SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Its purpose is to drive more unpaid traffic to a website by working to rank content on that website higher for queries in a specific search engine. Most often the end goal is that the traffic brought to a website will increase sales, inbound leads, advertising revenue, or accomplish some other way of generating revenue and/or make it easier for a company to generate revenue later on (i.e. pre-sales inquiries, etc…).

Due to this end goal SEO practitioners also work to ensure that the traffic coming from a search engine is of high-quality.

Search Engines are in a constant battle to keep ahead of changing consumer behaviors and to fight against nefarious characters such as spammers and scammers that would use their rankings in the engine to hurt users. Due to this SEO is in a state of constant flux as practitioners have to adjust their websites and content to meet the evolving demands of the algorithms that drive search engines.

For a variety of reasons SEO is a more long-term form of digital marketing and rarely works in short time frames.

Understanding what SEO stands for is only the beginning. You’ll need to learn a lot more to be successful at implementing search engine optimization in your business.

Over the years various notable companies involved in the SEO space have attempted to answer this question, the top answers can be found below

Here is how search engine news website Search Engine Land answers the question “What is SEO?”:

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines.

– via Search Engine Land’s ‘What is SEO’ page

Here is how search engine news website Search Engine Journal answers the question “What is SEO?”:

The process of optimizing a website – as well as all the content on that website – so it will appear in prominent positions in the organic results of search engines. SEO requires an understanding of how search engines work, what people search for (i.e., keywords and keyphrases), and why people search (intent). Successful SEO makes a site appealing to users and search engines. It is a combination of technical (on-page SEO) and marketing (off-page SEO).

– via Search Engine Journal’s ‘SEO Glossary’ page & Bonus 60 SEOs define SEO

Here is how SaaS provider Moz answers the question “What is SEO?”:

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

– via Moz’s ‘What is SEO?’ page

Here’s how UK based SEO crawling tool and agency Screaming Frog answers the question “What is SEO?”:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of increasing the number and quality of visitors to a website by improving rankings in the algorithmic search engine results.

– via Screaming Frog’s ‘What is SEO’ page

Here’s how SEO tool provider Ahrefs answers the question “What is SEO?”:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing content to be discovered through a search engine’s organic search results.

The benefits are obvious: free, passive traffic to your website, month after month.

– via Ahrefs ‘What is SEO?’ page

Here’s how WordPress SEO plugin Yoast answers the question “What is SEO?”:

SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimization’. It’s the practice of optimizing your web pages to make them reach a high position in the search results of Google or other search engines. SEO focuses on improving the rankings in the organic – aka non paid – search results.

– via Yoast’s ‘What is SEO’ page

Here’s how CRM software company Hubspot answers the question “What is SEO?”:

SEO stands for search engine optimization — that much has stayed the same. It refers to techniques that help your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This makes your website more visible to people who are looking for solutions that your brand, product, or service can provide via search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.

What hasn’t stayed the same are the techniques we use to improve our rankings. This has everything to do with the search algorithms that these companies constantly change.

Here are some other frequently asked questions about this critical practice today.

– via Hubspot’s ‘The Definition of SEO in 100 Words or Less’ page