SEO Services FAQ

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization is the process of manipulating both on-page and off-page factors to rise in the search engine rankings. The higher your ranking, the more traffic you will be receiving. This is important because nearly 100% of the web traffic goes to the sites ranked in the top 10 for the search term. If you are on page 2 of the search results, it's almost like not even having a site!

If your website cannot be found by the major search engines, you will miss out on the incredible opportunities available to websites provided via search. People are looking for what you have and if you are not found, they won't be your customers - they will belong to your competitors. Whether your site provides content, services, products or information, search engines are the primary research tool for most people making purchasing decisions.

What are some of the on-page optimization factors?

These are well publicized and there is no excuse for not doing them.

• Keywords
• Titles
• Content
• Headings
• Bold and Italics
• Keyword density
• Alt Tags
• Meta tags
• Internal Linking

What is off-page optimization?

External Linking! Link building is the very heart of SEO. Your website may have the world's greatest content, amazing graphics that would make Disney proud, and the latest and greatest whiz-bang widgets this side of the moon, but it will not get to the first page of Google for your keyword phrases for any reasonably competitive search term without relevant one way backlinks. The problem is, getting these links can be a very time consuming and difficult task.

Because of this, there have been many so-called "black hat" methods devised to trick their way to the top of the rankings. The problem with this is the VERY highly likelihood of having Google banning their site. If you don't mind having your website removed from the search engines, then feel free to cut corners. If you intend to hang around for the long term, don't do it.

When building links, you have to concern yourself with the following:

Link Relevance: Relevance is important. Avoid companies that promise links from "high PR sites" with no relevance to your own.

Link Quality: All links are not created equal. An unnaturally high percentage of reciprocal links can trigger a Search Engine filter.

Blog Links: Many blog networks have been created for the sole purpose of selling links within phony reviews. These networks are easy for the search engines to spot and those buying reviews with links are often penalized.

Lazy Links: Links from spammy link pages, blog comment links, forum signature links, and wiki links all fall into the category of lazy links. Anyone can get them and they are valued by the search engines accordingly.

Paid Links: The fastest way to page one is through paid links. The harshest penalties are also reserved for those who purchase links. Whether links are purchased privately or through a broker, once your site has been identified as a link buyer, you will be out of the top search positions for several months or longer.

Effective link building is the single most important activity for achieving higher search engine rankings. Focus on getting high value one-way links from authority sites, related sites and industry leading websites.

What do you mean when you say SEO is a process?

SEO is a long-term process, both in application and results - those who expect quick rankings after completing a few suggestions will be deeply dissapointed. Search engines can often be frustratingly slow to respond to improvements that will eventually garner significant boosts in traffic. But if you have a solid plan and patience, you can be successful.