Search engine optimization and positioning strategies are designed to give the search engines what they want and need in order to index your site among your competitors and other sites related to your market.

Search engine optimization and positioning is challenging at best. It's not a simple matter of adding a few tags that contain your main chosen keywords or spamming blog comments. We are committed to meet the search engine optimization & positioning needs of your web site and propose a campaign plan instead of a one-time web site optimization.

Our work will include website on page and website off page optimization, a custom-designed web site promotion strategy for your business, SE-friendly content writing and submission to all major Search Engines and Directories.

Stage One (Basic SEO)

In the simplest words SEO is all about content, keywords and back links.

Goals

- optimize all pages to perform better against certain keywords on top search engines
- submit the optimized pages to major search engines and directories

Services to be performed

- Keyword research and analysis for a maximum of 5 keywords or phrases
- Competition analysis for a maximum of 5 keywords or phrases
- Analysis of site architecture, content and linking structure
- Analysis of HTML code and page design structure
- Recommendations for necessary modifications
- If all website text will be rewritten by a copywriter (an additional fee is requested)
- If all website text need to be rewritten and translated in French (an additional fee is requested)
- Modifying your website accordingly (an additional fee is requested)
- Manually submission of web site to major search engines and directories
- Add Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools and track the effects of all these changes
- Full SEO report at the end of Stage One

Please note that we'll need to meet you and discuss about your keywords and competition.

Payment

We ask 50% of the price to be paid in full prior to commencement of services.

Time Considerations

The term of this stage is for a period of 1 or 2 months.

Stage Two (Advanced SEO)

Top 10 homepage ranking plan

We strongly recommend a minimum "Four month plan" for your home page that uses key phrases and assures Top 10 Rankings in Google. Your website will be optimized for all major search engines in general and for Google in special.

Services to be performed

- Use of advanced "white" SEO techniques in order to achieve a better rank and position in the search engines. For example:
o Creation and maintenance of your own blog and news section
o Create social media accounts (accounts like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and take care of them
o Build Links from other websites (article submissions, classifieds, press releases, forum posting etc.)
o Create a brand and an online reputation among building visitors' trust for your website
o Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high
o Competition analysis: monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content and keywords

Please note that we'll need to meet you and discuss about your keywords and competition.

- Create SEO Performance Report on monthly basis

Example of performed services (20 hours/month)

- Building 5-10 links from other websites (3 hours)
- Refresh/add website text (max. 500 words) (6 hours)
- Post in blog (max 4 posts: 1 per week) (4 hours)
- Maintain blog: answer comments, delete spam etc. (2 hours)
- Maintain Facebook & Twitter accounts (post and answer) (2 hours)
- Build better ranking in search engines for chosen keywords (1 hour)
- Monthly report (2 hours)

Payment

Our consulting services will include a minimum of 10 hours/month of billable time, based on the mutually agreed hourly rate of $50, including email and phone consultations, creation of reports, forums and/or blog posting, etc.

Final considerations and FAQ

Please keep this in mind: Nobody knows the magic formula that makes you rank number one. Search engines change their algorithms on daily basis. Only performing a "white" SEO on ongoing basis can assure your success.

Q: How long will it take me to rank in Google?

A: There is no guarantee as to how fast your site will rank in Google, Bing, Yahoo or any of the other search engines. There are a lot of factors that your SEO is fighting against to help your site perform. If your site launched in a small niche with few competitors, it might rank well faster because there was little opposition. If you launched your site in a highly competitive market, it could take much longer for your site to rank for your chosen keywords. There is no set time frame since each site and industry is different.

Q: How important is my Google PageRank?

A: PageRank is the numeric value given to your website based on its relevance and importance according to Google. Once upon time, it was a major contributing factor for Google's algorithm, as a higher PageRank score (out of ten) signified that your site was useful and had a good trust factor with the search engines. Now the Google algorithm takes into account hundreds, if not thousands of contributing factors when determining where a site will fall in the SERP. While having a high PageRank is nice, it is by no means the most important factor or sign of SEO success.

Q: Which search engine is more important? Google or Bing?

A: Google still has the lion's share of search volume, but Bing has steadily been gaining traffic over the last few years. You shouldn't ignore one in favor of the other. The simple truth is that a different type of user chooses Google over Bing and vice versa. Google and Bing also fill their search results with slightly different information, so ranking well in one doesn't mean your site is doing well in the other. As per our personal experience, we saw that all search engines will follow Google ranking sooner or later.

Q: How long do I have to do SEO for?

A: SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of tool. It takes constant attention and action to keep your SEO relevant and working. Yes, SEO will build on itself over time, but that doesn't mean you get to 6 months and call it quits and hope your past work will carry you through. The Internet is expanding at an unbelievable rate, which means that every day there are more and more websites vying for the same amount of space. If you want to keep your site competitive and continue growing your online presence, you have to be prepared to strap in for the long haul. SEO isn't ever truly finished.

Q: What does SEO really do for my site?

A: SEO is much more than just getting your site to rank well in the search engines. Good SEO will also help build your brand presence online, help maintain (or fix) your brand's online reputation, drive traffic to your site and improve your conversion rate, establish your company as an industry leader or expert, help you connect with your customers and much more.

Q: Who should handle my site's SEO?

A: If you don't have the knowledge or experience to handle your site's SEO, then you have to decide between bringing in someone to handle your SEO in-house or outsourcing your SEO to an SEO company or consultant. If you want to keep it in-house, your SEO manager needs to be incorporated into your marketing department, not the web design/development or IT team. Everything that your marketing department does to promote you company can be leveraged for SEO. Your SEO manager needs to work with the marketing team to keep their efforts in line.

If you want to outsource your SEO, be sure to do so to a reputable, white hat SEO professional! They should be Nord America based and speak English fluently. A lot of SEO focuses on creating and publishing content and you need someone who understands the Nord American market.

Any company or consultant who promises to have your site ranking number one in Google by the end of the month is probably a black hat SEO practitioner and should be avoided. Also, be scared if someone is proposing you to rank better by creating back links only. Nowadays, back links are the most important factor for SEO but they need to grow normally, over the time and being built in a white hat way. That means not spamming other websites.

Q: How do I measure SEO success?

A: There are a few ways to tell if your SEO is doing well. First off, what kind of traffic growth are you seeing? Good SEO should produce additional traffic that steadily increases over time. Peaks and valleys isn't a good sign. You can also look at how well your site is ranking for your chosen keywords. Did your site jump from page 6 to page 3? That means your site is establishing a stronger trust factor with the search engines and is performing well. The biggest indication of SEO success is your conversion rate. Of the traffic that arrived to your site, what percentage of them converted? Each site has a different goal. It could be for someone to call the company, download a trial form of some software, signup for a newsletter, etc. A higher conversion rate means that more targeted traffic is being delivered to your site, a sign that your SEO is doing a good job of positioning your site.

These are by no means the only questions you may have when beginning your SEO process, but they are some of the most common. A lot of SEO is learning and adapting. If you are looking to handle your site's SEO by yourself, you might want to consider taking an SEO training session to learn the basics and answer more strategically minded questions.