|
 What
is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It's the process of preparing
web pages for optimal ranking in search engines. Sometimes the term
designates search engine placement strategies in their entirety.
Back to FAQ
Why
is SEO so important?
5 years ago it was still possible to select a meaningful domain
name, reference it for free in dozens of important search engines,
and get ranked on top of search results for frequently used keywords
and for no more effort than clean HTML code and proper META tags.
By contrast today you seem to be lucky when your site is referenced
in less than three months, let alone reaching top positions among
countless competing pages. Back to FAQ
Yet not only have search engines kept up with
the exponential development of Internet, but they are now officially
designated as the number one source of traffic for a vast majority
of web sites. Thus SEO is the single most important act in turning
a web site which is merely an interactive business card into the
powerful sales and communication channel that it can be. Back to FAQ
What
types of search resources are there?
There are two main types of online search tools: search engines
and directories. Search engines make use of automatic processes
to verify submitted pages and assign them a certain rank within
their database for specific keywords and key phrases. Directories
on the other hand are categorized lists of sites submitted manually
and verified by human beings. That explains why search engines return
more results than directories, and why major directories require
a fee to get your site listed within a reasonable period of time.
As with everything in the Internet world the line between engines
and directories blurs out a little more every day, search engines
and directories constantly sharing data in order to provide more
accurate results, while the majority of search tools now provide
both types of indexing. A famous online directory is Yahoo! and
MSN is often considered the number one search engine. Back to FAQ
What
is a search spider?
Search 'spiders' (also called 'robots', 'bots' or 'crawlers') designate
the automatic processes that examine a given domain name or URL
address to index it or update its listing in a search engine. The
spider 'crawls' all linked pages and sometimes any page not specifically
exempted from indexing. To prevent sensitive or outdated directories
or pages from being crawled web sites require a file called "robots.txt"
to be present at the root of the web site structure. Without it
search spiders may index all of your web pages including irrelevant
ones or those not intended for public viewing. However because of
the way they were conceived "robots.txt" files cannot
indicate which files to index, only those NOT to be indexed. Back to FAQ
How
do search engines rank web pages?
It's important to know that every engine has its specific rules,
and as if it wasn't complicated enough, they change those rules
and the algorithms that fun them quite often. There is little chance
to achieve efficient ranking without understanding how each engine
work. But knowing those rules is not enough, so experience and creativity
always play a preponderant role in getting a web page to rank well
on several major engines. Here is a short list of what most search
engines will look at in order to rank a page:
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META tags / HTML tags |
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Title / URL / File name |
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File size / Date of publication |
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Copy / Content / Web site theme |
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Link Popularity |
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Web site traffic |
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Traffic figures |
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Online presence |
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HTML code / use of plugins / "robots.txt"
file |
How search engines use those parameters to rank
a web page is specific to each engine. But proper preparation and
Optimization of pages will maximize top position opportunities for
any given site. Of course the more pages are in top position, the
more traffic you get, and the better ranked your pages are, etc.
As you can see online traffic is a revolving process in which SEO
is the first and most important step. Back to FAQ
What
is Search Engine Referencing?
Search Engine Referencing is the process of submitting web pages
to search engines and online directories. It is done in many ways
including "manual" submission, automatic submission, fee-based
placement, online advertising and email-based submission. Back to FAQ
What's
a 'doorway page'?
A doorway page is any page optimized for optimal ranking on search
engines. As search engines differ in their ranking methods, you
cannot possibly achieve Top 10 position with a single page on all
engines. But submitting the same page in different versions to various
engines has many strong disadvantages.
Some SEO providers propose using hundreds of
doorway pages based on a chosen set of keywords. Unfortunately for
this practice only pages that are properly linked-to throughout
the web site and those who garner the most traffic can really rank
in Top 10 position. Which means that out of hundreds of generated
pages only one will truly make it in top position for a significant
period of time. A server script has to show the search robots the
doorway page made to his attention, while online visitors are redirected
to the "official page". This technique is aptly called
'web page cloaking'.
Besides the useless complexity of this method
and the questionable reliance on mostly automatic processes, there
is more problems associated with it. Search robots now also surf
the site without acting as robots but as simple online visitors.
When they compare the submitted doorway page with the "official
page" (the one that your own site links to within its page),
they soon see through that trick as well, and may ban your page,
sometimes your entire site. In which case you effectively defeat
your online marketing strategy. Additionally and supposing this
strategy actually works out, cloaked pages being hosted on a separate
domain you will loose most search engine incoming traffic should
you end your relationship with the provider or in case the service
itself is discontinued. Back to FAQ
What
is 'spamming'?
In Internet lingo 'spamming' or 'spam' mostly refers to unethical
or abusive use of email, the online equivalent of junk mail. When
speaking of search engines, spamming means submitting too many pages,
too many times, based on their guidelines and rules. Each major
search engines publishing guidelines about the do's and don'ts of
online submission. Fee-based referencing being a major source of
income for them, they will certainly discard or ban any page or
domain submitted too many times. Ethics is a major issue with search
engines in general, and so far it remains to be proven that unethical
technique really pay off in the long run. Spamming is the worst
thing you can possibly do to a search engine, and they have little
mercy. Back to FAQ
What
are 'keywords' and 'key phrases'?
Historically <META KEYWORD> is long-standing descriptive
HTML header tag. By extension, a keyword, or 'key word', is a word
or acronym used to indicate the topic of a web page. "Internet"
is a keyword, so is "SEO". "Search engine" may
be considered a single keyword as it would loose all significance
if made of one word only. But "search engine optimization technique"
is considered a 'key phrase' as it uses several individual keywords
to create a single concept. Whether the key phrase "search
engine optimization technique" is more significant to a search
engine than "search engine" and "optimization technique"
depends on each specific situation. As a general rule, keywords
yield better results when applied to small market niches while key
phrases perform well in more competitive areas. Back to FAQ
How
do you choose keywords?
The first and foremost function of keywords is to describe the
page they're on. For instance the page you are currently reading
could be using the keywords and key phrases such as "SEO FAQ",
"search engine optimization", "search engine frequently
asked question" and so forth. But combining all those can already
lead to a long list of keywords, much more than recommended in search
engine guidelines, even more than the META tag can bear. So you
must choose not only the most significant keywords and key phrases,
but also those that will manage to place your page anywhere between
the first and the thirtieth position. Hence any "good keyword"
will have the following characteristics:
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Descriptive value: among other things the
keyword should be significantly present throughout the web page
copy.
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Search frequency: if no one ever search
for a given keyword then why bother? It's important to know
how many users search for that keyword before selecting it.
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Competing pages: even if searched for often,
a keyword can be used by thousands of web pages. The more pages,
the harder it is to be listed in top position, and the less
useful a keyword is. |
Any keyword matching those three conditions
is a good one to select. Even by doing this work you may still have
too many keywords for a given page. Theoretically besides your gut
feeling the only way to find the good keywords is to properly analyze
each situation and compare the results, a task that can become cumbersome
and time consuming, especially if you have many web pages to submit
and many keywords to analyze. You may have to consider rewriting
your web page copy as well. Choosing potentially successful keywords
require experience and jugement, two things probably only a professional
can give you. Back to FAQ
What
is 'link popularity'?
'Link popularity' is represented by the number of pages that
point to you. Search engines attributes growing significance to
this parameter since it is more of an objective factor than say,
keywords. Decisive is the total number of links to your page from
other domains, as well as the overall popularity of those sites
that point to you. If lots of discrete sites point to you it's always
better than nothing, but if you can get major sites to point directly
to your page it will greatly increase your overall ranking and chances
of top position. Back to FAQ
What's
the deal with top position guarantees?
If you browse any of the major informational sites or require
the advice of a recognized expert, you will hear the same tune every
time: "there is NO WAY anyone can guarantee you top position
for the keywords of your choice on every major engine". Try
it yourself: choose any keyword you would like to use for your web
page and search for it on a few major search engines or directories.
Look at the Top 10 results. Chances are maybe one or two URLs may
show up from one engine to the other, but NEVER the same URL on
all engines. Thus so-called guarantees are just a twisted way to
get customers to sign up for a usually mediocre service that cannot
be convincing enough by itself.
When dealing with SEO guarantees be prepared
to comb them for small-print loopholes. And ask yourself how in
the world any single company could place all of its clients in Top
10 for every major engine?? Especially with thousands of competing
sites and hundreds of SEO providers you ought to be pretty darn'
good. One guarantee you should always look for is one of quality
of service. Keep in mind the business is young and although you
will get a few recurrent names by looking at search engines resources
what you most need is a company that understands your business and
is motivated as you are to see results. SEO providers live off their
customer's online success, that is a guarantee as strong as it gets.
Back to FAQ
How
long does it take to reference a web page?
Regarding "regular submissions" it mainly depends
on your overall presence in search engines at the time of submission.
Web sites already well ranked in search resources and/or having
significant traffic can see their page listed within a month. New
domains, discrete and low-traffic web sites can experience up to
4 months waiting periods between submission and listing. This wait,
an eternity in Internet time, is explained by the incredible number
of pages submitted every day. Unfortunately another problematic
side-effect of automatic submission services and doorway pages is
that it create hundreds of listing requests where only a few would
have sufficed. If you think this is unfair, refrain from using those
techniques yourself and avoid selecting a provider promoting them
as there is little good about a business who purposely penalizes
its own market space. On the other hand this is somewhat of a bounty
for search engine companies who can further justify fee-based referencing,
which usually takes between 2 days and 2 weeks depending on the
service. For this reason ActivRank recommends fee-based referencing
for one-time submissions to services with a slow turnaround (Yahoo,
Looksmart, Altavista among others...). Back to FAQ
What
kind of results should I expect?
In terms of results you must consider various areas to evaluate
your success. Your submission success rates, top positions and traffic
figures are key parameters for success measurement. In terms of
traffic, projections can be made by considering the current state
of your web site. For unlisted web site and pages, for instance
hosted under a recently purchased domain name, and based on the
fact that most web sites get anywhere between 40% and 80% of their
traffic through search engine referrals, you can expect to triple
your current traffic by simply being referenced in major engines
and directories.
But the real decisive factor is the number of
Top 10 to Top 30 positions you will achieve. A sustained online
marketing campaign can easily produce 10% to 30% increase in traffic
every month. Traffic however will reach a limit if you do not increase
also your link popularity and presence in other web sites. Some
search engines now even analyze the click-through behavior (time
spent, number of pages viewed) of visitors finding your web site
through their listings. When poor results are observed pages rank
may drop dramatically and never come back. Back to FAQ
Is
SEO worth the investment?
The only goal to keep in focus at all times is your online ROI.
Generating top positions or increasing traffic tenfold is useless
in itself. What matters is how many qualified leads this will actually
generate. If SEO can the main stepping stone to online success,
only content-rich sites will retain visitors and only a strong marketing
approach will transform online traffic in tangible business.
Keep in mind one often neglected fact: while
search engines help visitors find an discover your site, only valuable
web sites will see many visitors return, and among those visitors
only a fraction will translate in business relationships. In the
Internet world more than anywhere else word-of-mouth, if only virtual,
is the most powerful form of viral marketing, a fact that outlines
that a successful online strategy lies on much more than mere success
with search engines.
So the answer to that question is YES. SEO investments
will pay for themselves by directly generating a sizable number
of sales leads provided those investments are put in the right hands
and include a minimum of management involvement. Bu beyond those
immediate gains you will increase your brand recognition, multiply
viral marketing opportunities, and impact your entire sales process
in one form or another. Those significant effects will create a
marketing dynamic in which lays the true power of intelligent online
marketing strategies such as SEO. Back to FAQ
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