SE Q & A's
Our latest batch of SEO tips that we have sent out to our newsletter readers - If you have landed on this page after reading our newsletter, please feel free to add a comment underneath the article or rate it! We'd love to know what information you'd like to see on our SEO newsletters in the future so we can keep on improving the content.
People keep talking about SEO and I don't know what it means. Please explain!
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is the collective term for a whole range of methods that are used to try and get a web page ranked highly in search engines for certain keywords or phrases i.e. Jd sports would want its website to be shown on the first page of Google whenever someone typed “trainers” or “sportswear” into the search box, in order to do this it would have to hire an SEO specialist.
My site's quite new and isn't being picked up by search engines. What should I do?
If another site that has been around for a while links to your site then it will eventually be picked up and indexed by the major search engines (although this can take 3 – 6 months depending on how trustworthy the site is that links to you. Whilst you are waiting, you can submit your site manually to most search engines but not all.
I think I've wasted money on paid-for links - have I?
This is a hotly debated subject! Recently, Google have asked all website owners and searchers who suspect that a website is using or paying for links to report it to them as spam! This caused a huge row amongst the SEO community as paid for links have been the norm for a while (many directories ask to be paid for inclusion – including Yahoo!). IceBlue suggest that spending money on links is only temporary anyhow so whether you get caught or not, it’s probably best to drop it as an SEO technique sooner rather than later and spend your time and money on other, more useful methods of optimising your site.
Does the writing on my website make a difference to how I rank in the search engines?
It is often considered one of the most important things on a website. Sure, it’s probably not going to get you amazing amounts of traffic on its own but when used with other SEO techniques it can be the difference between thousands and hundreds of visitors per day. We recommend between around 300 – 500 words per page keeping your keywords in mind for the first and last paragraph, headings, titles and crosslinking. Our very own copywriters blog will give you loads more tips on this.
What should I look for in an SEO company? How can I tell if they’re trustworthy or not?
Like all professions, SEO has its share of poor practitioners and, being such a young profession it can be hard to tell which companies are reputable and which are not. People often use the logic that if a firm ranks number 1 in Google for “SEO company” then they must be a good company however this logic is flawed as it only means they’ve spent a large amount of time and effort on optimising their own site and not their clients.
Being recommended an SEO company from one of their clients is great in theory but in reality, people who have found a good SEO company are loathe to disclose the information to anyone else!
Another way to find a reputable SEO firm is to go to a search engine strategies conference and hang around the stalls and meeting areas, if firms are willing to send their staff to these conferences then they must have some level of integrity and a desire to learn (tip – if you don’t want to pay the high fees for the lectures, you can pick up a ticket for the exhibition hall for around £20
There’s also good information available from Google webmasters which will give you additional guidelines for choosing an SEO company
People keep talking about SEO and I don't know what it means. Please explain!
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is the collective term for a whole range of methods that are used to try and get a web page ranked highly in search engines for certain keywords or phrases i.e. Jd sports would want its website to be shown on the first page of Google whenever someone typed “trainers” or “sportswear” into the search box, in order to do this it would have to hire an SEO specialist.
My site's quite new and isn't being picked up by search engines. What should I do?
If another site that has been around for a while links to your site then it will eventually be picked up and indexed by the major search engines (although this can take 3 – 6 months depending on how trustworthy the site is that links to you. Whilst you are waiting, you can submit your site manually to most search engines but not all.
I think I've wasted money on paid-for links - have I?
This is a hotly debated subject! Recently, Google have asked all website owners and searchers who suspect that a website is using or paying for links to report it to them as spam! This caused a huge row amongst the SEO community as paid for links have been the norm for a while (many directories ask to be paid for inclusion – including Yahoo!). IceBlue suggest that spending money on links is only temporary anyhow so whether you get caught or not, it’s probably best to drop it as an SEO technique sooner rather than later and spend your time and money on other, more useful methods of optimising your site.
Does the writing on my website make a difference to how I rank in the search engines?
It is often considered one of the most important things on a website. Sure, it’s probably not going to get you amazing amounts of traffic on its own but when used with other SEO techniques it can be the difference between thousands and hundreds of visitors per day. We recommend between around 300 – 500 words per page keeping your keywords in mind for the first and last paragraph, headings, titles and crosslinking. Our very own copywriters blog will give you loads more tips on this.
What should I look for in an SEO company? How can I tell if they’re trustworthy or not?
Like all professions, SEO has its share of poor practitioners and, being such a young profession it can be hard to tell which companies are reputable and which are not. People often use the logic that if a firm ranks number 1 in Google for “SEO company” then they must be a good company however this logic is flawed as it only means they’ve spent a large amount of time and effort on optimising their own site and not their clients.
Being recommended an SEO company from one of their clients is great in theory but in reality, people who have found a good SEO company are loathe to disclose the information to anyone else!
Another way to find a reputable SEO firm is to go to a search engine strategies conference and hang around the stalls and meeting areas, if firms are willing to send their staff to these conferences then they must have some level of integrity and a desire to learn (tip – if you don’t want to pay the high fees for the lectures, you can pick up a ticket for the exhibition hall for around £20
There’s also good information available from Google webmasters which will give you additional guidelines for choosing an SEO company
Labels: client seo advice, how to hire an seo, seo blog, seo question and answers
