| 1.
What is search engine optimization? |
| When most people search for something on
the Internet, they go to search engines to help them find
what they are looking for. Search engine optimization
is the process of making your site more accessible to
the search engines and surfers looking for your site.
You can help control where your site is listed: whether
it comes up near the top or near the bottom of a search
engine's listings depends on giving the search engines
what they are looking for when they catalog your site.
|
| 2.
Why do I need search engine optimization? |
| The objective of any search engine optimization
is to increase the targeted traffic to your web site.
THIS IS POSSIBLE. By understanding how the search engines
work, and how web surfers behave, it is possible to provide
both the engines and the surfer with what they want to
see. |
| 3.
Why can't I just submit my web site myself? |
| You can submit your web site to the search
engines yourself. However, submissions are just half the
story. If the site is not optimized beforehand, you will
most likely wind up on the bottom of the list. It is also
important to note that submitting your site to the directories,
where you only have one chance to get in, needs to be
carefully planned so your site gets maximum exposure.
|
| 4.
I have meta tags. Isn't that enough? |
| Meta tags are better than nothing, but
they won't get you to the top of the search engine rankings.
Keywords, titles, links, headlines, page content, and
even your URL can affect your site's ranking. Search engines
look at the complete package, which is why it's essential
to have professional assistance in this critical phase
of your site. |
| 5.
What about submitting through a submission service? |
Submission services typically charge you
anywhere from $20-$100 to submit your home page to up
to 400,000 search engines. While this sounds great at
first, there are many reasons why this is, in fact, a
terrible idea:
1. There aren't 400,000 search engines; there are
only a dozen or so engines and directories that matter
at all.
2. These services submit your site to so-called
"Free-For-All" sites that will simply put your
URL on a page for a week or two and sell your information
to the highest bidder; you will get floods of spam email
for the rest of your email address's life.
3. You can be banned for over-submitting. Google,
for one, looks at link popularity (how many sites link
to your site) to help determine how good your site is.
A large number of irrelevant links pointing to your site
may get your site banned completely from their index.
4. Submitting your home page is not enough. Web
sites typically contain several different pages for particular
products and services. Each one of these pages needs to
be optimized and submitted individually. Submission services
only submit your home page, usually the page with the
least information on the whole site. |
| 6.
What about monthly fees? |
| Some services ask for monthly maintenance
fees, but if your optimization is done correctly from
the start, your search engines rankings won't need to
be "pumped up" every month. First, we optimize
sites naturally and without using any tricks, and second,
the engines don't change their algorithms that often.
Your rankings will increase and stay relatively the same,
depending on how much your existing competition is doing,
any new competition, and drastic changes with the search
engines. Many sites that were optimized 3 or 4 years ago
are still on top. If, sometime in the future, your ranking
starts to slip, we can assess the situation and take care
of it as it happens. |
| 7.
How long will it take to start getting traffic? |
| After a site is optimized and submitted
to the search engines and directories it takes anywhere
from 2 days to several months to get in their indexes
(Excite, for example, takes almost 6 months these days,
while Open Directory is extremely quick). |
| 8.
How long will it take to optimize my site? |
| This really depends on how big your site
is and how aggressively you want to go after certain key
phrases. The ballpark answer is about 20-30 hours for
a small to medium site, and longer for a large web site.
A site can be optimized at any time. However, you can
save some time and money by having your site optimization
underway concurrently with the design process. Certain
submission guidelines actually affect how the site should
be designed, so it's best to keep these in mind gong into
the development phase. |
| 9.
Can you make any guarantees? |
| Before we make any guarantees, we will
need to do a little research. We must determine how many
search engines your site is listed in, where your company
ranks on the engines right now, what kind of traffic you're
getting, and what your competition is doing. After that
we will be more able to assess your individual situation
and possible expectations. |
| 10.
Sounds Great! What's the next step? |
| Depending on how much analysis and reporting
you want, we can look at your present traffic, current
rankings, and problems that are impeding your site from
getting more traffic. The ideal situation would be to
get a web address, a copy of a recent log file, and some
key phrases to check current rankings. Minimally, we will
need just your web address. A full overview and analysis
will be provided, which includes what exactly needs to
be done, deliverables, and milestones. |
