SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION FAQ

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of improving your web site's position in the search engines for targeted keywords or phrases. The reality is that unless your website is on the first page of search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN, your website will not be found and neither will you.
Why does my company need SEO?
Most of the traffic on the internet is driven by the major search engines - Yahoo!, MSN, Google & AskJeeves – and if these search engines cannot find your site or if your content cannot be put into their databases, you miss out on the incredible opportunities available to websites provided via search.

How long will it take?

SEO does not happen over night. In fact, you wouldn't want it to. SEO focuses on a web site's natural ranking and the search engines know that you can't be number one overnight, therefore, if you do move up the ladder unnaturally fast, a red flag is put on your site and you actually go down in ranking. That being said, this process takes 6-12 months, depending on the competitiveness of your keywords. After that, you still must do some routine maintenance to stay on top.

Why can't the search engines figure out my site without SEO help?

Search engines are always working towards improving their technology to crawl the web more deeply and return increasingly relevant results to users. In addition to making sure your web site is crawled and indexed in the search engines' database, SEO can also help boost rankings so that your website will appear higher up on the search results. The online environment is becoming increasingly competitive, and those companies who perform SEO will have a decided advantage in visitors and customers.

Why does Google hate my site?

Rankings are not static. Once you reach the first page, you still have to continue doing SEO work, albeit, not as aggressively as you did to arrive there.

Sites can also be flagged or banned by the search engines by artificially inflating link popularity or other deceptions. If you're not playing games with the search engines, then you don't ever have to worry about penalties. If your site is suddenly gone, it's most likely because of a major algorithm shift. The search engines are constantly adjusting their algorithms and new sites are always being launched, so rank fluctuations are part of the normal course of business.

Because of this, it is crucial to optimize your site for related phrases. This will ensure that when some phrases go south, the others will perform well for you. This is an important strategy in your SEO campaign, as well as your piece of mind.

Should I have a blog?

In short, yes. Blogs are an easy way to add content to your site and help distinguish you as an authority in your industry. It is also a way to create fresh content, which search engines like. If they know any given site is adding new articles on a frequent basis, they will come around often to index it. Blogs are certainly one way of easily adding new information to your site. Newsletters archived on your site can provide a similar benefit, as can archived press releases.
Can SEO companies have special relationships with the search engines like some of them claim?

Nobody has a "special relationship" with Google neither can you buy your way to the top of the natural results.

How can I find out how much traffic my competitor's site receives?

It's impossible to get an exact number, however, you can look at some data by using our Domain Status tool.

Should I optimize for the plural or singular form of my keyword phrases?

Both. Never optimize a page or a site for just one keyword phrase. Every site has hundreds if not thousands of phrases that someone might use to find it. CLICK HERE to request a proposal for a keyword analysis. We can help you figure out which keywords best suit your industry and which are being searched the most.

Will switching server hosts affect my search engine rankings?

No, it won't affect your rankings, but it wouldn't hurt to leave your site up on the old host for about a month to ensure that the spiders are indexing your new site. One you see that they have, then it's safe to remove the old site.

What are the most important things search engine optimization?

CONTENT is king. Let me rephrase that. Unique content is king. Search engines want to see fresh content. If your text is the same as other web pages it can raise a red flag and even get erased from the index.

Be sure to incorporate your targeted keywords in a natural way into your content, albeit, too much can look spammy to the search engines. Keep in mind, also, that you are writing for the visitor, not the search engines. If people can't understand what you're saying, they won't come back to your site.

SEO-FRIENDLY CODING AND TAGS emphasize what keywords and phrases you wish to rank for. These keywords need to be included in tags, such as the title, meta, header, H1, and H2 tags, creating weight and relevancy in the search engines' eyes.

NAVIGATION STRUCTURE is vital because it tells the crawlers where to gather information on your site. This includes having a site map, making is quick and easy for search engines and visitors alike find specific pages quickly.

What is a Site Map and should I use one?

Shows the architecture of a website. A site map helps visitors and search engines find pages on a site. A site map improves your search engine optimization by making sure that all the pages can be found.
What is PageRank and how does it work?

PageRank is Google's way of measuring the importance of a site, one the biggest factors being incoming links and link-related factors. The scale ranges between 0-10 and uses decimals which we don't see, 0-3 being the most common. PageRank is a factor in search engine optimization, but has lost its importance. Presently, Yahoo does not officially have one.

How do I get my web site to show up in the search engines?

By building links through directory submissions (via the submit URL link) and by linking to sites with a high PageRank.

What is an Algorithm?

An algorithm is a set of mathematical rules used to determine the rank of a web page within search engine results.

What is a Reciprocal link?

The equivalent of “if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.” You place a link to someone else's site on your web site, and they do the same for you.

How do search engines look at my site?

Search engines run automated programs, called "bots" or "spiders" which crawl or read web sites and put the information into an enormous database. This is called indexing. This is like a giant library where the search engines extract the information that comes up on the results pages.

Is there a way I can find out my page rank?

CLICK HERE to use our PageRank tool.

I am number 5 in Yahoo, but not in the top 1,000 in Google. Why?

Yahoo and Google use two different algorithms to come up with their ranking system. Yahoo looks at H1 tags, keyword density, etc. while Google looks at inbound links.

What is Hidden Text?

Hidden Text is text that is visible to the search engine spiders but not site visitors. Hidden text is primarily used to add extra keywords in the page without actually adding content to a site which may mostly consist of images. Most search engines will penalize websites which use hidden text.

What is cloaking?

Cloaking is when you discover which search engine spider is visiting a particular web page and then giving that spider a page optimized for its particular algorithm. This method of search engine optimization can result in a website being blacklisted and removed from the major search engines.

What is Geo Targeting?

After you discover which geographic region you want to target, you can focus your the distribution of ads, ppc campaigns, and sponsored links to a particular geographical area. For example, you can use a place name in your keyword, such as “Michigan SEO” or “SEO firms in Michigan.”

Do XHTML pages rank better than HTML-pages?

No. They have the same value. Google however puts more weight to well structured content, thus XHMTL is, in most cases, a more better.

Does using CSS affect my rankings?

Not directly. At the moment, Google does not read CSS-files. Using CSS makes pages more structured and organized, therefore it could lead to better rankings.

Which directories should I submit to?

You should submit to as many as you can, however, many once-free directories are starting to charge for your submission. Currently, there are so many free ones out there, you'd be wasting your money and time by submission to those.

There are several directories which are a must. Those are DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, and ZoomInfo.