Search engine optimization is an industry that is very ubiquitous. One way to deal with SEO is to just stay away and make room for others!. Another way to deal with it is to ask questions that will make a fake SEO run.

We do run a company dealing with search engine optimization  in Cyprus and unfortunately most companies might go for a scammer instead of a proper company simply because they don’t know how to judge a proper SEO company.

These questions will help you tell if you are dealing with a proper SEO company or a scammer which only want your money.

1. What metrics do you use to measure success?
   If they say “PageRank”, they’re clueless. If they say “keyword rankings”, and they’re cheap, go for it. If they say “organic search traffic and conversions”, go on to question 2. They’re probably a keeper.
2. What will you do to optimize my site?
   If the answer is “We have a secret technique that’s guaranteed to work!”, they’re up to no good. If the answer is “Optimize your meta tags”, they have no clue. If the answer is “It’s really complicated…” and then a detailed description filed with terms like “semantic” and “page clusters”, you’re probably in good shape. Go on to question 3.
3. How do you stay current regarding SEO?
   “I talk to Google” means they’re good for comic relief but little else. “I read a lot of blogs, including…” is satisfactory. “I have a set of test sites” would make me weep with joy.
4. Do you guarantee results?
   “Yes” = liar, liar, Show them the door.
   “No, it’s just not possible but look at the other sites I have done excellent with!” = an honest person. Keep going.
5. How do you choose keywords?
   Google Adwords Keywords Tool” may seem OK but it’s not. “We use a bunch of different tools”, even if they include the Google Adwords Keywords Tool  is just fine. The important part is that they use more than one source.
6. How fast will I get results?
   “Oh, really fast” means they’re a recent graduate of the Donald Rummesfeld Academy of Campaign Planning: You may see early success, but prepare for quagmire city. “It varies, but figure 1-6 months depending on the industry” is satisfactory. “I’ll have to look at your site and competitors” is an excellent answer. Hug them for me.
7. How do you build links?
   “I submit you to 40,000 search engines and directories” = send them back to 1999 to look for their wallet. Almost anything else is probably OK, as long as it doesn’t include sending spam e-mails to 5,000 people looking for links. They likely won’t admit to anything worse anyway.
8. Have you ever done SEO for a business just like mine?
   If they answer “Sorry but that’s a hopelessly irritating question. I’ve never done SEO for an online hedgehog seller, no,” give them points for brains. If they answer “Why YES, just last week!” question their sanity. Even better – just don’t ask this question at all. Thanks!
9. Do you have partnerships with major search engines?
   If they answer “Yes”, make sure they’re not calling you from prison: They’re a total fraud. Any credible SEO will make a sound like they just choked on a lemon and explain that no one has a partnership with a major search engine.
10. How often will you report to me regarding results?
    What will I get in those reports? If they say something like “We’ll send you a list of rankings once a month,” save your $99.95 a month and buy yourself basic cable, instead. You’ll learn more. You want to hear something like “We’ll send you organic traffic data and explain the results in a weekly or monthly call”.
11. Bonus: How will you work with me regarding site changes?
    If you hire the guy who says “We don’t make any site changes,” buy a very large bottle of Tums. Instead, look for someone who says something like “Depends – do you have your own development team, or would you rather we make the changes? Either way, we’ll review them with you, first.”

The truth is that hiring a competent SEO is your responsibility. Knowing how to sniff out the frauds is, too. You own your business, or run your marketing department. So learn how to tell smarts from schmalz. These questions are a good start.

1. What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ?

2. Why aren’t we on page 1 at Google?
You haven’t done SEO yet? You have no useful content? Your site consists mainly of Flash, or simply graphics? You have asked United Worx Ltd for SEO advice? You most probably rank for your company name or long tail queries already; if not then your website is very badly written.

3. Is SEO spam?
The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, BBC etc. certainly don’t think so. They practice SEO like most of other website owners. By the numbers SEO is booming all the time for several years a in a row.

4. Why am I on 1^st page all the time but when my wife searches for me she doesn’t find me?
You probably need to disable personalized search in Google otherwise Google will serve you the results you most visited.

5. Shall I do my site now and bother with SEO later?
SEO should be part of website design not just a add on later on!. A web design firm that offers SEO can provide a good base and leave SEO later. However if a web designer that knows nothing about SEO does a website then you are in trouble. In most cases you will need to re-build your website correctly when you need to do SEO. A golden rule is to get a web design company that does SEO to do your website so they can tackle SEO as well or at a later stage!

6. When will we see results?
Generally speaking if you have no competition you should be in 1^st page in Google for your target keywords without doing SEO at all. However if you are in a very competitive sector, like real estate, rentals e.t.c. then it might take over a year to get there if proper work is done. SEO is basically a continuous process that never stops.

7. Can we rank for everything (huge list of keywords)?
If you are Amazon or Wikipedia you probably can. In all other cases you have to choose and target a few keywords that matter most for your business. Your main keywords are the most popular and profitable ones. A villa rental company in Cyprus would go after “villas for rent in Cyprus” and similar combinations.

8. How much does SEO cost?
How much does a house cost? Depends on the number of rooms, the plot size and so on! The same happens for SEO! First we need to know your target market, your website and your main keywords to target in order to come up with 2-3 plans. Everything below 1000 euro is low quality and/or automated, unless your site does not have competition and does not need SEO anyway but cleaning up the mess your web designer did!

9. Why is SEO so expensive?
It takes lots of time, resources and work to build them. Anyhow SEO makes your website actually earn money while setting up website and designing it by itself does not! So basically doing a website alone that cost 2000 euro will earn nothing back! However doing a 2000 euro website and a 2000 euro SEO plan will certainly give you a return of investment in 3-12 months depending on what you do.

10. How long does it take to get indexed by Google?
Google needs minutes to weeks depending on your site to index it or new content appearing on it. Without SEO it might even take forever.

11. How to submit my new site to Google/Bing/Yahoo ?
You don’t! You link your site from already indexed sites and search engines will discover you!

12. How do I submit to 1000 search engines?
Only idiots do. If a SEO company sys they will submit your site to a 1000 search engines then you better leave and save your money!

13. Do I need an XML sitemap?
If your website is designed correctly and Google can find your pages and read then you don’t!

14. Do I need meta tags for SEO?

Google does not read these at all! Only the Title of your site!  The meta description tag is a marketing tool since that is what people see in search results! Help them decide whether they click on yours based on the description you offer don’t stuff it with keywords!

15. Do I need a high PageRank for SEO?
Pagerank used to be something important, Google might store 20 different Pagerank values of your website. Forget PageRank there are other things more important!

16. Can’t my cousin who is a graphic designer do the SEO?
He probably can cook however he does not run a restaurant nor is a well-known chef!  Designers in most case underestimate the importance of SEO and misunderstand it.

17. Does Google hate SEO?
No, Google even offers SEO advice and a plethora of SEO tools itself. It’s an ages old myth that Google fight SEOs. In fact the Google employees and SEO practitioners speak at the same conferences and work together as business partners. Most SEO companies are big clients of Google as they also buy PPC ads from Google.

18. Does SEO mean optimization for search engines not humans?
Some people still assume that SEO is used to please search engine only! Most reputable SEO experts advocate search engine optimization for users.

19. Does site size matter?
Historically it did matter. For a period of time bigger sites by the number of pages seemed to rank batter. By now the pros and cons outweigh each other so it does not makes sense to inflate the size of a website artificially by adding low quality content.

20. Do domain extensions (like .com, co.uk) matter?
Yes they do. Especially when it comes to country based domains like .ru for local results in respective countries you should use preferably a country domain to get a small advantage. Important to note that this matters only where there is Google version showing different results for the specific country! E.G. results for keywords including Cyprus would not get a benefit on a .com.cy website!!!

1. Switch between Computers with Ease
One of the primary reasons businesses need laptops is for the sake of portability. However, with Dropbox, you could be stuck with a desktop and still be able to access your work from anywhere.

One of the most convenient features of Dropbox is that you can access your files not only from the Dropbox folder synced with your account, but also from Dropbox’s website. That means you can access your files from any computer, even a client’s laptop.

2. Keep Your Associates Up To Date & Easily Collaborate with clients
With Dropbox you can easily share a folder with an associate or a client. This is extremely useful since clients for example that need to send you regularly a few files can just drop them on the Dropbox shared folder instead of sending large files via email.

In the same way you can share a folder that contains price lists or any other materials to associates so that they can always access the latest information from your company. instead of  sending them 10-15 times a month the same info all over again whenever there are little changes.

There is no need to have endless email chains back and forth in order to keep each other updated on the latest happening of the project. With Dropbox, all that your collaborators need to do is just open up the Dropbox folder, and pull out the most recent version of the file.

3.  Backup your files along with every version of that file
The best part about Dropbox as an on-line storage and collaborative tool, is that it will save every version of your documents so you can easily revert to a previous version. So in the event of saving over an important report or presentation you can easily restore the previous version.

Lost you computer or you had a hard disk failure? You do not have to worry about your important files if you had them stored in your drop box folder!
So today, I’ve given you a few more compelling reasons to use on-line storage and specifically Dropbox which works extremely well.

4. Work anywhere!

Now that your working files are in your Dropbox, you can access them almost anywhere — from any computer where you’ve installed Dropbox. Or, from any other computer with an Internet connection. Or, from your iPhone or iPod Touch, through the Dropbox iPhone app.

Meeting with a client and you want to get a quick look on the proposal you have sent them? Just load dropbox on you iphone and easily view the proposal while on the go just before meeting with the client!
Personally, Dropbox has made switching between my laptop and my work pc a lot less painful than it otherwise would have been. Also I am a lot more confident that I will not loose my important files since they are stored on both my laptop, work desktop and on the cloud! Perhaps you’ll find it will do the same for you.

www.dropbox.com

Bad marketing

Websites don’t sell themselves! They can fail in the same way as a real world business. Open a new shop in the middle of the dessert and you’ll get zero customers! 
The same is true with a website. Once a new website site is on-line, and even before, active promotion is vital to its success.
Make sure your marketing strategy promotes the website. Don’t spend your entire budget on the website development.  Leave adequate funds for marketing with a budget for a 50/50 split in mind.
 Don’t make the mistake of thinking that adding your domain name to your business cards is enough.

Poor usability

You wouldn’t add an obstacle in front of your shops door, would you? The same way don’t put any flash intros and unnecessary sign-up forms on your website.  
Find out what people want from your site and give them exactly that and really easy.
 Remember, people will find it easier to walk out of your website than a real shop.

No confidence in your site

A site must show success and fulfillment. People will stay on your site if they feel convinced that you can supply what they need. And they will spend their money when they have that assurance. Customers will be less likely to spend if anything breaks their confidence. Always include information about your company and contact details including phone number if you are selling on your site. If you hide your phone number, what else are you hiding?

Somebody else does it better

Research your competitors since somebody else will already be doing what you do. They already have a customer base with confidence in their business. Will their customers suddenly switch to you? Your service or products must be better, faster, and cheaper than your competitors. Always try to find your unique selling point, and make sure to shout it out loud along with testimonials from satisfied customers. These are your best PR you will ever find.

Here is a few things that might help if your website needs a redesign!

• Is your website professional looking , fresh and clean?
• How fast a user can understand what it is you are doing or selling?
• Is your website easily up-datable with no technical knowledge?
• Are you attracting customers with your existing website design?
• Is your website has easy to navigate or you can easily get lost?
• Is your website compatible with both older and newer browsers?
• Do you have any Search Engine Friendly Content Management System?
• Is your website is getting good rankings for your target key phrases?
• How easily can potential or existing clients find your website?
• Does your website connect to social networks like Facebook and twitter?
• Is your website load time is satisfactory for your first time visitors?
• Is your website bounce rate is high?
• How easy it is for users to meet their goals using your site.

Hopefully you have picked up a thing or two here today and you can take it forward with you for when you do decide for a new web design for your website.

Search engines see older websites as more respected and dependable. They are given higher priority over new websites than may just as easily disappear tomorrow. So if you plan on doing Search Engine Optimization on a new website in a competitive sector then google will certainly ignore you for a few months.

On the other hand if you have an old website and you realized the potential of the internet and you built a new site under that domain with fresh content and a bit care for search engine optimization then Google will notice you and will start giving you credit very fast! So older sites are faster and easier to rank better than brand new site on a brand new domain!

Its important to note that this rule applies for websites in a very competitive market targeting popular keywords! If its a new site on a not so popular sector then the story is different, you would rank well even if its a new domain and even if you haven’t done any SEO! Also don’t expect your website to rank better because its getting older! you need to optimize it for search engine in order to rank well.

This new Facebook tagging feature lets you notify someone to your post by writing @ followed by their name. Facebook is smart enough to suggest people, groups, or fan pages are you type so this is even easier than twitter! As you type, the name appears from a drop down menu along with a picture, just like the search box, for you to select.

Once you publish, your tagged mate gets a Facebook notification and a link on their wall to your post. It’s not just for friends either, as you can use groups, events, applications and Facebook Pages in the same way too.

The new Facebook feature as it rolls out across Facebook hundreds of millions of users this month, more and more people will be able to talk just like they do on Twitter, but on Facebook.

This feature will help a lot to improve interaction among Facebook friends. You will not be notified only if someone replies to your post, or image but you can get notified when someone mentions you name in a conversation

The only feature of the Twitter service Facebook doesn’t offer is the ability to view your @reply history. Now how long will it be before they hits the switch on that too?

Multiple domain names can kill your site
Most of the time clients register several domains with different keyword phrases thinking that this stratey will benefit their business. At the end of the day you will end up benefiting and using only ONE domain and not the whole lot. If you have 5 domains pointing to the same site Google will consider 4 of the as duplicate and keep the oldest one ONLY in its index! So only that domain will give you any credit not the others! Most of the times that clients opt for our domain name registration services in Cyprus we tend to recommend domain names that contain first their branding, their company name and then keywords relevant to their business. Of course always trying to keep domain names shot and easy to remember using popular top level domain like .com!

Most of the time web designers and the clients themselves miss one of the most important elements that can dramatically improve the quality of your website. Even if its pixel perfect and works perfectly among the various browsers and operating system you are probably missing a very important quality check!

Spell Check!

With Firefox as your browser you can easily check your website for possible spelling mistakes and save yourself from the embarrassing moment of clients spotting typos on your website and theirs as well. Most of the time web developers spend lots of time focused on the actual code of the website and overlook the correctness of the actual content of the website. The content of any website is the first thing a visitor will give attention and not the fancy button you have spend hours making sure its pixel perfect.

Firefox has long had a handy built-in spell checker, great for proofreading emails, blog posts, and other communications. What if you want to use the built-in spell checker on a static web page however?

Use this bookmarklet. (simply bookmark this link and click it whenever you need to spell check a website)

or

Use this firefox add-on

Groups are great for organizing a cause on a personal level and smaller interaction. Pages are better for businesses, brands, movies, or celebrities who want to interact with their fans or customers and have a need to exceed Facebook 5,000 friends max.

Now let’s go into some details:

It’s very clear from the above list that fan pages are the better way to go!

One major drawback with fan pages is that your messages are not sent to your member’s inbox but through an updates page in your inbox. This can be bad for people that want to push their messages out there however it can be very good for people that do not want to annoy users all the time by sending them direct messages!