Frequently Asked Questions

• Quantum Web Solutions understand both website design/marketing and Search Engine Optimisation which ensures your website looks attractive, and can also be found by your target market; after all, what good is an attractive looking website that no one can find?
• Our prices are very competitive and we offer exceptional service quality with a high level of professionalism.
• Quantum Web Solutions provide "cutting edge" ideas. We listen to our customers' needs and respond to your particular requirements. This is an advantage over many of our competitors.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the science of designing web pages in such a way that search engines can find, index, and rank them according to the value of their content. There is an entire industry built around this science.

SEO is what you term as the 'organic results' (those displayed on the left hand side of the search results). There is no fee paid to the search engines for your website listing to appear in the organic results. SEO rankings generally take longer to achieve, as these are based on natural progression and how Google sees your website.

Pay-Per-Click, is a generic term used for ads that display on the search engines, that are paid listings based on each time the ad is clicked on. Google have a pay-per-click programme called Google AdWords. In the Google search results, you differentiate between organic and paid listings, as the paid listings have a small heading above them stating 'Sponsored Links'. These will sometimes appear on the top of the page, as well as the right side of the page. Pay-per-click is a great solution for new websites, and websites in competitive industries as the results appear almost immediately after the ads have been setup.

Find out more in one of our aticles.

The best structure for your website is one that is familiar in structure to what most people are used to when they view a website. This doesn't mean your site needs to look exactly as everyone else's website, it is important that while you want your site to unique, you also don't want to alienate the people that visit your website, because then it doesn't matter how good your website looks, as it simply won't be effective.

Your average website user has a very short attention span, so unless they quickly find what they are looking for on your website, you will just as quickly lose them.

Some basic web design layout elements that are important:

• Having your website navigation menu horizontally along the top, or on the left side.
• Keeping your main website navigation the same on each page. This makes it easy for people to get around your site. If the menu keeps changing, then it requires more effort to find what you are looking for.

Animation can look great, but if you use too much animation, it can distract a customer's focus from the most important reason they came to your website in the first place - the content of your website. In saying that, a little bit of animation can be great to use to capture a persons attention with a sales message. Just ensure that you don't go over the top with the animation you are using.

Search engines cannot read the text in web programs like Macromedia Flash very well, so it is important to place the main text and key words in your website outside of the animated area.

Keywords are the words and/or phrases that are used in Search Engine Optimisation to achieve high rankings in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN etc...

Done correctly, they are keywords that will be words used by targetted buyers looking for your product or service, and not just keywords hat will drive traffic to your site.

A long tail keyword is a keyword comprising of three or more words. An example of a long tail keyword is ‘Plastic Surgery Sydney’, or ‘Plastic Surgery Clinic Sydney’.

Long tail keywords are generally more targeted and likely to bring about a higher conversion rate than a broad keyword.

A broad keyword (or top level keyword) is a keyword comprising of one or two words. An example of a broad keyword is ‘Plastic Surgery’.

Broad keywords tend to take more work to rank highly for in the search engines, and will not likely have as a high a conversion rate as a long tail keyword. However there can be advantages in ranking well for a broad keyword as they tend to drive much higher volumes of search engine traffic.

This will vary depending on the search engine, and the age and structure of a website.Thereare elements that can speed this process up, however search engine optimisation needs to be approached as a long term investment in your business.

For faster traffic, you may want to consider pay-per-click services.

With Google and Bing a website can be listed in a short period of time. However high rankings can take anywhere from four to six months. With less competitive keywords can take less time, highly competitive keywords, can take longer.

Note: Be careful of unethical SEO companies that promise fast listings with high rankings on keywords for your website. In many cases tactics used are frowned upon by reputable SEO companies, and more importantly, the main Search Engines. So while you may achieve high search engine listings quickly, once the search engines find out they have been "duped" then your risk your website being banned altogether.

The goal with SEO is to provide a long term sustainable - and honest - approach to building your listings.

For more detailed information on having your website listed in the search engines visit our article on Google, MSN and Yahoo Search Engines.

Whether your business is an online business, or a "brick and mortar" business, keeping your products or services fresh and up-to-date is one way to keep customers interested in what you offer and keep them coming back. In this same way, search engines view websites that have constant changes made to them with more interest.

Search Engines can determine whether you make just a small adjustment to your website, or a make significant changes or additions. By continuously making these changes to a well optimised website, you are likely to not only maintain your rankings in the search engines over time, but to increase your positioning as well.

Other reasons as to why this is required are covered off in Search Engine Placement Fluctuations and 

Google Updates & the year ahead

Search Engine rankings can fluctuate from day-to-day due to a number of reasons:

• New Competitors Entering the Market
• Search Engines Making Major Changes to their Algorithms
• Search Engines Tweaking the sites listed in their rankings.

Read our article on Search Engine Positioning Fluctuations here