SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines. SEO is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users.

SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will found by the search engine. Usually it is a set of “white hat” best practices that webmasters and web content producers follow to help them achieve a better ranking in search engine results.

All major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.