There is a small puddle under the kitchen sink every morning. The homeowner does not know what the trap is, or that the part that is probably failing is called a “washer”. They know it drips. And they type into Google: “water dripping under kitchen sink what do I do”.

The local plumber has a website. It says: “Trap repairs, valve replacement, drain unblocking”. All correct. And none of it resembles what the person with the puddle typed.

This article is about that gap: between the words you know and the words your customer searches with.

You know what it is called. The customer does not.

The better someone knows their job, the harder it is to remember what it was like not to know it. The accountant writes “business registration”, the customer searches “what papers do I need to open a shop”. The software company writes “online booking system”, the customer searches “so customers can book appointments themselves from their phone”. The dealer writes the part number, the customer searches “the plastic thing that holds the mirror”.

Neither side is wrong. They simply speak different languages. And Google, even today, finds a page more easily when the page uses words similar to the ones the searcher typed.

The customer describes

Google itself admits as much when it explains how it tries to understand searches. In its 2019 announcement it writes that about 15% of searches every day are searches it has never seen before, and that we often do not know the right words or how to spell something.

With artificial intelligence, the descriptions have become even longer. AI Mode is the Google feature that answers with artificial intelligence inside search, and it has been available in Greece, in Greek, since October 2025. Google says that there people ask questions almost three times longer than an ordinary search. They no longer type two words. They type their story: what happened, what they tried, where they live, when they need it.

And when they cannot even describe it, they take a photo of it with their phone and ask what it is.

Three kinds of words that are not yours

When the customer does not know the term, they usually search in one of three ways.

By the symptom. “It drips”, “it won’t open”, “it shows an error message”, “it smells of burning”. They know what they see, not what is wrong.

By the goal. “So I don’t miss calls while I’m working”, “so customers pay in advance”. They know what they want to achieve, not what the tool that does it is called.

By a word close to the right one. The word they heard somewhere, the name of the best-known brand, or the trade term spelled slightly wrong.

If your website only says the correct term, you are found by people who already know it. These are usually people who have already searched, asked and compared. Those who are just starting, with a symptom, a goal or a word they heard somewhere, walk right past you.

It does not mean throwing out the correct terms

The correct term is needed. People who know it search for it, and it shows the reader you know what you are doing. The point is not to write more simply. It is to write both: to name your work with the correct term, and to describe the problem it solves in the words of the person who has it.

The difference shows in one sentence. “Trap repairs” is correct. “If water is dripping under your kitchen sink, it is usually the trap or a washer, and it can be fixed the same day” is correct, and the person with the puddle finds it. Doing this properly across a whole website, without the text losing its natural feel, takes work and is learned in practice.

The same applies to artificial intelligence assistants. To recommend you, they have to understand from your website that you solve what the customer described to them. They understand it more easily when the website says it in similar words. If you want to see what they recommend today for your line of work, we explain it in the article “Ask what the answer engines (AI) say about your area”.

Where their words are

You have already heard them. You hear them every time someone phones you and starts with “I don’t know what it’s called, but…”.

The hard part is not finding them. It is keeping them as they were said. As soon as someone hears the problem, they immediately translate it into the language of the trade, and the original wording is lost. A simple check: if the phrases customers use when they phone you appear nowhere on your website, the gap is there.

In the article “You do not need a blog. You need answers.” we explain where your customers’ questions are hiding. Here we care about the words inside those questions.

Then there are the numbers: Google keeps data on how people already find you, and it often shows that Google considers you relevant for searches your page does not answer. How that data is read is learned in practice, and it is part of our job.

The temptation is to chase the word with the most searches. In practice, the popular word has a lot of competition, and often people who are just having a look or are searching for something else with the same name.

Fewer people search with a description of a specific problem. But they know what they are missing, and when they find someone who describes exactly what they are going through, they usually stop searching. They phone.

Ten of them a month are often worth more than a thousand who passed by and left. And if you only count visits, you will never see it, as we explain in the article “The visit that never happened”.

The person with the puddle under the sink

They will never learn what a trap is, and they do not need to. They need to find someone who understands them. If your website shows that you understand what is happening to them, in the words they would use themselves, they have already decided before they pick up the phone.

If you want to see how far your website’s words are from your customers’ words, we can work through it with you. It is part of our job, and at the end we tell you in writing what we found. See the SEO & GEO service, so that Google and artificial intelligence assistants can find you, or send us your website’s address through the form, along with two or three phrases you often hear from customers.