Search Engine Optimization:
Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What are the most popular search engines?

A. Search engine usage is measured every month by Nielsen//NetRatings. In December 2004, Google continued its climb in the ratings. Google, Yahoo and MSN dominate the business user market, while AOL and Ask Jeeves are oriented to the home user.

Q. How do I decide between search engine optimization, pay-per-click, and banner advertising?

A. Think of these as the one-two-three punch in Web visibility.

1. Search engine optimization (SEO) has the highest credibility with viewers, because the rankings are based on the search engine ranking criteria and not on payment. For the same reason, results cannot be guaranteed, and constantly change as search engines change their criteria and new companies compete for the same keyword phrase rankings. Key Marketing Group offers an affordable way to gain search engine visibility.
2. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads are the highlighted advertisements you see along the top or the right column of the search engine results page. The keywords are typically auctioned, with the highest bidder getting the top billing. Each time a viewer clicks on the link of a company in the pay-per-click area, that company pays a fee (generally between $.05 and $.95) to the PPC company. PPC has less credibility with viewers, since it’s a paid advertisement and not a true ranking, but it does guarantee visibility on the first page.
3. Banner ads have declined in popularity as viewers are increasingly “tuning out” paid advertisement, but they remain an option for that last boost in visibility after SEO and PPC.

Q. What about firms that promise to submit your Web site to 10,000 search engines, for the low low price of $49.95?

A. Save your money. There are three basic flaws:

1. Getting a Web site “submitted” or “registered” is not the same as getting it ranked. Registration alone does nothing to drive business to your site.
2. The top 15 search engines are the portals for over 95% of all searches; the many minor search engines are for specialty topics (i.e., stamp collectors, tropical fish research, etc.) that are not relevant to your business. There are about 200 broad-usage search engines, so the 10,000 claim should be a tip-off that you’re not dealing with a mainstream business offering.
3. The top search engines “crawl” the Web regularly and know you exist if your site has been active for at least six months. However, without search engine optimization you won’t achieve visibility.
   

Q. Why hire a SEO firm, when you can just put meta tags in your HTML and select your own keywords?

A. Short answer – because it’s not that easy. Try this: Using your favorite search engine, type in a keyword phrase describing a product for a local real estate company, such as “real estate Orange County.” Does the company’s Web site appear in any of the first three pages, which is generally considered a “hit?” The major search engines hire hundreds of programmers and are constantly changing their algorithms to rank sites, AND they don’t publish those changing rules. It takes a professional SEO service, which constantly monitors the search engines with their own set of programmers and business analysts, to achieve and maintain a top ranking.

Q. Why does my business need an ongoing search optimization service?

A. You don’t go to your office one day, work long and hard, and then say, “There, I’ve managed my business for the next year.” Because tomorrow brings new opportunities and new challenges that require your attention.

The same is true with search engine optimization. Every day the search engines are changing their search criteria, and new competitors are coming on the scene with the same keyword search phrases as yours. Your business is changing too, with new products and markets you want to promote. And changes you make to your own Web site can, and often do, negatively impact your site ranking. Key Marketing Group is on the scene, running our large set of proprietary computer programs and performing the necessary business analysis to get and keep your site ranked high. Your competitors can snooze and lose, but we never stop working for you.

Q. Why select Key Marketing Group to improve your Web site visibility?

A. Three reasons. We specialize in:

• Results: We have been delivering business benefits for five years, and over 90% of our clients are still with us today. Talk to our customers or, better yet, look them up in a search engine and see why they stay with our service month after month, year after year.
• Experience: Our service optimization team has done this work over five years, making us one of the most experienced providers in the world. We put all that experience to work for you, every day.
• Value: We have refined our system and developed a large array of automated proprietary computer programs and techniques that allow us to be very efficient. Our prices reflect our efficiency and our large customer base. You’ll find that we are the most affordable search engine optimization service to deliver top rankings

Q. What can I expect as my Return on Investment?

A. Great question. We commonly see ROIs ranging from 50% to 300% in the first year. But the only ROI number that matters is yours, so we have developed a ROI calculator based on data specific to your market and your company.