Agency sales calls move fast. Within ten minutes you may hear about citations, schema, crawl budget and domain authority, and plenty of defense lawyers nod along without being sure what half of it means. That is a weak position from which to sign a twelve-month contract.
You do not need to become an SEO specialist. You do need enough vocabulary to ask good questions and to tell a real plan from a pile of jargon. This glossary covers the terms that come up most often in pitches to criminal defense firms, grouped by what they affect, with a question to ask an agency after each group.
How to use this glossary
- Read one group before each agency call
- Ask the agency to explain any term in its own words
- Ask how each item ties back to calls and signed cases
- Be wary of terms used without a clear plan behind them
Terms about how Google finds your pages
Crawling is the process of Google’s software visiting pages on your site and reading them. Indexing is Google storing a page so it can appear in results. A page has to be crawled and indexed before it can rank.
A sitemap is a file that lists the pages you want search engines to find. A robots.txt file tells crawlers which parts of a site to stay out of. A noindex tag tells Google to leave a specific page out of results. Mistakes in these files can hide important pages, which is why a good audit checks them first.
A canonical tag tells search engines which version of a page is the main one when similar versions exist. Law firm sites often create duplicates without meaning to, such as the same page loading with and without “www.”
Ask an agency: How will you check that every practice page is indexed, and how often?
Terms about what is on the page
A title tag is the clickable headline that usually shows in search results. A meta description is the short summary that sometimes appears under it. Google may rewrite either one, but a clear, accurate version still helps.
Headings break a page into sections. A well-built DUI page might have headings for the license hearing, the court process and penalties, each answering a question people ask.
Schema markup is code that describes a page to search engines in a structured way. For a law firm it can describe the business, its address and its attorneys. It guarantees nothing in results, though it can help search engines understand the page.
Internal links are links from one page on your site to another. They help readers move around and help Google see which pages matter most.
Ask an agency: Will you write new content, rewrite existing pages, or both, and who reviews the content for legal accuracy?
Terms about local search
The map pack is the group of map listings that appears for many local searches, such as “DUI lawyer near me.” It draws from Google Business Profiles. Your Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows your firm’s name, address, hours, phone number and reviews on Google Search and Maps.
Citations are mentions of your firm’s name, address and phone number on other websites, such as legal directories. Consistent citations help search engines confirm your details. Reviews matter in local search as well, both what they say and how you respond. Check your state bar’s rules before you set up a process for requesting them.
Proximity is how close the searcher is to your listed address. You cannot change where a searcher is standing, which is one reason a firm with a single office rarely appears in the map pack across an entire metro area.
Ask an agency: What will you do with our Google Business Profile in the first 90 days, and how will you report on map rankings?
Terms about trust and authority
Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. Links from relevant, reputable sites, such as local news outlets or bar associations, tend to carry more weight than links from unrelated directories. Anchor text is the clickable wording of a link.
Domain authority and similar scores are metrics created by SEO software companies to estimate a site’s link strength. Google does not use these third-party scores. They can serve as a rough guide, but an agency that promises to raise one number without tying it to calls is selling the wrong thing.
Google’s search quality rater guidelines describe reliable content in terms of experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. The guidelines treat legal topics as “Your Money or Your Life” subjects, where accuracy carries higher stakes. For a defense firm, that means pages should show who wrote them and why that lawyer knows the subject.
Ask an agency: How do you plan to earn links, and what kinds of sites have linked to other law firms you work with? Walk away from anyone who offers to buy links, since Google’s spam policies prohibit link schemes.
Terms about results
Organic traffic is visits from unpaid search results. Impressions are how many times your site appeared in results, and click-through rate is the share of those appearances that turned into a click. Google Search Console reports all of these for free.
A conversion is a visitor taking an action you care about, usually a phone call or a contact form. Call tracking assigns phone numbers to marketing sources so you can see which ones produce calls. For a defense firm, the number that matters most is signed cases, and that depends on your intake as much as on your marketing.
Ask an agency: Which numbers will be in the monthly report, and will any of them connect to calls and consultations?
Terms you will hear about AI search
AI search visibility refers to whether your firm is named or cited in answers from tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, and in Google’s own AI features. These tools draw on web pages, reviews and directory listings, so much of the groundwork overlaps with SEO. Clear pages that answer specific questions, a consistent name and address across the web and an accurate Google Business Profile all help.
Ask an agency: How will you check whether our firm appears in AI answers for the charges we defend, and what will you change if it does not?
Questions new attorneys ask about SEO terms
Do I need to understand all of this to hire an agency?
No. You need enough to ask clear questions and to notice when an answer avoids them. A good agency will explain its work in plain language.
What is the difference between SEO and AI search visibility?
SEO usually refers to ranking in search engine results. AI search visibility refers to being named or cited in answers from AI tools. The two overlap, since those tools often draw on the same web pages.
Is a guaranteed first-page ranking a good sign?
Treat it as a warning. Google’s own guidance on hiring an SEO says no one can guarantee a number one ranking, and results shift often.
This guide is part of SBD Marketing’s coverage of SEO education for attorneys. SBD Marketing works only with criminal defense law firms.
SBD Marketing · info@sbdmarketing.agency · Book a call: sbdmarketing.agency/scheduling · Serving criminal defense law firms across the USA · sbdmarketing.agency
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