SEO FAQs

This is a collection of frequently asked questions about SEO / Search Engine Optimization.



  • Did a Company Call You About SEO?

    Were you told how easy it would be for a company to get you first place on Google using SEO? Perhaps a person sent you an email, or called you to tell you how your current SEO company wasn't doing a very good job? This is a common tactic with digital marketing companies. Imagine your competitors doing that to you in your industry… Doesn’t sound like an ethical company, does it?

    Read More.

  • Can You Get First Place With SEO?

    In a way, this is a trick question... or at least, the answer may not be what you would expect from an SEO company. I will get to the simple answer to this question, but since you are asking it, let me focus on the more complex answer that you didn't expect to get. Read More.

  • Is Make it Active is a Good SEO Company?

    Need to find a local SEO company? We offer a several tips on how to tell if an SEO company is good and will do a good job for our company. Read More.

  • Should I hire a Local SEO Consultant or a Search Marketing Agency?

    The time to do SEO work for the average client is about 2-3 hours per week (8-12 hours per month). If someone is charging 100-200 dollars per month to do that; do you think they are actually working for you for as little as 10 dollars an hour? Rather, do you realize that they are likely just discounting their rate to get enough clients to pay their bills? I'm sure some of you reading this have figured it out already, if someone is undercharging you, they are not as good as they claim to be. Why else would they work for 10-20 dollars an hour only to have the headache of doing taxes as a consultant every year? Read More.

  • How Much Should SEO Cost?

    When it comes to SEO, one question that I am sure get's asked a lot is about how much SEO should cost. It's a simple question, but like many things, it requires a complex answer. While this is an oversimplification, it is true, nonetheless - there are 3 types of SEO Companies: Read More

  • Is SEO necessary for success?

    Instead of focusing on our successes, I am actually going to focus on one of our failures as a business. As a business, you should diversify your marketing expenditures to help grow the business and build brand recognition. In order for a business to be successful, you should never "put all your eggs in one basket." At least, that's the conventional wisdom. Unfortunately, this is an area that we have failed at for our own business, now going on 4 years in a row... Let me explain though, how SEO has grown our business by over 1400%, as one of the only means of marketing our business. Read More

  • Can you tell me how to do SEO?

    While this isn't asked all that often, it is asked often enough for us to want to clarify some of the steps involved, and the process that we go through. In a way, this is like asking a mechanical engineer how they come up with something. Not that SEO is as complex as mechanical engineering; rather, it's not a simple answer, and there are obviously some proprietary steps involved in the process. Read More

  • What is website Analytics?

    Website analytics involves the tracking of website content to learn what is getting the most attention by website visitors. We use analytics for all of our SEO clients to demonstrate the success of our search engine optimization campaign. We have consistent results because we only use strategies which ensure success. Without analytics, there is no way to know how successful an SEO campaign is working. Read More

  • Why use an SEO Agency from NH?

    Make it Active, LLC is located in Dover, NH, the Seacoast of New Hampshire; However, we do business with companies throughout the country. In fact, we work with a few multi-national corporations. The location of the SEO Agency you use is unimportant; what is important is that they know how to perform global, national, and local SEO. Since our company is in NH, one of the most business-friendly states in the country, our prices are very competitive with SEO companies in some major surrounding cities such as Portland, ME, Boston, MA, and even NYC. Read More

  • Why should we choose Make it Active over a large SEO Agency in Boston?

    We have been asked this only once, so I'm not sure I would consider this a "frequently asked question." Nonetheless, we felt it was a good question to answer in general, for prospective clients. One business owner said that a company from Boston stated "they were better, simply because being from a big city, they knew SEO better." If that's the case, our company being from both Los Angeles, and having an office in the Bay Area/Silicone Valley in the 90's must make our us the most knowledgeable SEO company in New England! The truth is, SEO has little to do with where your company resides, and has more to do with long term knowledge about the industry. Read More

  • Does SEO Impact Sales?

    Many clients, and potential clients, ask us whether or not SEO can, and will, actually impact their company sales. The short answer is a resounding, YES! Read More

  • Why is SEO a separate charge from Website Design?

    SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and Website Design are 2 completely different things; though they are closely related. Website design involves developing a website, which includes designing the buttons, images, and overall layout of the website. This is done when the website is new, but often times there are maintenance updates, as well as content updates. Read More

  • Does SEO guarantee I will sell my product or service?

    There are never guarantees that more visitors means more customers. There are lots of things at play, the landing page, how you drive customers to your product, whether it is online, or at your business location. Generally speaking, more visitors to your website often correlates with more customers, and in my experience, it is closely related. However, there are cases when someone is selling a product or service, that could be above market value, poor name recognition, etc. and they are not seeing the same success. Read More

  • What causes my search engine ranking to drop?

    Unfortunately, there are so many individual causes of you to lose rank or drop in place on search engines, there is no one single cause. Sometimes you simply have more competition under certain search terms. You could have been penalized by circumventing systems. Read More

  • How does SEO for my website help my business?

    SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a marketing term which involves optimizing your website for search engines to increase your place online. This helps users find your website when doing searches online, is cost effective, and offers the opportunity to turn leads leads into customers by utilizing commonly used terms or specific terms or nomenclature that can guide potential clients to your website. Read More

  • What are the benefits of signing an SEO contract with Make it Active?

    A long term SEO contract is always better than no contract at all. Not only is it more cost effective, but here I will make the case that it leads to more accountability, not less. Read More

  • Doesn't SEO level off at some point and become ineffective?

    SEO does "level off" at some point, occasionally, but it is never ineffective. I have worked with companies to bring them up to number one on key terms. In one example, a company I worked with became number 1 on all main product categories after I had worked with them for over a year. So I started noticing their traffic leveling off slightly, remaining almost the same, though still showing a slight increase that I would usually attribute to being an insignificant increase (a few percent). It was at that point, I spent my time keeping them in place, and learned very quickly that it wasn't the time to become complacent. Just reducing my efforts for 2 weeks, saw a decrease to third place for several keywords. Read More

  • Are website traffic decreases always a bad SEO indicator?

    Sometimes (just sometimes), decreases are good. Also, sometimes (just sometimes), decreases are not bad. For example, if your website is currently linked on a bunch of bad backlink websites and directories (an SEO scam from yesteryear that some SEO companies still use), it may show increases, but these increases almost always make for poor leads, and random traffic. Read More

  • How can we tell if we are getting good SEO results?

    So if everything is being done the "white hat" way, how can you tell if the analytics results you are getting are accurately reflecting website growth? Simple: watch the numbers. Are your numbers increasing, consistently, overtime? Do your sales show a pattern similar to the increases in website traffic? Read More

  • How can we tell if we are using a good SEO agency?

    A good SEO agency will give you the good news, bad news, and everything up front. They will explain what it is they are doing (not necessarily proprietary information), and will always do things the "white hat" way. What that means is, they follow the rules, and do things that help, and avoid doing "tricks of the trade," which help temporarily, but in the long term can get you booted. Read More

  • Does Google Analytics Always Show SEO Growth?

    Yes, and in our experience, though often complicated for many viewers, Google Analytics provides some of the best analysis of website rank and SEO results. We have used many over the years, and once Google came along, it was clear the attempt was to give more relevant details. Read More

  • SEO and Page Rank After Switching to SSL / https

    Google has made recent changes that encourages all users to start sending their website through a secure channel, using SSL (Secure Socket Layers). Currently most websites (including my own), are (or were) unsecured websites. Read More

  • Can I do SEO myself?

    SEO is simply understanding what your customers are looking for on search engines. Though SEO is by no means simple, it is possible to do it yourself. We have helped to train several companies to do SEO in-house. Online marketing is not mysterious, or impossible, so be wary of companies that suggest it is. It is however time consuming, and there are a broad range of factors to take into consideration. Read More

  • Can our company do SEO in-house?

    If you have a capable marketing staff, yes, it is possible. The question is whether or not it's cost effective. In our experience, there are very few companies that do SEO effectively. In fact, of all of the companies we have worked with, we have only once found a company that was doing SEO correctly. Read More

  • How can SEO save our company money?

    In the long run, SEO can actually save your company money. So much is spent on advertising, and while print advertising does have its place, and there are reasonable print ads that produce results, nothing can compare to online marketing. Optimizing your website for search engines should be a priority for any company that wants their business to grow. Search Engine Optimization is much more cost effective because you are promoting your product to the actual people looking for your product. Read More

  • Am I getting scammed with SEO? Google called me...

    If you get a call suggesting that you need to do something right away to save/protect/whatever your business on Google, you are getting a call from a scammer. Google does not call businesses like that. In fact, it is likely that you will never get a call from Google at all, and you will never receive robocalls, For more information about these scams, please see what Google has to say about these tactics and what you can do about it. Read More

  • How long does SEO take?

    The answer to this question depends on the context of the question; whether you mean, how long it takes to see results, or how many hours it takes to do optimize a website. Read More

  • Is SEO a one-time thing or is it long term?

    We are often asked if we can do a "one-off" SEO project. While we do offer a one time SEO plan for 30 days, SEO takes much longer to work, and requires ongoing maintenance to maintain the success first achieved. Read More

  • Is SEO worth the cost?

    Depending on the company you hire to optimize your website for search engines, yes, SEO is worth the cost. What I suggest you do first however, is do some research on your own; check the major search engines and learn more about SEO. The problem with SEO is, if you don't know what  to except, you won't know if it's working. We feel we do a great job at explaining search engine optimization. Read More

  • Is website search optimization difficult to perform?

    Yes, SEO takes a lot of time at first, and is ongoing. For every hour of time spent to optimize your website, one of your competitors is doing the same thing with their website. Read More

  • Why do some SEO companies offer very low prices?

    A "low price" depends on what you consider to be a low price; this is very subjective. However, I will try to shed some light on the subject. If by low, you mean something like " per month" or "0 per year" it's because they are either doing no work and charging you a premium, or they are using methods that will hurt your business. Low prices sound great, but if you factor in the costs of doing business, the hourly rate, etc. it is impossible for any company to do an effective job for " per month." Read More

  • Do SEO techniques change?

    The strategies used for SEO must reflect the changes employed by the search engine industry. Search engine optimization is not just a set of techniques that can be used forever. SEO must adapt to the latest technologies; something that many companies that offer SEO do not recognize. Read More

  • Do you offer SEO for Joomla, WordPress and other CMS's?

    Yes, in fact, one of our areas of focus is on dynamic SEO processing. We provide SEO services to clients using Joomla, Drupal, WordPress and other CMS's; even with dynamic url's! We specialize in making your CMS totally SEF (Search Engine Friendly). Read More

  • Does our product or service website need SEO and/or SEM?

    We are often asked if a client's particular product or service actually needs to optimize their website for search engines (SEO), or do any online marketing. The answer is yes, regardless of your product or service, it is a must that you market it online. Read More

  • Does SEO work with all search engines?

    Search Engine Optimization isn't just for one search engine; in fact, it works with all search engines. The goal of search companies is to provide more reliable results. By optimizing your website, and figuring out what Google, Bing, and the other search engines are looking for, you help organize content on the internet, and push your brand at the same time. Read More

  • How are your SEO services different?

    Make it Active pride's itself on doing well with Search engine optimization and marketing. Most SEO firms do little “tricks of the trade” that can get you found at first, but will eventually lead to removal from many leading search engines. If you are considering any Search Engine Optimization or Search Engine Marketing company, make sure to verify what rules they follow. It may seem beneficial to jump up quickly for a short term increase, but in the end, your website and your business will suffer. Read More

  • How can I tell if an SEO company is bogus?

    Any company that makes promises of instant results with SEO, or offers a "link exchange" program, is likely bogus. Search engine optimization takes time, and unnatural inflated results, are only temporary, and will not only decrease in a short amount of time, but will likely hurt your place online with major search engines as it is against the rules. Read More

  • How can SEO help in this economy?

    SEO can help your business or organizations in times of financial downturns because it relies on customers seeking your products or services, rather than you seeking out new customers. Both search engine optimization and search engine marketing can have a profound effect on your current sales or marketing efforts because you have the ability to instantly attract customers based on current product trends or events. Read More

  • What does SEF mean?

    SEF means Search Engine Friendly. It is a term used mainly to describe how content-enriched your website is to search engines; especially when it comes to url's (web addresses). For example, www.makeitactive.com/online-marketing goes directly to our online marketing section of our website. Read More

  • What is SEO and Search Engine Optimization?

     SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization. Read More

  • What is the difference of basic and advanced SEO Plans?

    We have 6 SEO Packages... Read More

  • What's the difference of SEO, SEM, & internet marketing?

    Internet marketing, or Online marketing, mean the same thing. It is the act of marketing your company online. SEO - Search Engine Optimization, and SEM - Search Engine Marketing, on the other hand are completely different things. Read More

  • Optimizing an existing website with SEO

    We are often asked if it is possible to optimize an existing website. SEO is not something only valuable to new websites; in fact, you may have more luck optimizing an existing website due to the longevity of the content, and the current internal and external links to pages within your website. Read More

  • How to choose a local SEO company

    Finding a reputable SEO company can be difficult. Most web design firms and businesses are small; run by graphic designers, who know how to draw and design using popular content management systems such as WordPress, but don't actually know anything about search engine optimization. The problem is, everyone wants to do SEO now, so many companies are adding it to their list of services even if they don't have the time, nor experience, to do it effectively. Read More
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