SEO optimization is a powerful tool for getting your web site noticed in the search engines which can benefit you incredibly when it comes to natural search engine rankings.
The way SEO optimization works is similar to the way in which an RSS feed can help your site gain exposure. Basically, a search engine spider downloads a page and stores it on the engine's server. Once the information is stored, another program (called an indexer) extracts information about the page such as the words in contains and where the words are located, and any links contained on the page. Each search engine uses its own algorithm to rank the pages it crawls. When someone uses a search engine to seek information, information is retrieved based on the information the spider found. By improving your page's search listings, more users will select your page from amongst their search results. People do not have time to sift through countless search results. In fact, most people do not go beyond the first page of results. Use SEO to help move your page up to that first page!
Search engine crawlers consider a number of different factors when crawling a site for date. Among these are the number of visible links, amount of traffic to the site, and the pages' PageRank. The "distance" of a page from the root directory of the site may also determine whether or not the page gets crawled.
You really want to use SEO optimization if you are serious about inexpensive traffic to your web site.