viewers visit the same snowy scene at different times of day and see it through different eyes – with a whimsical script that we hope brings a smile and makes the campaign distinctive and memorable.
The account was won via a three-way pitch. Pebble Studios created the 3D motion and The Nest delivered the media strategy for the campaign.
My name is Michael James, I am a driven postgraduate part of the Bristol UWE Alumni. I am known for:
Thriving in social environments and building strong professional relationships.
Demonstrating an unwavering work ethic and relentless pursuit of goals.
Embracing challenges as opportunities for growth and learning.
Balancing academic rigor with a love for sports and active lifestyle.
My current area of work is UX/UI design and digital marketing, with a passion for enhancing brand images in the digital space. Currently exploring opportunities to collaborate on projects that push the boundaries of digital design and marketing. Keen to contribute my skills to forward-thinking teams and exciting initiatives in this dynamic field.
If you would like to learn more about myself and have any positions open..
Please contact me!
07873168911
https://mikeyj100.github.io/portfoliopage/
In the U.S. there are over 3 million B2B businesses, 86% of which use their website as their primary source of lead generation.
Yet, 48% of customers have described B2B marketing as ‘boring.’ So where does that leave your site? And what can you do to stand out as one of the interesting ones?
According to a Forrester report, 94% of survey respondents use at least one search channel for consideration/purchase, so the importance of having an engaging and appealing website should never be underestimated.
By creating a memorable digital experience, you can ensure your website users will remember and return to your website when they’re ready to buy a product or service.
The term ‘website design’ has 49.5k searches monthly in the U.S. according to Semrush. Clearly this is a topic on plenty of people’s minds – and for good reason.
In fact, it’s reported that first impressions of a website are 94% design-related. And to top that off, these impressions can be formed in as little as 50 milliseconds.
People often see B2B website design as corporate, outdated, or just plain boring. Whether it’s because the products B2B companies sell are more specialist or niche or because of complex sales cycles.
But times are changing. With digital designers and web design evolving hand in hand, website design has never been so full of possibility.
However, it goes deeper than designing for appearance alone. The most successful websites also apply user experience (UX) best practices to ensure their functionality matches.
Peter Morville, President of Semantic Studios, coined the 7 principles of UX. These principles outline what affective UX should be:
If you can make your B2B website tick all these boxes, your site is much more likely to succeed in the marketplace.
This is because you should always be thinking about the user when it comes to your digital presence. This is how you make your audience feel valued and provide them with a stress-free digital experience.
Many business-to-business companies aren’t aware of the capabilities of their website, so they haven’t made moves to update their digital presence. This means if you take these steps, you’ll be setting yourself apart from the competition, and will stick in the mind of your customers.
After all, if 38% of consumers will bounce from a website if they find the design unattractive, ensuring yours is top-notch can help secure more business.
What’s more, user experience is a big factor in Conversion Rate Optimisation – meaning the better your UX design, the more likely people will take actions that benefit your business. That could be booking a call or product demo, filling in an enquiry form, or making a purchase.
The content that sits on your website is important for so many reasons. If the content on your site isn’t clear, relevant or well thought out, you stand to lose customers.
Your website content also reflects who you are – your personality as a business. It gives you the opportunity to add a personal touch to your buyer’s journey and build a connection with your audience.
It also tells prospects exactly what you do and the services you provide. So, ensuring your website content is optimised is key.
Your content may include headings, body copy, blogs, product descriptions, reports, whitepapers/ebooks, videos, and an array of other assets.
Content isn’t just about entertaining and informing your visitors. It’s also key to boosting your search engine optimisation (SEO) score.
As Google Search Central puts it, SEO is ‘about helping search engines understand your content, and helping users find your site and make a decision about whether they should visit your site through a search engine.’
One of the main aims of boosting your SEO is to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). This means your website will appear higher on the google search page when people search for certain terms.
The terms you want to rank for could be down to your industry, your services, your location, and more. These terms are known as ‘keywords’. The higher you rank for your chosen keywords, the more likely you are to get page visitors.
A hurdle that many B2B companies face is getting ahead of competitors who may be operating in the same industry or selling similar services. But, by harnessing the power of SEO, you can increase your chances of outranking them and being discovered by more potential customers.
When deciding on the keywords you want to rank for as a business, it’s important to look for words that have a high monthly search volume, but low competition. This means people are actively searching for it, but not many other businesses are focusing on ranking for this term.
Ensuring your website content is helping your site stand out isn’t purely about technical optimisation and analytics.
Making your content engaging and unique goes a long way when it comes to differentiating yourself. And with the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT, originality is set to become even more important (and more rare, perhaps).
When planning the content you want to include on the website, you need a strategy. This strategy should consider elements such as:
By combining these personal aspects of your business, you are creating a recipe for a one-of-a-kind content plan.
Having unique content is so important because 40% of all final decision makers in the B2B marketplace say there is more thought leadership content than they can manage.
So, you now must work even harder to capture the attention of your prospects without drowning in the sea of generic thought leadership.
Business-to-business companies get an unfair reputation for being overly corporate and boring. It’s time to change that perception and start bringing more innovation and design flair to these markets.
Your website says so much about you as a business, so you can’t afford to let yours simply be ‘middle of the road’.
Using a combination of outstanding design and groundbreaking content, you can get ahead of the competition in a saturated market and gain new customers.
So, if your B2B website is looking like it needs a boost, get in touch with us at [email protected].
If you’re new to SEO or just want to learn the basics, this article is for you. As an expert team of SEOers , we understand that it can be difficult to understand all of the terminology, definitions and jargon that are often used in technical, off-page, and on-page SEO.
It’s important to know the different SEO terms because this knowledge enables you to inform and optimise your website’s content and practices. For example, if you know what backlinks, meta data, and keywords are, you can locate areas for improvement on your site and use each of these elements to help your website rank higher organically on a search engine.
We have compiled this helpful glossary to make it easier to get to grips with the basics. We hope this can help inform and build your knowledge around SEO, frequently used technical language to help you implement positive changes to your website that will get your business more visible online.
The glossary is split into three key sections below, to help you make sense of the different terminology used in SEO – Technical Terms, On Page Terms and Off Page Terms.
A-G
Caffeine
This is the name for Google’s modern web indexing system, created in 2010, enabling incremental indexing. As a result, there is a shorter delay between Google bots crawling your site and then being indexed, so Google can update its content more often and faster, and the SERP stays up to date. This is why it’s important that website content is kept fresh. See Crawling and Indexing.
Canonical tag
It’s a way to control duplicate content. When you have pages with similar content, you can add a canonical tag to the <head> section of the page, thereby telling search engines which version of a URL you want to appear in SERPs. Although, Google may not always choose the page you have designated the ‘master’ page. See Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Content management system (CMS)
A software that helps you build a website without having to do all the coding. Various examples include Shopify, HubSpot, and WordPress.
CMS migration
The process of moving a website from one CMS to another.
Crawling
This is the process in which search engine bots will look (or ‘crawl’) through your website and explore its content. Crawlers follow URLs and download the content on their pages to view it.
H-P
Hreflang tags
These tags are used when your website has multiple languages. It allows google to present the correct version of a website depending on a users’ location.
HTML sitemap
Similar to an XML sitemap, though written for humans (and bots), a HTML sitemap lists all the pages of a website to improve navigability.
HTTPS
In comparison to HTTP, HTTPS occurs when a website is SSL-encrypted, and is therefore more secure. It is also one of Google’s ranking factors and is a way for search engine’s to verify that your website is secure, and a user’s data is safer.
Image compression
When images take up too much space, and slow down the speed of a page, their file can be compressed so they take up less storage.
Indexing
After a website has been crawled, the data viewed by search bots is stored and subsequently ranked by Google, though its ranking depends on various factors, and displayed on SERPs. See Crawling and Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Log file
This contains a record of every interaction a bot and human have had with your site. They are an important aspect of technical SEO to understand how crawlers interact with a website and should be proactively audited to fix any crawl error issues.
Meta tag
A meta tag is an HTML tag used to provide metadata (information about the webpage) to search engines and web browsers. Meta tags are placed inside the section of an HTML document and are not visible to users. Instead, they give important information that can affect how the page is displayed or indexed.
NoIndex tag
This is a meta tag placed in the section of a page and allows a search bot to crawl a page, but not index it, so it will not appear on a SERP. This is useful for low value or non-public pages, because search engines still need to know these exist on your site, for example, ‘thank you’ or payment pages.
NoFollow tag
When a search engine bot comes across a link on your site, you can add a nofollow meta tag to the section of a page, instructing them to ignore that link and not follow that link trail.
Orphan pages
These are pages which have no internal links to them, making it very difficult for a crawler to find them. These pages are also a missed SEO opportunity, as they do not pass link equity. See Internal Links and Crawling.
Plugins
Software extensions for web pages, allowing its content to be customised, for example improving a page’s loading speed (although they can become a security risk if not added properly).
Q-Z
Redirecting URLs
These are used to direct an existing URL to another. For example, if you were moving your site to a new domain, using a redirect would simply transfer users from previous web pages to your new ones seamlessly. They are a key way to transfer existing authority and ‘juice’ your pages have.
Rendering
After a website has been crawled, a search engine will then render its pages. It takes information from HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to generate how a page will appear to a user.
Robots meta tag
A piece of HTML code that tells search engines how to crawl, index, and then display a web page’s content on the SERP. See Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Robots text file (robots.txt)
Encompasses a set of instructions for bots, to understand which parts of your website to crawl and index, and which to leave out e.g., thank you pages.
Schema markup
Keeping up with AI algorithms, this is a good way of highlighting certain parts of your website to make sure they show up on SERPs.
XML sitemap
A list of all the pages on a website, written specifically for crawlers, in the form of coding.
A-E
Alternative text (alt text)
Text, included in HTML code, that is used to describe an image on a webpage, increasing a website’s accessibility.
Anchor text
This refers to the word or phrase of text you use when inserting a clickable link. In the example, ‘check out the new Varn website’, the anchor text is Varn website.
Breadcrumb navigation
A way to improve user experience by showing users how they got to the page they are on, so they don’t have to keep clicking the back button.
Cache
In SEO, a cache refers to a stored version of a webpage by search engines or browsers to improve load times and user experience by serving the saved content quickly instead of retrieving it from the server each time.
Click-through rate (CTR)
How many people have clicked on your ad divided by the number of people who saw it (impressions), presented as a percentage.
Commercial search intent
When a user has interest in certain products and is trying to educate themselves in order to decide what to purchase. See Search Intent.
Crawl budget
Search engine bots cannot crawl a page forever, they have a crawl budget and will only search through a certain amount of pages in a given timeframe.
Crawl demand
How often google wants to crawl a page – this is dependent on the authority of a page and how often it is updated. See Domain Authority.
Crawler directives
Crawler directives are instructions given to search engine bots (like via robots.txt or meta tags) to control how they should crawl, index, or avoid certain parts of a website.
Crawl rate limit
The rate at which a google bot can crawl site, without overloading your server, giving a poor User Experience. See User Experience (UX).
Cumulative layout shift (CLS)
The amount your webpage shifts as more content loads.
Traffic that has got to a website from entering its domain in the address bar. Essentially, a user doesn’t need to get to a website through a search engine, social media, or an external resource.
Eager loading is a web development technique where all necessary related data is loaded in advance, typically in a single query, to prevent the need for multiple database calls later, improving performance in certain situations. See Lazy loading.
Email traffic
Traffic directed to your website via clicking on a link on a marketing email.
Determined by content quality, visitor engagement, and backlinks. See Backlinks.
Expertise Experience Authoritativeness Trustworthiness (EEAT)
A website needs to prove it can be trusted and that it is legitimate. Showing reviews of products/services, adding information about authors, and adding relevant content to a website aligns with this criteria.
External links
Links on your website that point users to another site by another business. See Internal Links.
F-N
Features snippet
A featured snippet is a type of SERP feature. A short description of a search query that appears above a website’s URL on a SERP (they usually appear at the top). See SERP feature.
First input delay (FID)
The amount of time it takes for your website to respond to the first interaction with a users.
F pattern theory
Theory that the user will mainly look on the left side of the webpage, and examine the top of the page.
Fold of a website
The bottom of the screen and everything below it that requires the user to scroll.
Hero of a website
The part of the website that the user sees first when the website loads.
Image carousel
An image carousel is an example of a SERP feature. The sliding row of images that appears towards the top of a SERP, displaying a series of products with an image, short description, and price. See SERP feature.
Informational landing pages
Provide quality and in-depth content, describing a specific topic so users understand. Informational landing pages will ideally rank for keywords with informational search intent.
Informational search intent
When a user is visiting for the purpose of learning something – they are typically not interested in buying yet but could be open to it. See Search Intent.
Internal links
Links on your website that connect to other pages on your site. See External Links.
Interstitials
Full-screen advertisements, typically appearing as pop-ups.
Keyword cannibalization
This occurs when multiple pages on a website target the same or very similar keywords, so end up competing against each other in the SERP. See Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Largest contentful paint (LCP)
The amount of time it takes for the largest piece of content to load.
Layer-cake pattern theory
Theory that the user will focus on the headings and subheadings, as they act as signposts for information.
Lazy loading
Lazy loading is a web development technique that delays the loading of non-essential resources (like images or videos) until they are needed, improving initial page load speed and performance. See Eager loading.
Local pack
A local pack is a SERP feature that appears towards the top of a results page, and includes a map of the closest businesses to the user, often with star ratings and links to their websites. See SERP feature.
Long-tail keywords
More specific phrases 3 to 6 words long that customers will search for, typically when the user is further along in the buying process. See Short-tail Keywords.
Meta description
The short description of the webpage that appears under the meta title on a SERP. See Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Meta title
The title of each page of a website that appears on the SERP. See Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Mobile-first indexing
The structure and function of a mobile site will hold greater value when determining the rank and visibility of a website because Google will put the mobile version of a site before the desktop version.
Navigational search intent
When the user already knows what they want and is searching for a specific website or product. See Search Intent.
O-Z
Organic content
Any content that users find by themselves that doesn’t rely on paid marketing techniques, for example, blog posts, social media posts, and user-generated content.
Organic search
The ‘natural’ ranking of websites, excluding all the paid search. See Paid Ads.
Organic traffic
Traffic to a website through unpaid, natural search engine results, as opposed to paid ads or direct traffic. It is driven by users searching for information and clicking on links that appear in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Page speed
The amount of time it takes for a web page to load.
Pagination
Dividing a long list of content into multiple pages to stop infinite scrolling.
Paid ads
These will appear above the organic search results, marked by a little ‘Ad’ icon. See Organic Search.
Paid search traffic
All traffic that has arrived at your website from paid advertising in a SERP.
Pay per click (PPC)
A digital marketing strategy where businesses bid an amount of money on a certain keyword to have their ad appear on a SERP. See Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Product landing pages
Have only as much information as you need to describe the product, and have breadcrumbs to other parts of your site.
Rich snippets
Add extra descriptions of the content on a site e.g., ratings or events information. See Snippet.
Referral traffic
Traffic to a website via a link on another website.
Schema markup
Coding on the site, that the user doesn’t see, to help search engines understand your content.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
The page that a search engine serves to a user in response to a query. The higher the position a link is on the SERP, the more likely it is to be clicked.
Search intent
The primary goal a user has when visiting your site. This is used in reference to keywords, and can usually be broken down into 4 categories. See Commercial search intent, Informational search intent, Navigational search intent, and transactional search intent.
Search generative experience (SGE)
Google’s use of generative AI to give users a summary answer to their search query, improving user experience.
Search volume
A metric showing the amount of people searching a certain query.
Search difficulty
Also referred to keyword difficulty, this is a metric that measures how hard it is to rank for a particular keyword in search results.
Seed keywords
Broad, core words and phrases that your customers will search for.
SERP features
Elements on a search engine results page (SERP) which add extra information to the simple list of URLS. Google uses these to improve user experience (UX).
Service landing pages
Describe the information about the product or service you offer and link to related information.
Short-tail keywords/head terms
Words that are 1 to 2 words long that refer to broad topics and have a high search volume. See Long-Tail Keywords.
Social traffic
This includes all traffic that has arrived on your website from social platforms.
Spotted pattern theory
Where the user will jump around the most interesting spots of the site, typically following website design.
Snippet
Offers a brief description of a website and often includes a map, contact details, videos, or photos (these are different from meta description).
Title tag
This is a piece of HTML code that gives a page its title. A H1 is the main title, and H2s and H3s are subtitles used to split up sections.
Transactional search intent
When a user is ready to buy (this is the best time for immediate action on a site). See Search intent.
URL
The address of a webpage. For example, https://www.varn.co.uk
User experience (UX)
How a user experiences a website, including their emotions, responses, and perceptions.
User experience design
The process of increasing a user’s level of satisfaction with a product or service by making improvements to its functionality, convenience and ease of use.
Website architecture/site structure
How a website is structured and organised.
Your money or your life content (YMYL)
Any content online that has potential to cause harm to the reader in any form – Google takes this content more seriously.
A-Z
Backlinks
Links on other websites that point to your website. They are a good way to increase the authority and credibility of your site.
Broken link outreach
Finding broken links on good quality third-party sites that can be fixed and retrieved.
Data-led content outreach
Involves researching a business in order to write a story backed up with data, with the primary aim of attracting press attention.
Guest posts
Where you publish an article on someone else’s website – it is a key way to gain more awareness of your business.
Image link building
Outreach through reverse image search tools targeting client-owned images that have been used without accreditation.
Inbound link acquisition
Creating and optimising onsite content that organically acquires links over time.
Link equity
The authority a link passes to its destination page. Links to a page act like a ‘vote’ from the origin page, and a higher quantity of links from trustworthy websites is a positive signal for Google.
Link profile
A link profile refers to the overall composition and quality of all backlinks pointing to a website, including factors like the number of links, the authority of linking domains, anchor text used, and the diversity of link sources, which together influence the site’s search engine rankings. See Backlinks.
Product outreach
A strategy where you send a product to bloggers in exchange for a review or link to your website.
Partner/client site outreach
Outreach to existing partner and owned websites.
Unlinked mentions
When your business is mentioned on the web but there is not a link directing users to your website.
Now you have taken a look at the key SEO terms you should have a better idea of what SEO involves, and you may even have ideas of elements you want to implement to your website. We understand there are a lot of key terms, so you may need to revisit this list multiple times before using them.
If you are still unsure about any of these terms, don’t hesitate to reach out to our expert team who are happy to help. Contact our expert SEO team
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