FAQs
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short is the practice of getting a website to show up in the search engines; usually people are familiar with the major search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN (Live.com).
What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?
Search Engine Marketing or SEM for short is the practice of paying for placement on a website or search engine. There are options to pay for specific websites, web pages, links banners and just about anything else. The most common forms of SEM are paying for sponsored positions on a search engine results page, banners on other websites and link ads on other websites.
What are the major search engines?
There are 3 big search engines which are Google, Yahoo and MSN. Some other popular search engines behind the big three include Ask, AOL and Business.com.
What are search results or SERPs?
SERPs stands for search engine results page and it is the page you see listing web pages after performing a search. Here is a SERP page for the keyword “search engine marketing”, http://www.google.com/search?q=Search+Engine+Marketing.
What are keywords?
Keywords are the words or phrases put into a search box when performing a search. If you search on Google for "Miva Merchant" then the keyword or search phrase is "Miva Merchant."
What can I change on my site for SEO?
There are several items you can change on your website to help SEO that include editing title tags, meta description tags, meta keyword tags, link (anchor) text, adding content, internal linking structure and using breadcrumbs are the most popular.
What are the most important things to rank well in the search engines?
There are on-page factors and off-page factors. Top on-page factors include title tags, content text, internal linking and meta tags. Off-page factors include links from other sites, the anchor text of the link, the page title containing the link, the surrounding text of the link and the trustworthiness of the website linking to you.
How long does it take to show up in the search engines?
Any website can show up in the search engines within 24 hours of being on the internet. It may take several days, weeks or months to show up for a specific keyword.
How do I know if I am in the Search Engines?
You can enter the search "site:www.mysite.com" without quotes into Yahoo or Google to check if you are in the index to be included in search results.
How much work is involved with SEO?
SEO is an ongoing project to get to the first page of the search engines and stay there. In order to maintain a first page ranking will require that you continually add content to your website and get new links from other websites most of the time. The amount of effort is dependant on the competition for a particular keyword phrase.
Will I need to purchase any additional modules?
No extra modules are needed to be found and rank in the search engines. There may be modules that make it easier or require less technical knowledge but these are for convenience.
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