Glossary
The terms behind the work.
Plain-English definitions of the web, performance, WordPress, and SEO concepts we build around, written for the people who hire us rather than for other engineers.
Performance
- Core Web Vitals Google's three user-experience metrics: LCP for loading, INP for responsiveness, and CLS for visual stability. Together they feed directly into search rankings.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) A Core Web Vital that measures how much a page's content unexpectedly shifts while it loads. Lower scores mean a calmer, more stable reading experience.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP) A Core Web Vital that measures how quickly a page visually responds to taps, clicks, and keypresses. It replaced First Input Delay in March 2024.
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) A Core Web Vital measuring how long the largest visible element, usually a hero image or headline, takes to render. The clearest proxy for perceived load speed.
- Time to First Byte (TTFB) The time between a browser requesting a page and receiving the first byte back. It reflects server and hosting speed, and caps how fast everything else loads.
Web Development
- Astro A modern web framework that ships static HTML with minimal JavaScript by default, giving content-driven sites a fast, SEO-friendly foundation.
- Headless CMS A content management system that stores content and delivers it through an API, decoupled from the front-end that presents it.
- Jamstack An architecture for fast, secure sites built on pre-rendered markup, JavaScript, and APIs, decoupling the front-end from servers and databases.
- Static Site Generation (SSG) Building a website into plain HTML files ahead of time, so pages serve instantly from a CDN instead of being assembled by a server on every request.
WordPress
- WordPress Page Builder A drag-and-drop WordPress plugin, such as Elementor or Divi, for building pages visually. Convenient to edit, but often the source of slow, bloated sites.
- WordPress-to-Astro Migration Rebuilding a WordPress site on the Astro framework to ship static, near-instant pages while preserving the content and editorial workflow.
SEO
- Google Core Update A broad, periodic update to Google's ranking systems that can sharply shift visibility, rewarding helpful content and demoting thin or manipulative pages.
- Local SEO Optimising a business to appear in location-based searches and map results: the work that puts you in front of nearby customers who are ready to buy.
- Structured Data (Schema Markup) Code added to a page that tells search engines what its content means, making it eligible for rich results like FAQs, reviews, and breadcrumbs.
- Technical SEO Optimising a site's infrastructure (crawlability, indexation, speed, structured data, architecture) so search engines can find, understand, and rank it.
Strategy
- Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) Improving the share of visitors who take a desired action, whether buying, enquiring, or signing up, through testing, clearer design, and faster pages.
- Topical Authority The depth and breadth of genuinely useful content a site has on a subject. Search engines reward comprehensive coverage over shallow, one-off pages.