Web people use a lot of jargon. Here's what the words actually mean, why each one matters for your business, and none of it requires a computer science degree. Written by someone who's been explaining this stuff since 1995.
Schema is a label maker for your website. When a person looks at your page, they instantly see "that's the phone number, those are the hours, those are reviews." A computer can't tell — to a computer it's all just text. Schema is invisible code that labels each piece: THIS is my business name, THIS is my address, THESE are my hours.
Google and AI systems like ChatGPT read those labels. Sites that have them get the nice search results — the stars, the hours, the map pin — and get quoted correctly by AI. Sites without them are a filing cabinet with no folders labeled.
Why you should care: when someone asks an AI "who's the best plumber near me," schema is a big part of whether your name comes back — or your competitor's.
Your address on the internet — yourbusiness.com. You rent it for about $15 a year, forever.
The single most important rule in this whole dictionary: your domain must be registered in your name, not your web developer's. It's your street address. You don't want your street address in someone else's name.
Why you should care: businesses lose their web address every year because it was registered by a developer who disappeared. Check yours today — ask whoever built your site.
The padlock in the browser bar. It means the connection between the visitor and your site is scrambled so nobody can eavesdrop on it.
Browsers mark sites without it "Not Secure" — which scares customers off — and Google ranks those sites lower. It used to cost money; these days it's free and standard.
Why you should care: if your site doesn't have the padlock, that's a five-minute fix that's overdue, and it's quietly costing you both visitors and rankings.
The box that shows up on the right when someone Googles your business name — the map, hours, photos, and reviews. It's free; Google gives it to you.
For a local business it's arguably more important than your website, because it's what shows up in Google Maps and "near me" searches. Most businesses have claimed theirs and filled out half of it.
Why you should care: a complete profile gets about seven times more clicks than a bare one. Completing yours is free and takes an afternoon.
Every place on the internet that lists your business name, address, and phone number — Yelp, Yellow Pages, Facebook, the chamber directory, and dozens of little sites you've never heard of.
Google cross-checks them like a detective checking a story. If your address is written three different ways, or your old phone number is still floating around, Google trusts your information less and ranks you lower.
Why you should care: citation cleanup is boring, very fixable, and makes a real ranking difference — especially if you've ever moved or changed numbers.
A site that rearranges itself to look right on any screen — phone, tablet, desktop. More than half of your visitors are on phones, and Google judges your site by its phone version first.
Why you should care: if people have to pinch and zoom to read your site, most of them leave instead.
Renting a computer that's on 24 hours a day so your website has somewhere to live. Your domain name is your address; hosting is the building.
Two separate small bills, and you should own both accounts — same rule as the domain.
Why you should care: cheap, slow hosting makes even a good website feel broken. And if your developer owns the hosting account, you're a tenant with no lease.
A CMS is a website with a control panel, so non-programmers can edit it — WordPress is the famous one. The trade-off: it's convenient, but it's like a car with a lot of parts. It needs regular updates, and it can slow down or get hacked if neglected.
For many small businesses, simpler and faster construction wins — with light edits handled by training or by your developer same-day. The right answer depends on how often your content actually changes.
Why you should care: "you can edit it yourself!" sounds great in the sales pitch. Ask yourself honestly whether you ever will.
Small note files on your website addressed to the robots that visit — Google's crawler, ChatGPT's crawler, and the rest. They say "here's what you're welcome to read, and here's the important stuff."
Without them, AI systems either skip your site or wander it blindly. Setting them up takes about thirty minutes, and most small business sites still don't have them.
Why you should care: this is one of the cheapest visibility wins on the whole list, precisely because almost nobody's done it yet.
A one-page site with a single job — usually one service, one town, one action: "call now" or "book an estimate."
Cheaper and faster than a full website, and often the right first step if you want to test an ad campaign or promote one service without rebuilding everything.
Why you should care: if your ad sends people to your generic homepage, a purpose-built landing page usually converts noticeably better for very little money.
How long your site takes to appear after someone clicks. Every second costs you visitors — about half of mobile users leave if a page takes more than three seconds. Google also ranks slow sites lower.
Most slow sites are slow for two reasons: bloated page-builder software and giant unoptimized images. Both are fixable.
Why you should care: speed is the one quality visitors feel before they read a single word. (This page loads in under a second. That's on purpose.)
Send me your web address and I'll reply within a day with the three biggest problems I find — or tell you honestly that it's in good shape. Free, no sales pitch.
Get a free straight answer