Web, conversion and AI search

AI search

AI search means search interfaces that generate a composed answer rather than returning a list of links, so the user reads a synthesized response, sometimes with citations, instead of clicking through to the sources it was built from.

Answer engine optimization

Answer engine optimization is the practice of writing and structuring content so an AI answer engine picks it up and cites it, which means competing for a mention inside someone else's answer rather than for a ranking position on a results page.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who arrive and leave without any further interaction, and it is one of the most cited and least reliable web metrics because it counts a satisfied departure and a wrong-page exit as the same event.

Citation rate

Citation rate is how often a source is referenced in AI-generated answers, the metric that would replace ranking in a generative search world, and it is a sampled proxy for a non-deterministic behavior rather than a standardized figure that can be reported with the confidence of a ranking.

Click-to-call

Click-to-call lets a website visitor request a phone conversation with one click, usually by triggering a callback rather than making them dial, and it is the older bridge between a website and a live voice conversation.

Conversion rate optimization

Conversion rate optimization is the practice of increasing the share of visitors who take the action you want, by removing the reasons they do not convert rather than by buying more traffic, so every improvement applies to visitors you have already paid to acquire.

Crawlability

Crawlability is whether automated systems can access, read and understand a website content, and if a crawler cannot reach a page nothing else about that page matters, because content that cannot be reached cannot be cited, ranked, retrieved or summarized.

Dwell time

Dwell time is how long a visitor spends on a page or site before leaving, used as a proxy for whether content held attention, though longer presence can equally mean engagement, confusion, or a background tab nobody is watching.

Exit intent

Exit intent is a signal that a visitor is about to leave, most commonly detected by cursor movement toward the browser controls, and it triggers a last-moment intervention, though it is a probabilistic signal with substantial false positives that barely works on mobile.

Generative engine optimization

Generative engine optimization is the practice of improving a brand presence and citation within AI-generated answers, and it is an emerging discipline whose boundary with answer engine optimization is not settled.

Intent-triggered activation

Intent-triggered activation is a tool appearing at a judged moment based on visitor behavior rather than waiting to be clicked, so the system decides when to offer itself, and its entire value rests on the quality of that timing judgment.

Lead capture

Lead capture is collecting the contact details a visitor gives so a business can follow up, and it is the conversion event for anything that does not complete online; collected in a conversation, the details arrive with the context of what the visitor wanted, which is what makes a lead strong rather than merely present.

LLM SEO

LLM SEO is a third name for the same emerging practice that answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization also describe: being the source AI systems draw on when they answer questions.

llms.txt

llms.txt is a proposed convention for a markdown file at a site root that presents content in a form language models can consume easily, and it is an emerging proposal rather than a ratified standard that AI systems reliably consume.

On-site search

On-site search is the search box on a website, used by visitors to find something they could not locate through navigation, and its logs are the most direct available statement of what visitors want and cannot find.

Post-search web

The post-search web is a framing that describes a shift in how people find information online, away from searching and clicking through results and toward asking and receiving answers directly, and it is a positioning frame rather than an established industry term.

Schema markup

Schema markup is structured data added to a web page that tells machines what the content means, turning a price on a page into an identified price and an address into an identified address.

Scroll depth

Scroll depth is how far down a page a visitor scrolls, usually measured as a percentage of page height or in milestones, and it is the most reliable of the common engagement signals because it takes a deliberate action that a background tab cannot fake.

Session duration

Session duration is how long an entire visit lasts across all pages, before the visitor leaves or the session times out, and it is a weak quality proxy because efficient answer-finding produces short sessions while confusion produces long ones.

Site search abandonment

Site search abandonment is a visitor searching a website, seeing the results, and leaving without clicking anything, which is a search that ran and failed at the highest-intent moment on the site.

Voice commerce

Voice commerce is buying and selling through spoken interaction, from asking about products to completing a purchase, though its durable value lies in the pre-purchase conversation that removes an obstacle to a sale rather than in voice checkout itself.

Voice search

Voice search is speaking a query to a search engine or assistant instead of typing it, which is a way of asking search rather than a way of asking a website, and it is a different moment from a visitor speaking to a site directly.

Voice SEO

Voice SEO is the practice of optimizing content to be the answer a search engine or assistant reads aloud, and in practice it has largely merged into answer engine optimization, the broader work of being the source AI answers cite.

Zero-click search

A zero-click search is a search where the person gets their answer on the results page itself and never visits a website, so the search succeeds while the site that had the answer receives nothing.