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Not Sure what Search Engine Optimisation Is?

Here are some FAQs about SEO to shed some light on this mysterious subject.

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

SEO is the adjustment of a website's viewable and non-viewable content to encourage Search Engines to recognise that site as relevant to a carefully-selected set of search queries. SEO is one of components of a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign.

How do Search Engines find my site?

All Engines have complicated mathematical formulas called algorithms that award points to sites. To index your site, they use 'spiders' , 'crawlers' or 'robots' which are like automated scanners that weave through the internet looking for sites. The spider assesses what your site offers and waits to respond to a users query, deciding how equal the website is to the search criteria.

They originally 'find' your site if you tell them you exist. Even better is if they come across it from a link that leads in to your site.

What happens after the Search Engine Robot visits my site?

Once your site has been crawled, it won't be immediately available for searching. The Search Engine must index the information it found so that it can deliver the most relevant website after a user makes a search query. If your site is called 'Green Shoes in Aruba', the Engine needs to know if the site is about shoes, Aruba or something else. It could well be a music site or about a book, a painting or, even, ecological projects. Optimising your site makes it as clear as possible for the Search Engines to know what your site really is all about and what distinguishes it from the others.

The more reassured search engines are about what your web site delivers, the more likely you are to appear higher up in results for similar sites.

How do Search Engines, like Google, decide which pages should come first?

Google, Yahoo, MSN Search and the other engines want to make sure that the sites they list will accurately deliver what the the person is searching for. If they didn't, people would stop using that service. They prefer websites that have proved themselves over time and are clear about what they offer. Therefore, the new-kid-on-the-block has to 'prove' they deliver what they promise and that they will continue to do so. They look for pages that are relevant and reputable.

This is why Search Engines take a dim view of trickery and attempts to attain false credibility. The good news is that if your SEO knows how to communicate in a positive way with search engines, your site will overtake the others.

Your competitors are likely to have good websites and good content too. Who comes first? The website that makes it the easiest for the search engines to index them.

What are the Tricks and False Credibilities?

There are all sorts of ways of hiding 'key' words on a website so that the search engines might be fooled into thinking it is something it is not. For instance, someone selling cars might 'hide' trigger words of an adult nature so that their car site would show up when one of those adult terms was searched on. Search Engines are highly sophisticated and if they are fooled, it won't be for long. You will probably win penalty points for this type of behaviour and it will take much longer to re-establish an honest ranking.

Search Engines also place a lot of value in the number of websites that link to yours. The thinking is that if someone takes the trouble to link to your site, they must think you have something valuable to offer.

This has resulted in a plethora of schemes including link farms, link exchange programmes and link purchasing services. In other words, the links to your site are meaningless other than bumping up your inwards-links count. It does not take enormous imagination to realise that the search engines have become wise to this. They are increasingly sophisticated at assessing the value of inward links. News is that even reciprocal links started to be discounted when the Google algorithm, Jagger, was released in 2004. The trend appears to be ongoing.

Wasting your time, money and effort on trickery won't work, certainly in the longer term and could have a lengthy negative impact on your future rankings.

How do I know I'm not using these tricks without meaning to?

Without understanding the complexities of SEO, you can't fully know whether your website is inadvertently doing something to antagonise the search engines. Something as simple as using a white page background, and then using a white font on an isolated area with a coloured background, might be picked up as an attempt to 'hide text'. Poorly constructed HTML, coding errors, meta-data spam and broken links will also set you back.

If you wish to ensure your site is not negatively impacting your rankings, you should have it analysed and put right any flagged problems.

WebWhisper offers detailed analysis and validation as part of our Site Analysis Report.

What do people mean by 'White hat' and 'Black hat'?

White hat SEOs are the people like us at WebWhisper who believe in making your website's message to the Search engines as clear and straightforward as possible. White hats utilise approved and effective techniques that last over time, keep your site high up in relevant categories and weather algorithm changes well. We aim for steady, stable growth.

Black hats use all sorts of tricks and clever plots to artifically position sites. These techniques might work for a short while, but usually by the time people find out about them, the search engines are well aware and have already started to penalise sites who employ this activity. Our opinion is that if you are going to use black hat strategy, make sure you employ a team of Artificial Intelligence experts larger and stronger than Google's team.

What is the Difference between Organic and Paid Search Results?

An Organic or Natural Search Result is the list of websites in the main part of the page after you have requested a search by entering your query. The order these are presented in is entirely, 100% the decision of the search engine algorithm and nobody can pay to re-shuffle that order. No SEO firm can simply 'buy' a better organic ranking.

Paid Search Results can be bought and show up instantly. This is pure advertising and how the Engines make their money. For example, in Google, the ads that run along the right-hand side column of the main results are known as Pay-per-Click ads. The website owner has an account with the Search Engine to post those ads in response to agreed key word searches. It only costs the website owner if someone clicks on their link. It is an instant way to get traffic to your website. Ensuring you select the right keywords to get the right types of people clicking through is the art of Pay-Per-Click management. It can work, especially in the early days before your site is indexed. Badly managed, PPC can run up huge bills with poor Return on Investment.

Paid Search Results can often be identified as being labelled 'Sponsored Links'.

A Website developed by WebWhisper is created to have Optimisation in its bones to give it a powerful presence within Organic Listings. You pay once and that's it!

I'm just starting out and found someone to build my site cheaply. Can you now help me get better placement? I don't have the money for the full Optimisation programme.

Every white hat SEO sinks when they hear this. If this were possible, almost every site would be Number 1!

The short answer is 'No. Not without analyzing your existing site and probably re-designing, re-coding and rewriting the content. Yes, we can do all that for you and we can do it well to increase your website's profitibility. What we cannot do is tinker with a budget site and provide results. You would be better off having your initial low-cost website developed by My New Venture. They will provide a search-engine friendly entry-level solution.

To make your site Search Engine Friendly, you need to: Without the first four of these working in SEO-harmony, there is little one can do to better Organic Results. The best thing you can do is make sure that your site's first encounter with the Engines is a good one! If it isn't, it could be ages until you get a decent organic index. A non-SEO, budget start-up website is a poor investment in terms of longer term rankings. If it receives a poor or negative assessment from the Engines, it will negatively impact on performance for a long time. It is better to have five SEO-designed webpages as a start-up than 50 that are not.

I found lots of SEO firms that promise instant traffic and number one rankings without all that.

Black Hat Warning! Getting traffic is easy. Anyone can flood your site with traffic, but it will probably provide minimal return. You need meaningful traffic. People who want what you offer.

It is also easy to get number 1 rankings. But which number 1 placement? You may be top of the list for 'left foot green patent leather brogues in Aruba'. These techniques might artifically inflate statistics and negatively impact on your longer term SE credibility. The choice is yours.

I submitted my site to the Search Engines and it hasn't been indexed. How long do I have to wait?

It is average to wait 6 to 9 months for the Engines to index a brand, spanking-new website. If your newcomer site is well-optimised, don't try to do too much straightaway in terms of building links. If an initial index finds masses of links to a new site, it will ring alarm bells. New sites simply have not had the time to establish many quality links. Once you are found, gradually build your incoming links and add interesting content. Natural, organic growth is highly valued by major Engines. This is another reason why it is better to start out with a smaller, SEO-sharp site, let the engines find you and then start to add pages and expand your content.

How do I get 'good' links to my site?

The best way is to build a good reputation and have such good content that other websites will want to link to you. Provide original and helpful information that others may wish to reference. If you keep that information updated regularly, other sites will simply link rather than 'lift' your copy.

Make sure your site is listed in Directories. There are many of them out there, some free, some you have to pay for. Only submit to directories that are relevant to your business. There are only rare times when it is worth the cost to register with paid directories. If you do, make sure it is reputable and specific to you.

WebWhisper's SEO Implementation selectively hand-registers your site to directories.

There are other excellent ways to build quality links that can be integrated within a Web Whisper SEO Contract.

SEO is all about Search Engines. What about the People who are visiting my site?

Very important! In fact, the most important part of a great website is one that talks, first and foremost, to human beings. A good SEO copywriter writes with two brains. The dominant brain writes to human beings and the secondary brain is whispering at a measured pace to the Engines. Effective internet copywriting is an art.

WebWhisper's Analysis Report will pinpoint detailed information about keyword density and placement. WebWhisper's human beings will use that information to write plain English copy with optimal keyword impact.

I have a great website and it ranks well in the Engines. Can I forget it now?

Congratulations if you have great rankings! To keep it performing well you should keep your content fresh and up-to-date with interesting information. An untouched website, however good, will naturally drop.

If you keep your website updated and continue to add new and interesting content, your site should naturally have a better index.

Help! My site was high up and now it's dropped out of sight!

This can happen for several reasons.

If your site was well constructed to begin with, don't worry. It will almost certainly re-establish itself. It probably had a hiccough from an algorithm change. It happens to the best websites occasionally. If your site was not built with SEO considerations, it is essential that you take remedial action. You may need to fix errors or inadvertent algorithm 'fails'.

If you are worried, have your site analysed with a WebWhisper Detailed Report to see if your site is offending any of the latest algorithm criteria.

What is the Google Sandbox?

Whilst not proven to be real, webmasters often refer to the 'Sandbox' when a website has dropped out of view. If an algorithm interprets trickery such as keyword stuffing, content spam, hidden text, etc, it may decide to drop the offending site entirely. It takes a long time to recover from the 'Sandbox'.

There is much debate about whether the sandbox exists or or not. Some call it a 'trust box'. Whatever it is called, essentially it is like a parking bay that a website's index is placed in until the time comes when google feels the site has earned some credibility. Earning this 'trust' is a result of a variety of factors such as length of time the site has in existence with the same subject matter; the quality of incoming links, the quality of content and so on.

What do I have to do to Optimise my website?

In a nutshell, here is what you have to do:

Why bother with the Search Engines? My web address is on my brochures.

If you can afford to miss out on over 80% of internet traffic, sit back, put your feet up and enjoy.

If you are ready to be optimised, we would love to hear from you.

Web Whisper Designs