~~~High Search Engine Rankings~~~
From: Sarah Mackenzie
Dear Jill and Heather,
The company I work for is going to be unveiling our new site soon, and
naturally, things are a bit rushed. I have done some extensive
key-phrase research, and have communicated to the web development team
that we need to assign 2-3 key-phrases per page, and make sure that
these keyphrases are reciprocated appropriately through the text, the
title tag, and also the meta tags, etc, etc! :)
However, I was just informed that now we don't have time to optimize
the site for keywords, because the site needs to go up as quickly as
possible. They think we can just go back later and stick in the
keywords.
Then, the team likewise wants to submit to all the search engines
immediately! I am under the impression that submitting pages before
they have been optimized is a big mistake, because it can take even
LONGER to update pages than to initially index them.
How can I convince this web development team that:
1. Optimizing a site is not an "after the site is done" kind of deal
2. Submitting un-optimized pages to the search engines is a bad idea!
Can you please give me some advice here? I need all the help I can
get, and I feel like the team would really listen to you if you
responded. Thank you so so much!
Sincerely,
Sarah Mackenzie
Thelix Internet / www.th.net
413.253.7700
sarah@th.net
~~~Jill's Response~~~
Sarah,
These are very good questions and you bring up some good points.
Here's what I would tell them: Yes, you *can* submit an unoptimized
site to the search engines, however, it won't do much good. If you
minimally have some keyword-rich text on the site, that could help.
However, if there's no keyword-rich text, and no keyword-rich tags,
there wouldn't be much use in submitting it.
If you do get unoptimized pages into the engines, it's not necessarily
bad or good. But you are right that it does sometimes take longer to
get the newly optimized pages into the engines at a later date. I'm
not quite sure why this is, but I've noticed that it seems to take
less time to get new pages indexed, than to get existing pages
re-indexed. However, it's not impossible, and it's not that big of a
deal. It can simply take longer.
Of course, this all applies to the spidering search engines. If
you've done your keyword research and know which phrases you want to
focus on, you can still do directory submittals without any bad
consequences. Just be very careful with these. Be sure you know
exactly what you want, because once in the directories, you won't get
much chance to change your descriptions somewhere down the line.
Good luck and let us know how it goes!
Jill
~~~Next Question~~~
From: Michael Goddard
Jill,
In your article regarding Meta Keywords, you stated "Never insert the same word twice in a row in this tag, even if you're using different variations. You can use the same word in different phrases,
but never use that word more than three or four times within the tag."
This confused me a bit here. I am I correct to assume you mean:
"keywordOne, keywordOne, keywordTwo, keywordThree" is a no no?
While,
"keywordOne, red keywordOne, blue keywordOne, keywordTwo,
keywordThree" is acceptable?
Thank you for any feedback and suggestions you have. I would also
like to thank you for providing such a great service on the internet.
Your site has provided me with great information on getting started in
creating search engine conscious sites.
Thank you,
Michael Goddard, Internet Developer/Programmer
TDH Marketing & Communications, Inc.
Web: http://www.tdh-marketing.com
~~~Jill's Response~~~
Michael,
Yes, you've understood exactly what I meant! I would NEVER put two of
the same words next to each other in either the body text, Title tag,
or any of the Meta tags. There's a good chance if you do, they will be
ignored all together. Separating them with a comma is also not going
to help. I've seen many SEO examples created by people supposedly in
the biz that do show the words next to each other, and am always
surprised by that. To me, it's another one of those common sense
things. If I were someone working at the search engines trying to
weed out spammers, the first thing I would do would be to ignore any
double words. It would be an easy enough thing to put into an
algorithm, that's for sure.
So, to sum up...you can use any particular word up to three or four
times in the Meta keyword tag, however, never put any given word next
to itself. I would even go so far as to try and put the words as far
away from their clone as possible. If you can have at least three or
four words between them, that's all the better!
Jill
~~~Next Question~~~
From: Patrick
Hi
I'm in the developmental stages of my website and I am utterly
confused about search engine 'optimization,' submission services and
the whole genre available.
I have spoken to companies whose prices are unfathomable. $5000 to
upwards of $20,000 are costs which are prohibitive to a small business
owner. They would have you believe, however, I can't do without this
level of service! Anything less is poor service!
Why can't I buy Web Position Gold or other good quality software and
accomplish the same results as companies touting their services? How
much is too much to pay for a good submission and optimization
program?
How does one escape being scammed by all the available sites which
promote this service? I see your ads about money back, but that's
simply words on a screen.
How does one choose a legitimate company to deal with and achieve
results he or she expects? Seems anything less than a top 20 listing
is money wasted. The number of companies which shout they're the best
and the number of scams are alarming!
Any information concerning these issues would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
Patrick Hall
~~~Jill's Response~~~
Patrick,
You're right, it can be quite confusing, which is why we're here to
help sort it all out! Between our Rank Write articles and the
archived newsletters on the www.rankwrite.com site, it should help
lessen your confusion a bit. If you have more time than money,
learning all you can might be the best route for you.
As far as pricing goes, it's a bit tricky in this business. You might
be able to find a person who is skilled in search engine optimization
who charges only a few hundred dollars, but be sure to check if they
have proven results. There are also a variety of methods employed,
and no two optimizations will be the same. If you hire a well-known
expert, you can definitely expect to pay at least $1,000, probably a
lot more.
As for using software such as Web Position Gold (WPG), it's a great
tool for finding where sites rank in the engines, but I would NEVER
actually use it to create an optimized page! In my opinion, the only
way to create a truly optimized page is to get down and dirty with the
text and the code and just go for it. Even if you did use WPG to
optimize, you still have to come up with the text you want to put on
the page, along with the Title and Meta tags. The software just
gives you help with keyword density and that sort of thing. (Which
you may recall, we don't worry about!)
In order to avoid being scammed by so-called SEO experts, here are a
few tips on what to look for:
- Proven results. Ask to see current ranking reports of their past
clients. Be sure to double check these results in the engines
yourself to see if they're still fairly accurate. Also, be sure that
the keywords they're ranking high for are actually words people are
using in the search engines . Any one with half a brain can optimize
a site for words that will not be used in a search. The key is
getting a good ranking for words that will also bring traffic (but are
highly specific to your business).
- Beware of any company who says they can simply change your Meta tags
and Title and get you high rankings. Unfortunately, it doesn't work
that way. There are many things that need to be done to a site for it
to rank high. The most important thing is the writing on the page.
It's highly unlikely that you'd be able to get high rankings
without some copywriting.
- Beware of companies that simply use WPG to create doorway pages.
- Don't use any company that creates pages that they will put on THEIR
server, not yours. They will request a high monthly fee for any
results they bring you, and if you decide you don't want to pay any
more, they simply remove the pages and with them go your rankings.
There are plenty of other things to look for and to stay away from.
Please browse through the Rank Write site for more info. I'm sure we
discussed this off and on over the past year.
Hope this helps! Good luck with your SEO efforts!
Jill
~~~Send Us Your Questions~~~
If you have questions about online copywriting or search engine optimization (or both!), just zip us an email to questions@rankwrite.com. We've had some folks ask if their question
was "too basic" to be printed - and you don't have to worry about
that! There are no "stupid" search engine optimization or copywriting
questions, so ask away!
