Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engines via the 'natural' or 'organic' search results.

Organic (or natural) refers to the traffic your website receives from search engines that is unpaid.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) refers to the process of altering your website to rank high in the organic (unpaid) search results, whereas Pay Per Click (PPC) is advertising that you pay for.

Search engine traffic is highly sought after because it's a highly targeted form of marketing.
Compare this with offline marketing, which tends to be less targeted.

For example, let's say you run a business selling snow boards and you run a radio campaign that is broadcast to 10,000 people.
While your reach may be large, in reality - most people that are exposed to your ad aren't in the market for a snow board... which means your conversion will be low.

Contrast this with someone who goes to Google searching for the term 'buy snowboard', which is highly targeted.

Search Engine Optimisation is the continuous process of 'optimising' your website to improve your websites position in the organic rankings.
Search Engine Submission refers to the process of 'submitting' your website for inclusion in the search engines. However, merely 'submitting' your website to a search engine isn't going to get you highly ranked.

This is a crucial point as most users don't click past the first page of results.
In other words, Search Engine Submission is a small component of Search Engine Optimisation.

You'll begin to see results within 30 days of the campaign starting, however it takes between 3 to 6 months to achieve optimal results.
For example, if you're targeting the keyword 'espresso machines' - after 30 days you may be sitting on page 6. After 2 months you might move up to page 3 and so on.

In one word - results.
Be wary of companies who can't show you proof of results (it's usually because they don't have any).

You can... and we do encourage our customers to spend some time getting themselves familiar with SEO principles in general.

However, proper search engine optimisation isn't for the faint of heart.
As an example, Google looks at over 200 individual factors in determining search engine results (and they're constantly changing).

In our experience, most people who attempt to do SEO themselves - usually fall short of achieving their intended results (getting ranked on page one).
Additionally, proper SEO can be quite time consuming and most business owners are better served spending that time to grow their business.

If you really believe you can achieve top search engine rankings in a week for $49.95... we have a few boxes of 'genuine moon rock' we'd like to sell you :-)
Seriously though, most of these packages are charging purely to 'submit' your website - not to optimise it. A common theme with these type of packages is that they don't provide any real proof of results.

Your campaign manager will work with you to determine which keywords have the best chance of success.

Generic keywords are usually highly searched single words, whereas long tail keywords combine multiple words and are more targeted.
For example 'Accountant' is an example of a generic keyword, whereas 'Tax Accountant Sydney' is an example of a long tail keyword.

In general, long tail keywords have a higher conversion rate as they are more targeted and searchers are at the end of the buying cycle.

Search Engine Optimisation can be divided into two areas; on page and off page optimisation.

On page optimisation: refers to the factors on your website that influence your ranking (e.g. your keywords, page structure, etc).
Off page optimisation: refers to the factors outside of your website (e.g. amount of links to your website, link authority, etc).

A successful SEO campaign needs to address both on-page and off-page factors.

Aside from an initial questionnaire we get you to fill out, we take care of everything else.

While an effective SEO campaign can significantly increase organic traffic to your site, it doesn't guarantee sales conversions. There are many external variables outside the scope of SEO that will effect your sales conversion rate. These include the design of your site, depth of product descriptions, quality of product images, price competitiveness, branding and overall business credibility.

In short, visitors to your website need to feel that your business is legitimate and trust-worthy.

Additionally, SEO on its own does not make up a complete marketing strategy. All SEO campaigns should be complemented by additional marketing efforts, such as PPC campaigns, e-mail newsletters, PR and effective use of social media.