'Blue chip' is a very vague term that could apply to a lot of different shares.
It should certainly apply to more than just the biggest 20 or so companies on the ASX.
For me, blue chips are businesses that have been around for a while, are worth at least a few billion and can be dependable in good times or bad.
Here are three blue chips that I think your portfolio should have:
REA Group Limited (ASX: REA)
REA Group is the owner of the largest property website in Australia, realestate.com.au. It also owns other Australian property sites like realcommercial.com.au and flatmates.com.au.
The business has been fantastic for shareholders since it listed and I think it's got a lot more growth to come because of its overseas investments in Asia and the USA.
REA Group has good pricing power, it can increase its advertising rate by a strong percentage without loss of business because it is the biggest property website and attracts the most buyers and sellers of property.
REA Group is trading at 33x FY18's estimated earnings with a fully franked dividend yield of 1.33%.
Seek Limited (ASX: SEK)
Seek owns Australia's largest job portal and also has significant interests in other job portal sites overseas, such as China's Zhaopin.
More and more of our activities are done online and Seek is tapping into this trend here and internationally.
It's businesses like Seek that are the businesses of the future and ones that are definitely worth having a place in your portfolio.
Seek is trading at 29x FY18's estimated earnings with a fully franked dividend yield of 2.62%.
CSL is Australia's healthcare giant that has tapped into the growing demand for healthcare services.
We are willing to spend what it takes to remain alive and healthy. CSL's medicine, immunisations and blood plasma products are all very profitable.
CSL should remain a strong performer thanks to the large amounts of money it spends on research and development for future treatments and cures.
CSL is trading at 29x FY18's estimated earnings with an unfranked dividend yield of 1.34%.
Foolish takeaway
All three of these businesses would make strong additions to any portfolio. However, none of them are trading at great value at the current prices. If I had to choose one I'd pick REA Group.
