Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of getting as much traffic as possible to a website by pushing it to the top of results in a search. Businesses and individuals use SEO to get the highest visibility to grow the business.Understanding how SEO works and how well it works for specific companies can be helpful to investors who want to invest in companies that are likely to grow faster than their competitors due to their SEO practices.Related: FINANCEBOARDS: THE COMPANY’S MOST CORRELATED STOCKS WIDGETStrategy FirstSEO (which is done by SEO specialists) is digital marketing based on a strategy designed to drive the name of a website as high as possible in a list of search results. You can see the importance of this by conducting a simple Google search on a popular term such as “construction company” (which pulls up roughly 608 million results).Imagine being company No. 608 (let alone 608,000,000). Chances of ever being seen are remote. The more you can do as a company to push your name up near the top, the more people will see it.How SEO Is DoneIt’s important to know that search engines use complex algorithms to create results. SEOs take advantage of those algorithms by “adjusting” websites to appeal to the algorithms the SEO expects the search engine to use.Some of the tactics used include creating specific keywords or phrases, updating the website constantly, keeping the company’s name off logos, paying attention to usability and design and finding ways to link other websites to the one being optimized.SEO Awareness For InvestorsSince Google is the most well-known search engine, it can serve as an example. Results of Google searches can raise a company’s valuation or lower it – depending on where the company’s name falls in the search.Companies that make most of their profit from websites are the most vulnerable (or opportunistic) but these days all companies rely on web traffic and awareness to make a profit. As an investor to the extent you want to consider SEO, focus on companies with a strong internet presence. One way to do that is by research. There are tools available to help you find the ones most active on the internet – or you can identify companies in which you are interested and track their activity on search engines like Google.Use FinanceBoards WidgetsFinanceBoard’s website SEO history widget provides the past 10 days of both organic and paid search history results via a service called SEMrush. You can see the analyzed date and the ranking of the website on the widget.Under Adwords you can uncover the same kind of information for paid campaigns by the company. There are separate widgets created from the widget mentioned above and FinanceBoards even lets you create your own widget. For more see: FINANCEBOARDS WIDGET SPOTLIGHT #21: THE WEBSITE SEO HISTORY WIDGET