I’ve spent some time watching the live streams on Twitter as well as reviewing a lot of blogs for common questions laced in the comments in order to create this list. This covers some questions on general SEO techniques and some advanced SEO techniques (depending on how you look at it).
While this is less technical than a lot of the other blog smut out there, I am certain that many will find this foray into examining SEO techniques and general SEO questions to be fun, and at sometimes painful. SEO techniques have a way of confusing the hell out of a lot of people, especially upstarts and other online businesses that think they need to go from zero to advanced SEO techniques in 24 hours. My aim is to eliminate that confusion and make it a little worse.
These might be common questions for some, and a little recycled, but when it comes to making an SEO linkbait FAQ, we want to cover as many bases as we can without boring the hell out of you.
So without further gilding the lily, here’s your list.
1. What does SEO stand for? It breaks down to “search engine optimization” but we’re long past this whole thing being about search engines. It goes much deeper than simple SEO techniques.
2. What is SEO? The old definition had a lot to do with tweaking your site in specific ways in order to draw the attention of search engines in order to increase placement of your website in the search engine results pages. Now? Now you could better define it as any and every kind of SEO techniques that would ensure the conversion of traffic. If you have to club your contacts with a pipe wrench, do it.
3. Is SEO spam, bullsh*t, dead etc.? Not likely. Considering major companies are still practicing it (New York Times, BBC, etc) it’s not likely to suddenly disappear. Even the tools who pump their fists and call SEO Consults crooks are still optimizing their websites. You can blame SEO for global warming all you like, but Al Gore still offers a bigger package than you. He’s boasting SEO techniques that make a horse blush.
4. Why aren’t we #1 or on page 1 at Google? It could be a number of reasons. For starters, your SEO techniques could be completely flawed, or non-existent. Included in that could be some terribly written content. Or no content at all. Perhaps your site consists mainly of flash or mostly graphics. Did you dump $2,000 into an India based “SEO agency” that got you spanked by Google for link spam? If all you wanted was a spanking, there are Russian brides that do it for half that.
5. I am listed in the top Google spot when I search, but when my wife searches she says I’m not #1? I don’t even rank! Get rid of her, you should always be #1 in your wife’s book. Either that or it’s a good idea to turn off personalization (or log out of Google). Leaving that on and staying logged in will result in Google serving up your favorite dish. There’s nothing like having your ego falsely inflated. “Oh Denver Painter, you’re so big. You’re #1″
6. When will we see results from all of our advanced SEO techniques? It really depends on the amount of work you put in, what SEO techniques you used, the keywords you’re targeting, your onpage copy, your offsite links and their rank, etc. It can take a while, especially if you’re going after competitive keywords. Some keywords might return results in hours or days, others might take years. It depends on how deeply you had your head up yo… in the sand while you did keyword research.
7. Can we rank for iPhones? If that’s what you’re trying to sell, then yes. You can also rank for breasts, baby bottles, nipple tassles, tires, ballcocks (get your mind out of the gutter). The important thing is that you select the appropriate keywords, especially the longtail keywords that give you more targeted results. Of course, you could just go for the really competitive words and dump your entire fortune into 2 weeks’ worth of competitive PPC. Let me know how that turns out for you Mr. Trump.
8. Can we rank for everything (massive list of keywords)? If you’re Amazon.com, yup. It pays to narrow your target. Think of it like a battle against the Death Star (yes, Google plays the part of Senator Palpatine). You can’t just throw everything you’ve got at it and expect victory. You’ve got to narrow your target, lock on to a single goal and fire. Most of us grew up shooting womp rats in a T-16 back home on Tatooine. They’re not much bigger than 2 meters. If you can hit those you can pick the right targeted keywords.
9. How much does SEO cost? This is a question that everyone asks and no one can answer… except the man who is peddling the magic elixir. (Pssst…it’s really just alcohol). The scope of work will determine how much you pay, but the SEO techniques are worth it if done by a professional agency that knows what they’re doing. If you REALLY want a figure then fine. Advanced SEO techniques will cost you somewhere between $1 and $250,000. Everything below 50% of the estimated cost plus 350 multiplied by the square root of 7 is automated. In case you’re wondering, this is one of those times when the answer is not 42.
10. Why is SEO so expensive? Because there are many skilled people out there who know full well that you need SEO techniques that produce sales. Those people are professionals just like you and they have gambling habits to sustain comicons to attend new stuff to buy on Farmville families to feed. Most of them (the good ones) spent a lot of time learning what it takes to make other people profitable. That makes them valuable to you. The business they generate from the work they do will more than cover the cost of the optimization. Stop whining and pay the man, lest he dances on your grave then registers your website when it drops so he has a domain with history for his next project.
11. How long does it take to get indexed by Google? Google can hit your site anywhere from minutes to days depending on the SEO techniques you used and what kind of search marketing you’re doing. Without any SEO (especially advanced SEO techniques), you can bet it will probably be a few years before Google accidentally trips over your site, yet still ignores it because it resembles some form of road kill. Long since dead and decaying from the inside out.
12. How would I go about submitting my new site to Google/Bing/Yahoo etc.? Place your website in a 3×5 envelope. Lick the glue line twice, and send it off to them in the mail. While you’re waiting for nothing to happen, perform some real SEO on your site and Google, Yahoo, Bing and all the other sites out there will eventually index you based on links you’ve established. You can also ping them through blogging or submit an XML sitemap. If all of that is unsuccessful, then they probably don’t want anything to do with you and your damn blue widgets.
13. How do I submit to 1000 search engines? You can pay a ridiculous amount of money to submit your link to a service that submits your link to a service that submits your link to all the other services that repeat the information that was submitted to the first service. Only inexperienced people do this. Don’t do that. You only need to get listed in the major search engines and the rest will fall into place. And for the record, if you didn’t catch on with the last question, you don’t submit sites anymore. It’s better for the search engines to find you naturally, organically, in the wild, in the buff. It proves you’re a man (or woman).
14. Do I need an XML sitemap? It depends on your site and the purpose for it. If you have a blog with very few pages (or none) then no. Sales letter or squeeze page? No (unless you’re one of those people that get lost in a room with 1 door). A site with 10-20 subpages? Probably a good idea. You should also fire your designer.
15. Do I need meta tags for SEO? Yes. And No. Google really doesn’t care about your meta. That SEO technique is sooooo 90′s. Seriously? Google likes to put most of its weight on links. Other sites, like Yahoo still consider meta content in ranking. Buy who uses Yahoo anymore? A lot of people actually. Meta content is helpful. Use it, don’t abuse it. Ron Jeremy ruined it for the rest of us with Google, let’s not have Yahoo and the others do the same.
16. Do I need a high PageRank for SEO? Pagerank comes from good SEO practices. You really can’t have one without the other, at least not for long. Unless you’re some black hat assassin – in that case, more power to you. Even then, it still takes some kind of advanced SEO techniques and long term SEO in order to build your pagerank.
17. What is linkbait? There’s really two sides to this, good and bad. Bad linkbait is like a date with a new lover whom, at the end of the night, turns out to be rather filthy (and not in a good way). Bad linkbait lures the reader in to you through a link with the expectation of one thing. When they arrive they get something completely different. Good linkbait has to do with carefully and masterfully crafted content that draws in the reader with a link to your site. When they get there, they find what they’re looking for and word of mouth begins. It’s like a good date that ends with coffee in the morning while you try to get your underwear off the ceiling fan (I told you to stay away from the Blind Dog Bourbon)
18. My cousin is a graphic designer, can he do the SEO? My wife knows how to make spaghetti but I wouldn’t unleash her in a restaurant to paying customers. Designers rarely understand the important of SEO techniques and advanced SEO techniques. If you can find one that does, consider yourself lucky. Unfortunately, designers rarely have a knack for copywriting and so forth. It’s a good idea to let your designer focus on the stuff they picked up while playing with their pirated copy of Photoshop and stick to an SEO expert in matters of Google seduction.
19. My sister is a web developer, can she do the SEO? Even though a number of SEO developers started out in old school web development (me me me), that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea. Often what happened is a dramatic shift in focus. You really can’t switch back and forth, it’s too important to specialize in one thing and stick with it. If your physician just finished a colonoscopy, then offered you a complimentary teeth cleaning, would you take the offer? You’d likely be less than interested. Those SEO consultants that came from web development made a choice at some point to focus on SEO techniques and leave web development behind. They opted for a world of advanced SEO techniques that most web developers don’t have the time or inclination to study. Plus they smell bad.
20. My father’s sister’s cousin’s brother’s girlfriend once knew a guy who knew a girl who dated a guy that is a Perl, Java and C programmer. Can he do my SEO? Programmers are fun people. They are extremely smart, and have a history of trying to obtain better rankings through the use of clever scripts that can enhance websites. This can be fairly risky, since it borders on being naughty – at least Google’s definition of being naughty. Like the questions above, unless a programmer has specifically branched out and taken a lot of time to learn advanced SEO techniques (me again) then it’s usually best to avoid asking a programmer to help your site rank. It might be fun, and cool to watch a script beat the system, but Google calls it dirty pool. Programmers also hide behind the guise of being nerds, or number geeks. In all actually, they’re extremely seductive, intelligent and quite sexy. If you mingle with a programmer, you’re likely to fall madly in love. This can cause budget issues. Best to avoid it. Stick with an SEO copywriter or a professional agency to handle your SEO techniques. They’re ugly, but they know what they’re doing.
21. Why should I outsource my SEO? It’s a full time job, and no one really wants to do it. Hell, not even SEO agencies like to do it. They just like it when you give them money. If you fed a piece of delicious cheese to rat every time you electrocuted it, after a while he’d probably start tapping the buzzer himself just to get the food. It’s not something you want to tangle with on your own because of the time sink. For powerful results, it can often take a very skilled individual or a decent team of people to handle all the aspects of marketing and to implement numerous SEO techniques. Unless you’ve got some skilled SEO people in house, it’s best to leave it to the professionals. And no, passing the SEO off to Melvin isn’t considered a professional decision, even if you hold his Swingline for ransom.
22. Can’t I just use WordPress plugins for SEO? Good question (finally, right?) You can but that’s really not enough. That’s no better than just tossing some well written content on your site and calling it good. There’s a lot more that goes into SEO. Most modern CMSs are packaged with SEO capabilities but despite the bundles being SEO friendly you’re still gonna have to utilize some other advanced SEO techniques in order to make headway. No one reads blogs anyway, and those people that write them are just writing to hear themselves talk super-awesome.
23. Does Google hate SEO? No… and yes. Google loves you as long as you stick to the SEO that they call ethical and safe. Or “good practice” SEO techniques. If you start branching into black hat or gray hat SEO, then Google suddenly gives you that angry Adam Sandler look. Employees of Google (the Latin translation is something akin to “office monkey”) have even had the distaste disgust pleasure of speaking at Google conferences where they advocate fighting the good fight against unethical SEO techniques and sticking to the tried and true tactics that make everyone stick together like one big happy family. (don’t drink the kool-aid)
24. Does SEO mean optimization for search engines spiders and not humans? Because of a number of unethical practices that others have done in the past, many have the misconception that SEO is geared toward search bots only. That’s completely untrue. We craft SEO techniques that are completely readable to people while making sure that the search engines recognize the SEO. So… ok well I suppose the SEO is a little geared toward the bo-..ok a lot. It’s important though to remember that people play a large part in determine your rank by linking to your site, promoting your content on social media, etc. So by playing up to the people you’re in a better position to brown nose Google, Yahoo and Bing.
25. Is buying links, hidden text, cloaking, IP delivery etc. black hat SEO? Oh so now it’s about color? There are a number of SEO techniques that people consider to be black hat. The fact is, that for many SEO techniques it depends entirely on the context in which it’s used. Of course there are some things that are simply not accepted. I can’t go into detail, because Google is watching me. They’re always watching. Measuring the context in which something was done is the only way to really decide whether or not something is considered black, white or gray. To break it down more – if it feels naughty, and you’re getting better results than you expect, you’re probably in trouble.
26. Is black hat SEO legal? Only in 1 state, and you don’t live there. Actually, you should be asking “is it recommended?” and the answer is yes! No! Google says so anyway, and so will everyone else who wants you to believe that they behave all the time when it comes to implementing SEO techniques. “We’re all good boys over here”. That usually means that someone has done something wrong. If you have children, you know that already. It’s not illegal, but search engines frown on the SEO techniques used to exploit algorithms and gain rank in the SERPs. It leads to spankings. And we LOVE hate those.
27. Does site size matter? Oh that’s a loaded question. I mean, guys we’ve been asking this question for years and
we’ve never gotten a straight answer. We’re always lead around the bush… alright I’ll stop there. Historically it did matter. For some time, sites that had massive page amounts seemed to rank better but now it’s not really a factor. You can actually do more damage to yourself because you’re wasting money on creating deep pages that will never be indexed. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Lessons learned for any man who has attempted to get a random body part waxed.
28. Do domain extensions (top level domains like .com, co.uk) matter? Yup. Especially if you’re in the respective country and you’re looking for local results. You can gain a small advantage there by doing so. Likewise, there are a fair amount of people who believe .edu and .gov domains are more trusted domains through Google so they carry more weight. Google is fibbing denying it, stating that those domains are more trusted because of the sheer number of links they carry.
29. Do nofollow links count? If you’re a stalker they don’t because you’ll follow anyway. For Google, not at all. They carry no weight in the SERPs decision. They do however help greatly if you can get that link (even though its nofollow) in a place where people will see it and subsequently hit that link when they’re looking for relevant content. If it brings visitors, it counts.
30. What about search engine submission and meta tag optimization? I once knew a man who was burned at the stake for suggesting such a thing.
31. Is blog commenting to build SEO backlinks considered spam? I don’t know dear CaliforniaRealEstate. Maybe if you considered switching your username to something real and contributed to the conversation, your posts might be very welcome instead of getting stabbed violently by akismet.
But what if you have a question that didn’t get answered by this extremely thorough and awe-inspiring post about SEO techniques? You’re pretty much out of luck because this is all I could put together before my schedule raids in Call of Duty.
Now remember your moral obligation to sharing all this SEO knowledge with the world!
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Joerg Weishaupt is a 48 year old entrepreneur, software architect, search engine optimization and social media expert. Joerg has been building a lot of profitable Internet businesses since he put his first website online in 1995. He is also one of the founders and partners of Social Media Science LLC, where he launched a content syndication network called SYNND.
Joerg resides in a small, quiet community about 100 miles outside of Munich, Germany. If you ever seek to find him, look for where the cows gather.
Want some great info on SEO techniques? Need answers to common FAQs about SEO? Check out my latest video: "The Definitive SEO Techniques FAQ"
