As a continuation of my two-part series on how to market your small business on the internet, this article discusses what, in my opinion, is the second most feasible way to drive high quality traffic to your website.

By now, most business owners know that when people have a question or problem, they turn to the internet to look for information . They're possibly looking for the best deal on a product or service, or perhaps they're looking for a “how-to” guide. When this happens, you have the opportunity to present your website right in front of their eyes – if it's properly optimized for search engines.

1. Search Engine Optimization – If your website wasn't built with search engine optimization in mind, then you're likely missing out on a lot of potential business, or your website may be attracting the wrong type of prospects. In either case, a properly optimized website should always be the concern of a small business owner trying to attract more business from the internet. So what exactly is Search Engine Optimization? To keep it simple, I define Search Engine Optimization this way: it's the process of building a website in such a way that search engines find it relevant with respect to an internet user’s search.

Search Engine Optimization offers the following benefits to small business owners:

• Cost per lead is much lower when compared to traditional forms of marketing
• Performance data can be gathered and tracked with ease
• Search Engine Optimization can be fine tuned to improve results
• Typically a website that's optimized for search engines is optimized for users too

If your website was properly optimized, you or your search engine optimization specialist should review your website traffic reports every so often, review your current optimization techniques, and determine if these techniques can be improved. If your website wasn't optimized for the search engines, then you need to seriously consider optimizing your website right away.

Other articles of interest:

Marketing Your Business on the Internet – Part 1

Drive Traffic to Your Website by Blogging for Business