Frequently Asked Questions
To view the answer to a question, simply click on the question heading.
Why should I choose Page Ranking over any of the other thousand SEO companies?
We invite you to go try them out. When you realize how many crooks there are in the world of SEO, you’ll soon realize that most companies overcharge and under perform. Page Ranking offers an affordable solution that produces consistent results. We use ethical and industry accepted methods of improving search engine rankings, while other companies are sometimes get you involved in practices that can get you penalized or banned by search engines. We’re experts at what we do and our services are designed to allow pretty much any site to compete for their desired keywords without the possibility of getting banned or penalized.
Does Page Ranking offer services to get me rankings in local search results?
Of course! When you complete your SEO questionnaire, you just need to explain that you’re trying to target a specific geographic location and make sure to suggest keywords that are relevant to that geographic location. We will make sure to develop a strategy that is designed to help you achieve top rankings for terms in your local area. It’s pretty much the same process, but involves a little extra work that we’ll provide free of charge.
Does Page Ranking guarantee rankings and increased traffic?
We wouldn’t be in business if we didn’t have reasonable success. No company can guarantee rankings or increases in traffic from search engines. It would be unethical to guarantee results, so we don’t. We do however work on your behalf to deploy best practice strategies for increasing search engine visibility for a group of keywords. We’ve been successful in 95% of our projects, but competition for this is stiff and search engines change their algorithms frequently. We simply work to ensure that your site is optimized for achieving top rankings, but we can’t promise that you’ll get the top spot for a term that many other sites are competing for.
Can my site get penalized by major search engines for using Page Ranking’s services?
Absolutely NOT! We use industry accepted techniques for improving your site’s rankings. Our best practice techniques, but our execution is what makes our strategies more successful than other companies. Stories of getting banned or penalized by search engines are often from people who purchase services that are too good to be true. The SEO’s that get sites banned are usually involved in “Gray or Black Hat” optimization techniques that are strictly prohibited by major search engines. Page Ranking has never has a client’s site penalized by a search engine and is dedicated to keeping it that way.
I already optimized my site, why would I need to do it again?
Unless you’re satisfied with your current traffic and you’ve already achieved top rankings, then you’re probably in need of additional optimization work. SEO is not a one-time job. It involves constant research, optimization, analysis, and re-optimization. We find that 80% of our clients have “optimized” their site with other SEO companies prior to joining Page Ranking, but all end up re-optimizing their sites. The actual optimization of your site is part of the package, so why not let us implement the full strategy and rest assured that your site is finally being optimized properly.
How do I know that what Page Ranking is doing is actually working?
The numbers don’t lie, so we focus on reporting! We don’t send reports over to you each month and we update the reports as we work. Your project is constantly being worked on, so it is easier if we just document what we accomplish in standardized reports. The reports you’ll get are comprehensive and will give you visibility into what we’ve completed on your behalf. You’ll also be able to monitor your site’s progress through analytics.
How long does it take to see results?
It depends on the competition and your site’s current status, but generally takes about 60 days to start seeing results. Search engines don’t make updates that often, so that slows the process significantly and one of the main reasons SEO is not an overnight fix. We generally advise clients that it takes about 6 months of consistent SEO to start seeing significant results, but it highly depends on your site and the competitiveness of the keywords that we’re optimizing for. We’ve had clients achieve top results within 30 days, but that’s the exception and not the rule.
Once I’ve got my top rankings, do I still have to use Page Ranking?
Page Ranking generally moves keywords into a maintenance mode after you’ve received top rankings. This means that we continue to optimize the keyword as needed to maintain top rankings, but we also swap a new keyword in its place for further optimization. Discontinuing the service is always an option, but leaves your top ranking vulnerable to competitors who are optimizing their sites for the same keywords. We recommend viewing SEO as an ongoing investment in your site and not a one-time investment that can be thrown aside after positive results have been achieved.
Why is there a three month commitment?
There is a contract that you’ll agree to when you sign up for Page Ranking, but our contract is designed to ensure that everyone is knowledgeable about the service terms. The contract states that you’re obligated to stick with the package for three consecutive months, but that’s to ensure that we have time to show our clients results. Page Ranking is looking to service and help clients that are serious about investing in their site’s future and our business model focuses on customer retention, long term relationships, and measurable results for our clients.
Can I choose my own keywords to target in my campaign?
Sure! We ask for your suggested keywords when you complete your SEO Questionnaire and we’ll use those terms in our keyword research. The final list of target keywords is completely your decision, but we’ll still conduct the keyword research to help you expand your potential list of target terms. With the data of all potential keywords, you’ll be able to make some informed decisions to ensure that you’ve selected the best possible target terms for your SEO campaign.
Can I change my keywords during my campaign has started?
Of course, but frequently changing your target keywords can impact the time line for seeing results. Our SEO packages are designed to build on a selected group of keywords and changing them too often can impact our strategy’s performance. We typically recommend that keywords are not changed, but we suggest increasing the number of target terms by upgrading your package. Upgrading your package will simply allow you to target a larger number of keywords and will increase the aggressiveness of the campaign, which will increase the probability of success.
Can I customize my package or add additional services?
Yes! We’re adding new “a la carte” services that can be added to your package. Once you’ve purchased a package, you can log in to your account and visit the “Purchase Extras” section in the left hand menu. You can add different services that will make your campaign much more aggressive and successful. We recommend being as aggressive as possible and purchasing extra services will definitely improve the speed at which you’ll see results. Pricing for these additional services can be viewed from within your account.
What kinds of payment methods are accepted by Page Ranking?
Page Ranking accepts all major credit card (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and AMEX) payments. When purchasing a package, you’ll need to provide us with your credit card information. The information can be updated/changed within your account once activated. Unfortunately, we do not accept any other payment methods.
How do I communicate with my project manager?
Page Ranking has a lot of clients and we can’t possibly field phone calls at the prices that we offer, so we focus on electronic communications. We primarily communicate with our clients via email, but offer clients the opportunity to communicate with their project manager through various chat platforms (Skype, Gmail Chat, AIM, and Yahoo Messenger). Your project manager will provide you with his username for each chat platform. We recommend using email as much as possible, but signing up for one of these chat platforms will help with any kind of real time communication that is necessary.
Why doesn’t Page Ranking use the phone to communicate with clients?
It’s too time consuming and difficult to document discussions. Phone calls are a distraction that can lead to a drop in our productivity. We find that using chat and email allows us to keep a record of what is discussed for reference. Since we have a team and not a single individual assigned to your project, it’s important that we have conversations to reference to ensure that we’re doing our job properly. Having conversations that can’t be reviewed makes it impossible to pass projects along throughout the company and it’s just not an effective mode of communication for our business model.
What if I don’t have Google Analytics?
We highly recommend using Google Analytics and it’s free! Using Google Analytics is a major part of our strategy and it allows us to properly analyze your site’s traffic. If you don’t have Google Analytics installed on your site, we’ll do it for you and free of charge. To install Google Analytics properly, we’ll need to get FTP and site admin access. You’ll get full access to the analytics account after it’s installed properly.
Why do you need access to my FTP and admin panel?
In order to properly research and evaluate the site, we do need these details. Providing these details allows us to conduct our research to get a solid understanding of your site and to be able to actually find incompatibility issues that are not visible just by viewing your site in a browser. Our staff isn’t going to steal or break anything in your site, so there is no need to worry. Access to these things allows us to simply do our job without having to go back and forth with the client about very technical details about the site. It’s just easier for us to get answers to our questions ourselves.
What if someone built my site for me and no longer updates my site?
No problem. We have developers and programmers on staff that can make updates for you, but we do charge an extra $20/hour fee for these services. Our programmers are experts and our hourly rates are very reasonable. All SEO recommendations that we send will be accompanied by an implementation quote that will outline the estimated cost of having Page Ranking’s programmers conduct the implementation. You can purchase programming hours by logging into your account and your project manager will get a notification that you’ve purchased hours for the implementation of our SEO recommendations.
Do I have to implement all of your SEO recommendations?
It is your responsibility to make the necessary SEO recommendations to your site, but we can do the work on your behalf for an additional fee. We don’t commit to doing the implementations as part of the package due to the endless variations in the complexity of our client’s sites. We recommend that you handle what you can and then have our staff implement the rest of the recommendations for just $20/hour. You can purchase hours of programming time from within your account.
What if I can’t complete the recommendations because they’re too technical?
We run into that all time and our expert programmers can do the work for you for an additional $20/hour. You’ll get a quote for implementation with every set of SEO recommendations and if you choose to let us do them for you, you can simply purchase some programming hours from inside your account. Our programmers are experts and can do the work very quickly on your behalf.
