Core SEO Terms You Must Know (2025 Edition)

Not going to sugarcoat it — SEO has changed more in the last 18 months than in the previous decade.

AI is rewriting the rules. SERPs are shrinking. Traffic is shifting. And anyone still optimizing like it’s 2019 is just feeding Google free content.

So I put together a quick updated glossary for people who actually care about staying ahead — not just following outdated “guru” advice.

1. SEO — Search Engine Optimization
2. ASO — App Store Optimization
3. SMO — Social Media Optimization
4. AEO — Answer Engine Optimization (AI Overviews, Perplexity, ChatGPT search… all of it)
5. ORM — Online Reputation Management
6. CTR — Click-Through Rate
7. LLMO — Large Language Model Optimization (yes, this is a thing now)
8. CRO — Conversion Rate Optimization
9. SERP — Search Engine Results Page
10. EEAT — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness
11. PPC — Pay-Per-Click
12. GEO — Geo-Targeted Optimization
13. NLP — Natural Language Processing
14. GSC — Google Search Console
15. API — Application Programming Interface
16. URL — Uniform Resource Locator
17. AM — Affiliate Marketing
18. KPI — Key Performance Indicator
Additional SEO Terms You Should Learn (Highly Useful Today)

19. DA — Domain Authority
20. PA — Page Authority
21. DR — Domain Rating
22. TF/CF — Trust Flow / Citation Flow
23. ROI — Return on Investment
24. CTA — Call to Action
25. XML — Extensible Markup Language (for sitemaps)
26. SEM — Search Engine Marketing
27. LSI — Latent Semantic Indexing
28. CDN — Content Delivery Network
29. CLS — Cumulative Layout Shift
30. CWV — Core Web Vitals

What else would you like to add?