Archive for January, 2008

SEO Timelines : How Long Does SEO Take?

Monday, January 21st, 2008

Anyone who has had experience in developing a search engine marketing strategy knows that it can be extremely complicated. Clients are usually completely unaware of the intricate work involved in a successful search engine optimization project. Each optimization project is unique and thus each requires a specific course of action. Even if a search optimization company works diligently it may still not achieve the desired results as soon as a customer might wish. This is because results are dependent on factors that are out of the optimizer’s hands such as the next crawl date.

In an attempt to avoid future disagreements we suggest that timeframe expectations should be brought to the client’s attention prior to starting a project. If a firm waits too long to discuss these expectations they may begin to sound like excuses and cause the customer to view the company as incompetent. The amount of time can vary greatly depending on the domain. Explain factors such as if your client has a brand new website, it will take longer to be indexed on Google than a website that has been around for a few years. Generally, new domains are crawled much less frequently than those that have been established. To sum, be honest with your customers and yourself…if you agree to unrealistic timeframes you are asking for countless problems down the road.

ATXWebmasters.com has an extensive Search Engine Optimization Marketing Service that entails everything from consultation, keyword research, copy writing, redevelopment of the website as needed, creation of incoming links, submission to all major search engines, plus, reporting on its results.

Professional Website Hosting for SEO is Key

Monday, January 14th, 2008

Picking the best web hosting provider requires a lot of research. Many factors must be taken into consideration such as Cost, Speed, Features, Security, Uptime, Support, etc,. For SEO discussion purposes Uptime is one of the most crucial factors. Uptime is a measure of the time a web server has been “up” and running. It came into use to describe the opposite of downtime, times when a server was not operational. The uptime and reliability of web hosting providers is sometimes measured in nines. “Five nines” means 99.999% availability, which translates to a total downtime of approximately five minutes and fifteen seconds per year. The closer to 100%, the better.

To illustrate the importance of Uptime consider the following example: If a Googlebot attempts to access your website that just so happens to be down due to the downtime of your web hosting provider, it will assume that the page no longer exists and thus will drastically reduce your search rankings or even eliminate your page from the index until the Googlebot can crawl the page again.

HostTracker.com offers a great Uptime Monitor Utility that places a button on your website displaying its uptime.

ATXWebmasters.com can provide your company with affordable website hosting in Cleveland, approved for top search engine rankings.

Who are you favorite website hosts? Post a comment below.