Once the time with Out of the Box is over will my listings disappear?
How will I be able to track my success?
I heard you can hide text on the page and that will help in search engine placement?
Why should I pay your fees when I get offers all the time for search engine release for $19.95 or even free?
Why do you need a set up fee?
Who uses those directories you put us in?
Why do you work on linking us into other sites?
Why should I register another domain?
What is an ezine?
Should I look into a banner ad?

Once the time with Out of the Box is over will my listings disappear?

There is always movement in any search engine database. A site can be removed for any number of reasons. The reason we insist on 6 months is to allow your site to achieve "stickiness" in the engines. We have found that for non competitive words the months of marketing is enough and your site will continue to be indexed and remain, or even improve placement in the engines for at least a year. However, if you have more competitive terms, it is important to continue to optimize the site and release it on a quarterly basis.

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How will I be able to track my success?

Marketing is more than search engines, so to truly track your success you must have access to a usage stats package. When we start a marketing campaign we make sure you have usage statistics. They are supplied by the company that hosts your website. Most of the large hosting companies offer them at no cost.
When a person goes to your site, the server registers all kinds of information about that visitor; where they came from, which pages they looked at, even which browser they use. This information is stored in a logs file for your site. A stats program will read the logs file and provide invaluable information about your site. Hits, page views and visitors are good determinations of traffic. Referrer information, top exit and entrance page data allow you to understand how your site is being used.

If you do not have access to a stats program, tracking search engine placement using Web Position will give you some help but is not as useful as a full stats program.

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I heard you can hide text on the page and that will help in search engine placement?

There are many old marketing tricks that are still being discussed on the Internet. Most of them are considered spam and will get you expelled from some engines. We do not use any marketing "tricks" but have learned from experience that working with the engines is effective, while tricking the engines can be expensive. Your site could be thrown out of the search engine database, and it would take months to be reinstated, if at all.

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Why should I pay your fees when I get offers all the time for search engine release for $19.95 or even free?

As tempting as those offers are, you need to look at the reality of what they do or don't do at all. They do not optimize every page in your site for effective search engine indexing. They do not look at link popularity and its influence on the engines. And they do not address the major directories like Yahoo, Looksmart and Dmoz. These directories bring in an enormous amount of traffic.

What they actually do is release your front page to thousands of search engines. While in reality, there are less than 10 search engines that people use. The other thousands are "free for all sites" that use your email address to send you offers you never requested. Many of the engines are beginning to ban these services from submitting to their indexes, because they usually submit such low quality sites.

Our best advice is to stay clear of these offers. Internet Marketing is one case where you get what you pay for. There is a right way and a wrong way.

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Why do you need a set up fee?

The set up fee covers the time we spend researching the keywords for your market. We have special access to software that allows us to see how people are actually typing in your keyword phrases. For example, "website designers" to the literal search engines is a different phrase than "designers of web sites". If one is used more often, then that is the phrase we want to program into your page. We also look at your known competitors for their keywords and the functionality of their site. Then we use this information to optimize every page in your site. It is a time consuming but extremely valuable part of our process.

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Who uses those directories you put us in?

Some of them are quite popular and are used by individuals to find information. More important is the fact that the web is always changing. We never know where the next Yahoo is coming from, but we want you to have the opportunity to establish your presence for free before the next big search engine becomes well known and competitive. In addition, directories are a big part of our link popularity push for your company. That important issue is addressed in the next question.

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Why do you work on linking us into other sites?

We look for sites that cater to your target market for two reasons. One is that it is an excellent way to have people interested in your site find you from a site they already like and trust. It is like a referral from a friend. The second reason is that the engines are now looking at link popularity, or how many sites link to you, as a determination of how high you rank in their database. This is a growing trend and one we predict will be with us for years to come.

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Why should I register another domain?

You have caught us in a bona fide marketing trick. Many directories will allow only one category per domain. If a company has 2-3 domains they have much better exposure in those directories. When clients go to register a domain it is best if the domain contains keywords. Some engines are looking at that to rate keyword relevance.

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What is an ezine?

An ezine is an electric newsletter. We use them 2 ways: We encourage clients to start their own ezine because it is an excellent marketing tool. We also look at others ezines for advertising possibilites. We have partnered with one of the largest ezine distributors to insure a low price for our clients ezines. Ezines have a better click-through rate than many of the more traditional internet ad vehicles.

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Should I look into a banner ad?

The short answer: Yes for branding, no for clickthrough. If bringing qualified traffic to your site is what you are interested in, there are much better and more cost effective ways of doing that. If you want the world to see your company name and associate it with a product, then consider Banner ads, but let us negotiate the cost because there is a lot of "wiggle room" for rates.

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