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Search Engine Optimization FAQs
Search engine optimization understanding requires a lot of information
to be absorbed. The following list of frequently asked questions (listed in no
particular order) has been compiled to help you understand the importance of search
engine optimization, our services, how they will help you, how our plans are constructed
and how they would apply to your web site. Click on a question to view the answer:
General Search Engine Optimization Questions:
Our Search Engine Optimization services:
When I pay Yahoo! (etc.), does that guarantee me good positioning?
Unfortunately not. When you pay Yahoo! all they guarantee is that they will
consider your site for inclusion. Many people pay their $299 fee only to find
their site declined! GCT Taiwan has a lot of experience in submitting to Yahoo!
and getting sites indexed. So far, no site we have submitted has been declined.
When we submit client sites to Yahoo! we use our experience to help get higher
positions in the directory. The only time you can guarantee positions when paying
is by bidding on your keywords with Overture (or similar). This can work out to
be very expensive. See 'If high positions can be
purchased, why seek professional search engine optimization services?'.
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Isn't Yahoo! a directory that chooses your ranking for you?
Your ranking in the Yahoo! directory is dependent on your listing's title, description,
domain name, and category. This is why it is essential that any submissions are
done correctly the first time. By submitting correctly, it is possible to 'help'
Yahoo! list your site in higher positions for relevant searches. At GCT we have
experience that has helped our clients achieve this.
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If high positions can be purchased, why seek professional search engine optimization
services?
Basically it comes down to money. It can work out to be extremely expensive to
pay for top positions because this involves bidding on your keywords. The highest
bidder gets #1. To give you an idea, consider this: at the time of writing, to
get the top spot at Overture.com (which means top at US Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos,
MSN, and more) for 'commodity trading' you would need to have a 'maximum
bid' of $12.15. Now imagine in one month 100 people click on your Overture listing
(through the previously mentioned search engines). That's over $1215. Now if you
wanted top spot for 'futures trading' as well, you will need to have a
maximum bid of $11.53. 100 clicks means another $1153. How about 'commodity
futures trading' at $5.72 with say 50 clicks. Another $286. You might also
want to bid on.....you get the idea. Although paying for top positions is quick
and guaranteed it can become extremely expensive. Now compare these costs with
prices of our search engine optimization
services.
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What about all those spam 'search engine optimization' email offers of submissions
to hundreds of search engines?
We strongly discourage use of these services. For a start there are only a handful
of search engines that are used by 95% of web searchers so being listed on 'thousands'
of search engines isn't really going to make a difference. Also, these services
use automated submission programs which is STRONGLY discouraged by the main search
engines. They have banned sites that were constantly resubmitted and could ban
sites that are automatically submitted. We use tried and tested methods of listing
your site safely and effectively. We do not employ any strategies that will get
your site banned from search engines and strongly oppose the use of such methods.
Once you are listed in the main search engines, it is unlikely you will have to
resubmit again (unless paid submissions were made). For the sake of your web site
and business we recommend you steer clear and avoid these unnecessary risks.
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Can I do my own search engine optimization on my site?
Yes, if you have the time. Successful web site optimization is a very
time consuming process. It involves a great deal of learning through research
and testing. As SEO professionals, we have gathered our expertise from testing
and research carried out over the last few years. We save you a great deal of
work and time so that you can concentrate on your business.
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Can you train me to do my own web site optimization?
This is possible. You must contact our team first and ask them for information
on how this would be done. (Our ability to train you may depend on our workload.)
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How long should I hire GCT Taiwan's search engine optimization services for?
This depends on your market, your selected keywords, the current state of your
web site, your level of competition, and more. Despite offering a 12 week period,
we strongly recommend a period of at least 24 weeks. The reason for this is that
successful SEO does not happen overnight. It can take 8 weeks just to get a new
site listed in the search engines! 24 weeks allows us to get your site listed,
and achieve high placement through continual analysis of your positions and work
to improve these positions. The longer GCT Taiwan is hired, the higher the positions
your site will achieve. Typically, the more competitive the market, the more time
and work required to achieve high positions.
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Can I hire GCT Taiwan's search engine optimization services for a period of less
than 12 weeks?
No. We know from experience that it can take up to 8 weeks (or even longer) to
get listed in all the main search engines. Remember high placements cannot be
achieved overnight without spending a great deal of money on pay-for-placement.
We do use and encourage pay-for-inclusion methods but these only guarantee fast
inclusion in SOME search engines. We do not rely on this because we want to save
you money. It takes at least 8 weeks before we can properly analyze your site's
performance once our work has started to take effect. It is after this
8 week period that we can build on what we have done so that higher placements
can be sort.
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What are 'Paid Submissions and Maintenance Costs"?
They cover costs we have no control over. Theses include payments to search
engines so that they will include your site(s) in their indexes, reservation of
extra domain names, and hosting for any sites we set up to promote your main site.
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Do I need everything I am paying for with the "Paid Submissions and Maintenance
Costs"?
What you get for the Paid Submissions and Maintenance Costs includes
the minimum we recommend to start gaining effective positioning in the search
engines and directories. In fact, spending more on paid submissions can increase
your site's potential for more positions but this is not always necessary. The
number of paid submissions depends on the size of your site, your market, and
your competition.
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What if I am already paying the search engines/directories for submissions/inclusions?
If you are paying, or have already paid for submissions to search engines then
we will decide on a case by case basis whether to pay for more pages or how else
we can proceed.
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Why do you detail "Site Optimization Costs" and "Paid Submission
and Maintenance" costs separately?
By providing you with the two costs, we are showing how much you are paying
for submissions that require fees beyond our control. We want to show you clearly
the value for money GCT Taiwan is able to offer you.
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Can I hire GCT Taiwan for 12 weeks and decide whether to continue for longer afterwards?
Of course. However, we cannot offer you the same discount that you would
get if you initially sign on for longer. If you hire our services for 24 weeks,
we are not able to reduce your SEO campaign to 12 weeks. We are only able to extend
your current SEO plan.
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Can I hire GCT Taiwan and upgrade/downgrade my SEO program later?
Yes. However, this can only be done once the time period initially agreed
on is complete. You may decide that you would like to hire GCT Taiwan for a combination
of our SEO plans - for example if you wanted to hire GCT Taiwan for 48 weeks,
we could carry out 24 weeks of work at the advanced level (SEO.advanced),
and the remaining 24 weeks could be completed at the intermediate level
(SEO.intermediate).
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What exactly do you guys do to guarantee me high rankings?
We use our tried and tested SEO methods that give your site the full potential
to achieve high rankings. We build an effective lasting promotion of your web
site through complete keyword research, optimization of page titles and meta tags,
optimization of site structure / design / navigation, optimization of web site
copy, detailed competitor analysis, extensive relevant link building, and more.
We can't guarantee exact positions but we do guarantee top 5, top 10, etc. Learn
more about our search engine optimization
guarantee.
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Do really you need access to my site?
Preferably, yes. For an effective web site optimization, we will need to make
changes to your site. The amount of changes and the size of changes really depends
on how the site has been created. All changes are okayed by you first. In the
past, some of our clients have requested that they make some changes themselves.
This may be a good idea if the changes involve large alterations to your site.
If we do not have at least some access to your site, the optimization process
will be slowed. We cannot carry out an effective promotion if no changes are allowed
to be made, either by GCT Taiwan or yourself.
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Why do you insist on choosing the keywords with the client?
We want to work together to ensure your list of keywords will help your business.
Selecting the right keywords is crucial to successful search engine promotion.
We ask you to provide a list of keywords you believe your site should be found
for. We then analyze your list, your site, your competition, and search statistics
to develop a list that will target audiences that are likely to turn in to business
opportunities for you.
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Can I add more pages and keywords to my search engine optimization plan?
No problem. Just remember that the more pages and keywords you need optimized,
the more time we need to spend on your project. It is recommended that you hire
GCT Taiwan for enough time to provide you with an effective SEO solution to cover
the extra pages and keywords. Please decide on the number of keywords and pages
before we start working on your site.
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If you still have questions please don't hesitate to contact
us.
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