Some frequently-asked questions:

1. Why are your charges so expensive?
We invest a lot in technologies and in experimenting new methods, to ensure that our clients have every bit of advantage against their competitors. That is what SEO is about anyway, i.e. beating your competitors. We operate more like a boutique firm and work on very few projects at a time, so that we can spend significantly more man-hours on every client - each of our consultant handle no more than 5 projects at a time. Our monthly fee also includes everything, i.e. fees for submissions and copywriting, which are usually charged seperately.


2. Do you provide guarantees like others?
No, we don't. Firstly, it's unethical since we don't own the search engines. Secondly, we'll be looking after our interest first instead of yours, to make sure that we don't have to pay you back if we don't deliver on the guarantee. Which is why SEOs who provide such guarantees usually optimize for easy keywords, but which also have very low search volume - we're sure you don't want that. By paying us fairly for the hours we put in, you allow us to provide our best efforts to optimize your website as if it was our own. Our end goal is not just to rank your website at the top, but to also deliver more targeted traffic to your website. Besides, we do not accept every project, so if we accept yours it means we're fairly confident about delivering.


3. Shouldn't I just advertise on Google AdWords then, to have more certainty?
PPC programs like Google AdWords are based on bidding - there is no guarantee that your ads will show or rank at the top, especially if your competitors out-bid you. As more and more advertisers get on the program, the bidding war will also become more aggressive, causing CPCs to shoot up to the point that the ads provide negative return - we're already starting to see this in Singapore. Also, based on studies, the distribution of clicks between the organic results and Google ads, is about 70:30 - the number for organic is projected to increase further, as more and more Internet users develop "ad blindness" over time. Personally, we feel PPC programs like AdWords should be used to complement SEO, and not replace it.


4. Do you optimize for all the search engines?
There are basically 3 major search engines, i.e. Google, Bing and Yahoo. Although, the basic ranking factors are relevance and backlinks, the search engines use different signals and which is why the results can be so different for the same keyword search. Since we have to choose, we (and practically every other SEOs) would logically optimize for Google, which receives an average 70% of the total search - up to 90% in certain countries. Anyhow, websites that do well in Google usually also have respectable rankings elsewhere, in most cases.


5. Do you modify my webpages, as part of the on-page SEO process?
No, we do not. We provide the on-page SEO recommendations to improve relevance and make your website more search engine-friendly, but you are responsible to get your web designer to effect the changes. The reason is we do not want to inadvertently "break" your website.


6. How long does it take before I start to see results?
It depends a lot on the competition and also how established your website is, in terms of age and backlinks. An established website can start to see positive movement as quickly as within a month of SEO, while new websites take between 6 months to a year on average.