Did you know that there are at least 100 Internet searches every month? At least 92 percent of online adults perform searches at least once a day. Small businesses and marketers see this, and wonder how they can adjust their marketing strategies accordingly. The answer is in something that is easy to understand, but difficult to implement in practice. That certain something is called SEO.

So what is SEO? SEO is short for search engine optimization, or how easily search engines can find your website. Often, search engines let the consumer type in a keyword, and then create a matching list of results known as a search engine results page. This form of search engine rankings is instrumental in SEO. After all, 42 percent of all searchers click on the very first link that is not paid, or organic link.

SEO is pretty much dictated by one company, being Google. Founded in 1996 by Stanford PhD students Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google created the modern conception of SEO. Since its IPO in 2004, its growth has been meteoric. There are other English language search engines, but about 60 percent of all searches are done on Google.

As the guardian of SEO, Google is a little quirky. Its first doodle was a depiction of the Burning Man festival in Nevada, meant to depict an out of office message. When they started tweeting in February 2009, they tweeted the binary code for the “I am feeling lucky” feature. Even today, Google has its corporate headquarters grazed by goats, often rented by a grazing company.

What no one can deny is that Google is instrumental to SEO, and therefore online marketing. Any business or marketer who wishes to be seen online must please the specific brand of SEO that Google created. Failure to do so leads to the dustbins of history. Success leads to increased online sales.