Terms, clarified.
From GEO to records of processing activities: the technical terms from my consulting fields, each answered in the first sentence, to look up, link and cite. Every term has its own anchor.
§GEO & AI search
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
GEO is the practice of optimising content and websites so that AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini name them in an answer or cite them as a source. Where SEO competes for positions in Google's result lists, GEO competes for the one answer an AI gives, through direct answers, machine-readable structure and citable authority.
AI visibility
AI visibility describes whether, and how often, a company appears in the answers of AI assistants when users ask about its services. You can test it by putting your own customers' questions to the AIs, or with a structured self-test such as the AI Visibility Check.
AI Overviews
AI Overviews are the AI-generated answer boxes Google displays above the classic search results. They summarise and link content from several sources, whoever gets cited there is visible before the first regular result.
llms.txt
llms.txt is a text file in a website's root directory that gives AI systems a curated, machine-readable overview of its most important content, comparable to a sitemap, but written for language models. It is a young, voluntary standard of GEO practice.
AI crawlers
AI crawlers are the collection programs run by AI providers: GPTBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic) or PerplexityBot, for instance, that gather web content for training and answer generation. Whether they may read a website is controlled by its robots.txt; anyone who wants to appear in AI answers shouldn't lock them out.
E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness, the criteria Google (and increasingly AI systems) use to judge how reliable content and its authors are. Demonstrable hands-on experience and verifiable facts count for more than self-praise.
Answer-first content
Answer-first is the content format in which a page's core question is answered completely in the first two to four sentences, before context and detail follow. It is the format AI assistants and answer boxes prefer to cite.
§Data protection
GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the EU regulation that has governed the handling of personal data since May 2018, for every company that processes such data, regardless of size. Core obligations include a legal basis for every processing activity, information duties, data subject rights and documented accountability.
Data processing agreement (DPA)
A data processing agreement is the contract required by Art. 28 GDPR between a company and every service provider that processes personal data on its behalf, hosting, cloud or newsletter providers, for instance. Without a DPA, the arrangement is unlawful under data protection law.
Records of processing activities
The records of processing activities (Art. 30 GDPR) are the internal documentation of every process in which a company handles personal data, including purposes, data categories, recipients and retention periods. They are the centrepiece of the GDPR's accountability obligation and usually the first step of any implementation.
Technical and organisational measures (TOMs)
TOMs are the safeguards required by Art. 32 GDPR with which a company protects personal data, from access rights, encryption and backups through to staff training. They must be documented and proportionate to the risk.
Data subject rights
Data subject rights are the claims every person holds against companies that process their data: access, rectification, erasure, restriction, data portability and objection. Companies must generally answer requests within one month, a defined process for this is mandatory.
Data protection officer
A data protection officer is the person who monitors GDPR compliance within a company. Appointment is mandatory, among other cases, where sensitive data is processed at scale or people are systematically monitored, many SMEs don't need one, but they very much need someone who owns data protection.
Data breach
A data breach is any violation of the security of personal data, from a hacked account to an email sent to the wrong distribution list. Reportable incidents must be notified to the data protection authority within 72 hours; a prepared process decides whether that deadline is achievable.
§Funding & SMEs
KMU.DIGITAL
KMU.DIGITAL is the funding programme run by the Austrian Ministry of Economic Affairs and the WKO that subsidises digitalisation consulting for Austrian small and medium-sized businesses through certified consultants. It funds status and potential analyses, strategy consultations and subsequent implementation projects.
Potential analysis (KMU.DIGITAL)
The status and potential analysis is the funded entry point into KMU.DIGITAL: a structured assessment of where a business stands on digitalisation and which measures offer the greatest leverage. It is funded at 80% of consulting costs (as of July 2026: max. €400).
Strategy consultation (KMU.DIGITAL)
The strategy consultation is the in-depth KMU.DIGITAL consulting stage: the results of the potential analysis become a concrete digitalisation concept with prioritised measures. It is funded at 50% (as of July 2026: max. €1,000) and is usually a prerequisite for implementation funding.
Implementation funding (KMU.DIGITAL)
Implementation funding subsidises the actual realisation of digitalisation projects that emerge from a funded KMU.DIGITAL consultation, at 30% of project costs (as of July 2026: max. €6,000). Set the project up to comply with the funding rules from day one and you leave no money on the table.
KMU.DIGITAL & GREEN
KMU.DIGITAL & GREEN is the funding track for digitalisation projects with a sustainability contribution, energy efficiency, circular economy or resource savings, for instance. The same funding rates apply as in the base programme.
Certified Digital Consultant
Certified Digital Consultant (CDC) is the certification that qualifies consultants for KMU.DIGITAL engagements; only listed consultants may deliver funded consultations. The certification is tied to consulting fields, such as business models & processes.
§Sales & marketing
Performance Sales
Performance Sales is sales work aligned rigorously with measurable results, pipeline, close rates, revenue, rather than with activity. Positioning, sales collateral and campaigns are treated as one system that turns attention into revenue.
Positioning
Positioning is the decision about what a company should stand for, and what it explicitly should not. A sound positioning answers in one sentence why a particular customer should buy here, of all places; everything else in marketing follows from it.
Sales enablement
Sales enablement covers all the content and tools that make salespeople effective in customer conversations: pitch decks, battle cards, objection handling, reference lists. Good enablement translates strategy into material that actually gets used in the meeting.
Pillar page
A pillar page is a comprehensive overview page that covers a core topic in full and links out to in-depth individual articles, the centre of a topic cluster. Search engines and AIs read topical authority from it.
Topic cluster
A topic cluster is the content architecture of one central pillar page and several linked detail articles on the same subject area. The internal linking signals depth and coherence to search systems, and spreads visibility across every piece in the cluster.
Conversion
Conversion is the moment a visitor becomes a lead or a customer, through a booking or an enquiry, for instance. Conversion optimisation means pointing every page at exactly one desired next action and removing everything that distracts from it.
§Technology
Schema.org / structured data
Structured data based on Schema.org is machine-readable supplementary information in a website's source code that tells search engines and AIs explicitly what a piece of content is, a company, an FAQ, an article, a service. It is a basic prerequisite for being cited and displayed correctly.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are Google's metrics for a website's user experience: loading speed (LCP), interactivity (INP) and visual stability (CLS). They feed into rankings and can be measured reproducibly with tools such as Lighthouse.
hreflang
hreflang is the HTML annotation that tells search engines which language versions of a page exist and which version is intended for which users. Without correct hreflang pairs, language versions compete against each other instead of complementing one another.