Q1: What is search engine optimization?
Ans: Search engine
optimization refers to techniques used to achieve high rankings in search
results of search engines for keywords and phrases that are appropriate
to a website's content and purpose.
Q2
: Why is search engine optimization so important for your website/business?
Ans :
"93% of global consumers use the search engines
to find and access websites. " - Forester Research.
Search engines are extremely important for any
online business, as the major part of the Internet population use them
to find a new product or a service. So, your website has to be listed
in the search engine results. Banner driven traffic model is no longer
effective nor capable of producing desirable results for most of websites.
When it comes to ROI (return on investment), search engine optimization
campaigns present the most viable long term solutions by delivering
fresh, targeted traffic to your website. Simply by getting your website
listed in the search engines is not enough to attract traffic and generate
sales. A listing alone does not assure you will receive any new visitors
to your website and it is just ineffective if you do not appear within
the first 30 matches of the search results. Your website must achieve
higher Search Engine Ranks for your customers to be able to find your
site.
Q3
: Why should I get my website optimized when I have not generated anything
out of its web presence yet?
Ans : Less then 2%
of all Websites are properly coded for optimal Search Engine indexing.
Yet, more than 90% of visitors arriving at a website do so from the
search engines. If your site is NOT in the top of the major search engines
or directories results, then each day you are losing thousands of potential
customers. It’s about time you get that valuable investment bringing
results.
Q4
: "Our website looks great - its bound to be popular, right?"
Ans : Scoring well with the major search
engines is one of the most cost effective methods of directing web traffic
to your web site. If you want to promote your website successfully,
you must know how to get the best possible ranking on the most popular
search engines. Looks don't matter if your website is not optimized.
Q5
: "But our website went live months ago. It must be well known
by now"
Ans : Try this test for yourself. Pretend
to be one of your potential customers and try to find your product or
service using one of the major search engines. Does your site get found?
Are hundreds of your competitors listed before yours? Is your website
listed way down the list?
Q6 : There
are a lot of companies out there that will submit my site to 1000 search
engines for very little money. Why would I pay you to submit my site
to 15-20 search engines?
Ans : 95% of search engine traffic comes from these
major 15-20 top engines. You are better off focusing on the engines
that will yield the most results. Ranking well on these engines involves
customizing pages to rank well for specific engines on specific phrases.
Q7
: "We paid someone to submit our website with 2500 search engines
worldwide. Will that do it?"
Ans : Normally, you should refrain from
using such services as providers offering these schemes use automatic
submission software's/programs to submit your site. Many search engines
consider this to be SPAM, and could actually penalize your website
ranking. More over, close to 90% of web searches originate in top
20 search engines.
If you think that just submitting your website to the secondary search
engines and a few major search engines through some program/software
will bring them flocking to your website then think again! Submitting
is not enough! Even registering with hundreds of search engines may
not bring the traffic that you expected. We have mentioned above the
Top Search engines that bring have over 90% of the total Internet traffic.
Q8
: I have a website but no one is finding it.
Ans : A great deal of people say this.
This problem has many sources. Sites that contain heavy JavaScript,
are designed with frames, have Flash intros or Flash pages, or sites
with dynamic URL's are typically poorly indexed online, if indexed
at all. Another reason for low, pre-qualified traffic is poor or no
selection of key phrases for a site. For example, an investment banker
writing a thesis on the likelihood of a depression may want to come
up under the term 'depression' on the search engines. But research
of key phrases would reveal that most people searching the word 'depression',
are searching for information about the psychological kind and not
the monetary kind. You have to understand how people are searching
and then place yourself in those areas through search engine optimization.
Q9
: Can Search Engines see our website content?
Ans : Almost all websites are designed to
graphically appeal to the consumer within the constraints imposed by
technology and bandwidth. Few websites are designed from the outset
to be Search Engine friendly.
Factors that need to be examined when developing web sites to take advantage
of search traffic include:
• Accessibility of the site to search engines
• Navigation structure of the site to allow deep indexing
• Meta data to provide description of page content
• Targeted body text to increase site relevance
• Incoming and out going links to provide better link relevance
In the perfect
world a well designed site would allow search engines to browse its
entire content adding every page to its large library of possible search
results. The site would never be more than two or three levels deep
at the most - all data 2 clicks away from the home page.
Q10
: How do search engines determine who gets the highest rankings?
Ans : Each
search engine establishes different criteria or what is referred to
as "algorithms" to determine the ranking of a website with
respect to the website’s optimization. We know what these search engines
are looking for. We've learned the secrets of how each search engine
ranks your page and we'll apply that valuable information on your
website.
Q11
: How long does it take to get listed on the search engines?
Ans : Some engines say they will list
you within a couple of days or weeks, but realistically, a site embarking
on search engine optimization and submission will start to see results
in about 2- 3 months. You can begin tracking a results in a couple
weeks after your first submission and then begin resubmitting again
to trigger the engines to notice your site. The timeframe also depends
on the competitive nature of your industry.
Q12
: What search engines will the majority of my traffic come from?
Ans : If your favorite search engine is
not listed it is because—almost all search engines share their search
results or receive their results from other search engines. Therefore,
we have determined the Search Engines used for over 90% of the Internet
traffic to be considered for optimization:
Google, MSN, AOL, AltaVista, Iwon, Direct hit, Fast/Alltheweb, Lycos,
Netscape, Hot Bot, Sprinks, overture, infospace, nbci, canada, inbounds,
kanoodle, WiseNet, Excite and NorthernLight.
Q13
: What directories are going to send me the most traffic?
Ans : We have determined that the following
3 Directories to be the most important for gaining relevant traffic:
YAHOO, Looksmart and OPD. (Demoz)..
Q14
: Why directory Optimization?
Ans : Directory optimization is the process
of indexing to the categories best suited for your Website. The development
of detailed and exacting descriptions that emphasize relevancy to a
Websites' content is extremely important. Addressing the requirements
of the directory editors is the key to successful directory optimization.
We will leverage the power of the directories in your favor for maximum
success.
Q15
: I've already submitted my website to the search engines but it is
not ranking, what will your service do for me?
Ans : We
will undertake a thorough analysis of a website prior to submitting
it to the search engines and make recommendations for optimizing the
site.
Q16
: Doesn't submitting my website guarantee it will rank with the search
engines?
Ans : Absolutely not. Rankings are largely
dependent upon the website's pages being indexed by the search engines
and way the pages are optimized.
Q17
: How often should a website be submitted?
Ans : Submitting a website weekly or monthly
serves no purpose and can adversely affect the web site. After the initial
submission of a site it is only re-submitted for the following reasons:
1-The site's index counts drop, 2-The rankings fall, 3-There is substantial
content changes to the pages.
Q18
: How long before I see better rankings?
Ans : You will start seeing the search
engine optimization results as early as 7 - 10 business days after
we upload the "optimized web page/s". But it takes about
2-3 months for all the major search engines to index your website.
So, we would check your ranks 3 months after you signup with us. If
we do not meet our guarantee, your money back.
Q19
: My site was listed on a search engine last week, but now it's gone.
What happened?
Ans : Periodically, some search engines
will purge outdated URL information, and occasionally an active website
will inadvertently be removed. We will ensure your website is there
in these search engine's database and resubmit them if needed (Maintenance).
If your site if it suddenly disappears from the search engine listing
or starts to drop in the ratings, we will take care of it.
Do not submit your site too frequently (more than once a day), because
some search engines will consider this to be "spamming" and
may delete your site from their listings. You also do not want to re-submit
to a search engine if you already are ranked highly.
Q20
: Is the home page only submitted to Search engines?
Ans : Any page you wish to be added in the
search engines can be submitted and ranked for higher positioning.
Q21
: What pages (URLs) can a search engine index?
Ans : Web pages are either static or dynamic.
A static page is created and placed on the web server, it's URL (web
address) will generally end with ".htm" or ".html".
It will not change unless somebody alters the content and uploads
it to the server again. Dynamic pages on the other hand are generated
from a database. Static pages are almost always submittable to the
search engines however dynamic pages can pose a problem. If when you
click on a link and the page you go to has a URL containing a "?"
followed by something like "id=10" then the page is dynamic
and may not be submitted to the engines. Is there a work around? Maybe,
we will need to work on it in greater detail.
Q22
: How do I know which keywords to use?
Ans : Scoring well on different keywords
increases the way customers will be able to find your site. Unfortunately,
there are no set guidelines since the answer is based entirely on your
site focus and organization.
• Think about which keywords visitors will use to find your site.
• Consider your site's focus and intended audience.
• Ask your customers or visitors what keywords THEY would use to find
you.
Of course, we offer our Keyword Research Expertise.
Quick Steps in devising keywords:
a. Use relevant keywords that are directly
related to your site. In order to increase the relevancy of your listing,
select keywords that best reflect how your site is unique or what you
most want customers to know about your site. Use keywords or phrases
that are directly related to the products, services or content available
on your website.
b. If appropriate, use keyword phrases. Suggesting two or three-word
phrases allows you to further specify where your site is most relevant.
Phrases of more than three words will not be used. For example, if your
site offers website designing services, the keyword phrase "website
designers" is better than using "website" and "designers"
as individual keywords.
c. Use product-specific keywords. Use product-specific, targeted keywords
or phrases instead of general keywords for your listing and use distinctive
product names when possible. Using broad, general words is less helpful
in determining relevancy. The more targeted and specific your keywords
are, the more likely you are to generate additional traffic to your
site.
d. Each specific keyword or phrase you suggest will increase your site's
relevancy and drive more targeted traffic to your site. Ten well-targeted
keywords will result in greater relevancy than just a few generic keywords.
e. Avoid punctuation marks in keywords. Do not use punctuation in keywords
or phrases — think about how users would actually type them into a search
box. Punctuation will be ignored by the search algorithm.
Q23
: Can you optimize for any keywords?
Ans : For preemptive testing we use the
Overture tool to estimate the difficulty of ranking a given keyword
phrase: http://inventory.goto.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
Any score above 15000 we consider extra-competitive and will use a backup
keyword by default, however we will quote you a separate price to achieve
a top-ten if it is a must-have to your business. Again, our results
are guaranteed and you only pay for verified performance.
We can optimize your website to get the best possible ranks for most
of the keywords, however each website has more than one target audience
and each target audience may use slightly different language when
looking for a product or service like yours. We have extensive training
in keyword strategy research and help you identify what words and
combinations of words, will bring your site the most qualified leads.
Getting the right keywords is vital. Without them, your business on-line
will not bring the traffic from the search engines - no matter what
your rankings are. Because a #1 ranking is useless if no one searches
for it.
Note: We can optimize your website to get the best possible ranks. But,
it is really cumbersome to get a website within Top 20 ranks for too
generalized keywords. For example: "Loans", "Insurance",
"Credit Cards" etc are too generalized keywords. For the same,
a lot of time and effort has to be spent as a result of which the keyword
cost increases exorbitantly. Also, such generalized keywords are hardly
used by a specific target market. If your keywords are too generalized,
we will inform you so and work out the best possible alternative.
Q24
: I want to be #1 when someone types in the word...
Ans : If your goal is to be #1 for anything
you are probably going to drive yourself crazy - especially for a general
word such as 'book', 'travel' or 'gardening.'
Get specific, and you will not only get better
placement, you will also get more qualified buyers. Fight battles you
can win. Choose a phrase - not a single word. Most people don't search
on single words any more. It gives too many results. So if you sell
books about airplanes aim for phrases like 'aviation books', 'civil
aviation', 'learn to fly'. Phrases like that are going to give you better
rankings and the people that come across your listing
are going to be in the market for what you are selling. But don't forget
to do your key phrase research because you want to appear under terms
people are actually searching.
Q25
: If my page rank keeps changing, what do I do?
Ans : More and more websites are getting
added to the search engines web every day. The competition is increasing.
When search engines update their indexes if they find your competitor's
website more relevant to the topic, they may put the ranking of your
site down to put your competitor's web pages at a higher position.
Search engines keep changing their ranking algorithm.
In order to retain the high positions in the search engines, one has
to constantly remain updated of the latest ranking trends. We do that
for you!
In order to remain aware of the current positions
of your website, continuous monitoring of the ranks of a site is needed.
We will re-optimize your site for the search engines and resubmit whenever
necessary. We provide monthly reports of the search engine ranks to
our maintenance plan subscriber.
Q26
: How long does the top ranking that you have achieved for me continue
to stay there?
Ans : The top ranking that we attain for
you may exist sometimes for months sometimes it may even go down within
a few weeks. The rankings change when the search engines update their
indexes again and come across some other pages which it finds more relevant.
No one can stop this, as no one owns the search engines.
No search engine ranking company on the Internet can guarantee that
it will help you to retain the ranks in the search engine results for
a specific period of time unless you hire their maintenance service.
Q27
: Why can't I get my site in the Top 10 on all the search engines? What
is normally considered a success in Search Engine Optimization?
Ans : Search Engine Optimization consultants
consider a page successfully optimized if it ranks in the Top 30 on
at least one search engine.
Q28
: Why does my page rank 5th in one search engine and 9th in the other?
Ans : Each search engine uses its own rules
to determine how relevant a page is to a given search query and these
rules vary widely from one search engine to another.
Q29
: We have a great TITLE for our web pages. Surely that will help?
Ans : Just mentioning the name of your product
or service in the <TITLE> tag of your web page may not be enough.
It is true that the <TITLE> of your web page is one of the most
important for search engine success it is not everything.
Q30
: But we have META tags as well. Surely that will help?
Ans : There is no "magic formulae"
that will shoot you to the top of the search engine listings. Improving
your ranking on search engines comes from doing many tiny things correctly.
Having correct META tags is just one of the many things that contribute
to optimizing your page for improved search engine ranking.
Q31
: Do you use techniques like page cloaking?
Ans : We do not use page cloaking in our
process of search engine optimization.
Page cloaking is the concept of showing one page
to the search engines (spiders) and some other to the web surfers. Search
engines are extremely against this method. They consider this as spamming
and may be penalize the site by banning the site from its entire index.
It is advisable not to use page-cloaking technique.
Q32
: Should I do this work myself or should I hire a professional?
Ans : The answer to this question involves
3 factors. Time, interest and money. You must know what is acceptable
by the engines. Doing it wrong can get you listed poorly and if you
offend too many rules you can even be banned from certain engines.
Ideally, if doing this work in-house, choose someone to be the search
engine expert. Doing it right involves continual research. Hiring
a web page promotion expert is not cheap. It is a focused profession
and can involve a lot of customization for many particular pages in
a site. But chances are, hiring someone will get you the results you
were looking for and usually quicker than if you were going to do
it yourself.
Q33
: Why don't I just buy keywords?
Ans : Visit overture.com and type your keyword
of choice to get a sense of search engine positioning values. "Casino"
is currently at $7. This means XYZ Casino Company pays overture.com
$7 for EVERY time a user clicks on their link. overture.com has less
than 5% market share for Internet traffic.
Q34
: What About Maintaining Our Top Search Engine Rankings?
Ans : Internet search engines are highly
competitive and are becoming increasingly more difficult to conquer
every day. Seasoned web marketers understand that top search engine
rankings won't last without careful attention. In order to protect your
investment, we provide you with a results-based maintenance program.
Q35
: Why the Monthly Maintenance Fee?
Ans : We have put the Monthly Maintenance
Fee to protect your investment. When we get you to the top of the
Search Engines we want to keep you there. In order for us to keep
you at the top, we are regularly maintaining the work we have done
for you. What works today might not work tomorrow, so we are continually
researching the search engines to keep you on top.
Q36
: What Kind of exposure does my website get if it appears in higher
rankings?
Ans : Unbeatable Quality Exposure: The exposure
you will get is phenomenal. Not only are there over 150 Million Internet
users with an average income of $60,000, the people who find your Web
site are highly qualified buyers since they are looking for your company's
products or services. Remember, search engines are the Internet's version
of the Yellow Pages - people use search engines to make buying decisions.
Q37
: Do you provide any kind of Guarantee?
Ans : It's Simple deliver results, or your
Money Back! GUARANTEED!!!
If we do not deliver
what we promise you, we will return your purchase amount back. You keep
the optimized website. Either way, you are always a winner!
We have proven-expertise
in optimizing websites for search engines.
Our pricing plans
are affordable and realistic.
We hope you were able to find answer to your Question. If not, shoot
us an email at mk@tcms-sep.com
and we shall get back to you within 48 hours.
