And if your brand is represented well in the search results, it’s a huge business opportunity. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing a website's content, structure, and overall online presence to improve its visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). And often at a lower cost than if you were using paid Google search ads. But before we get into those details, it's a good idea to briefly cover how Google search works. Because SEO is a must if you want to keep up with and eventually surpass your competition in the search results.