People throw "SEO" around like it's one job. It's really a handful of different ones, and once you see the pieces, it stops feeling scary.
- On-page, what's on the page itself: your words, titles, headings, how well you answer the question.
- Technical, the plumbing: can Google and the AI bots find, read and load your pages fast.
- Off-page, what happens elsewhere: mostly other sites linking to you, which is basically your reputation.
- Content, deciding what to write in the first place, so you cover what people search for.
- Local (only if you serve a town or city): showing up in the map and the "near me" searches.
That's the whole map. And you don't tackle them all at once. Most of your wins come from on-page and content, because that's where you have the most control. Recheck technical health after releases, migrations, and other important changes. Off-page (the links) is the slow burn that builds your authority over time.
So the order, roughly: make the page good, make sure Google can read it, write about the right things, then earn a few solid links. Nail that sequence and you're doing real SEO, no jargon required.