There are a lot of technical terminology I can use to define search engine optimization (SEO), but I would like to define it for the average web user. In basic terms, SEO are the steps taken to improve the volume or quality of the visitors to a web site from search engines “organic” search results.
Organic search results are based on relevant search terms, not paid entries. Which means if you type “cat collars” into a search engine, it should return only sites that have the term “cat collars” on their page. The site that has the most terms matching your search, should show up first in the search results. But volume of search terms, is not the only element that effects the rank of the search result. Search engines also look at the quality of the terms frequency. Which means you can not type “cat collars” 100 times, which is called search engine “spamming.
Other factors effecting the search result rank, involve cross links. External links to other sites that are relevant to your sites content (industry). So it comes down to your “friends”. Linking to your friend’s fantasy football league, will not benefit your site.
Bottom line is that there is no “recipe” to “Top 10 Ranking”, only guidelines. What I always advise our clients, is to just write honest content. We advise our clients that we write search engine friendly code and sites that can easily be indexed. High ranking does note happen over night. Minor changes over time will improve and will help establish your site.