In marriage you try to learn everything you can about the other person so you can determine how best to interact with them, relate to their needs and help them learn something more about you. Its not quite like dating because when you date you often try to put your best face forward. Marriage often reveals those little flaws that are part of the human makeup.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a bit like marriage in that you attempt to learn all you can about SEO and then hope that the search engine learns enough about you to help you in the site rankings.
Perhaps the best way to describe SEO is a bold attempt to help search engines learn everything they can about you.
Its a bit like telling someone you have a 1972 Chevy Camaro for sale versus putting together a comprehensive portfolio of pictures, descriptions and graphs to help the potential buyer see the value in the car.
For years businesses have understood the primary reasons for presentation. Sometimes it is the presentation that is enough to push a potential customer toward a sale. The Internet is the cyber extension of that thought process.
A flashy web design might make an impression...