People and businesses often find SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) confusing. It is a large part f online marketing and often the work it involves cannot easily be seen by looking at the front end of a website. This is one of the main reasons business owners get dubious about employing a marketing company to carry out SEO work.
SEO is nothing something that can be done overnight, many of the basic elements of SEO can certainly be implemented but the time it takes to take effect can vary and often it is months before you start to see results. Also search engine optimisation is not a one hit wonder, you cannot do it once and then leave it for months and years as you will find that any positions you did gain from the initially work are very quickly lost again if you do not continue to work on it.