What is SEO?

Search engines are still where most buying journeys start, and organic clicks are free at the margin: once a page ranks, every visit it earns costs nothing extra. SEO is the discipline of making that happen on purpose. It splits into three layers: technical (can Google crawl, render and index the page?), on-page (does the content answer the query better than the alternatives, with a clear title, headings and internal links?) and off-page (do other sites vouch for it with backlinks and mentions?).

The order matters. A technical blocker such as an accidental noindex makes every other effort worthless, while a beautifully linked page with thin content still loses to a competitor who answers the question properly. Most sites get the biggest gains from fixing crawl and indexing problems first, then rewriting the pages that already earn impressions but few clicks, and only then chasing links.