Contractor Marketing Glossary: What Do These Terms Actually Mean?
Plain-English definitions of the AI search, SEO, and lead measurement terms contractors get quoted at them. Every entry answers the question directly, explains why it matters for a home service business, and says what it costs to ignore. No jargon defended with more jargon.
Updated · 14 terms
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Answer engine optimization is the practice of structuring content so AI assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews can quote it directly as the answer to a question. Unlike traditional SEO, which competes for a position in a ranked list, AEO competes to be the passage the assistant lifts and attributes.
What is answer engine optimization?Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Generative engine optimization is the practice of increasing how often AI systems cite your website as a source in generated answers. Princeton researchers measured which tactics work (KDD 2024): citing authoritative sources raised visibility 40%, adding statistics 37%, and expert quotations 30%, while keyword stuffing lowered it by 10%.
What is generative engine optimization?Entity Authority
Entity authority is how confidently a search engine or AI assistant can identify your business as a specific, real organization — and how much it trusts what it knows. It is built from consistent naming, address, and service details across your website, Google Business Profile, and third-party listings, plus structured data that states those facts in machine-readable form.
What is entity authority in SEO?Schema Markup
Yes, but not by making an assistant prefer you. Schema markup is structured code that states facts about your business in machine-readable form, so an assistant can be certain what your pages mean rather than inferring it. Organization and LocalBusiness schema confirm who you are; Service and FAQPage schema label which passages answer which questions.
Does schema markup help with AI search?GPTBot
Allow it, in almost every case. GPTBot is OpenAI’s crawler, and blocking it in robots.txt means ChatGPT cannot cite your website at all. The same logic applies to PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, and Google-Extended, which covers Gemini and AI Overviews. Blocking a crawler removes you from that platform’s answers entirely.
Should I block or allow GPTBot on my website?Zero-Click Search
Zero-click search is when someone gets their answer directly from a search result or AI answer without visiting any website. AI Overviews now appear in roughly 45% of Google searches, and they can reduce clicks to websites by up to 58%. The information is delivered, but the traffic never arrives.
What is zero-click search?Google AI Overview
A Google AI Overview is the AI-generated summary that appears above the traditional results, built from content Google has crawled. You appear in one by publishing pages that answer the query directly and clearly, with structured data confirming what your business is. Overviews now show on roughly 45% of Google searches.
What is a Google AI Overview and how do I appear in one?Local SEO vs Organic SEO
Local SEO targets the map pack and location-based searches, and is driven mainly by your Google Business Profile, reviews, proximity, and consistent business listings. Organic SEO targets the standard blue-link results and is driven by content, site quality, and links. Most contractors need both, because they capture different customers.
What is the difference between local SEO and organic SEO?Local Citations
Local citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number on other websites — directories, review platforms, chambers of commerce, and industry associations. They do not need to link to you. Their value comes from corroborating that your business exists as described, consistently, across independent sources.
What are local citations in SEO?E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — the framework Google’s quality raters use to judge content. For a contractor it means demonstrating you have actually done the work: named authors with credentials, real project detail, licence and insurance information, and specifics only a practitioner would know.
What is E-E-A-T in SEO?Lead Source Attribution
Lead source attribution is knowing which marketing channel produced each lead — and ideally following that lead through to a sold job and its revenue. It requires call tracking, form source tags, and a CRM that keeps the source attached from first contact to closed job rather than losing it at handoff.
What is lead source attribution?Cost Per Lead vs Cost Per Acquisition
Cost per lead is your marketing spend divided by the number of leads generated. Cost per acquisition is that spend divided by the number of jobs actually sold. The gap between them is your close rate — which is why a cheap lead source can be the most expensive channel you run.
What is the difference between cost per lead and cost per acquisition?AI Citation Tracking
You track AI citations by running a fixed set of customer questions through ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews on a schedule, then recording whether your business is named and which pages get quoted. This produces a citation rate, which moves independently of website traffic and cannot be read from analytics.
How do I track whether AI is citing my website?AI Search Timeline
Expect first movement in 60 to 90 days and meaningful change by month four to six — broadly similar to organic SEO. Assistants must crawl new content before they can quote it, and models relying on training data rather than live search update on their own schedule, which no amount of optimization accelerates.
How long does it take to show up in AI search results?