Search engine optimisation (SEO), a process to make sure customers find your business online, is a key tool in a small business’s digital marketing arsenal.

Understanding the basics isn’t difficult and can help your business turn marketing spend into customers. This is the advice of the digital marketing specialist who will be leading three seminars from media group Archant on digital skills.

The Digital Decoded sessions in Canary Wharf and Rainham will seek to explain some key elements of digital marketing and how these can be deployed to attract consumers at different stages of the purchase process.

According to Jamie Brown, Archant’s regional digital manager, SEO is always a hot topic in the digital marking community.

Mr Brown said: “SEO is a big subject for us because it can effectively ‘activate’ both online and offline marketing.

“If you have an advert on television or radio, on a billboard, or in a newspaper, one of the first things anyone does is go online to find out more. If a company is not visible, their spending on other advertising is much less effective.

“We see businesses spending hundreds of pounds not always getting the returns they need because the vital connection, their online presence, is effectively missing.

“It is about being found when someone puts your name into Google, but also being found when someone looks for what you sell.”

Mr Brown, who will be leading the Digital Decoded sessions, said the theory behind SEO is more straightforward than some experts make it out to be.

“This session will explain the context of SEO and why we need it and give advice on how to do it.”

The seminars are targeted at SMEs keen become more digital-savvy in their advertising.

The sessions will take place on Wednesday, October 4 at Ceme Conference Centre, Marsh Way, Rainham, RM13 8EU and on Thursday, October 5 at the Raddisson Blu Canary Wharf, 5 Fairmont Avenue, Canary Wharf, London, E14 9JB.

Two sessions take place each day, at 8.15am and 11.30am.

To book your free place visit archanthub.co.uk/digitaldecoded