What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the process of getting traffic from the free, organic, editorial or natural listings on search engines. All major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Bing have such results, where internet pages and other content like videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users.

You don’t pay anything to get into Google, Yahoo or Bing, as well as in 2011, it’s common for the major search engines to get your website pretty easily through themselves within a few days. This is made so much easier if your website actually ‘pings’ search engines when you update content. If you have trouble getting a new site into Google, consider getting some fresh Tweets to your website, as well as keep an eye out for Googlebot visits.

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is the simple activity of ensuring a website can be found in search engines for words and phrases relevant to what the site is offering. In many respects it's simply quality control for websites. Having said that if there was ever an industry that was little understood by 'outsiders' it's SEO.