If you’re a small business owner, chances are you’ve been told that your company needs a website in order to reach a wider audience of potential customers. Or perhaps you already have one. In any event, having a website for your business is only the beginning – unless that website is optimized for the search engines, then potential customers will never even know that your website exists. If you want to generate more leads and sales from your website, then you need an effective on-site SEO strategy.

On-Site SEO Basics

On-site search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important secrets behind any successful website. The reason it’s so important is that the World Wide Web is composed of billions of websites on every topic imaginable and in order for your potential customers to find you; they typically have to do so through a search engine. For example, they might visit Google and search for "blue widgets." This search will return a list of results containing websites that are related to blue widgets. But how does Google determine which websites are related to blue widgets? The answer is on-site SEO.

On-site search engine optimization simply describes the process of optimizing a website for a particular keyword or set of keywords. This involves the strategic placement of keywords in your website titles, meta descriptions, URLs, headers and content.

Using the previous example, if you are in the business of selling blue widgets, then your website must be optimized around that key phrase so that when Google and other search engines scan your website, they realize "ah ha! This is a website about blue widgets." If your website is not optimized for the term "blue widgets" then Google would simply show the searcher a list of other websites (i.e. your competitors). And each time that happens, you are missing an opportunity to generate sales and leads for your business.

Leave It To The Pros

The process of optimizing your website’s on-site SEO is very complicated, and there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. Unless it is done correctly, you risk having your website penalized by the search engines, which can effectively ruin your online marketing efforts. If you are a small business owner with a website, then you should consult with an experienced search engine optimization company so that they can design an effective on-site SEO strategy for your business. Remember, a website that no one can find isn’t going to make your business any money. On-site SEO is not an option, it’s a requirement for any business that wants to generate sales and leads online through their website.