Common Questions About Search Engine Marketing

How Do I Know Whether My Site Needs To Be Optimized?

If you search for popular keywords in your industry and your site doesn’t show up on the first 1-2 pages of search results in major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc), then your site could use some help.

How Long Does It Take To Achieve Results?

Site optimization is not an instantaneous process, so you can expect to see consistent results in 1-3 months or longer. It depends on the search engine. For instance, if ODP accepts your site submission, they claim that it can take 2 weeks to several months to be listed on partner sites. Pay Per Click advertising can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to several days depending on the advertiser’s editorial policy. However, once it’s approved, your site immediately shows up in search results.

Why Do I Need To Maintain My Site?

If you don’t actively maintain your site, there is a good chance all your top rankings will eventually drop. There are a number of reasons why: search engine ranking algorithms change, increased competition for the top spot, new pages are indexed, and occasionally search engines clean out their indexes all together. For example, Google recently began experimenting with its algorithms and many marketers saw their sites drop significantly in rankings overnight.

I Get Emails All The Time From Companies Who Guarantee a #1 Ranking on Google or Will Submit My Site to 5000 Search Engines for $10. Are They Legitimate?

Like all those ‘requests for help’ or ‘business opportunities’ from wealthy widows of deceased dictators, you should also be skeptical about any spam that claims a guaranteed #1 ranking on a particular search engine. Even Google states under its “Search Engine Optimizers” section of its website “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.”

Additionally, there are thousands of link submission pages, directories, guestbooks, weblog entries, and others, but almost 100% of all searches are performed through the top 10 search engines. Those are the places you should be focusing. Besides, merely submitting your site to a search engine has little to do with whether you receive a top ranking. Many free for all link pages will tell you that by signing up with them, you will be linked to thousands of pages, boosting your ranking. This is simply not true. Major search engines actually ban these types of link farms, and by participating, you’re more likely to get your site banned as well.

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