Search Engine Optimization FAQs

The following is a list of frequently questions we've been asked about our popular keyword optimization strategies.
Hopefully our answers will help you understand how our Internet marketing specialists achieve better search engine placement, and what you can expect as we undertake your Internet marketing promotion. If you have any questions not listed below, please contact us for a free consultation about how to achieve high rankings on search engines.

1. Can You Guarantee Top 10 Placement?
2. Will You Get All My Keywords Listed On Every Major Search Engine?
3. How Do I Know The Best Search Terms To Promote for Better Search Engine Placement?
4. Does My Site Really Need To Be Optimized to Achieve High Rankings on Search Engines?
5. How Long Will You Continue To Promote My Pages?
6. How Long Does It Take For High Rankings on Search Engines To Appear?
7. How Long Can I Expect To Maintain Top Search Engine Rankings?
8. How Do I Keep Track Of My Rankings?
9. Do I Really Need To Pay For Directory Listings?

1. Can You Guarantee Top 10 Placement?

Don't be fooled by so-called "optimization guarantees" that sound good on paper but have enough small print to be virtually meaningless. Due to the volatile nature of search engines there really is no way to guarantee specific rankings in any one particular search engine for any one particular phrase. Even Google will tell you that SEOs cannot guarantee #1 rankings, but that does not stop many SEO companies from claiming that they will get you X placement or your money back. Don't be fooled! Such guarantees contain enough small print that they become useless in real-world practice.

The most common guarantee claim is that you will get X number of first page rankings. There are a number of ways to "wiggle" out of this with small print. 1) Rankings are achieved for non-competitive (and sometimes non-targeted) keyword phrases that drive virtually no targeted traffic to your site. 2) Rankings achieved on very minor search engines (such as AltaVista and Excite) are counted toward achieving this goal. IdeaOverTen strives to implement the most comprehensive strategies and measures for search engine rankings, return on investment, keyword visibility and more, while also establishing specific benchmarks that we believe should be achieved at specific time intervals for your account.

IdeaOverTen guarantees it will make the strongest effort to achieve top search engine placement for your chosen targeted keyword phrases on the top five search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask.com. Our primary goal is to increase targeted traffic to your site and we understand that our success as a marketing agency depends on your success. In order to keep you as a satisfied client we will do everything within our control and within search engine guidelines to make your online marketing efforts succeed.

Uncontrollable Factors that Effect Optimization and Rankings
As search engines continually adapt and adjust their ranking algorithms, there are many factors that are outside of any marketers' control. A sudden shift in a search engine algorithm can cause hard earned rankings to suddenly vanish from the top results. If this happens on a search engine that commands a large search market share, the results can be devastating.

To compensate for the normal fluctuations in rankings, IdeaOverTen can manage your existing or create a new pay-per-click advertising strategy to ensure that traffic will be delivered to your site at all times, regardless of sudden algorithm changes, non-indexing of page changes, sudden surges of competition, or whatever else may cause your rankings to fall suddenly and unexpectedly. For many this can be a worthwhile stop-gap measure until new rankings can be achieved.

While most factors in achieving top rankings can and will be implemented on your site, it is impossible for us to accurately predict what rankings will be achieved or the amount of time it will take to achieve them. Below are some factors that can stall, delay or hinder a site from achieving top rankings on the search engines:

• Newness of Site

  Search engines tend to prefer sites with a history behind them. While we achieve numerous top rankings for new web sites regularly it should be noted that new sites take quite a bit longer to surpass their competition in the rankings. Overnight success should not be expected.

• Link Popularity and Page Rank
  

  Search engines rely quite heavily on quality and relevance of inbound links pointing to your site from other web sites. Our promotion strategies include a base link-building service; however this may not be enough, especially for newer sites. We strongly recommend purchasing additional link building if rankings are slow in coming.

• Keyword Selection
  

  IdeaOverTen will provide as much information as possible during the keyword selection process and will assist you in any way we can.  There are some keywords that due to competition, saturation and context, are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get ranked for. If such terms are ultimately chosen, IdeaOverTen will work diligently to achieve top rankings for these terms just as any other, however rankings for some keywords may be elusive for months, if not years.

• Optimization Strategy Implementation
  

  Due to individual site design and constraints, we may not be able to implement all of our optimization recommendations. We will make every effort to communicate with you the necessity of such changes and will work with your webmaster to find solutions to implementing as many recommended changes as possible. Failure to implement specific optimization strategies may hinder site rankings.

• Promotion Investment
  

  The depth and detail of the optimization strategy purchased can greatly effect optimization of your site as a whole. Sites with very few optimized pages will not perform as well, in general, as sites optimizing many pages for many keywords. In fact, it is more difficult to achieve top rankings for a three-page optimization strategy than a 5-page strategy. Search engines tend to prefer sites with numerous pages individually targeted and optimized for a general overall site theme.

• Search Engine Reliability
  

  From time to time search engines go through periods where they become unreliable. Either they are not actively indexing page changes, going through an adjustment period, or inexplicably revert to an old database. These factors are 100% outside of anybody's control except for the search engine engineers, and the only course of action is to wait for the engine to get back on track.

As long as we are promoting your site, our Internet marketing professionals work to obtain better search engine placement for as many search terms on as many search engines as possible. However, because every search engine acts differently, it is impossible to get a top ranking for every search term on every major search engine.

Our Internet Marketing specialists prepare a comprehensive keyword analysis before beginning any optimization strategy. This analysis provides the information you need to choose the most effective search terms in order to achieve high rankings on search engines.

Absolutely! Even if you're already receiving traffic through your current Internet marketing efforts with search engines, having your text and code optimized can transform a tiny rivulet into a veritable flood of visitors.   Optimization is almost a guarantee of improved  search engine placement.

Professionally written and optimized text is an essential ingredient to your successful search engine optimization strategy. When a search engine visits your site it must find and read the available content to determine what your site is about and whether it is relevant to searchers for any particular search phrase. IdeaOverTen creates relevant and optimized text content that will please both the search engine and the site visitor. Our professional writers are skilled at creating sales driven content and working with our optimizers, build that content in a way to ensure search engines will index and rank your content for your targeted phrases.

Our Page Content Optimization Consists of the Following:

• Overview of existing page textual content.
• Writing, re-writing, or simply re-working your existing page content to target your chosen optimized phrases.
• Focusing content on both keyword relevance AND sales performance, to drive the customer to purchase your product or services.
• Upon your approval, implementation of textual content into live site.

Optimized Copy Increases Overall Search Relevance
If you have no text, very little text, or your most important keywords are not represented on the page effectively, the search engine will assume that relevance of your site for those terms is low. In order to increase your site's relevance for your targeted keyword phrases it is important that your site be themed by including keyword rich content on all relevant pages. By properly optimizing your text you are telling the search engine what your site is about and which keywords are relevant while also providing valuable content to your visitors. One common question we get is "Why do I need text when site X has top rankings and no text at all?" The simple answer is that there are no magic rules that will move you to the top, but there are certain elements that are known to work and work well. While top rankings may be achieved with little or no text, the surest method to move to the top is to provide the search engines precisely the elements they seek. The most important of all on-the-page elements being quality optimized text.

You Can Please Everybody With Professionally Optimized Text
Including professionally optimized text into a well-designed site not only pleases the search engines but it also pleases the visitor. There is a common myth that content is bad and graphics are good. While a largely graphical site may provide more eye-candy, it provides very little information that gives your visitors the comfort and confidence that your products or services are better than your competitors. Professionally written and optimized content provides your visitors what they need to ensure them that they have found what they are looking for, while also providing them quality information on your products or services.

Improperly written HTML code can prevent the search engines from properly analyzing and indexing your site.
Many professionally designed web sites have serious coding issues that can act as "spider stoppers" preventing the search engines from ever getting past your first page to analyze the content of your site. If these problems are not rectified, no amount of good copy or quality content will matter because the search engines will never see it.

Our Code Optimization Consists of the Following:

• Optimization of Title Tag, Description Meta Tag and Keyword Meta Tag.
• Detailing potential design issues that may prevent proper search engine indexing.
• W3C code validation for each optimized page.
• Creation and implementation of style sheet to eliminate excess coding and improved code streamlining.
• Provide suggestions of page renaming and directory structure enhancement.
• Implementation of all necessary coding changes.

Great Design Does Not Always Mean Great Code
Proper code optimization is an essential element to achieving top search engine rankings. Most people--even site designers--don't realize that some of the top-end programs that are used to design and build web sites add a lot of extra "junk" into the code. These web sites may look great and function properly in a browser, but what is "under the hood" can make the difference between a top ranked site and a low ranked site. For the most part this "junk code" is just unnecessary extra coding that can be moved to external files, cascading style sheets or  removed altogether. The net effect of this code, if allowed to remain in place, is to slow the ability of the search engine to quickly parse through your code and find the good stuff. This may cause the search engine to abandon your site or discourage it from continuing on to other pages that may contain valuable information.

Good Code Allows for Good Rankings, Bad Code Prevents Good Rankings
There are also some coding elements that can completely prevent the spiders from indexing your site at all. Bad navigation menus, framed sites and improperly closed tags can prevent the search engine from viewing the content of the site as the viewer does. If the search engine cannot see it, your rankings will not accurately reflect the relevance of your pages for your most important search terms. Proper optimization of web sites is essential in achieving top search engine rankings. Poor site optimization performs badly regardless of how "professional" the site appears, while a site that has been optimized by a professional service will reach the top positions in search engine results consistently and quickly.

We strongly suggest a 12-month commitment upon signing up for our promotion services. This allows us the time necessary to optimize and re-optimize your pages in order to achieve as many top rankings as possible. After the initial twelve months you  and renew on a month-to-month basis. Keeping up with Algorithms and industry changes is crucial. Very rarely does a site only require a single optimization for targeted keywords and phrases and is then able to maintain consistent top placement. Every year vast changes are made in the search industry, including almost daily changes made to search engine algorithms. While there is something to be said about "common sense" optimization that does not do "algorithm chasing", it's also common sense to know what is going on in the search industry and to be able to make adjustments to your optimized pages as required to continue to achieve and maintain top search engine positions. Once your site has been optimized it is important to not let it stagnate. After the initial optimization is implemented, inevitably minor changes and tweaks will be required to maximize performance for your targeted keywords. Once those rankings are achieved, monitoring your site's rankings on a regular basis and going back to make adjustments as necessary helps push those hard-to-achieve rankings up while combating against normal ranking slippage.

Our Monthly Optimization Campaign Management Consists of the Following:

• Continuous, ongoing optimization targeting new keyword phrases each month.
• Monitoring your site rankings for fluctuations in performance.
• Responding to ranking changes with optimization edits as necessary to improve on-the-page keyword relevance.
• Notification to client of any major optimization changes that are recommended to improve rankings on highly competitive terms.
• Analyze current link popularity status and recommend additional targeted links as necessary.
• React to low or sinking rankings quickly to push rankings higher up in the search results.

High rankings on search engines can take weeks and sometimes months to obtain. Each search engine indexes pages on a different timetable so the time it takes for your site to begin appearing at the top of search engine rankings varies greatly from one search engine to the next. On average, you can expect to start seeing better search engine placement results within twelve (12) weeks, however on competitive terms it may take many months.

You could expect to keep your top rankings indefinitely, as long as no new sites are included in the search engine indexes, existing sites do not get optimized, and search engines do not change their ranking algorithms. Since all of these things do happen pretty regularly you can, and will, see fluctuations in rankings from week to week. With our monthly service we will re-optimize your pages as necessary to keep rankings high against competition and standard search engine ranking algorithm changes.

Once each month during your contract with us we send search engine and keyword ranking reports for you to view along with additional information in keyword performance and ROI tracking.

As part of our effort to keep you educated and informed about your promotion strategy you will have access to a personalized web based reporting system that details everything you need to know about your promotion account.

This easy-to-use suite of reports provides account notes, keyword performance level, keyword search estimates, additional keywords for targeting, traffic analysis viewer, ranking reports and more.

While a listing in every directory may not be necessary to achieve top search engine rankings we strongly recommend getting listed in as many directories as possible. Each link from a directory helps increase your site's overall relevancy in search engines such as Google.

Business Web Site Directory Submission Services

Proper directory submissions ensure that your web site is found by the major search engines increasing exposure drawing new customers to your site.

Online web directories come in all shapes and sizes, but there are only a handful that will increase your site's search engine relevance. Thousands of web users search directories each day as a means to find web sites relevant to their needs. A properly submitted site obtaining a relevant directory listing can increase traffic to your site substantially. Sites listed in directories are given a boost in importance when analyzed by the major search engines, which helps improve rankings for your targeted keyword phrases. Our professional business directory submission service ensures that your website is properly submitted to the directories that will make a difference.

Directory Submissions Benefits:

• Draw additional site exposure
• Increase traffic, sales and conversions
• Improve your site's relevance when viewed by search engine algorithms
• Provide a highly effective, well researched and keyword targeted submission for optimal results

Internet Directory Listings Increases Your Site's Visibility
All quality, full-scale optimization strategy should include submission of your site to the primary search engine directories. While the line between search engine and directory has been blurred, directory listings can increase your site's overall importance as well as be an avenue of additional targeted internet traffic to your web site.

Complete Directory Submission Solutions
Our directory submission process provides industry and site research to ensure your site complies with each directory guidelines and is submitted to the most appropriate category. We take your targeted keywords into account as we build the submission title and descriptions for each directory. We thoroughly analyze possible categories to find those that will allow the search engines to assign increased relevance for your primary keyword phrases.

Our Keyword Optimization Directory Submission Services Consists of the Following:

• Research of each primary directory to determine best possible category placement.
• Professionally written titles and description utilizing your keywords.
• Submission to the following directories:
  • DMOZ - Open Directory Project
  • Google Directory
  • Yahoo!
  • Business.com
  • Skaffe.com
  • JoeAnt
  • Gimpsy
• Follow-up each submission to be sure site is included and resubmission if necessary.

Our Ecommerce Optimization Directory Submission Services Consists of the Following:

• Research of each primary directory to determine best possible category placement.
• Professionally written titles and description utilizing your keywords.
• Submission to each directory listed above plus:

  Safe Shopping Network
  Elib.org Shopping Directory
  Internet Store List Directory
  Net Shoppers Directory

Our Local/Regional Optimization Submission Services Consists of the Following:

• Research of each primary directory to determine best possible category placement.
• Professionally written titles and description utilizing your keywords.
• Submission instructions to each directory listed above (Keyword Optimization) plus:

  Google Local
  Yahoo Local

Directories: The Yellow Pages Of The Internet
Internet directories operate differently from search engines and more like a phone book. Instead of sites being spidered for indexing, as search engine's do, with directories, sites are submitted to specific directory categories. Web surfers often times can search the directory, however they are encouraged to click through categories (i.e. Business, Education, News, etc.) and then sub-categories until they find the category that most specifically meets their criteria. From here they are provided a list of sites that fit that category, generally shown in alphabetical order.

When a search is performed at a directory results are first gathered from the directory database providing category links or relevant sites found in the directory before pulling from external search engine databases. There are exceptions to this, when a directory serves results powered by a search engine first, however even when this is the case, if the top ranked sites are also listed in the directory where the search is performed, that listing will be called out to give it additional prominence.

Directory Listings Increase Search Engine Relevance
Another important aspect of directory listings is to increase your site's overall prominence in general search engine results. It is a known fact that search engines such as Google routinely browse through the online directories and follow links to the web sites listed. If your site is placed in an active directory category it is likely that the search engine will follow that link to your site and index or re-index your pages.

This specifically becomes relevant because many search engines count the number of links pointing to your site when assigning relevancy for your keywords. Links from important sites such as the online directories transfer a higher importance to your site than other links from other web sites. The "every link counts" philosophy goes a very long way when it comes to battling it out for those coveted top positions, with directories providing increased weight.

Benefits of Directory Submissions:

• Capitalize on increased return on investment and results-oriented marketing strategies.
• Experience a successful business relationship through quality customer service.
• Adhere to only the most professional and ethical online marketing practices.
• Attract high-quality targeted traffic and draw in buyers.
• Improve your web presence and exposure, increasing overall website visibility.
• Success through website marketing strategies that generate exceptional results.