|
| ''What is a meta
tag?'' |
| A META tag is an item in your HTML code
that aids some search engines in listing
your site properly. META tags provide these
search engines with the title, description,
and keywords of each page on your
site. |
| ''Do I need meta
tags?'' |
| Yes.
These tags help some search engines with
placement. Without these tags, your site
would not rank nearly as
well. |
| ''Why is search engine is
so crucial to the success of my
business?'' |
| 90 percent of all Internet users go
directly to search engines immediately upon
accessing the Internet to find what they are
looking for. Therefore you cannot afford to
be ranked anywhere but on the first page. In
addition, most Internet users do not venture
beyond the first page of a search, so,
unless you are being found there, your
chances of drawing those Internet users to
your site are very
unlikely. |
| ''What kind of
traffic can I expect to receive on my web
site as a result of hiring your
firm?'' |
| It's
impossible for us to predict a specific
amount of traffic as every site is
different. For example, if your site offers
products that have mass consumer appeal,
it's likely that the keyword phrases you
choose to promote will be much more popular
than a site that has a more limited niche.
We can say that in almost every case, our
clients see a dramatic increase in traffic
and sales as a result of their search engine
placements. We have many clients who after
hiring us began generating hundreds of
thousands of dollars or more in
business. |
| ''Do you manually submit to
search engines or do you use automated
software?'' |
| We feel it
is very important to manually submit your
site to the top 20 search engines. Many of
the top search engines refuse submissions
from software programs all together which is
why we choose to manually submit. Besides
this, the five top directories - Yahoo,
Looksmart and The Open Directory Project
require that categories be selected within
their structure before a site is submitted.
No automated program can do
that. |
| ''What is Search Engine
Optimisation (SEO)?'' |
| Search
Engine Optimisation is the process of
preparing a website in order to achieve
search engine rankings that drive traffic to
your site. SEO is an ongoing process
beginning with the initial optimisation of
the site, monthly maintenance of the site,
regular evaluation of search results and
adjustments to the site. |
| ''What is cloaking? Does your
optimization company use this
technique?'' |
| Cloaking is
the technique of delivering a particular Web
page to a search engine, while serving a
completely different Web page to the end
user. Search engines commonly overlook - and
in some cases even ban - web sites that
employ this practice. We are aware of the
search engines' views on cloaking and
therefore does not employ this unethical
technique. |
| ''Is it OK to use
Flash?'' |
| As with
JavaScript, it is too difficult to parse.
Some sites use Flash introductions with a
skip button. Page with flash intros greatly
reduce their rankings and are encouraged to
stop using intros. Sites that use Flash for
navigation's and interaction etc. are
encouraged to use HTML navigation instead
and HTML text where possible. |
| ''What are Spiders, Crawlers
and Robots?'' |
| Search
engines work by sending out what are called
spiders, crawlers, or robots. Essentially,
they crawl through cyberspace looking for
web pages. When they get to a page, they
take a sort of picture of the page, indexing
the information on it, and integrating it
into their giant database of millions of
websites. |
| ''What is a
Directory?'' |
| A directory
is a search tool much like a search engine
but with a few major differences.
Directories tend to employ human editors to
review and rank websites submitted to their
database. Yahoo! is the most well known
example of a directory. Most directories
catalogue websites based on a variety of
topic categories such as Business and
Economics, or Arts and Culture. Many
directories demand payment before assigning
a website review to one of their editors
others are free. |
| ''How often do you resubmit my
site to search engines?'' |
| If
your site is search engine compatible and
optimised correctly, regular resubmission to
engines is generally unnecessary although we
find that monthly submissions to some search
engines assists in maintaining rankings. Our
ranking reports and maintenance checks keep
track of your site every four weeks. If your
site is already ranking highly, there is no
need to resubmit it. However if any engines
have lowered or dropped your site altogether
(as can happen from time to time), it will
be resubmitted to those
engines. |
| ''What should I look for when
choosing a SEO consultant?'' |
| The ideal
Consultant is one that understands the
dynamics of marketing, business, and
technology - and employs the highest levels
of integrity in their work. There are a
number of unethical practices or shortcuts
that can be used in search engine
optimisation, but the search engines
themselves often times will not accept these
questionable or "tricky"
practices. |
| ''I found other services that
do what you do much more cheaply: how do I
choose?'' |
| Some
companies take advantage of the uninitiated
website owner promising top rankings for
$29.95 or something similar. Beware of such
promises - if it sounds too good to be true,
it usually is. That $29.95 will typically
buy an automated submission to 10,000
"engines" that nobody ever visits or
possibly even result in a domain ban for
over submitting. Once the $29.95 campaign is
finished, so is your domain. There is no
such thing as #1 rankings in all search
engines or "it only takes 2 weeks and
$29.95". Getting top search engine ranking
doesn't "just happen". Beware of
fraud! |
| SEO fraud is
obvious when they guarantee rankings. No one
can guarantee rankings. Some people are
better at SEO than others, but no one has
direct control over how search engines
rank (unless you want to pay for top
listing). |
| ''Do You Have to Make Changes
to Our Site?'' |
| While many
of the changes made to your site are done
behind the scenes in the source code, it may
be necessary to make certain minor changes
to your site's copy or layout. In most
cases, these changes are minimal. We post
all changes made to the front end of your
site to our test server for your approval
before we go live with the
changes. |
| ''My website did not get
accepted last time I submitted to the search
engines... why?'' |
| Search
Engine listings are not guaranteed to
everyone who posts a website to the
Internet. Search engines are for-profit
businesses and have the right to refuse to
list any site for virtually any
reason. |
| ''Can you guarantee a number #1
position in the search
engines?'' |
| Nobody can
guarantee a number #1 position or specific
ranking for your site for a given keyword
phrase in the organic search engine results.
There are simply too many factors beyond
anyone's control - the search engines
changing their ranking algorithms, efforts
made by competitors, and new sites being
added to the Web. Even Google will tell you
that SEOs cannot guarantee #1 rankings, but
that does not stop many SEO companies from
claiming that they will get you X placement
or your money back. Don't be fooled! Such
guarantees contain enough small print that
they become useless in real-world
practice. |
| ''Isn't This Something We Can
Do Ourselves?'' |
| Large
amounts of time, attention and expertise are
needed to achieve the desired results in
such a constantly changing niche industry.
The expense of adding personnel and
necessary resources alone would quickly
outweigh the cost of hiring our company,
which is why outsourcing SEO is by far the
most popular method. Remember, Strategy
Consulting has already established strong,
ongoing relationships with all the top
search engines, and has experience
professionals who are constantly researching
the changes and trends in this dynamic
field. |
| ''How Do I Know The Best Search
Terms To Promote for Better Search Engine
Placement?'' |
| Our Internet
Marketing specialists prepare a
comprehensive keyword analysis before
beginning any optimization strategy. This
analysis provides the information you need
to choose the most effective search terms in
order to achieve high rankings on search
engines. |
| ''Does My Site Really Need To
Be Optimized to Achieve High Rankings on
Search Engines?'' |
| Absolutely!
Even if you're already receiving traffic
through your current Internet marketing
efforts with search engines, having your
text and code optimized can transform a tiny
rivulet into a veritable flood of visitors,
and is almost a guarantee of better search
engine placement. |
| ''How Long Will You Continue To
optimize My Pages?'' |
| We strongly
suggest a 6-12-month commitment upon signing
up for our optimization services. This
allows us the time necessary to optimize and
re-optimize your pages in order to achieve
as many top rankings as possible. After the
initial twelve months you are free to renew
on a month-to-month basis. Keeping Up With
Algorithms and Industry Changes Very rarely
does a site only require a single
optimization for targeted keywords and
phrases and is there able to maintain
consistent top placement. Once those
rankings are achieved, monitoring your
site's rankings on a regular basis and going
back to make adjustments as necessary helps
push those hard-to-achieve rankings up while
combating against normal ranking
slippage. |
| ''How Long Can I Expect To
Maintain Top Search Engine
Rankings?'' |
| You can
expect to keep your top rankings
indefinitely, as long as no new sites are
included in the search engine indexes,
existing sites do not get optimized, and
search engines do not change their ranking
algorithms. Since all of these things happen
pretty regularly you can, and will, see
fluctuations in rankings from week to week.
With our monthly service we will re-optimize
your pages as necessary to keep rankings
high against competition and standard search
engine ranking algorithm
changes. |
| ''How does the Search Engine
find websites?'' |
| There are
two ways a search engine can find a website
to add to its database. The first and most
direct method is to accept submissions from
website designers and optimisers. Most
search engines have a "submit your URL"
section inviting submissions from Internet
users. The second, and least obvious method
of finding websites is to send a "spider" to
follow each and every link on, off, and
through a website. New URLs encountered by
the spider will be added to the database. In
this way, some search engines will grow very
rapidly. |
| ''How long does it take for SEO
results to kick in?'' |
| The amount
of time required to see results of search
engine optimisation work range anywhere from
2 weeks to a few months. This is dependent
on how often search engines update their
index and subsequently re-rank sites. The
Google Dance for example is almost a
spectator sport among the SEO
community. |
| ''Why might I need to have
extra elements added to my
website?'' |
| A search
engine spider is an automated program that
electronically probes every URL submitted to
its database. As the spider is a computer
program, it is designed to look for and rank
very specific items on each page it probes.
If those elements are present, the spider
computes a higher ranking than it would if
those elements were not present. |
| ''It's been several months and
my website finally shows up in Google but
it's ranked in the hundreds. Why is
that?'' |
| It's not
always easy to get better search engine
rankings. In fact, search engine
optimisation is part science and part art.
Search engines continually change their
algorithms and tweak their rules for
ranking. It is possible that Google does not
fully read your page due to structural
issues, your website (or at least individual
web pages) could be lacking in meaningful
content, no significant websites link to
you, your website is too small to be of any
value to people searching for your topic, or
any other range of problems. |
| ''How will I know if my
business increases as a result of top
rankings?'' |
| There are
numerous Web Analytics tools available in
the market that can help you to track the
effectiveness of your campaign. By the end
of the first twelve months, you will get an
analysis of your activity at the end of the
campaign as compared to the baseline
established at the beginning of the
campaign. |
| ''What if I have more than one
web site?'' |
| Each site is
treated as an individual project having its
own design and set up, submission process
and reporting. |
| ''How do you keep up with what
search engines are looking
for?'' |
| We are
professionals dedicated to the research,
technology and innovation required to stay
on the cutting edge of search engine trends.
We are constantly studying each search
engine's rules, regulations, behavior and
process timing. |
| ''What about frames? I've heard
that search engines have a hard time listing
web pages with frames?'' |
| It's true,
search engines have a difficult time
indexing web pages with frames. Try to stay
away from frames if at all possible. If you
are determined to used frames, DO NOT use
them on your home page, and possibly a
couple of other web pages so that you leave
some web pages that are easy for the search
engines to index! |
| ''All this is very confusing
and I still have some questions about your
services.'' |
You are
invited to
contact us with your concerns before,
during and after the campaign. Clients
always get priority handling: we are here
to help you get better rankings and
understand what we do.
|
| Need Help?
Contact us now. |
