Search engine positioning is actually the exact keywords and key phrases or search terms used that your prospective customers will typically write in the search box when looking for a particular product or service. For example, if we go to Google and type in "new houses", that is a typical two-word search query.To get targeted traffic from search engines, you need to know exactly what your users are searching for and just which companies you are effectively competing against. This may sound pretty basic to most people but it's so important if you want your web site to rank high in the engines. Search query determination really gets down to finding an almost perfect balance between keyword targeting, popularity and direct competition.On the other hand Search engine optimization can be defined as the rather "less complicated" part of the whole process. The first thing you need to understand is we only use one or two search keywords to optimize each individual page on any given web site. Once we have selected a page to optimize and the exact search keywords and key phrases we are going to use, all that is left for us to do is insert these keywords in their proper places and we have pretty much completed the optimization process.Search engine optimization is the process of putting selected keywords and key phrases into a given web site, using proper placement techniques and carefully using the correct wording, in direct response to what was said earlier on positioning. That's all it really means basically.