SEO FAQ's India

1. What is SEO?
2. Do I need SEO?
3. Why should I outsource my Search Engine Optimisation campaign?
4. How long will it take to optimize my website?
5. Will it cost a fortune?
6. What is a search engine?
7. Why is SEO important and how can it help my business?
8. What is the future of SEO?
9. What is PageRank and how does it work?
10. How can I tell my search engine rankings?
11. In the long run, how do I get enough or more visitors?
12. What is search engine friendly content?
13. I am number 5 in Yahoo, but not in the top 1,000 in Google. Why?
14. I'm in another country, can you still work for us?
15. How should my site be optimized best for the long term?

 
1. What is SEO?
SEO is the abbreviated form of the term Search Engine Optimisation. It is basically the technique that is applied to optimise websites for search engines such that they rank higher in the Search Engine Results Page or SERP.
2. Do I need SEO?
The answer is Yes for everyone and anyone who has an online presence and wants to  gain something by increasing visitors to their website. Let's say you are searching for a product on a search engine, you type your query and how many results page do you look at? Well, according to statistics most users will not look beyond the third page, so considering this if your website is beyond the third page you will not be getting the expected amount of visitors. A top ranking in search engine listings is utmost important to generate substantial amount of traffic to your website.
3. Why should I outsource my Search Engine Optimisation campaign?
SEO is a highly specialised field which requires adequate experience and expertise to achieve the desired results. A professional SEO company provides a complete solution for all your SEO needs. Outsourcing your SEO proves to be quite a time saving and cost-effective practise.

4. How long will it take to optimize my website?
There are many different techniques implemented when properly optimizing a website. Some are likely to be one-off tasks, such as choosing keywords and cleaning up the code, but as an overall strategy, SEO is an ongoing process because of the way that search engines work. Search engines read and index web pages regularly but new changes and content draw them back even more often and the better the content, the more favourably your website is looked upon by search engines and of course, your users.
5. Will it cost a fortune?
Some Search Engine Optimisation companies will promise cheap and quick SEO results. However, as is true in most areas of life, you get what you pay for. Good SEO takes a lot of time, work and expertise but SEO Consult believes in offering value for money services which can give you an excellent return on your investment. We can develop a unique tailored SEO strategy which suits your business and budget.
6. What is a search engine?
A search engine is a web based software program which is used to search anything that is listed on the World Wide Web. Users search for music, videos, documents or information about any product or service. The most popular search engine service is Google.

7. Why is SEO important and how can it help my business?
To start with the fact that you have a website means that you want to reach out to clients and prospective customers, thus, the visibility of your website is of prime importance.SEO is the process of identifying the ideal keywords for a website and optimizing it in order to ensure that the website achieves high rankings on search engines and directories for those specific search terms and phrases. This in turn will direct the target audience to the website and should translate into revenue for it.
8. What is the future of SEO?
Organisations worldwide have realised the potential of internet marketing for leveraging the growth of their business. White hat SEO techniques are proving to be effective for long term benefits. It can be said that this is just the beginning of the SEO Industry.

9. What is PageRank and how does it work?
One big way in which search engines are granting importance to web pages are based on how many other sites are linking to it.

PageRank is a system implemented by Google that measures web page`s importance with only taking into account the links and links related factors. The other big search engines (Yahoo, MSN) probably have a similar system but without an official measurement.

The basics are that each web page is giving votes to the links on that page and the power of the vote is determined by the number of links pointing to the page that gives the vote. The votes are divided among the links on the page so the lesser number of links, the more share of the vote is given to each link. Internal links are given a higher share than external.

The scale is between 0-10 but in fact it has many decimals which we cannot see. 0-3 is the most common, 4 is obtained by getting an amount of links and 5 takes some work to get. Only a short list of sites on the Internet has PageRank 10.

10. How can I tell my search engine rankings?
There are several ways of checking where your pages are in each Search Engine`s Results Pages (a.k.a. SERPs) for a given search word or phrase.

Manually - Go to the Search Engine (SE) of interest and type your search keyword, then scroll down every page to see where you are.

Automated DIY - With most prominent SE`s, you can sign up to be able to use the Application Protocol Interface (API) to query their database without using their front-end. This way you can simulate normal searches or make use of the more advanced API calls and retrieve ranking positions directly.

Note: - Search Engines often differ SERPs based on user location. What you see in your browser is not necessarily what others see in their browser. Also, most SE`s utilize a range of datacentres all of which could potentially have different datasets or ranking algorithms. What you retrieve with an API call might well differ from what you find manually. Some SE`s now also store your search history to try and understand patterns applicable to your searching behavior. This may also cause discrepancies in your ranking position findings.

11. In the long run, how do I get enough or more visitors?
1. Good content, and lots of it updated regularly over a period of months/years
2. Onpage optimization (static URLs, proper title and meta tags, use of H1, H2 tags, etc)
3. Offpage optimization (link popularity, building up inbound links)
4. Community building tools (forums, article comments, whatever applies)
5. Viral marketing (release something people want for free with some tag to your site on it)
6. Promotion and Advertising (promote your site where ever you go however you can)

12. What is search engine friendly content?
User friendly content is also Search engine friendly copywriting and content creation because Content is King.

13. I am number 5 in Yahoo, but not in the top 1,000 in Google. Why?
Yahoo and Google use two different algos to come up with their SERPs - Yahoo favors on- page optimization such as H1 tags, keyword density, etc while Google favors off page like inbound links. If you have done more on page then Yahoo will rank higher and vice versa. As part of this if you are now addressing your off page then you need more backlinks and time for these links to age.
14. I'm in another country, can you still work for us?
Yes! we work for clients around the world, including USA, UK, and other countries.
15. How should my site be optimized best for the long term?
Content is king. This simple rule should be your guide when optimising any web site. If you provide your visitors with information that they are seeking you have taken the first important step. High quality content serves two purposes, it attracts visitors and will keep them coming back, and will also encourage other relevant sites to link back to you. Your site should also conform to the standards set by the W3C, and within your code you should make proper use of heading tags and titles. Spend some time selecting and honing the text in your text links. In general, adhere to good coding practises and avoid the use of techniques that may be interpreted as search engine spam.