What is SEO (search engine optimisation)?
What does SEO involve?
It has two audiences. Search engines need to read and understand your pages. People need a reason to click your result and then stay.
Practitioners often split the work into on-page (what is on your pages), off-page (signals from other sites) and technical (how the site is built and crawled). That split is common industry convention, not an official rulebook.
In practice, SEO work starts with questions. What are people typing? Which of your pages answers them? Can a search engine reach those pages? Each page is built around a keyword: the phrase it is written to answer. Links from other sites, called backlinks, matter twice: Google says it finds pages mainly through links from pages it has already crawled, and that links feed one of its many ranking signals1.
Why does it matter for a shop?
Organic results are not paid per click. That is the draw. The cost is time, and the results sit on a page you do not control. A SERP, or search engine results page, is a set of different elements that changes over time, so your listing shares space with others.
For ZFD: Organic traffic counts when it brings customers who would not have found you through ads, so that is what we ask about.
For how SEO sits next to newer terms, read AEO vs GEO vs SEO.
You can see your own search data for free in Google Search Console.
Easily confused with
SEO vs Paid search
You pay for each click or showing. SEO earns visibility without per-click billing, but not for free in effort.
SEO vs GEO (generative engine optimisation)
Optimising for visibility in answers from generative AI systems. The term is used broadly and inconsistently.
SEO vs AI Overviews
AI-generated summaries in Google Search. They are a result type, not a discipline.
Buzzword alert
"AI-ready SEO"
Usually means: ordinary search work, relabelled for AI answers, with unclear added scope.
Ask: which specific tasks are included that standard SEO would not cover?
"Future-proof SEO"
Usually means: a promise of stability that nobody outside the search engines controls.
Ask: what do we do when rankings or result formats change?
FAQ
Is SEO free?
There is no per-click charge. Content, technical work and time still cost money.
Is SEO spelt differently in the US?
Only the last word. We write "optimisation" in the UK way. The US spelling uses a "z" and is common in search queries.
How long does SEO take?
There is no fixed time. Google says some changes show in a few hours and others take several months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before judging a change1.
Sources
- SEO Starter Guide: The Basics (Google Search Central)Primary source
Let’s find what’s actually working.
Next step. See how organic and paid numbers fit together. Use the Is your ROAS real? calculator.