Expanded FAQs

WEBSITE REVIEW

Do you work directly on our site or do you do all of your optimization on a separate site?

Our website reviews are ran through a proprietary application we have that analyzes several critical website and webpage-level search engine optimization focal points.

For liability and consistency purposes, we do not physically make modifications to any website not owned by Relevant Ads or Local Splash. Our Extended SEO Services will soon include Dedicated SEO Support, giving you or your technology team 24 hour access to an SEO Expert.

Do you review and help us revise our Page Titles, Meta Descriptions, Meta Tags and Header Tags?

With the upcoming Dedicated SEO Support program, you will have 24 hour access to an SEO Expert who will provide title, meta and heading guidance.

Do you help us develop Focused Content Pages ?

Businesses that are enrolled in our SEO Mini-Site program will have up to 30 pages of focused content provided by our team of writers.

Do you review our content for hyperlinks?

Our SEO Mini-Sites are designed to have ideal internal and inbound hyperlinks pointing to deep pages within the SEO Mini-Site, containing variations of the core search term being sought after.

Do you review the layout of our website to help us organize better and do you check for items that will slow navigation on the site

Our Local Splash SEO Mini-Sites are designed with optimal keyword and categorical taxonomies and are inherently built with with text/css based navigation. Businesses enrolled in our Dedicated SEO Support program will get guidance from our team of SEO Experts which can be applied by the site owner or the site owner’s technology team.

Do you review our site for common “Robot Traps” such as frames?

Our standard Website Review will identify issues such as frames, redirects, custom 404 error pages, canonical tags, and so forth. If you have not yet received a free SEO Report, please send an email to sales@relevantads.com.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

What do you consider your most important SEO techniques?

For Local Search Engine Optimization, we believe proper categorization, verified and detailed business data, visibility and user input all play significant roles in placement and ranking within local/maps sections of the search engines.

For organic SEO, we believe quality, keyword-optimized content linked to by popular and related 3rd party websites is what drives ranking. In terms of website and webpage focal points, we believe in a principle-based system that relies on data from our tests performed by our own analytic algorithmic software.

Do you prefer to use Broad Match or Narrow Match strategies?

An effective SEO Campaign is one that drives leads and sales, not just irrelevant traffic. Since we are a Local SEO Services company, most of our placements are derivative of geo-targeting specific locations as part of the core search term being optimized for. The exception is for those customers on our Local Splash SEO Mini-Site program who aren’t always local-only businesses.

Do you submit a Site Map to Google?

We submit a number of data feeds to Google Local Business Center, Google Base and to other Google properties on a weekly basis. All SEO Mini-Sites are created with XML and static site maps to improve keyword and content indexing. The XML sitemap is also submitted to MSN Webmaster Tools & Yahoo!.

Do you submit our homepage URL to all of the search engines?

Yes, see the answer to the last question. However, there is no need to submit your website to the search engines since they naturally index content by crawling through links within the relevant destinations we submit to. The more destinations that link to your website, the higher the potential crawl rate becomes from the search engines.

Do you help us with our Keywords and Keyword Phrases

Absolutely. During your initial interview we will help you choose the best “service tag” to help provide you with the ideal placement and ranking for keywords that will produce leads and sales from customers in your local area.

Extended SEO customers on our SEO Mini-Site program and Dedicated SEO Support program will actually work with an Account Manager to benchmark an agreed upon 30 search terms. A report of where the business ranks in the search engines for these 30 search terms (plus 3 competitors) will be provided on a monthly basis to Extended SEO customers.

How many key words and phrases would you manage for us?

For local/maps placement, we focus on ONE core service tag per account (such as “Dentist in Brea” or “Plumber in New York City”, etc). We do add additional categories to each placement so that the business appears for a number of keywords with an emphasis on the core “service tag”.

For Extended SEO customers, we benchmark off 30 keywords. Customers on the Local Splash SEO Mini-Site program may purchase as many additional keyword-targeted pages as desired.

How extensively do you perform keyword and keyword phrase research and what factors do you consider when evaluating key phrases?

For maps/local placements, we analyze a number of competitors and competitor categories in additional to acquiring keyword estimates from the various search engines to determine to best “service tag” to optimize for.

For Extended SEO customers with an emphasis on natural/organic SEO, we offer extensive keyword research and benchmarks. We work with our customers to understand the business and needs to determine the optimal keywords to use. Behavioral targeting plays a major role in our keyword research. In other words, using the word “services” in the targeted key phrase if our customer provides services is fundamental. If the business sells a product, using words such as “buy”, “order”, or “purchase” will attract the searcher in the buying phase of the purchase cycle.

Do you provide a Pay Per Click Strategy to help with our initial push?

We do offer a “Performance Budget” for Google AdWords™, which includes ad placement with a business phone number to reduce click costs. This limited budget does improve visibility in the search engines (not their content networks) and is a good jump start into marketing within the search engines.

Local Splash also offers a Hand Built PPC Campaign for budgets exceeding $1,500. This strategy includes landing page optimization, conversion tracking and analysis and much more robust reporting.

What paid search engines do you use in your PPC strategy?

We currently use Google AdWords as our preferred PPC vendor. With 63% search engine market share and integrated Google Analytics tracking, we are confident that Google has and will continue to meet our PPC needs.

Do you use Negative Keywords?

Absolutely. Negative keywords (such as job, jobs, scam, information, lawsuit, fraud, etc) reduce invalid clicks from Sponsored advertising and play an important role in producing the best quality clicks.

Do you use Gateway or Doorway Pages in your Strategy?

Gateway and Doorway Pages violate Google’s Terms and Conditions and are not part of our organic or paid search tactics.

TESTING

How often do you test the site?

After deployment of one of our Local Splash Mini-Sites, we watch and recalibrate content based on data from Google Analytics and from our Keyword Ranking Reports. Dedicated Account Managers will make recommendations during monthly account performance reviews.

Do you test our Keywords?

If a keyword is not converting well on natural/organic or Sponsored search results, it will likely be removed and replaced with another targeted search term.

Do you test our Keyword Phrases?

Duplicate question to the previous.

Do you test our Content pages?

We test overall conversion and make recommendations to improve the creative/copy on the website. However, design is not something we currently offer in-house, but do refer out to preferred vendors.

Do you test the Rankings of the Individual Focused Content pages?

All pages in our Local SEO Mini-Site program (other than Contact, Sitemap, Privacy, etc) are keyword-focused and measured in monthly ranking reports.

Do you gather data on the Click-Through Rates and the Conversion Rates

Absolutely. CTR plays a major role in Google Quality Score both in Sponsored and organic/local/maps search results. Customers in our Hand-Built PPC Campaign program will have ads and CTR reviewed as part of their ongoing analysis and optimization.

Conversion rates are measured upon request for non-SEO Mini-Site customers. Forms and Calls are tracked on SEO Mini-Sites using Goals in Google Analytics.

Do you do Split Testing?

Upon request, we will quote and build a campaign that involves split testing and multi-variable landing page analysis.

LINK BUILDING

What kind of linking strategies do you incorporate into your plan for us?

Ethical, white hat link building is the cornerstone of our visibility optimization strategy. For local/maps placement, capturing competitor placements and securing a listing on the same destinations as those competitors is fundamental. For organic/natural placements (Local Splash SEO Mini-Site customers), our natural link building strategies are long-term and extremely targeted.

Do you help us get listed on Shopping Comparison Sites like Froogle, Bizrate, Shopping.com and Price Grabber?

We do not currently offer placement in comparison shopping engines. Depending on our customer’s individual needs we can assemble a customer campaign and custom data feeds to support inclusion in shopping engines.

Do you submit our site to Key Directories?

Relevant business directories are the cornerstone of our local/maps optimization strategy. However, we don’t limit submission and inclusion to directories alone, especially for our Local Splash SEO Mini-Site program where manual link building plays an important role in the success of the program.

How important do you think Key Directories are?

For maps ranking, having placement in the same and more relevant directories can help level the competitive playing field for our local/regional customers. However, directories play less of a role in organic positioning.

Do you submit our site to Open Directory Project? (www.dmoz.org)

Yes. DMOZ.org is on our list of placements. However, we do not guarantee placement in human-controlled directories.

OTHER MARKETING STATEGIES

Do you include help with developing an e-mail campaign?

We do not currently offer Email Marketing support.

Do you help us develop a Viral Marketing Campaign?

We do not currently offer Viral Marketing services, however our Local Splash Mini-Sites are integrated with social networking tools such as Twitter integration.

Do you help us develop a Blog?

Our Local Splash Mini-Website program is built on a blog platform integrated with RSS and utilizing blog and ping technology.

Do you help us develop a Social Media Campaign?

We do not currently offer Social Marketing services, however our Local Splash Mini-Sites are integrated with social networking tools such as Twitter integration.

Do you help us with Traditional Media Advertising?

We do not currently offer traditional media advertising services.

CONTRACT

Do you require a contract for a certain time frame?

Our programs are month-to-month.

PARTNERING

Do you provide any training on Keyword Searches, Testing, Blogging, and guidence on Focused Content that would allow us to take on some of the tasks required to manage our entire marketing campaign?

Local placement and tracking is integrated with our proprietary application. Customers may log in to the program at anytime via MyAccount.LocalSplash.com. Extended SEO customers will receive Keyword Ranking and Google Analytics reporting.

RESULTS

What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what time frame?

We typically see results from local optimization within a few weeks. Organic/natural optimization can take up to 90 days to see a significant change in online leads/sales.

How do you measure your success?

We measure our success on our customer’s satisfaction with our service. We track our performance with ranking, traffic and lead growth, but at the end of the day our success relies solely on the quality of service interpreted by our customers’ feedback.

MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS

What is your experience in our industry?

Many of the founders and forerunners of our company come from Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 roles, including David Rodecker, who played a major role in the startup Local.com.

Do you have other customers that you are currently servicing that might be our competitors?

Like using Google AdWords or DoubleClick, any business has the right to use our product to improve ranking in local/maps results. We are, however, selective of customers we accept into our Local Splash Mini-Website program. We do not currently have two customers in the same location selling the same service.

How long have you been in business?

Our parent company, Relevant Ads, has been in business for nearly half a decade.

Can you provide contact references?

Absolutely. Ask your Sales Agent for references. Here is a video testimonial from NBC by one of our customers:

Can you show us examples of some of the sites you have helped?

See the video above for one example of a business we have helped, or visit several of the pages at LocalSplash.com to find other examples.

If you provide onsite changes, do you provide us with detailed information about your changes/recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

We do not currently provide onsite changes. However, our Dedicated SEO Support program does offer expert recommendations from a dedicated member of team, trained with prior Fortune 100 & Fortune 500 experience.