Topic file · Content
Content, email, social and the words for it all
Writing pages people can use, sending email and texts that stay on the right side of the law, and a short glossary of the terms that come up in every marketing conversation.
Good search results start with pages that are worth showing. This topic file covers the writing side: page copy, blog posts, email newsletters and social channels, along with the New Zealand rules that apply once you start sending messages to people.
The short version
Write for the person with the question, not for a ranking tool. Put the answer near the top. Use headings that describe what follows. If you email or text customers for marketing, you need their consent, you need to say who you are, and you need an unsubscribe option that works. The Department of Internal Affairs enforces those rules and publishes plain guidance on them.
Glossary
A working vocabulary, kept short on purpose. Terms are defined the way they are used on this site.
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Organic result | A search result chosen by the search engine's ranking systems. Nobody pays for the position. |
| Paid result | An ad shown on a results page, bought through an auction and labelled as sponsored. |
| SERP | Search engine results page: everything shown after a search, ads and maps included. |
| Keyword | The words a person types, or the topic a page is built to answer. Better thought of as a question than a single word. |
| Long-tail | Longer, more specific searches. Each one is rare, but together they are a large share of searches, and they tend to show clearer intent. |
| Intent | What the person is trying to do: learn something, find a particular site, or buy or book something. |
| Impression | One appearance of your page or ad in a set of results, whether or not anyone clicks. |
| CTR | Click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions. |
| CPC | Cost per click: what an advertiser pays when someone clicks an ad. |
| Quality Score | A 1 to 10 diagnostic in Google Ads. Google says it is not itself an input to the ad auction. |
| Title link | The clickable headline of a search result. Usually drawn from the page title, but Google can use other text on the page. |
| Snippet | The description under a result. Often taken from the page's text rather than its meta description. |
| Business Profile | The free Google listing that feeds the map and the panel shown for a business name search. |
| NAP | Name, address, phone: the business details that should agree everywhere they appear. |
| Core Web Vitals | Google's three measures of page experience: loading, responsiveness and visual stability. |
| UEMA | The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007, New Zealand's anti-spam law. |
| Opt-in | A person actively agreeing to receive messages, for example by ticking an unticked box. |
If a term you need is missing, the notes in each topic file usually explain it in context.