Clear packages, individual service ranges, and the scope rules that change the price.

Plain-English term guide

Industry shorthand appears throughout this page. Here is what each term actually means in plain words — no assumed knowledge required.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The work of making your business show up in Google search results when people search for what you offer. Higher ranking = more free traffic without paying for ads.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)

Getting your business cited by AI-powered search tools — like ChatGPT, Google’s AI answers, and Perplexity — when someone asks “what’s the best dentist near me?” or “who handles commercial HVAC in [city]?”

Schema

Invisible structured code added to your website that helps Google understand exactly what your business does, where you are, and what questions you answer. It can get your business featured in rich results (star ratings, FAQs, pricing panels) in Google — without paying for ads.

CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)

Testing and improving your website so more of the people who visit actually take the action you want — call, book, or fill out a form. If 100 people visit and 3 book, your conversion rate is 3%. CRO work tries to turn that into 5% or 7% without spending more on ads.

Speed-to-Lead

How fast a new lead gets a reply after filling out a form or calling. The faster you reply — ideally within minutes — the better your odds of reaching a lead while they are still deciding. A slow reply means leads go cold and call someone else.

CMS (Content Management System)

Software that lets you or your team edit text, images, and pages on your website without touching code — like a simple admin dashboard. Examples: WordPress, Sanity, Contentful.

CRM (Customer Relationship Manager)

The system that tracks every lead, customer, and job — who they are, where they came from, what stage they are in, and what follow-up they need. Think of it as a digital rolodex that also sends reminders and produces reports.

Attribution

Knowing which specific ad, page, search result, or referral source actually produced each lead or sale. Without attribution you are guessing which marketing is working. With it, you can spend more on what works and stop paying for what doesn’t.

RAG Chat (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

A website chat assistant that only answers from your real business information — your services, prices, policies, and FAQs — not from the internet. It cannot make things up about your business. When it does not know something, it says so and routes the person to you.

n8n (Automation Platform)

A self-hosted automation tool — like Zapier, but one you own and control. It connects your systems (CRM, calendar, email, phone, forms) and makes them talk to each other automatically, so information never gets lost in a handoff between tools.

STT / TTS (Speech-to-Text / Text-to-Speech)

STT converts spoken words into typed text (so an AI can “hear” a caller). TTS converts typed text back into spoken words (so an AI can “speak” to a caller). These are the core technologies behind AI phone receptionists.

LLM (Large Language Model)

The AI brain that powers chatbots and voice assistants — the engine that reads or hears a question and decides what to say. Examples: GPT-4, Claude, Gemini. We choose and configure the right one for each use case.

CDN / Edge Hosting

A global network of servers that delivers your website from the location closest to each visitor. This makes pages load faster — which helps both SEO rankings and user experience.

SaaS (Software as a Service)

Software you subscribe to monthly rather than own outright — tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, Mailchimp, or Calendly. Many projects require one or more SaaS tools; those costs are always itemized separately from our fees.

ETL (Extract, Transform, Load)

The pipeline that pulls data from one system, cleans or reformats it, and loads it into another — for example, moving lead data from your form tool into your CRM and reporting dashboard automatically.

QA (Quality Assurance)

Systematic testing of everything before it goes live. We check that forms submit correctly, tracking fires, voice calls route properly, and nothing is broken on mobile. Nothing ships without passing QA.

Provenance

A verifiable record of where a piece of content came from and whether AI was involved in creating it. The EU AI Act requires this for new AI-generated content from Aug 2, 2026; systems already live before that date have until Dec 2, 2026. California SB-942 is already in effect. We build this into AI content systems automatically.

Hardening (Cybersecurity)

Removing unnecessary access points, configuring systems to resist attack, and testing defenses before a breach happens rather than after. A hardened system is harder to break into, faster to recover, and less likely to face a quiet data leak.