Search Engine Optimization (SEO) by definition is the process of optimizing your website for search engine spiders (aka: crawlers or robots).
By optimizing you in turn put your site in better position to place higher in the Search Engines Results Page(s)(SERPs).

There are MANY terms associated with SEO. The following site has an extensive list and it would be wise to spend some time and get acquainted with many of these terms:

http://www.seoconsultants.com/glossary/

The following is, in very basic terms, the steps and processes to implement SEO for your website:

1. Analyze and review your site
2. Research your target audience
3. Research your competition
4. Optimize site content
5. Optimize your site's HTML
6. Embark on link and content development campaings
7. Monitor and maintain campaigns
8. Stay up-to-date or trends and technology as well as your specific content
9. Submit your site or update an already submitted site to search engines and directories
10. Prepare ranking reports to follow-up and evaluate effectiveness

Again, these steps are the very basics and each step involves considerably more detail that needs to be addressed.
What I would like to do is in upcoming posts address each one of these issues one at a time and in detail.

So at these point what I would do is go over the above glossary of terms and get a feel of the terms that will be coming up in future posts.

Thats it for now... stay tuned!