Search engine optimization (SEO) means making sure your website conforms to all the criteria set by search engines for listing websites. The problem is that many of those criteria are secret, and many of the others are highly technical.
Furthermore, Google, for example, changes their criteria for ranking sites several hundred times a year. Yup: several hundred changes a year. And SEO experts just have to basically guess what those changes are.
There are so many challenges with search engine optimization that even SEO experts have a hard time keeping up. Do you have time for that? Realistically, no.
Yet the work must be done. Without good SEO a website these days is next to useless. It is like a new shop on a back street with no sign outside: very unlikely to be found by the right customers.
SEO means filling your site with optimized content that search engines like Google believe Internet users want to find: quality content. But it also means behind-the-scenes coding that you are not likely to see, and neither are site visitors—but that can have a big effect on whether or not your site shows up in search results.
Writing good web content is an art. So is arranging that content to display to best effect on a website so that visitors stay long enough to read the content and take the actions that you want them to: sign up for email, buy your product or service, or whatever. Most of us can understand that even if we are not sure how to do it
Some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of SEO are scientific (like analyzing heat maps, bounce rates, and traffic). Those are doable—if you are good with math and statistics.
But other aspects of SEO can be so arcane that they are almost a form of magic. You can see results, but you can only guess how they were achieved.
Want to do your own SEO for your website? Knock yourself out. Though complex and sometimes technical, SEO is something you can study and learn—if you have the time to devote to it.
But do you really want to? Because SEO practices change constantly to keep up with Google and the other search engines, the knowledge and skills required to be really good at it change constantly. Remember that even if you get everything right, your competitors are probably doing the same thing that you are doing. And they may be doing it better.
The science of selecting keywords, for example, is a matter for constant debate even among keyword experts. And if they cannot reach a consensus on the best methods—or even what constitutes the best results—how can we?
Do you really want to take a lot of time away from whatever really makes you money to learn to do something that you can easily pay someone else to do—and do far better?
SEO, besides changing constantly as Google and others change their search algorithms, simply involves too many different skills and disciplines, too many arts and scientists, for one person to reasonably master as a part time job. This is why there are SEO companies—and why the good ones really earn their money.
