Glossary · 50 terms
Aesthetic clinic marketing glossary
Plain-English definitions of the SEO, local SEO, paid media, compliance, and AI-search vocabulary your marketing team or agency will use with you. No jargon for jargon’s sake — just the terms worth knowing, defined for aesthetic clinic owners specifically.
Search & SEO fundamentals
The vocabulary Google uses to describe how your clinic site is (or isn't) ranking.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
- The practice of making your clinic website more likely to appear in Google search results for the queries patients actually run — "botox toronto," "med spa near me," etc.
- SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
- The page Google shows after someone searches. For clinic queries, it usually contains ads at the top, a map pack, then organic listings.
- Map pack (Local pack)
- The three Google Business Profile listings Google shows on a map for local searches. For "botox near me," this is often where 40-60% of clicks go — often more than the top organic result.
- Organic listing
- A search result Google shows because it thinks the page best answers the query — not because someone paid. Organic clicks are "free" once the page ranks but take months of SEO work to earn.
- Paid listing (Ad)
- A search result someone paid to appear for. Marked with "Sponsored" or "Ad" label. Clicks cost money but appear immediately once ads are approved.
- Impressions
- How many times your listing appeared in a search result — regardless of whether anyone clicked. Impressions are the ceiling; clicks are what actually convert.
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Percentage of impressions that turned into clicks. A page ranking #3 with a 20% CTR outperforms a page ranking #1 with a 5% CTR — title and description writing matter enormously.
- Keyword
- What a patient types into Google — "botox toronto," "how much does lip filler cost." Ranking well means matching your content to the keywords your ideal patients search.
- Search volume
- How many times per month a keyword is searched globally or in your city. High-volume keywords have more competition; long-tail keywords have less volume but higher intent.
- Long-tail keyword
- A specific, low-volume search term with high buying intent — "morpheus8 for jaw slimming toronto" instead of "morpheus8." Long-tail traffic converts 2-5x better than head terms.
Local SEO & Google Business Profile
The specific vocabulary of getting your clinic ranked in the map pack — the single highest-ROI SEO surface for most clinics.
- GBP (Google Business Profile)
- Formerly Google My Business. Your free business listing on Google that powers the map pack, appears in branded searches, and drives most local clinic discovery.
- NAP (Name, Address, Phone)
- The three details that must be identical everywhere your clinic appears online — website, GBP, RateMDs, Yelp, directories. Inconsistent NAP is the single biggest local SEO killer.
- Citation
- A mention of your clinic's NAP on another website — Yellow Pages, RateMDs, local business directories. Consistent citations reinforce your existence to Google.
- Review velocity
- The rate at which you're earning new Google reviews. Google weights review recency heavily — 40 reviews from the last 12 months beats 200 from three years ago for ranking purposes.
- Service area
- The geographic radius your clinic is willing to serve — set inside your GBP. Impacts whether you show up in map packs for surrounding neighbourhoods.
- Google Posts
- Short updates you can publish on your GBP. Function like mini-blog posts inside the map pack. Weekly posting signals an active business and lifts local rankings.
- Q&A (GBP)
- A section on your GBP where anyone can ask a question and anyone can answer. Best practice is to seed your own answers to the questions patients actually ask.
Technical SEO
The under-the-hood signals that decide whether Google can even understand and index your site.
- Core Web Vitals (CWV)
- Google's three page-experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness). Failing CWV hurts rankings.
- Schema markup / JSON-LD
- Structured data in a specific format that tells Google what a page is about — MedicalBusiness, Physician, Service, FAQPage, Review. Schema is required for rich results and AI Overview citations.
- Rich result
- A search result Google displays with extra visual elements — star ratings, FAQ dropdowns, breadcrumbs, image thumbnails. Rich results have higher CTRs than plain listings.
- Canonical tag
- An HTML tag telling Google which version of a page is the "official" one when duplicates exist. Wrong canonicals silently split rankings between duplicate pages.
- Indexation
- Whether Google has crawled your page and added it to its index. Pages that aren't indexed can't rank. Check indexation status in Google Search Console.
- Sitemap (XML)
- A file at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml listing every page you want Google to know about. Submit it to Search Console for faster discovery of new content.
- Robots.txt
- A file at yoursite.com/robots.txt telling Google which pages it can and can't crawl. A single wrong line here can de-index your entire site.
- hreflang
- Tags that tell Google which language version of a page to serve to which user. Required for bilingual EN/FR clinics in Canada, EN/ES clinics in Miami, and any multi-language site.
Paid media & advertising
The vocabulary of paid clinic marketing — Google Ads, Meta Ads, and platform-specific mechanics.
- CPC (Cost per Click)
- What you pay for each ad click. Aesthetic keywords are among the most expensive in Google Ads — "cosmetic surgery" CPCs can exceed $20-$50 depending on market.
- CPA (Cost per Acquisition)
- What you pay to acquire one booking. If your CPC is $15 and 5% of visitors book, your CPA is $300. Watch CPA more closely than CPC.
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
- Total marketing cost to acquire one new patient — usually a broader measure than CPA that includes all channels, not just paid.
- LTV (Lifetime Value)
- Total revenue a patient generates over their entire relationship with your clinic. Aesthetic patient LTV typically runs 3-8x their first-visit revenue when properly retained.
- LTV:CAC ratio
- Lifetime value divided by acquisition cost. Healthy clinic marketing runs 3:1 or higher. Below 2:1 signals unprofitable marketing spend.
- PMax (Performance Max)
- Google's automated campaign type that runs ads across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail. Powerful for clinics but requires careful setup to avoid wasted spend.
- Remarketing / Retargeting
- Showing ads to people who visited your site but didn't book. Highest-ROI paid strategy for aesthetic clinics — warm audiences convert 3-5x better than cold traffic.
Compliance & regulatory
The rules that separate legally-compliant clinic marketing from marketing that risks fines, ad bans, or worse.
- HIPAA (US)
- US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Governs patient privacy. Never confirm patient status or share identifiable results without written consent.
- PIPEDA (Canada)
- Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Canada's federal privacy law. Provincial equivalents (PHIPA in Ontario, PIPA in BC/Alberta) add stricter rules.
- CASL (Canada)
- Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation. Requires express consent before sending marketing emails or SMS. Applies to all patient communications, not just marketing.
- TCPA (US)
- US Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Governs SMS and call outreach. Requires express consent, honours opt-outs immediately. Fines are per-message, so violations get expensive fast.
- CPSO / CPSBC / CMQ
- Provincial medical colleges (Ontario, BC, Quebec respectively). Set advertising standards physicians and physician-supervised clinics must follow. Restrict superlatives, testimonials, and before/after content.
- Bill 96 (Quebec)
- Quebec law requiring French content have equivalent prominence to English on business-facing materials. Applies to clinic websites operating in Quebec.
- FTC truth-in-advertising
- US Federal Trade Commission rule requiring marketing claims be truthful, substantiated, and not deceptive. Endorsements must disclose material connections (paid, gifted, etc.).
- FDA / Health Canada clearance
- Regulatory approval for aesthetic devices and drugs. Marketing claims must align with approved indications — off-label promotion is illegal in both jurisdictions.
AI search & modern SEO
The vocabulary of the AI-driven search era that's reshaping how clinic content gets discovered.
- AI Overview
- Google's AI-generated answer shown at the top of some search results. Preferentially cites content marked up with FAQPage schema, well-structured pages, and authoritative sources.
- ChatGPT search / Perplexity
- AI search engines competing with Google. Also preferentially cite structured content. Being cited here often drives more qualified traffic than ranking #10 on Google.
- FAQPage schema
- JSON-LD markup that tags Q&A content on your page. One of the highest-impact schema types right now — AI systems extract answers directly from FAQPage-marked content.
- llms.txt
- An emerging standard file at yoursite.com/llms.txt that describes your site to AI systems. Helps AI models cite your content correctly.
- Entity SEO
- Optimizing for the "things" (people, places, procedures, brands) Google recognizes as entities in its Knowledge Graph. Named injectors, specific treatments, and provincial colleges are all entities.
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