The following are Frequently Asked Questions from our customers about SEO:
Clients
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Is it possible to find out how much traffic my competitor's website receives? |
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It is impossible to know exactly how much traffic they get, not unless they give you access to their traffic reports. You can get a general idea about your competitor's website traffic from Alexa.com and compare it to your website data. |
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Should I optimize for the plural or singular form of my keyword phrases? |
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You should definitely try to incorporate both. Singular and plural forms of your keywords are easy to use within the text on a web page in a natural way, without making it sound awkward. Each and every combination of words should be used for invisible (meta) copy. When working with meta keywords use individual keywords as well as keyword phrases.
For example if you are trying to optimize for baltimore painter(s) use the following model:
<meta name="keywords" content="baltimore painter, baltimore painters, painter in baltimore, painters in baltimore, painter, baltimore">
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I want to switch my hosting provider. Will it affect my search engine rankings? |
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No, it will not. If possible, keep a copy of your site with the old provider for another months or so after the new hosting is in effect. This will give enough time for the pages to propagate and get indexed by spiders at the new host. |
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How long does it take for SEO to really start working? |
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We say it takes at least 6 months to see a full effect of optimization. It takes less time for existing websites. It also takes less time in a local market. A brand new website can take up to a year to achieve its' best results in national or international market. |
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Why are SEO services so expensive? Sounds like I can do this stuff myself. |
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SEO is a hard work requiring a lot of research and skill and can be extremely time-consuming. There's liability involved and it's not just the things you see: some copy editing, changing title tag, etc. A lot of the work that is done is something you don't see and that's where the real value is. And if compared to magazine ads or Yellow Pages listings, SEO is really inexpensive. |
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Can you guarantee a number #1 position in the search engines? |
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No one can guarantee a number #1 position or specific ranking for your site for a given keyword phrase. There are too many variables beyond anyone's control - SEO efforts made by direct competitors, the search engines updating their ranking algorithms, new competitor sites added, etc. We do, however, offer a money back guarantee. For more information, read what we can offer to our SEO customers. |
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I hear terms white hat, black hat SEO. What does it mean? |
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White hats tend to follow search engine guidelines and produce results that last a long time. Black hats aim for quick results. They use techniques that are deceptive. They realize that their tactics may be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing, but they typically don't suffer from it. It's their client websites that disappear from the radar. Read more about white & black SEO on our blog. |
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What is SEO spam? |
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Some examples of SEO spamming:
- Delayed meta redirects that are used to show one version of the page to the search engine and another to the users.
- Hidden text
- Mirror websites - multiple website with identical content in order to attract higher traffic. One or both of such sites will likely be banned by the search engines.
- Jump pages, aka bridge, gateway, doorway, entry pages are created to do well for particular keyword or key phrases. They primarily designed for search engines, not for human beings. They often lack navigation to the rest of the site.
- Stuffing website text with keywords to the point where it's not readable.
- Stuffing images ALT attributes with targeted keywords and key phrases while the actual image has nothing to do with them.
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My site is relatively new, but I bought my domain name years ago. Does the length of time that a domain name has existed play a role in search engine placement? |
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It can appear that older domains tend to rank higher than newer ones. You can compare it to advantage that older businesses have over new businesses. It's not to say that the new sites cannot win. |
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Whats is "link popularity"? How does it help? |
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Link popularity is determined by the number and quality of websites that have linked to your website.
Imagine there are two sites are equally optimized for any given keyword or key phrase. The search engine will generally favor the one with more link popularity and will rank it better.
Google has its own version of link popularity called PageRank. You can see a website's approximate PageRank by installing the Google Toolbar and visiting the page in question.
Google PR is not simply derived by counting the number of links to a given site. A link from a site with higher PR is worth more than a link from a site with lower PR.
There are three main effects of link popularity:
- Links to your site are like votes. People like your site and your content and they want to link to you.
- Links to your site give users more ways to find your site while they are browsing other sites.
- Links to your site give search engine spiders (robots) more trails to follow and re-index your site.
But remember that not all links are created equal. One-way inbound links contribute more to link popularity than two-way reciprocal links. Links should only be from sites that are high quality and have a good reputation. A few high quality links will be better than many links of poor quality.
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How do I find out who linked to my site? |
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There are numerous tools online that will show you the links to your site. Try Google Webmaster Tools.
To see who linked to your website:
- Go to Google and search for link:www.yoursite.com
- Go to Yahoo! and search for link:http://www.yoursite.com
- Go to Bing and search for link:www.yoursite.com
Based on our personal experience, Google Webmaster Tools shows links while the above searches don't. At the same time, not every link to your website will appear in Google Webmaster Tools, but that doesn't mean that Google doesn't know about the link.
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Which is the most used search engine? |
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Google is by far the most used search engine today. Made us all wonder why they decided to pay for Super Bowl commercial.
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Webmasters
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Is it true that using frames makes it harder for search engines to properly index my site? |
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Yes. Using frames in your website design makes it harder for search engines to properly index your site. Some search engines will simply not index your website if it uses frameset.
One way around the problem is to use the <noframes> tag. You have to copy the content and navigation links from your frames into the main frame page (the one containing frame set), including them between <noframes> and </noframes> tags.
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Is there a way to notify search engines that we have new content? |
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If you add new pages to your website or if you add fresh content to your existing pages, the search engines will likely find new content within a month or so. |
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Do search engines differentiate between keyword phrases and individual keywords in the meta keywords tag? |
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Yes, they do. To cover all your bases, you should use keyword phrases in the meta keywords, but you should also enter in the individual keywords. For example if you are trying to optimize for "commercial baltimore painter" use the following model:
<meta name="keywords" content="commercial baltimore painter, commercial, baltimore, painter"> |
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Are meta tags still important today? |
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Although meta tags are not the main factor in search rankings anymore, they should not be left off the pages. A meta description tag is probably the most important one of them and is supposed to be a brief summary of a page's content. A meta keyword tag is supposed to be a list of the most important words on a page. Unfortunately, meta tags were abused over the years by the spammers so much that search engine algorithms have had to lower their importance.
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Is there a way to prevent a page from being indexed by the search engines? |
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Yes, just add <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
If you want to hide an entire directory from the search engines, you should create a robots.txt file and place it in the root folder on your site.
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With Google running the show these days, is Yahoo still important to my site? |
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Getting listed on the Yahoo! directory will help you to rank better in searches performed on most of the other search engines. Google specifically recommends submitting your site to Yahoo and to The Open Directory if you're having trouble getting indexed by the Google spider.
To submit your site to the directory, start by visiting the Yahoo! Directory, and find the category that best fits your website. When you've found one, click on the underlined blue link to the far right of the search box which says, "Suggest a Site," and follow the instructions. To be listed in a commercial category, you must pay for the Yahoo! Express submission.
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Can I change the font size and weight of my header tags (H1, H2, etc.) without getting into trouble with search engines? |
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Adjusting your headlines to fit with the overall look of your site through the use of CSS is absolutely fine. Making them invisible in order to deceive search engine or users is not.
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Can search engines successfully index dynamic pages with ? and = (query strings) in the URLs? |
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For the most part, the search engines no longer choke on query strings in dynamic URLs, but try to limit it to 3 parameters. Anything over 3 may cause issues. It is actually more important to generate unique Title tags for every page with such dynamic URL. Not doind so can negativelly affect your search engine success.
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