Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is defined by Search Engine Land (searchengineland.com) as “the process of getting traffic from the free, organic, editorial, or natural search results on search engines.” In simpler terms, SEO is how you can get people to find your website by getting to the top of Google – and other search engines.

If you’re hoping to boost your business in the New Year, consider these simple SEO tips:

Start a blog

Consider your customers and produce a blog with engaging content that bring them to your website again and again. Blogging is a great SEO tip. Blogging works to your advantage in a number of different ways; first it provides content for your visitors to learn more about your industry, service or product. Second blogging sets you up as an authority in your field and adds value for your site visitors. Finally and most importantly for Search Engine Optimization, blogging provides the text that Google needs to rank your website and pages. Google needs words to rank and blogs allow you to write content with the appropriate keywords built into your text.

An SEO tip on blogging – Don’t stuff every keyword you can into a blog post or product description. Focus on producing relevant and interesting content. Make sure your website is written for your readers, not the search engines.

Set up social media pages

Social media is a great way for you to build an online presence for your business. Create social media profiles with accurate contact and web address details on major social sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. What this is doing, in the realm of SEO, is building a few backlinks to your website. There is a lot more to back linking than that but this is a good start.

Check out the competition

If you’re not sure how to get to the top of Google, look and see what your competitors are doing. There are some apps and software available online that can help you see what your competitor is using as their keywords. You can choose to go after those words as well or you can modify those words to rank for variations. SEO is a race to the top and then working to stay there, so knowing what your competition or those in your industry are doing or not doing helps to determine what you should do.

Go mobile

Google places great importance on mobile optimization and labels mobile search results to indicate which sites are mobile-friendly. Make sure your website provides the best mobile experience possible for users. your website should be built as a responsive website design, meaning it will “respond” to most screen sizes. This is also a benefit for your site visitors who view your site on their phones – no more pinching and zooming.

Think about the user experience

When ranking sites, Google is increasingly focusing on elements that impact the user experience. Make sure people who visit your website can find what they need quickly and easily. Ultimately visitors who find your site are looking for something because of what they typed in the search engine. Your site needs to provide that information quickly and make them realize that you are the business that solves their problem.