Web Design & Development Ireland | Internet Marketing Ireland | Search Engine Optimisation | Web Positioning

SEO FAQs | Search Engine Optimization Services:

Can you guarantee me the number 1 listing for a search phrase

This is the killer question, and the one that most businesses with no understanding of SEO ask most frequently. We could say 'yes', and then qualify it by adding 'if the search phrase is a seldom used one like "bolivian unicyclists hairnet"'. No reputable SEO firm is going to guarantee you the top spot for a highly competitive phrase, for example those phrases used in the travel and tourism industry. Judging from the number of spam emails we receive from 'SEO specialists' every day, you would think otherwise, but reputable SEO firms DO NOT use spam email to drive their business, we rely instead on referrals from happy clients.

Straight from the horse's mouth

This is what Google has to say about guarantees:
"No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our add url page or through the Google Sitemaps (Beta), and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever."


Any SEO company that guarantees you the number one position will try to achieve this in either of the following ways:
  • They will not tell you in advance the search term that you will be ranked number one for, but it will usually be the name of your company, which is hardly very useful. If people are searching for your company name then they are already aware of you and would have arrived anyway.
  • They use spam techniques to fool the search engines, which will lead to short term success, but result in a long term banning.
Avatar Web Solutions does not guarantee a number 1 ranking, but we will tell you exactly what to expect from an SEO campaign and will be completely honest in our appraisal of your web site. Perhaps you have a site that is unique, or has little competition, in which case it is likely that you can achieve the number position, but it is our experience that web sites have plenty of competition and the battle for top rankings is an ongoing one. Having said all that, most of our clients enjoy top rankings for competitive keywords!

Avatar Web Solutions does make this guarantee to all our clients: when we have designed or optimised a web site, that site will perform very well. By the completion of our campaign your site will look and function better than it used to, and the number of visitors it attracts will increase very dramatically. Your ROI will increase, and your business will do better. We invite all potential clients to view our past projects, and to contact past clients for an honest assessment of the work we have done. We have proven ourselves to be very successful at positioning web sites, and our clients have many top ten positions with a scattering of number ones as well.

Other helpful links and articles on the subject of SEO guarantees:

Can I buy the number one spots in the SERPs?

Depending on your budget, it is possible to buy your way to the top of the rankings through the use of PPC ads or sponsored listings. However, this technique is short term in nature, and can be very expensive if you are in a highly competitive market, like travel. They are a quick fix, and the moment the budget has been reached the rankings vanish and you are back to square one. Visit our section on PPC for a detailed guide to Pay Per Click campaigns, and check out our PPC Faqs if you have further queries.

Banner Ads vs Search Engine Optimisation

Why not simply purchase banner ads to drive traffic to your site? Because the traffic from search engines is much more highly targetted traffic. It may require a higher investment initially, but it offers a considerably higher return on investment. The use of banner ads, and PPC ads, can be a worthwhile investment when a web site is in it's early stages of being optimised, but as the effects of a good search engine optimisation campaign take hold you'll find it less necessary to use these methods and can rely more on the targetted traffic arriving from being highly ranked in the natural listings.

Why monitor the site continually?

Search Engine Optimisation should be considered an ongoing process. Search engines are constantly changing, and how you rank in their SERPs can change from one month to the next. They can be fickle, loving your site one week and treating it with disdain the next. So it is important that you keep track of your site's performance, and are prepared to make changes when a search engine has altered it's ranking criteria. Customers can also be fickle, and web users are also an evolving group, growing ever more sophisticated in how they use search engines, and ever more particular about what they expect from their online experience. This is why it is important to track and report the behaviour of users on your site, and monitor where they came from and how they arrived. When user behaviour patterns shift you are therefore ready to shift with them.

Is Frames a problem for search engines?

Yes. Unless you have used Frames carefully, and have included code specifically for search engine spiders, most spider-based engines will not be able to index your site properly. The use of Frames on a site should be minimal if you want to maximise your optimisation efforts.

What about Cookies?

Cookies are a fact of life for larger web sites. Unfortunately, if your source code includes a piece requiring the user to make a choice on whether to accept cookies or not then it will effectively be bringing the search engine spider to an abrupt halt, and it will not index your site any further. This is because spiders crawl through your site by following links, and cookies are a barrier to this, as are broken links, secure or password protected areas, and image maps.

 

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