Prestige Web Solutions - Frequently-Asked Questions (3)

Visible and Invisible Content. Visible website content is, of course, content that can be seen. For purposes of analyzing Search Engine Optimization [commonly abbreviated "SEO"], however, visible website content can be broken down into two types:

Content visible to humans and to the programs ("spiders" or "crawlers") that inspect websites for search engines, and

Content visible to humans but not to the search engine spiders that crawl the Web.

Of course, you want both human visitors and search engine spiders to be able to view your content. The problems start when content is visible to people but invisible to spiders. In a nutshell, search engine spiders are largely unable to crawl images, image maps, Flash content, scripts, and other non-textual content.

Moreover, search engines may entirely ignore a page whose url (web address) contains characters such as ?, _, =, %, or &. So keep these characters out of the url's of the pages you want search engines to index.

Also important is content visible to spiders but invisible to humans. Such content includes "meta tags" such as the keywords and descriptions in the "<head>" section of your page. When search engines first appeared, they ranked sites on the basis of these self-descriptions.

However, while meta tags no longer have the power to boost your site to the top of the rankings, they may have the power to get your site penalized or even banned from search engine listings. This can happen, for example, when a site employs such "black-hat" SEO techniques as using extremely popular keywords and site descriptions that have nothing to do with the site's visible content.
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What, then, is search engine marketing? Search engine marketing [often abbreviated "SEM"] is a broader term that includes, in addition to SEO, paid search engine advertising, article and blog submissions, submisions to social networking sites, submissions of promotional video clips to YouTube and similar sites and, in general, any promotional activity that increases the number of times the URL of your homepage appears on the Internet. Back to Top.

Can you show me an example of search engine marketing? One example of SEM is Google AdWords. The text ads in the upper right-hand corner of any Google search results page are paid ads purchased by websites seeking to increase their visibility beyond that provided by their organic, or unpaid, listings. On our Promotion page is a nearly full-sized picture of Google results page with an AdWords ad that I placed for a client.

Below is an image of two high-ranking Google listings which resulted not from a paid text ad, but from restaurant reviews that I submitted to travel-related websites and directory submissions made on behalf of my client:
restaurant review links
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Should our website contain other companies' ads? Certainly not your competitors', and if your company markets a specific product, line of products, or service, I don't think you should advertise other companies products and services, no matter now unlike yours.

If your site sells your own $100 product, you get $100. If your visitor clicks on a link on your site and buys a $100 product from another company, even if you get 30% you only get $30. And will the visitor return to your site? Likely not.

Of course, if you are a realtor and your site includes ads for an insurance company, mortgage company, and lawn and garden company, now that kind of cross-advertising can make alot of sense. Back to Top.

Are we better off using a small design house instead of a large company? I'm one of the smaller fish in the pond, so the following may seem self-serving. Be that as it may....

While I have assistance from Andrea with photography, videography, and some graphic elements, and modify rather than create from scratch some of the scripts and complex content management solutions used on Prestige Web Solutions sites, I am responsible not only for the html coding, javascripts, PHP, and cascading style sheets, but also for product obtained from third parties. If you hire Prestige Web Solutions, LLC, I'm your contact and your designer. I offer a degree of personal availability that I very much doubt you will find at Humungo Design Company, Inc.

Moreover, whether the people involved in designing and creating your project work in adjacent cubicles, across the hall from each other, or across the Pacific Ocean from each other, and whether they have the same employer or not, has no bearing on the originality or quality of workmanship of your project.

Another advantage of using a small developer rather than a behemoth, is the cost savings. I have a corner office with two windows, but it's not on the 52nd floor of an office building; it's in my house. I do not utilize the services of outside talent on every website project in which I am involved, but when I do engage other talent, I pay them only for what they produce. I don't pay for downtime, sick pay, vacation, holidays, personal days, you get the idea. I pass these savings on to you, my client.

Do you prefer swimming in middle of the ocean or in the middle of a pool? If you said, "a swimming pool," let's talk. Complete our contact form or give me a call or use the chat button on the left to chat with us now if we're online or leave us a message! Back to Top

How can I submit a question? Ah, the easiest question I've had all night! Click HERE to submit a written question or click Click and Connect to call me on the phone right now! Back to Top.

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Frequently Asked Questions (3)

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