Frequently Asked Questions about Search Engine Optimization

These are the most common questions our clients and prospects ask us about search engine optimization. If your questions are not addressed from the list below, be sure to contact us and we will be happy to discuss this in more detail:

• Why Market-Vantage for Search Engine Optimization?
• What questions should you ask when hiring a SEO firm
• What is search engine optimization?
• Does Market-Vantage guarantee a top ranking position?
• How do you choose your target keywords?
• How can you test your keywords and measure the ROI of SEO?
• Should I target a keyword phrase that has a low frequency of searches?
• What is a search engine vs. a directory?
• What is paid inclusion?
• What is cloaking?
• What is a doorway or information page?
• What is a meta tag?
• What is keyword density?
  

Why Market-Vantage for Search Engine Optimization?

Market-Vantage offers search engine optimization services as part of a mix of Internet marketing services. Search engine optimization is an important online marketing activity, but should be included as part of an overall online marketing strategy for success. We believe focusing on conversion to increase qualified leads or online sales is the most important goal.

High search engine ranking is a result of two key components: keyword rich copy and more relevant quality links in to your site than your competition for a given keyword phrase. The copy writing must also help your visitors make a buying decision. There needs to be a balance between web site design, keyword rich copy writing that supports the sales process. There are no secrets or tricks. There are many web sites offering the information you need to know to do it yourself. However, unless you’re willing to devote someone full-time to this task, then you probably won’t achieve the results you want on your own.

There are many reputable search engine optimization providers (SEOP) out there. For many of them, SEO is all they do. They offer guaranteed high rankings at a low cost. Ask for clear answers as to how they’re going to deliver the traffic.

Your site not only needs to be search engine friendly, but conversion friendly. In order to fully leverage the Internet to shorten the sales cycle and convert browsers into buyers, you need a good marketing mix of Internet Marketing activities appropriate for the target audience. The navigation of your site should be conducive to visitor conversion. Market-Vantage can help you develop an integrated marketing strategy that goes beyond search engine optimization to include the right mix of Internet and traditional marketing activities.

What questions should you ask before hiring a Search Engine Optimization Firm?

We had such a long list of questions, we had to devote a separate page.
Please click here.

What is search engine optimization?

We consider successful search engine optimization for a given keyword phrase at least one page that holds a top 10 to 30 position within any of the major search engines. A page within the top 30 positions or first three pages is likely to receive click-through traffic. The search engines use algorithms to calculate the position a page will receive relative to a given keyword phrase. Each search engine uses their own unpublished algorithm. Although these algorithms are not known to the public, through trial and error and based on what SEO experts and representatives from the search engines have said, indexing is generally based on the density of keywords on a page, the page title, and the popularity of that page or site. Optimizing pages for highly competitive keywords for a Top 30 position within the most popular search engines is the biggest search engine optimization challenge.

What kind of search engine position guarantee can you expect from Market-Vantage?

A high ranking page depends on keyword density and site link popularity as compared with other competing pages for the same keyword phrase. Market-Vantage can write keyword rich text for you or tell you what you need to know to write the copy yourself. We can help build your link popularity as compared with the competition. This is how a high rank will be achieved for any specific keyword phrase. That's it! No tricks, gimmicks or secrets, just diligence, perseverance, monitoring and time. Market-Vantage cannot guarantee any position since we do not control the search engines. We can give you plenty of examples of our clients' web sites that have high ranking ranking positions that are delivering traffic that converts to sales. High rankings do not occur without changes to your existing web site. Increased qualified leads or sales does not occur with ensuring your site is designed for conversion. We will set clear expectations once the keyword phrases have been determined, the keyword frequency and the competition has been evaluated. Market-Vantage will not make false promises and sets expectations up front.

How do you choose your target keywords for search engine optimization?

Market-Vantage analyzes the daily number of searches a given keyword phrase receives by search engine as well as the number of competing web pages for that phrase. This information allows us to calculate the probability for success or the challenge you’re facing for a top ranking page. This tool also provides suggestions for related keyword phrases to help you explore all the possible appropriate keyword phrases. We also consider the current Pay Per Click bids for your targeted keyword phrases. This is an indication of what your competitors are willing to pay for top Pay Per Click position within the search engines.

Market-Vantage can save you months of unproductive time and wasted money by targeting the right keywords on the right search engines to produce results that meet your business goals. Some SEOs offer to submit your pages to hundreds of search engines. We focus on the most important search engines and directories first. We work with you to understand where your audience searches and what they search for.

How can you test your keywords and measure the ROI of Search Engine Optimization?

Pay Per Click programs are an excellent way of testing how popular and relevant your keywords are for your site. They bring instant traffic and will prove your ability to convert. The results will help you fine tune your conversion process. High rankings from search engine optimization and keyword-based search engine marketing campaigns, i.e. pay per click, will bring traffic associated with those keywords. You'll want to analyze your site traffic reports to study the paths visitors take when they enter the site. If you’ve implemented tracking that maps to your conversion, then you will know which search engines and what keywords are bringing you conversion – the true measure of search engine optimization and any online campaign ROI. Studying the source of conversion is our favorite pastime! Marketing has never been more fun!!

Should I target a keyword phrase that has a low frequency of searches?

Market-Vantage uses a tool to confirm the search frequency of any given keyword phrase for each search engine. This will help determine which words you want to focus on and set results expectations. You may find that no one is searching for a phrase you thought should be targeted. However, you may decide to target that phrase if you are trying to build new brand awareness around it. In this case, you would want to advertise online in other ways to build brand awareness, i.e. banner ads in portals sites, newsletter sponsorship insertions and write articles using this new keyword phrase in order to create awareness. You may be setting a trend with this new keyword phrase. Initially, you would have high rank, but probably not a lot of traffic or conversion from this phrase. If you are successful at branding this phrase, you would reap long term benefits.

What is a search engine vs. a directory?

A search engine uses a robot or spider to crawl and index the content of the pages on your site. Search engines use an unpublished algorithm to determine the position any of your pages will have in their index relative to a given keyword against other sites’ competing pages. The position of a page in the index is based on factors of the algorithm and the weight of each factor i.e. link popularity may have more weight than keyword density in your title and body in the algorithm. Again, the position a page holds in the index is relative to the competing pages/sites.

A directory relies on the listings submitted directly to their site to provide search results. Your rank for a given keyword is determined by the keywords in your brief description as well as the category you are in. Some of the most popular directories require annual payment to be listed i.e. Yahoo and Looksmart. You may be able to pay to enhance your position. Yahoo only guarantees your listing will be considered, not necessarily included. Therefore, write your Title and Description very carefully. The Open Directory Project (DMOZ), owned by Netscape, is free, however, inclusion is uncertain. The only reason we feel you would want to be included is because DMOZ is Google’s directory. Yahoo uses Google’s index to provide world wide web search results. Netscape uses it’s own DMOZ directory, but it’s web search results are provided by Inktomi, a paid-inclusion search engine index. Yahoo and AOL supplement their directories with Google search engine results. Confused yet? Since directories rely on manual submissions, not all sites on the web are included in their directory. To ensure the directory’s popularity by always providing relevant search results, they supplement their directory by providing results from a partner search engine. Default results are from the directory and supplemented by the partner search engine. This way you have all the results at one site.

What is paid inclusion?

After submitting your pages or homepage, you are put in the search engine’s queue for spidering. Thousands of pages are submitted daily. As a result, it could take anywhere from two weeks to two or three months before your pages are finally indexed. What if you need to re-optimize? This trial and error process could take months. Some search engines are offering paid-inclusion. This means you pay an annual or semi-annual fee per URL to be crawled on a regular basis. Inktomi crawls your paid-inclusion URLs every 48 hours for a 12-month subscription fee. AltaVista crawls your pages weekly for a 6-month subscription fee. Lycos and AskJeeves now offer paid inclusion. Being crawled frequently allows you to know the results of your search engine optimization efforts quickly.

What is cloaking?

Cloaking is serving one page to a search engine spider while serving a different page to visitors. Cloaking requires the ability to cross-reference the IP address of the visitor against a database of search engine spider IP addresses. Some search engines will punish your site if they detect cloaking by burying you in the index or excluding your site altogether. Maintaining a list of spider IP addresses requires a lot of work or is expensive to buy. Between the risks, the cost, and the time required to maintain this effort, Market-Vantage does not recommend cloaking as a search engine optimization strategy and does not provide cloaking services.

What is a doorway or information page?

A doorway page is created to be as search engine friendly as possible with little graphics and no fancy effects. It is keyword dense, but not very appealing to visitors. It is designed for search engines and not for visitors, therefore, it is typically not part of the site navigation. That means there are not links in to this page, only links out. It is an orphan. Since Google and other search engine algorithms calculate link popularity of a page or site based on links in, a doorway page would not have PageRank (link popularity) and therefore not search engine friendly. Market-Vantage recommends a balance between keyword rich content and esthetically appealing pages as an effective search engine optimization strategy. This way, the keyword rich content pages are part of the navigation of the site and not orphan pages. FAQs and “more information” pages are good ways to achieve this.

What is a meta tag?

Meta tags are fields of information not visible to the visitor unless you View the HTML Source in your browser. There are several meta tag fields, but there are only two you really need to include: meta-keywords and meta-description. Include seven keywords or less separated by commas or spaces. More than seven will probably be truncated or ignored. Only list keywords included in your actual page text. Not all search engine spiders index meta tags, but you’ll want to include them on each page for those that do. The meta-description is the brief description that will appear under your title in the index. Try to limit your description length to about a thirteen-word sentence summarizing the page. This description is what often appears in the search engine listing under the title. A description that is too long will probably be truncated anyway. If you’re able to achieve a high rank in a meta crawler, you want to ensure people will find your description interesting enough to click on.

What is keyword density?

Keyword density is a calculation of the frequency of a keyword phrase as a percentage of the total word count on a specific page. Keyword density analysis is used to compare against competing pages during the search engine optimization process.

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