Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is perhaps the biggest advertising opportunity for small and medium businesses to reach out to their target customer. Part of the reason this opportunity can be so appealing is because if done correctly, it can provide far better ROI than many paid traffic campaigns.

SEO is exactly what it sounds like – optimizing your online content to match what the search engines are looking for. The more you optimize your online content, the better chance you have to show up in the search terms that are relevant to your business.

Here’s how you can immediately improve your SEO campaign.

1. Add/Update Content

When search engines like Google read your website, they want to know what exactly it is you offer. Make sure the content on your website explains what you are selling, and how you are selling it.

The more original content you can add to your site the better. This is why we encourage companies to begin a blog. Blogs are a fantastic tool. Not only do they engage your customers, but they also keep your website fresh and authoritative.

2. Outreach

The most important aspect of SEO is link building. Link building can take many different forms. The more quality links that are pointing to you the higher you will rank in the search engines.

Outreach in relation to link building is the process in which a business will seek out online links from other websites. The best place to start is with businesses, organizations and clients who have a website that you have a relationship with. Then consider increasing your blogging to include guest posts or running contests and giveaways on another website.

3. Build a Google+ Local Page

Google is the largest and most used search engine in the world. For this reason, it’s important to make sure you have a Google+Local page for your business. Having a Google+ page will ensure that you exist on Google Maps and is also a landing page for visitors who are looking for your company information including phone number and e-mail. Ensure all of your information is correct in Google+ Local and encourage your customers to post reviews of your business directly onto your Google+ Local page. Not only does this make you more available online, but Google itself will sometimes rank your Google+ Local if they think the content matches what is being searched for.

Hopefully, the above tips will help your business adopt an SEO strategy. Many of the things that affect SEO are quite simple but detail orientated. However, if done properly, the results can be unmatched by any other advertising medium.