SEO Frequently Asked Questions, part 3

November 12, 2003

We have created this Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section to better help our users and our clients rapidly find answers to their most-often asked questions. Additionally, it is suggested you use our main search engine located at the top of our web site, as it is designed to scan all our web site and should deliver you the information you are seeking.

(Please click here to read page one of our Frequently Asked Questions) or here to read page two.

About three weeks ago, I paid the annual $ 299 fee asked by Yahoo to get my site listed in their directory. Last week, seeing that it is nowhere to be found in any of the categories at Yahoo, I decided to write them an email. All I got was a confirmation receipt acknowledging my email, but nothing else. Is it normal that after three weeks I’m still not listed? Yahoo’s Terms of Use state that we are supposed to be reviewed within a week.

Well no, it’ not normal. Not after three weeks. Try calling them with your problem instead of emailing them. Yahoo will usually offer reasonably good service most of the time, but of course anything is possible with the quantity of orders they process on any typical day. Call them with your problem and insist they send you a confirmation email of what it is they will do to solve your problem. That way, you will have something to fall back on if you still need to contact them a few days later.

However, we did hear of a few stories of Yahoo not accepting certain sites deemed “inappropriate” for various reasons. What we were told by some of these people that had their sites turned down is that, on certain cases, Yahoo keeps the $ 299 fee, which, if that is true, we find rather unacceptable. In our view, if a site is turned down for any reason, the $ 299 fee should be returned to the client.

May we remind you that Global Business Listing ( www.globalbusinesslisting.com ) will list any website in any industry and guarantees inclusion within 24 hours on a business day and within 48 hours on weekends and holidays. Global Business Listing is listed as number One in Google for many important industries such as Food growers and Luxury car dealers. It is also listed as number Four under Pharmaceutical industry manufacturers in Google. The Global Business Listing search engine represents a great substitute for companies that need high rankings, at only a fraction of the cost of a professional SEO program.

How often do I need to submit my site to a search engine? Can I do it every time I make a change to the site?

This is a very popular question among companies and site owners that are rather new to the concept of search engine optimization or marketing. Having a company listing in Google and other major search engines is of prime importance if true success is desired on the web today. The answer to this particular question goes beyond a simple do this or do that, so here’s some insight:- how often do you need to submit your site to a search engine? Theoretically, the answer is that you don’t need to submit it!

As a matter of fact, the original idea of submitting any website repeatedly to any search engine is a very bad idea in itself and is even part of our top 5 SEO myths that you can read by clicking here. In the early days of the Internet, submitting a website to a search engine used to be a very important and essential part of getting your site listed in order to get any visibility on the Web. Today, most of the major search engines that will index your website for free generally do a very good job of finding new websites on their own. Our experience has shown that submitting a website to spider-based search engines like Google, AltaVista or similar ones such as Inktomi has almost no impact on how quickly (or slowly) it will be added to their index.

Another way of saying this is: they will do it once they get to your site and that's it. With that in mind, there are certainly a couple of things that a webmaster or site owner can do to accelerate the process. Search engines send their crawlers, ie- computer programs that find, analyze, process, catalog and finally index various Web sites and their pages from all over the Internet. The crawlers (or spiders) are programmed to "go out" on a regular basis to effectively update existing pages and to find new ones that are not in their current databases.

All spiders need a starting point to begin their search and most search engines choose to start at large, well-known directories. Human-edited directories such as DMOZ (the Open Directory Project), Yahoo, GoGuides and Jo Ant just to name a few, index and catalog websites that have been reviewed and checked for their overall content by real humans, so the search engines assume that, generally speaking, these websites should offer good content and should be of relatively good quality.

Getting any website listed in one of these directories is a pretty safe way to make certain that it is in the "radar trajectory" of a a search engine crawler. An alternative way to accelerate the process would be to initiate a reciprocal link exchange program with older, more established websites. Each time a search engine crawler visits a website, it simply follows the links to that site. If your website happens to be on one of those links, the search engine crawler will visit, analyse, catalog and properly index your website. Also, note that, apart from the clear advantage of being included in its index, many major search engines such as Google use the number and quality of incoming links to your website as part of their important ranking algorithm. Google calls this its Page Rank algorithm and you can read all about it here.

Additionally, having plenty of hyperlinks pointing to your website is also a valuable and very effective way to increase your ranking in the search engine results pages. Furthermore, most of the search engines today have paid inclusion programs. Inktomi, Ask.com and AltaVista all offer webmasters and site owners the option to pay a fee to have a page of their site included in the index faster, and generally refreshed every few days.

I have read that SEO writing for the search engines can mean a big difference if done right. Can't we use any shortcuts to save some time and money? I know some people that use some sneaky coding tricks to gain time and save money. Is there any truth to any of that?

In SEO, there is an old, common misunderstanding that successful SEO means sneaky coding techniques and only HTML programmers or sophisticated webmasters truly understand the well-hidden SEO secrets. But the real key to higher rankings are keyword & keyphrase-rich content written for both search engines and your site visitors. Major search engines crawl a web site's text content to determine relevancy to the exact keywords and keyphrase used in the search engine when the query was done.

When your visible copy is already keyword and keyphrase-rich, adjusting certain words, especially the ones that call for action, could actually help you achieve stronger, more positive results. By having actual humans write and edit your most important conversion and call for action pages, your web site will gain better conversion than computer-generated SEO methods or any other techniques used today in SEO.

On the other hand, most sites suffer from keyphrase-weak content, where meta tag editing is not an option. In such cases, it's important to re-edit the textual content and innner-page linkings for top-level positioning and conversions.

Is implementing a Web site optimization strategy really worthwhile?

After investing thousands, sometimes hundred of thousands of dollars developing a Web site, businesses often discover that the site is literally invisible in the major search properties. Failing to take your Web site's search engine and directory visibility into consideration when making site development decisions is an untimely and very expensive mistake. As a result, companies and businesses must either reinvest in a post-launch, costly redesign of their site, or accept the extremely limited results that they will achieve, if any, with their current site. By recognizing both the priority and the need of Search Engine Optimization in the early development of your Web site, you then hold a very significant advantage.

For example, after making the decision to implement a Web site optimization and positioning program, one of our clients now maintains a marketing advantage and significantly higher market share over its two main competitors, achieving significantly higher rankings in every major engine including the major players such as Google, Alta Vista and Yahoo! Because of their decision to implement a Web site positioning strategy, our client has since closed a number of large business deals through search, including a recent $ 1.1 million sale that they acquired directly through a targeted search referral from one of the large engines.

How long can you guarantee that our search results will stay on top of Google or any other?

That is an excellent question and we get it daily. Regretably, top rankings across any of the major search engines can change overnight. Just because a web site gains top rankings in various search properties today doesn't mean the site manager can count on those same rankings next month, or even next week for that matter. Rankings rise and fall contineously depending on a whole slew of external events wich nobody can claim control over. On a regular, consistent basis, most of the major search engines adjust their algorithm, add new Web sites to their index or otherwise change the way in which they display search results.

As such, your professional SEO services firm must respond to, and address each change to ensure your site's continued visibility. And an exceptional search engine marketing campaign must respond to all these changes, as well as changes within your specific industry, to your competitors' sites, and to your Web site's ever-changing content and brand messaging. At Rank for Sales we focus on all these additional dimensions of your business to provide exceptional campaign success.

What is a pay-for-inclusion program?

A pay-for-inclusion program simply involves paying to get your Web site listed within a search engine's database. One good example of this is the Global Business Listing pay-for-inclusion search engine. It is important to know that, pay-for-inclusion search engines and programs do not guarantee any results, as they do not guarantee prominent rankings. You still need professional optimization of your website in order to achieve high rankings. By choosing a pay-for-inclusion program, you're effectively paying for an opportunity to maybe gain a top spot, that's all. But without any SEO strategy, it's just a mere lottery ticket. You are taking a chance. You haven't done anything to improve your odds yet.

What's the economic or business value in SEO?

The Internet is an interactive medium where we can be "in touch" with interested parties twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. Potential customers use search engines and directories to locate content and discover new Web sites every day, and a typical search query will often result in close to a thousand search matches. If you have not considered a Web site optimization and positioning strategy, you are probably losing valuable business. Here are important statistics that might shed some light on the subject:

No. 1: - Over seventy percent of Internet users utilize search engines and directories to find Web sites, according to Forrester Research.

No. 2: - Ninety percent of online consumers use search engines to shop and/or purchase online according to a report published by the NPD Group.

No. 3: - The first ten results for any search have click-thru rates of sixty-five percent according to a study by Berrier & Associates.

No. 4: - A study conducted by IMT Strategies found that search engines are the number one medium forty-six percent of people find Web sites.

Traffic from search properties is the most valuable kind of traffic as it is comprised of qualified sales prospects actively looking for a specific product, service, information or precise solution of some sort.

How can I have a quote or an estimate of how much it might cost me to have my web site optimized by a professional firm?

All you need to do is to contact us, either by email or you can call us toll free at 1-800-631-3221. Our office hours are between 8.00 am and 6.00 pm EST, monday thru friday.

Without any specifics, if you could arrive at a ball park figure, what would be the approximate dollar value in implementing a serious web site optimization program?

The Internet is growing at an astonishing rate. Today, there are currently over three billion web pages, documents, pdf files, etc, all increasing at a rate of roughly five to six million more per day (Source: Cyveillance). A recent US Commerce Department study reports that more than fifty percent of the United States population is already online. And by 2005, it is projected that over seventy five percent of the US population will be online. Canada has similar numbers. In fact, in certain of the western provinces and Ontario, numbers tend to be somewhat slightly higher.

Every day, people on the Web use major search properties to launch over three hundred million queries for products, services and general information requests. But can they find your Web site? Successful SEO experts fully recognize the potential of this enormous market, and as a result have developed comprehensive Web site SEO techniques and strategies in an attempt to capitalize on this large volume of queries.

Media Metrix recently surveyed one thousand Web site owners and found that established search properties such as Google provided most sites a considerable amount of targeted traffic. Over thirty five percent of all sites surveyed generated forty percent or more of their traffic from the largest search engines and directories. Additionally, the survey found that visitors from these search engines represented a highly qualified and targeted, self-selecting potential customer pool who would not have visited these sites if the site owners had not taken a proactive marketing approach to Web site positioning.

The facts clearly show that search properties are the most popular marketing vehicles to directly connect users to Web sites. They provide the very first step, an opening door if you will, in the online communications link. SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) are the direct link bridging potential, real customers and your Web site. Hence, it is imperative that your Web site be listed prominently within each search results for keywords and phrases relevant to your products or services.

(Please click here to read page one of our Frequently Asked Questions) or here to read page two.

We strongly suggest you bookmark our web site by clicking here.

Get your business or company listed in the Global Business Listing directory and increase your business. It takes less then 24 hours to get a premium listing in the most powerful business search engine there is. Click here to find out all about it.

Rank for $ales strongly recommends the use of WordTracker to effectively identify all your right industry keywords. Accurate identification of the right keywords and key phrases used in your industry is the first basic step in any serious search engine optimization program. The keywords you think are the best may be totally different than the ones recommended by WordTracker. Click here to start your keyword and key phrase research.

        

You can link to the Rank for Sales web site as much as you like. Read our section on how your company can participate in our reciprocal link exchange program and increase your rankings in all the major search engines such as Google, AltaVista, Yahoo and all the others.