Home Service Marketing Glossary

Overview

Plain-English definitions for SEO, Google Ads, local search, and contractor marketing - built for owner-operators, not agencies.

Terms used across Delta Marketing guides, audits, and calculators. Updated for US home service contractors.

Pro tip: Bookmark cost per booked job and ROAS. Those two metrics matter more than raw lead volume.

Key terms

Plain-English definitions for owner-operators. The PDF includes the full glossary for offline reference.

Map Pack

The local three-pack on Google Search and Maps. Highest-intent visibility for near-me contractor queries.

Google Business Profile (GBP)

Your free Google listing controlling Maps and local Search appearance. Formerly Google My Business.

NAP

Name, Address, Phone - must be identical across website, GBP, and citations.

Citation

Online directory listing mentioning your business NAP (Yelp, BBB, Angi, etc.).

Local SEO

Optimizing for geographically relevant searches: Map Pack, city pages, GBP, and local links.

Cost per lead (CPL)

Ad spend divided by leads (forms + qualified calls). Stops before sales close rate.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Total marketing cost divided by new paying customers in a period.

Cost per booked job

Marketing spend divided by scheduled or completed jobs - the metric owners should optimize.

ROAS

Return on ad spend: revenue from ads divided by ad spend. Break-even depends on gross margin.

Local Services Ads (LSA)

Google pay-per-lead ads for eligible home service categories with Google Screened badge.

Quality Score

Google's 1-10 rating of ad relevance, expected CTR, and landing page experience.

Negative keywords

Terms that prevent ads from showing (e.g. DIY, jobs, free).

Landing page CVR

Percentage of visitors who become a lead on a specific page.

Call tracking

Unique phone numbers or DNI to attribute calls to SEO, ads, or other channels.

Schema markup

Structured data helping search engines understand your business, services, and FAQs.

Core Web Vitals

Google page experience metrics: LCP, INP, CLS. Affects rankings and ad quality.

Service-area business

You go to customers - SAB listing hides street address on Maps while showing service areas.

Review velocity

Rate of new reviews over time. Fresh reviews signal active, trusted businesses.

Geo-fencing

Targeting ads to users physically inside defined ZIP codes or radii.

Speed-to-lead

Time from inquiry to first human response. Under 5 minutes dramatically improves close rate.

CRM

Customer relationship management system - your marketing truth for leads, jobs, and attribution.

UTM parameters

URL tags tracking campaign source in analytics (utm_source, utm_medium, etc.).

Branded search

Queries including your company name - protect with a small branded campaign.

Broad match

Keyword match type showing ads for related searches - risky without strong negatives.

Click-to-call

Mobile tap-to-dial phone link. Primary CTA for emergency trades.

Gross margin

Revenue minus direct job costs. Used to calculate break-even ROAS and CAC.

Lead marketplace

Shared lead sellers (Angi, HomeAdvisor). High volume, low exclusivity.

Owned visibility

Leads from your GBP, website, and ads - not shared marketplaces.

PPC

Pay-per-click advertising - you pay when someone clicks your ad.

Retargeting

Ads shown to people who visited your site but didn't convert.

SERP

Search engine results page - organic listings, Map Pack, and ads combined.

Show rate

Percentage of booked appointments where the homeowner actually shows up.

Close rate

Percentage of estimates or appointments that become paying jobs.

AEO / GEO

Answer / generative engine optimization - structuring content for AI search citations.

Long-tail keyword

Specific, lower-volume query (e.g. emergency plumber Austin).

Doorway page

Thin city-swap page created only for SEO - violates Google guidelines.

Attribution

Connecting marketing touchpoints to booked jobs - often broken without CRM discipline.

Impression share

Percentage of eligible auctions where your ad appeared - indicates budget/competition.

DNI

Dynamic number insertion - swaps phone numbers by traffic source for tracking.

Hub-and-spoke

SEO content model: pillar page links to related service, city, and resource pages.

Delta Marketing · Home service marketing for US contractors. This guide is educational only. Results vary by market, trade, and competition. Not a guarantee of rankings or lead volume.