Potential clients, clients and friends ask several important questions about SEO quite often. Since these questions are important, I wanted to write about them in this blog. Misconceptions and misunderstandings of the answers to these questions can lead to unrealistic expectations or worse.
The First Question: Can you guarantee a top ranking?
While many people are interested in the definition of SEO, it is actually not the question that I am asked the most. That question would be Do you guarantee a top ranking? My answer is usually no I cannot. In reality, guaranteeing a ranking sets up an SEO for failure. SEO is not conforming a website to fit a formula. The weight of each factor, which are closely guarded secrets, in the algorithms change frequently as the search engines work to improve the results, making SEO more an art than a science. Yes, there are certain on page and off page factors that should not be neglected, but even if a site has all of these things, it is not a sure thing that there will be a first page ranking.
In a recent posting on an SEO forum, one SEO expert listed over 200 factors that contribute to a ranking. Some of these factors are hard to control such as domain age, competitors domain age, and size of site. Those factors alone put new sites at a disadvantage. However, it deosn’t mean that a new site can’t be in the top ten as soon as it is launched, but for some sites, it does mean that acheiving a top ranking may take time.
My guarantee is to position the site to achieve its best ranking possible. All SEO’s wish for their client’s sites to have the top spot, but in a competive area the goal should be to have a competitive site - just like every general manager wants to field a World Series winning team, but the realistic thing is to field the most competitive team they can. SEO’s still will make mistakes, as GM’s do, but we do work to learn from them and correct them.
The Second Question: When Will I See SEO Results?
It usually follows the first question, and like the first question there isn’t an easy answer. When I build this website, I acheived my results within the first week. In fact Google had indexed me before I was ready to be indexed, and I immediately had a top five ranking on one keyword phrase and third and fourth page results on others. Since then, I was able to get my site where I wanted it to be. I continue to look at the market and my website traffic to tweak my keywords and develop new ones. Some sites may get results as quick as I did for mine. Other sites might take several months to get results close to their goal. Remember a few of the factors I mentioned above? Things like domain age, links, and site size all will improve over time, and as a result help improve the ranking.
The key is to develop a strong SEO strategy as part of a marketing strategy. Marketing campaigns take place over a period of time, and businesses should look at SEO in a similar light. SEO takes time. It involves updating content, building links, looking at web traffic, analyzing trends and getting more content.
I believe that a traditional marketing, PR, SEO and social media strategy go hand in hand. All will contribute to success. For me it is more about improving web visibility rather than achieving a #1 ranking. Over the next month, I will blog about this philosophy.
When Will I See SEO results? And Another SEO Question
Potential clients, clients and friends ask several important questions about SEO quite often. Since these questions are important, I wanted to write about them in this blog. Misconceptions and misunderstandings of the answers to these questions can lead to unrealistic expectations or worse.
The First Question: Can you guarantee a top ranking?
While many people are interested in the definition of SEO, it is actually not the question that I am asked the most. That question would be Do you guarantee a top ranking? My answer is usually no I cannot. In reality, guaranteeing a ranking sets up an SEO for failure. SEO is not conforming a website to fit a formula. The weight of each factor, which are closely guarded secrets, in the algorithms change frequently as the search engines work to improve the results, making SEO more an art than a science. Yes, there are certain on page and off page factors that should not be neglected, but even if a site has all of these things, it is not a sure thing that there will be a first page ranking.
In a recent posting on an SEO forum, one SEO expert listed over 200 factors that contribute to a ranking. Some of these factors are hard to control such as domain age, competitors domain age, and size of site. Those factors alone put new sites at a disadvantage. However, it deosn’t mean that a new site can’t be in the top ten as soon as it is launched, but for some sites, it does mean that acheiving a top ranking may take time.
My guarantee is to position the site to achieve its best ranking possible. All SEO’s wish for their client’s sites to have the top spot, but in a competive area the goal should be to have a competitive site - just like every general manager wants to field a World Series winning team, but the realistic thing is to field the most competitive team they can. SEO’s still will make mistakes, as GM’s do, but we do work to learn from them and correct them.
The Second Question: When Will I See SEO Results?
It usually follows the first question, and like the first question there isn’t an easy answer. When I build this website, I acheived my results within the first week. In fact Google had indexed me before I was ready to be indexed, and I immediately had a top five ranking on one keyword phrase and third and fourth page results on others. Since then, I was able to get my site where I wanted it to be. I continue to look at the market and my website traffic to tweak my keywords and develop new ones. Some sites may get results as quick as I did for mine. Other sites might take several months to get results close to their goal. Remember a few of the factors I mentioned above? Things like domain age, links, and site size all will improve over time, and as a result help improve the ranking.
The key is to develop a strong SEO strategy as part of a marketing strategy. Marketing campaigns take place over a period of time, and businesses should look at SEO in a similar light. SEO takes time. It involves updating content, building links, looking at web traffic, analyzing trends and getting more content.
I believe that a traditional marketing, PR, SEO and social media strategy go hand in hand. All will contribute to success. For me it is more about improving web visibility rather than achieving a #1 ranking. Over the next month, I will blog about this philosophy.