This is the first article of "Social + SEO," a series of monthly educational blog posts on social media and SEO tools and strategies that real estate agents can use to expand their business. Social + SEO will cover topics and strategies that are easy to learn, simple to implement and, most importantly, will provide you with an immediate return on your time investment.

Every Social + SEO post will cover two topics, one on social media and another on search engine optimization. I will describe each topic, demonstrate how you can implement it and then explain how your business will benefit.

Review – What is Social Media and SEO?

Before we delve into this month's topics, I want to make sure that you know what I mean when I say "social media" and "search engine optimization."

Social media, simply put, are the ways people communicate with each other through the Internet. The best examples of social media include social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+, but other services, like YouTube, Instagram and even some video games can be put into that category as well.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of increasing the number of times a website, web page or blog post gets clicked in search engine results. This is primarily accomplished by improving the rankings of sites and pages in the search results of Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines.

Search engine rankings are determined by many different factors; the exact number varies based on the search engine. Google, for example, has more than 200 known factors that play into its search engine ranking process. These include the number and quality of links a piece of content receives, the number of times it is shared on social media, and the average amount of time visitors spend reading the content.