Click the links 1-10 below, or use the navigation box on the right of the page...
1. Why don't you lock us into a contract?
2. White Hat vs Black Hat SEO?
3. What's so special about Google?
4. Why do just guarantee page one, and not position number 1?
5. How are links built to our site?
6. How long does it take you to get me results?
7. Why avoid super-cheap SEO services?
8. How fast can a brand new domain get a top 10 position?
9. How long do your SEO campaigns need to last?
10. We have a top 10 site, so what's next?
My site doesn't appear for any keywords - I think it's been blacklisted
The best thing to do here is to type your full website address (in the format: "www.exampledomain.co.uk") and the name of the site (in the format: "example domain") into Google's search box. If your site comes up, then it hasn't been blacklisted.
If it doesn't come up, and it's a brand new domain, then it is likely that your site hasn't been indexed by Google. If the site doesn't appear for either the site name, or site address, but it has done so before, then it's likely to have been banned and we will need to enter a re-submission request for you, and commence an SEO campaign.
If your site has never ranked for the above searches, then it should do; as people need to find it! We'd suggest you give us a call and get some traffic to your site so it starts being a useful sales tool.
Does linking to other sites affect my page-rank?
No. It's inbound links from other sites that help your own SEO. In fact linking to Adult, Racist/Hate, or Drug-related sites can actually penalise you. Only add outbound links where they help your site visitors, and try to make them open in a new window so you don't end up driving traffic off your site and on to someone else's!
What about "no-follow" external links?
If you have a sponsored link section on your site where you are selling outbound links to other websites, you MUST ensure that the "no follow" attribute is applied to them if you are to ensure avoidance of penalisation from Google.
Does changing my hosting affect Google positions?
Probably not; provided it's done correctly! Make sure that only the most recent version of the site is moved across. If you are moving from an Apache to a Windows server or vice-versa, things work differently on these two platforms so it's a good idea to check things such as "301 redirects" and "URL rewriting" - because we also offer web hosting on both platforms we can help manage this transition for you.
Why are my keyword positions always changing?
There are a number of factors that cause positions to fluctuate. The SEO we are doing as well as SEO your competitors are doing will affect things. Also changes to Google's algorithm (the bit of code that it uses to calculate results) can affect positions regularly. Also; the search engines have indexes across the world that all update independently causing different results depending on where you are at any given time.
Can a Pay Per Click campaign boost my organic results?
No. Although if you use PPC to bolster your SEO campaign to give you more "presence" on the first page of results, you can get a higher level of trust and thus clicks - for example even eBay advertise themselves for "eBay" searches!
What are the best keywords for my site?
We conduct an in-depth analysis of your target market to determine the relevant keywords. We then ascertain how many people do searches for each keyword, how many sites are competing for that keyword, and how relevant to your site they are. Ideally the keyword will be relevant to the site, have the maximum number of searches and the lowest competition. Because this is rarely the case, we give you a full breakdown of these keywords and quote them accordingly so you can choose the best fit for your budget and business plan.
I'm in a prime position on Google, but I'm not making money - why?
This is where you need to look at Google Analytics to see why people visit your site, and why they leave. It may be that you have outbound links that open in the same window - this takes traffic off your site and on to someone else's. You may need to improve the layout and design of the website, perhaps the colour scheme, and place calls-to-action such as "contact us", "get a quote", "subscribe to our newsletter", etc in the places where people are leaving the site.
Our competitors are way higher than us - why?
There are a number of factors that will affect this. If they have been performing search engine optimisation for longer than you, or have a site that is much older than yours, have more content, or more inbound links, they can rank higher than you. We will assess this and determine which areas you need to focus on to catch them and overtake them.
Why do I sometimes see different positions to you?
If you are logged into a Google account such as Google Webmasters, Google Analytics, Gmail etc, you will get "personalised" results based on your searching history which is distorted from what everyone else sees - just log out (top right) and then try again. Search Engines also use different servers all over the world to produce results. They update at different time and try to give results based on location so someone on one side of the country might see a different set of results until that server updates.
What can I do to keep search engines interested in my site?
Keep adding relevant content. Setting up a blog/news feature on your site can help, larger sites sometimes have a forum running on the back of their sites - a few ways to keep fresh content trickling into the site. Don't change content too much though - once you have created a page, minor changes are fine, but regularly rewriting the same content will mean that the search engine isn't sure what will be there next time it visits, reducing your site's authority for keywords. It's best to add a new page of relevant content whenever you can - this really helps SEO. Content can also be in the form of PDF files which are hosted on the site, and linked to in relevant text - this all adds to the authority your site has for a certain topic.
Why avoid hidden text on my site?
Hiding text is a great way to get your site either penalised or completely blacklisted - white text on a white background is likely to get you penalised; hiding text through more complex methods can carry heavier penalties. Our home page is a prime example - yes: it would look a little tidier if there wasn't so much text there, but it needs to be there for the search engines to rank the site. It's better to have a site that ranks well in the search engines with a slightly untidy home page is much better than a site that looks perfect which no one can find!!!
Why has my Google Page Rank not increased since you started?
If you download Google Toolbar, there is a Page Rank button on it which indicates the page rank of a site. This has in the past held more relevance than today for assessing a site's overall authority. It also gets updated very slowly (up to 6 months) so can take a long time to pick-up the work we are doing. It's fairly irrelevant these days however - the most critical factor is where you are in the organic listings - put yourself in your customers shoes for a minute - how would you try to find your site?
Why Google not indexing my new pages yet?
A page with lots images only is not likely to be deemed "worthy" of inclusion by Google. Pages not in your site map, with duplicate content on them, lots of flash, or not linked to within your site are unlikely to be indexed, and even if they are, this can take a few weeks.
My positions have suddenly plummeted - Why?
Changes in Google's algorithm, the site being down when Google tries to crawl it, broken links, or sluggish server performance are all factors that contribute to positions changing. These changes are common when a site is being worked on, and will flatten out as they gain authority. Most drops occur for anything from a few days to a couple of weeks. Provided you are performing ONLY white-hat SEO on your site, you have nothing to worry about.
Should I change the meta data to reflect regular offers?
No. We change this as part of the SEO process. Changing this will help to undo the work we are doing at best. At worst; regular changes will baffle the search engine as to what the page is pertaining to, and it is likely to be penalised as a result.
Why do we not rank as well as a site we have copied?
Search engines penalise copied content as it is of no value to their customer (the searcher). It's best to write in your own words, and then let us optimise what you have written - this ensures it is different enough to someone else's words.
If I buy thousands of links to my site, can it help you get me to number 1?
No, actually quite the reverse. We build links at a steady rate that Google approves of, adding 10,000 links in one hit will stick out and advertise to the search engines that you are trying to manipulate their results inevitably causing penalisation or blacklisting in the worst cases.
Why should I avoid repeating the same keywords too often?
Your site should read properly to a human. Over-optimised text is easily detected by search engines which then discount it; penalising your site - it's best to let us do your on-site optimisation, once you have written the copy.
Why is it not worth adding lots of keywords to the "meta keywords" section?
It might sound crazy, but these days (as a result of them being abused to manipulate results over the years) it's actually best to leave these fields blank - which is great news as it will save you lots of time when adding pages to your site!
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