SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It is the work of getting your pages found in search results without paying for the placement. That used to mean Google and little else. Today it also means Bing, TikTok, YouTube and the AI assistants your buyers ask before they ever open a search engine.
What SEO actually covers
Most people picture keywords. Keywords are one part of it. The work splits into three areas that have to hold together.
- Technical. Can a search engine reach your pages, render them and understand what is on them? If the answer is no, nothing else you do counts.
- Content. Does the page answer the question someone actually typed, in enough depth that they stop looking?
- Authority. Do other credible sites and publications reference you? Search engines still use that as a proxy for whether you are worth trusting.
Weak technical foundations cap everything above them. Strong content on a site that cannot be crawled is invisible. That is why the three are treated as one job rather than three.
How search engines decide what to rank
A crawler finds your page by following a link or reading your sitemap. The page is rendered, then stored in an index. When someone searches, the engine pulls candidates from that index and orders them using hundreds of signals: relevance to the query, the quality and depth of the page, how fast it loads, how other sites reference it, and what the searcher seems to want.
That last part matters more than most people expect. Two people typing the same words can want different things, and search engines increasingly guess at the intent behind a query rather than matching the words in it. Read our note on search intent for why that changes how you write.
How long SEO takes
Longer than paid search and shorter than most people fear. Technical fixes can move things in weeks. A new page targeting a competitive term is usually a three to six month proposition, and a site with no authority behind it will take longer still. Anyone quoting you a fixed timeline before looking at your site is guessing.
Is SEO still worth it with AI search?
AI assistants answer from pages they can reach, render and read. The same crawlability, clarity and credibility that wins a Google ranking is what gets a page cited in an AI answer. The channel has changed. The underlying work has not, which is why we treat it as one discipline across every platform people search on.
Common questions
What is the difference between SEO and PPC?
PPC buys a placement and stops the moment you stop paying. SEO earns the placement and keeps it while the page stays relevant. Most businesses need both, weighted differently depending on margin and how long a customer stays.
Can I do SEO myself?
Yes, up to a point. Writing genuinely useful pages, fixing obvious technical errors and keeping your site fast are all within reach. Competitive markets need dedicated time and tooling that most in-house teams do not have spare.
How much does SEO cost?
Agency retainers in the UK commonly run from around £1,500 a month for a small site to well into five figures for enterprise work. The honest answer depends on how competitive your market is and how much ground you have to make up.
Want the short version? Our glossary entry for SEO covers the definition in a paragraph.
