A website is like a finely tuned engine. It should be built to generate maximum exposure on search engines, drive traffic to the site and make its owner money. It's not enough to put gas in the tank (content, graphics, links, etc.) and expect it to take off!
You are not a (web) mechanic and not expected to know all the nuances of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But to get the most mileage out of your website you need to have a SEO expert fine tune it. So instead of seeing red with SEO.
For example, not many website owners know about the "nofollow" tag. But it is important for your website optimization. There are certain pages, content or links you do not want the search engine spiders "to follow." It is intended to reduce the effectiveness of certain types of search engine spam, thenby improving the quality of search engine results. By putting the "nofollow" tag in the code will tell the Google spiders not to follow your designations.
There are other SEO tags (ie meta, title, anchor and description tags) that need to be built into the coding for the search engine "bots" to find. These tags are taken from the keyword rich content in your website. When done correctly and according to the Google guidelines, it will help get your page ranked and make it easier for people searching for your products and services to find your site. Remember the more traffic, the more viewers, the more leads and sales.
The devil may be in the details of SEO but optimization should be in your website and be an important part of your marketing efforts.