SEO is basically the processing of optimising your website to rank better in the main search engines globally. People tend to be more concerned with Google then other engines such as Yahoo and Bing etc, and this is mainly due to Google having the lions share of searches being made by customers.
SEO is not an easy art to master with search engines using over 200 signals to position a website, and even with an understanding there is no exact scientific evidence of one certain technique being effective as to many variables are in operation.