SEO or search engine marketing is the process of promoting a business online to achieve top search engine rankings for relevant, targeted keyphrases.

SEO refers to modifying a website for search engines in order to bring searchers and suppliers together. Search engine optimisation will increase qualified traffic, generate enquiries and convert more sales.

Contrary to any sales hype you may read elsewhere, there are no software products available, nor will there ever be, that can automate the search engine optimisation process.

Having the best looking site won't give your business any benefit if it can't be found. Each page must be content rich, search engine friendly and should be easily found by potential customers using relevant search terms. SEO can achieve this.

Merely registering your URL with all the major search engines won't give your pages a decent shot at appearing on the coveted "page one" of the search engine results unless it is backed up with targeted search engine optimization.

Popular animated gizmos based on products like JavaScript or Flash, for example, are to all intents and purposes invisible to search engine crawlers and can seriously affect the SEO process. So can Active Server Pages, JavaServer pages, elements contained within frames, and pages that enforce acceptance of cookies.

Research shows that most search engine users don't look past the first two or three pages of results returned by a search engine. If your pages do not appear in the first three pages its time to consider SEO.

Research also shows that around 85 percent of Internet consumers use search engines and directories to look for products, services and information. Given such a high degree of consumer use and acceptance of search engine results, SEO is the most cost efficient means of generating qualified site traffic and activity.