Searching over the world wide web started in 1990 with Archie, the first Search Engine. A search engine is a massive computer program created to  make it possible for anything you can possibly imagine to be found online. 

At present there are over 63,000 google searches per second. The customer ultimately drives what will be searched for when they enter the keywords they come up with and enter into the search engine of their choice . When customers look for goods or services over 70% of the time they are searching for local businesses. 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the work done to connect those customer searches to your website increase the quality and quantity of visitors to your website. There are no cold sales online. 

And that, in a nutshell, is SEO!