Frequently Asked Questions

How do I rank my business website on the first page of Google?StanL

If you have some time to work on your website and run reports and update code, then go ahead and do it, however if you are doing all of this, you are not working on your business. Instead, consider hiring a reputable SEO agency. Make sure they are also a design agency. If the guys who are doing your SEO do not know how to manage your website, then you should go elsewhere. I recommend a company like Search Gurus Inc., who run a small agency in Toronto. The results we received in the first year out shadowed the previous 3 years with another agency.

What is SEO and why do I need it?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a technical and analytical approach to preparing your digital assets to be easily identified by search egines with a focus on helping the search engines identify and classify the contents on the website and all accompanying digital assets. In a nut shell, SEO is basically running reports, making changes to your code and re running reports to see how the changes effect the search. There is also content writing, interlinking, file name and directory structure updates and changes, networking updates and server changes, file compression and caching. There is a lot to SEO and is not a one size fits all solution. Each company website has a different strategy and approach used to achieve the best possible results. SEO is an acronym for “search engine optimisation” which is the enhancement of your web pages and their online profile so as to improve your site's ranking in the Search Engine results pages (SERPS) for nominated clusters of keyword phrases.

What's the difference between organic vs. paid results??

Organic results are the results that appear in search engines, for free, based on an algorithm. Paid -- or inorganic -- search results appear at the top or side of a page. These are the links that advertisers pay to appear on different search engines.

Should I purchase a domain name to include my keywords?

Once upon a time, having an exact domain name for a given keyword was considered the holy grail of easy SEO tactics. This is no longer the case. Google has since implimented a EDM (exact domain match) filter to results so these no longer carry the same weight they once did.

What are the best ways to optimize my site?

Search engine optimization involves a high number of tactics, which all help to optimize your site. A combination of online marketing and search engine optimization is a good way to achieve great optimization. Unlike short-term advertising, search engine optimization presents tenacious results.

Should I worry about what my site looks like in a text only browser?

This is an interesting situation. With a background in SEO I can assure you, that a text browser provides a lot of insight into what information is easily visible and scrapable to the search engines, however how it "looks" is not of much concern. The aesthetics of the text only version is important only in that it should be easy to read and navigate. If you find that a large portion of important information is missing in your text only version, then you can assume that it is not easy for the search engines to pick up that data. In other words, you need to make some updates to address this issue.

Why am I on #1 all the time but when my wife searches for me she doesn’t find me?

Maybe you need a divorce? No, just kidding. You probably need to disable personalized search. The easiest way to do this is to do a search in "incognito mode" Otherwise Google will serve you the results you most desire.

How long does it normally take to see results from SEO?

Depending on the depth and tactics used, a good frame of time to expect results is within 3 - 6 months. It takes time to set the initial baselines and then start the updates and changes to the site. It also takes a while for Google and the other search engines to pick up the changes and adjust their ranking score.