SEO FAQ's
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to making your website relevant and important to search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and Bing, so that your website achieves high search engine positioning for your target keyword phrases. Keywords are the exact words people use to look up information in search engines.
What are the main components of SEO?
It's important to realize that there are two main components of search engine optimization: on-site and off-site SEO. On-site refers to the things you do to your website, and off-site refers to things you do outside of your website on the web in general.
Where and when do I start SEO?
The best place to start in SEO is with niche market keyword research BEFORE you create a website. First determine whether or not your business has a viable market online and if so, how competitive is it? If it is really competitive, you will need to do some in depth keyword research to identify not so competitive keywords in your niche market. Your keyword research should help you plan your website layout and content.
How do I achieve high search engine positioning on Google for my target keywords?
The short and accurate answer is that you have to OUT RANK your competition that is occupying the position that you want to take. In order to do this, after your niche keyword research, you will need to identify and research your competitors' tactics. This means, you must analyze their SEO campaign for your target keyword phrase and either match it or beat it in order to out rank them.
How do the search engines evaluate my website for SEO purposes?
Honestly, that is a secret that the search engines keep to themselves and that changes constantly as they update their crawling algorithms. But, we do know two main keys to SEO: website popularity and relevant content. Popularity refers to the number and ranking of other sites that are linking back to your site (called backlinking). Relevant content is just that, good content and website structure that is relevant to your target keywords. Since the release of Google Caffeine and beyond, current or dynamic content is becoming more and more important, as well as positive social media feedback.
What kinds of things would I need to do to out rank my competition for my target keywords in the SEO game?
You will need to create good, relevant content for your target keywords on-site and off-site, like website pages, blogs, articles, and videos. You will also need to create your own back links and get others to link back to your website, whether from business directories, article directories, other websites, and social networks. SEO is an ONGOING campaign and must be maintained in order to keep up with the competition.
What kind of time and financial investment is Do-It-Yourself SEO?
The time and financial investment relate to one another in an inverse kind of way, meaning the more money you invest in software, or outsource SEO services, the less time you have to spend in it, this is not including your start-up time of just learning the ropes. There are so many software options out there that it can be very confusing.
If you are serious about achieving high search engine positioning yourself, I recommend taking the time (weeks or months) to go through a good SEO course and learning how to do the steps "by hand". Then after you have a handle on what it takes, you can decide what aspects of it you want to "automate" or outsource. For example, when you discover how important it is to publish articles online, you try your hand at it first. Find out if that is a task that you find easy to do or not. If it is too hard or if it is too draining, you may considering outsourcing that task.
There is no straight answer to it. It all depends on you, your time, your financial resources. Ultimately, if you are serious about having appropriate and adequate SEO services done for your business and you are trying to "run" your business at the same time, it will be best for you to hire out SEO services. You will discover that SEO is extremely time consuming, no matter how much you "automate" it, and with the automation comes a lot of expense in maintaining software. But, I still feel that it is important for you to understand as much as you can about it so you can get the most out of your SEO consultant and make sure they are not ripping you off.
If you are serious about achieving high search engine positioning yourself, I recommend taking the time (weeks or months) to go through a good SEO course and learning how to do the steps "by hand". Then after you have a handle on what it takes, you can decide what aspects of it you want to "automate" or outsource. For example, when you discover how important it is to publish articles online, you try your hand at it first. Find out if that is a task that you find easy to do or not. If it is too hard or if it is too draining, you may considering outsourcing that task.
There is no straight answer to it. It all depends on you, your time, your financial resources. Ultimately, if you are serious about having appropriate and adequate SEO services done for your business and you are trying to "run" your business at the same time, it will be best for you to hire out SEO services. You will discover that SEO is extremely time consuming, no matter how much you "automate" it, and with the automation comes a lot of expense in maintaining software. But, I still feel that it is important for you to understand as much as you can about it so you can get the most out of your SEO consultant and make sure they are not ripping you off.