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Lately, some
online marketing guides have started looking at search
engine optimization companies and have been offering
advice on how to shop for one to meet your needs (if
you're interested in finding out more, check out Marketing
Sherpa's Guide). As part of that, questions have
emerged that will help you short list the best
candidates. Here are some questions to ask, and our
answers to them.
-
Do
you have any initial or set up fees? How much and
what are they for?
-
Are
there ongoing fees and how much are they?
-
Is
a monthly follow up necessary?
-
How
long am I committed for?
-
Are
there any services you provide over and above your
packages?
-
Do
I own the work you do for me? Where does it sit?
-
Do
you provide regular reports and how often are they
provided?
-
When
will I start seeing results?
-
Do
you submit to all engines? If not, how many?
-
What
about foriegn search engines?
-
Do
you offer help in converting traffic into buyers
or solid leads?
-
What's
more important in your strategy, free submissions
or paid submissions?
-
Which
of your SEO tactics seems to make the biggest
difference?
-
What
about past results? Who can I talk to and where
can I go to verify them?
1.
Do you have any initial or set up fees? How much and
what are they for?
Our set up fees
range from $500 to $2500 and more for custom packages.
For our standard Traffic packages, they include
an extensive keyword analysis, site evaluation, site
optimization, creation of content optimized Keyword Specific Content
Pages (except for Traffic Lite), Express submissions
to directories, professional written descriptions and
titles, hand submissions to major engines, a one time
submission to secondary engines and industry specific
and regional engines. In some cases, it also includes
guaranteed inclusion fees for Inktomi and AltaVista.
For more details, see our
Packages.
2.
Are there ongoing fees and how much are they?
Our maintenance
fees ranges from $500 monthly to $2500 and up for higher
end packages. For that, you get continuing monitoring
and reoptimization as needed, monthly ranking and
visibility reports, as well as traffic reports if we
have access to your visitor logs. Depending on the
package, you'll also get access to a highly trained
positioning consultant for a set number of hours per
month. For more details, see our
Packages.
3.
Is a monthly follow up necessary?
While we
strongly recommend ongoing monitoring and maintenance
and have built it into each of our packages, there are
options available. Contact
an account representative to ask about these.
4.
How long am I committed for?
Our Traffic
Packages are based on a 6 month initial period, with
your contract automatically going to month to month
after that. We find this is a fair period in which to
evaluate your search engine marketing campaign. There
is a cancellation policy that allows you to cancel at
any time, but a minimum of 3 months is required to
obtain measurable results.
5.
Are there any services you provide over and above your
packages?
Yes, we can
provide hourly consultation in a wide number of areas.
Help with your positioning campaign will cost $150 an hour, depending on what you need. We also offer
full design, copywriting, paid placement co-ordination
and programming services, again ranging from $150 an hour. For more information, please visit our
design division site at www.septetdesign.com
or contact
us.
6.
Do I own the work you do for me? Where does it sit?
Always on your
server, unless circumstances dictate that we have to
host them on another server. In either case, any work
done by us remains your property (as long as it's paid
for). We don't believe the way to keep customers is by
holding them hostage. For more information, see the Dangers
of Paying per Click.
7.
Do you provide regular reports and how often are they
provided?
We provide a
monthly report showing all your current rankings on
major search engines. We also provide traffic
analysis reports, if we have access to your logs.
In addition, we can run ranking trend reports, custom
visitor analysis and competitive analysis reports on
request.
8.
When will I start seeing results?
From the actual
time submissions were completed, it can take as much
as 6 weeks to get your site indexed in the search
engines (depending on their schedule), and it can take
between 3 to 6 months for actual rankings to appear in
the search engines, depending on how competitive these
phrases are.
9.
Do you submit to all engines. If not, how many?
We rank the
importance of the engines and directories by the
amount of traffic they can produce. We determine this
by monitoring our own clients and using industry stats
from Jupiter Media Metrix, StatsMarket, SuperStats and
NetRating. Here are the search engines we determine to
be most important, along with the percentage of web
traffic we've estimated they're responsible for
10.
What about foreign search engines?
We handle
submissions and optimization for all English based
search sites throughout the world. In addition, we
have coordinated French, Spanish Italian and German
submissions. We hope to introduce more services as
demand for these services increase.
11.
Do you offer help in converting traffic into buyers or
solid leads?
In addition to
being search engine optimization experts, we also have
extensive experience in site design, both traditional
and online marketing and advertising copywriting. We
have all the components required to convert browsers
into buyers. Often, we have dramatically increased the
number of visitors to a site, only to find the
visitors weren't "sticking". We then worked
with the site owner to rebuild the site so they
maximized each and every visitor. For a specific case
study, read the story of Pearlman's
Jewellers.
12.
What's more important in your strategy, free
submissions or paid submissions?
We believe
strongly in combining manual submissions and a well
thought out paid inclusion strategy. We put your
online marketing money in the places where it will do
the most good.
13.
Which of your SEO tactics seems to make the biggest
difference.?
Tactics we've
found most successful include solid site optimization,
including optimizing content and title tags, building
reciprocal link popularity and creating highly
optimized Keyword Specific Content pages. For more on our strategies, click
here. By the way, we don't use
cloaking. Here's
why.
14.
What about past results? Who can I talk to and where
can I go to verify this?
We have many
exceptional rankings. Click
here for a partial list.
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