The following list of frequently asked questions has been compiled to help you understand the importance of our search engine optimization services, how they will help you, how our plans are constructed and how they would apply to your web site. Click on a question to view the answer:

General Search Engine Optimization Questions

• When I pay Yahoo! (etc.), does that guarantee me good positioning?
• Isn't Yahoo! a directory that chooses your ranking for you?
• If high positions can be purchased, why seek professional search engine optimization services?
• What about all those spam 'search engine optimization' email offers of submissions to hundreds of search engines?
• Can I do my own web site optimization?
• Can you train me to do my own web site optimization?

Our Search Engine Optimization services

• How long should I hire GCT Taiwan's search engine optimization services for?
• Can I hire GCT Taiwan's search engine optimization services for a period of less than 12 weeks?
• What are 'Paid Submissions and Maintenance Costs"?
• Do I need everything I am paying for with the "Paid Submissions and Maintenance Costs"?
• What if I am already paying the search engines/directories for submissions/inclusions?
• Why do you detail "Site Optimization Costs" and "Paid Submission and Maintenance" costs separately?
• Can I hire GCT Taiwan for 12 weeks and decide whether to continue for longer afterwards?
• Can I hire GCT Taiwan and upgrade/downgrade my SEO program later?
  
• What exactly do you guys do to guarantee me high rankings?
• Do you really need access to my site?
• Why do you insist on choosing the keywords with the client?
  
• Can I add more pages and keywords to my search engine optimization plan?

When I pay Yahoo! (etc.), does that guarantee me good positioning?
Unfortunately not. When you pay Yahoo! all they guarantee is that they will consider your site for inclusion. Many people pay their $299 fee only to find their site declined! GCT Taiwan has a lot of experience in submitting to Yahoo! and getting sites indexed. So far, no site we have submitted has been declined. When we submit client sites to Yahoo! we use our experience to help get higher positions in the directory. The only time you can guarantee positions when paying is by bidding on your keywords with Overture (or similar). This can work out to be very expensive. See 'If high positions can be purchased, why seek professional search engine optimization services?'.
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Isn't Yahoo! a directory that chooses your ranking for you?
Your ranking in the Yahoo! directory is dependent on your listing's title, description, domain name, and category. This is why it is essential that any submissions are done correctly the first time. In this way, it is possible to help Yahoo! list your site in higher positions for relevant searches.
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If high positions can be purchased, why seek professional search engine optimization services?
Basically it comes down to money. It can work out to be extremely expensive to pay for top positions because this involves bidding on your keywords. The highest bidder gets #1. To give you an idea, consider this: at the time of writing, to get the top spot at Overture.com (which means top at US Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos, MSN, and more) for 'commodity trading' you would need to have a 'maximum bid' of $12.15. Now imagine in one month 100 people click on your Overture listing (through the previously mentioned search engines). That's over $1215. Now if you wanted top spot for 'futures trading' as well, you will need to have a maximum bid of $11.53. 100 clicks means another $1153. How about 'commodity futures trading' at $5.72 with say 50 clicks. Another $286. You might also want to bid on.....you get the idea. Although paying for top positions is quick and guaranteed it can become extremely expensive.
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What about all those spam 'search engine optimization' email offers of submissions to hundreds of search engines?
We strongly discourage use of these services. For a start there are only a handful of search engines that are used by 95% of web searchers so being listed on 'thousands' of search engines isn't really going to make a difference. Also, these services use automated submission programs which is STRONGLY disagreed with by the main search engines. They will ban sites that are constantly resubmitted and could ban sites that are automatically submitted. We use tried and tested methods of listing your site safely and effectively. We do not employ any strategies that will get your site banned from search engines and strongly oppose the use of such methods. Once you are listed in the main search engines, it is unlikely you will have to resubmit again (unless paid submissions were made). For the sake of your web site and business we recommend you steer clear and avoid these unnecessary risks.
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Can I do my own web site optimization?
Yes, if you have the time. Successful web site optimization is a very time consuming process. It involves a great deal of learning through research and testing. As SEO professionals, we have gathered our expertise from testing and research carried out over the last few years. We save you a great deal of work and time so that you can concentrate on your business.
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Can you train me to do my own web site optimization?
This is possible. You must contact our team first and ask them for information on how this would be done. (Our ability to train you may depend on our workload.)
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How long should I hire GCT Taiwan's search engine optimization services for?
This depends on your market, your selected keywords, the current state of your web site, your level of competition, and more. Despite offering a 12 week period, we strongly recommend a period of at least 24 weeks. The reason for this is that successful SEO does not happen overnight. It can take 8 weeks just to get a new site listed in the search engines! 24 weeks allows us to get your site listed, and achieve high placement through continual analysis of your positions and work to improve these positions. The longer GCT Taiwan is hired, the higher the positions your site will achieve. Typically, the more competitive the market, the more time and work required to achieve high positions.
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Can I hire GCT Taiwan's search engine optimization services for a period of less than 12 weeks?
No. We know from experience that it can take up to 8 weeks to get listed in all the main search engines. Remember high placements cannot be achieved overnight without spending a great deal of money on pay-for-placement. We do use and encourage pay-for-inclusion methods but these only guarantee fast inclusion in SOME search engines. We do not rely on this because we want to save you money. It takes a minimum of 8 weeks before we can properly analyze your site's performance once our work has started to take effect. It is after this 8 week period that we can build on what we have done so that higher placements can be sort.
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What are 'Paid Submissions and Maintenance Costs"?
They cover costs we have no control over. Theses include payments to search engines so that they will include your site(s) in their indexes, reservation of extra domain names, and hosting for any sites we set up to promote your main site.
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Do I need everything I am paying for with the "Paid Submissions and Maintenance Costs"?
What you get for the Paid Submissions and Maintenance Costs includes the minimum we recommend to start gaining effective positioning in the search engines and directories. In fact, spending more on paid submissions can increase your site's potential for more positions but this is not always necessary. The number of paid submissions depends on the size of your site, your market, and your competition.
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What if I am already paying the search engines/directories for submissions/inclusions?
If you are paying, or have already paid for submissions to search engines then we will decide on a case by case basis whether to pay for more pages or how else we can proceed.
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Why do you detail "Site Optimization Costs" and "Paid Submission and Maintenance" costs separately?
By providing you with the two costs, we are showing how much you are paying for submissions that require fees beyond our control. We want to show you clearly the value for money GCT Taiwan is able to offer you.
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Can I hire GCT Taiwan for 12 weeks and decide whether to continue for longer afterwards?
Of course. However, we cannot offer you the same discount that you would get if you initially sign on for longer. If you hire our services for 24 weeks, we are not able to reduce your SEO campaign to 12 weeks. We are only able to extend your current SEO plan.
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Can I hire GCT Taiwan and upgrade/downgrade my SEO program later?
Yes. However, this can only be done once the time period initially agreed on is complete. You may decide that you would like to hire GCT Taiwan for a combination of our SEO plans - for example if you wanted to hire GCT Taiwan for 48 weeks, we could carry out 24 weeks of work at the advanced level (SEO.advanced), and the remaining 24 weeks could be completed at the intermediate level (SEO.intermediate).
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What exactly do you guys do to guarantee me high rankings?
We use our tried and tested SEO methods that give your site the full potential to achieve high rankings. We build an effective lasting promotion of your web site through complete keyword research, optimization of page titles and meta tags, optimization of site structure / design / navigation, optimization of web site copy, detailed competitor analysis, extensive relevant link building, and more. We can't guarantee exact positions but we do guarantee top 5, top 10, etc. Learn more about our search engine optimization guarantee.
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Do really you need access to my site?
Preferably, yes. For an effective web site optimization, we will need to make changes to your site. The amount of changes and the size of changes really depends on how the site has been created. All changes are okayed by you first. In the past, some of our clients have requested that they make some changes themselves. This may be a good idea if the changes involve large alterations to your site. If we do not have at least some access to your site, the optimization process will be slowed. We cannot carry out an effective promotion if no changes are allowed to be made, either by GCT Taiwan or yourself.
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Why do you insist on choosing the keywords with the client?
We want to work together to ensure your list of keywords will help your business. Selecting the right keywords is crucial to successful search engine promotion. We ask you to provide a list of keywords you believe your site should be found for. We then analyze your list, your site, your competition, and search statistics to develop a list that will target audiences that are likely to turn in to business opportunities for you.
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Can I add more pages and keywords to my search engine optimization plan?
No problem. Just remember that the more pages and keywords you need optimized, the more time we need to spend on your project. It is recommended that you hire GCT Taiwan for enough time to provide you with an effective SEO solution to cover the extra pages and keywords. Please decide on the number of keywords and pages before we start working on your site.
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If you still have questions please don't hesitate to contact us.

Learn about our SEO.basic, SEO.intermediate and SEO.advanced programs. Use our SEO Program Comparison table to easily see the differences between our programs.