SEO & Website Design FAQ

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is the act or process of making or improving a website and the content within to be better understood, "appreciated", and thus ranked higher by search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and others. In simple terms, SEO is the act of making your website rank higher than your competitor's website. Judging by our client reviews and testimonials... we're pretty darn good at it.

Without proper Search Engine Optimization, the public may have a hard time finding your website. You'd be losing out on one of the most cost effective means of marketing your products and services. Conversely, when your website is ranked higher in search engines, it is far more likely for potential customers to see your website in search engine results, perhaps at the very top of the results, thus clicking your site and browsing all you have to offer.
We've heard this question more than a time or two. The fact is, AKSYS communicates with clients every month. We provide the following information:

  1. Website rank report showing how well the site is ranked for a variety of prioritized keywords: Clients can easily see their site rise in rank on Google, maintain, or fluctuate up and down.
  2. Suggestions and/or requests for site or content improvements
  3. Work report: AKSYS will inform the client of what work was completed each month. Our clients never question if they're getting anything for their money. We provide hands-on, physical labor and service each month whether or not we hear from the client. We then email a brief description of that work to the client.
Fun Fact: Most of our clients tell us they don't even read our reports. They're too busy! They just like the fact that we DO report, and that they have someone they can count on to be there when they have questions or need additional help with their online marketing.
Any online record of your company, which may include your company name, address, phone number, website link, etc., is a business listing. You might have a business listing on Google, Facebook, Yelp, Trip Advisor, the national Chamber of Commerce site, Yellow Pages Online, or many other websites. Those publicly visible records of your company are all Business Listings.

You need them for multiple reasons to include the following:

  1. They impact your website rank, how high and for what keywords/topics.
  2. As of late, people are find your business and contact you based on their listings (depending on industry). They'll often not visit your business website at all.
  3. Business listings often include lists of products and services, photos, video or other content that informs customers and gives you a way to outperform competitors.
  4. Online business listings often include or encourage customer reviews, which are in themselves very beneficial. Reviews help establish business credibility a legitimacy (can influence website and Google business rank) and act as free marketing.
Creating and maintaining a large number of business listings is one way that AKSYS can help blanket the web with information about your business. Especially for new businesses, it's imperative that we create your 60-80 business listings so that almost overnight, your business is all over the web providing you with affordable marketing.
We have a free research tool that will inform you of exactly what listings are out there and if any of the data is inaccurate.

Scan Your Business Listings Here

Often times business listings are NOT accurate. They might be showing your old address, your fax number as your regular phone number, incorrect hours, etc. We can fix all of that.

AKSYS may reach out to you after your scan to see if you're in need of assistance. Don't worry, we're not pushy. We'll just answer any question you have about business listings and/or search engine optimization in general.
That's exactly what we do. Our Monthly SEO, Service & Support packages ensure you're a priority client and that we're constantly taking care of your website, to include improving search engine rank, and that we're available to make any changes or improvements you require. We'll be sending you regular updates each month, which means it's all the easier for you to ask us to perform some additional task on the website when the time is right.

We started our ongoing, subscription based SEO and maintenance services at the request of our website design clients. It turned out to be a great decision for all involved.
Clients can ask us to perform any task on the site, at any time. We can perform the task in lieu of our SEO work, or in addition. It's up to the client.

For instance, if AKSYS is scheduled to performs 2 hours of SEO work on a website each month, and the client asks us to create a new page on the site which also takes 2 hours, we can create the new page instead of performing SEO that month. The client will not be billed for the new work. Or, the client may choose to have us continue our regularly scheduled work in addition to creating the new page. In that case the client would be invoiced for the extra time, at a discounted rate.
No. For as long as you are an ongoing, SEO client of AKSYS, it would be unethical for us to attempt to get your competitor's site ranked ranked as high or higher than yours. We have turned away business in the past for this exact reason.

If two websites are similar, but targeting a completely different community, AKSYS would feel obligated to assist both clients. For example, we would provide website SEO service to a fence installer/contractor who primarily works in Anchorage, and a fencing contractor focused on the Wasilla or Palmer area.
Very simply, it is a waste of time and money to build a website without making it easy to find by your potential customers. The goal of ongoing SEO is to cause your website (home page and/or all other pages) to be listed at or near the top of search engine results where customers are more likely to see and click it, thus visiting your site and becoming a customer. Once the site is ranked well, our mission becomes maintaining that high rank and creating new content and pages to be ranked for a variety of other keyword searches and topics. The bigger the net we can cast, the more fish you catch.

While we cannot guarantee your site will be ranked #1 for a given keyword—NO ONE CAN—we can guarantee Google and other search engines have a complete record of your website, an index of all your pages and content, a clear understanding of what services or products your business provides, and what business or company your website is associated with. We can make improvements to your site, create additional content, make connections with other online resources, and deploy our regularly effective tactics to influence search engines such as Google to rank your site as high as possible AND to index and rank a greater array of pages and content. While many web and SEO companies focus only on your home page and a limited set of keywords, AKSYS takes things to a whole new level.
Yes, we're happy to educate you on editing your own website and can provide tutorial services to your staff. We prefer that our clients are educated on their website and feeling confident to make small edits quickly or perhaps manage the products in their eCommerce site. We'll even give you tips on editing the site for better search engine performance and site speed.

There are many reasons for a business owner to desire or require more ability and control of their website, and AKSYS is 100% willing to ensure clients hold the keys to the car, sort of speak. We've always found that educated, well informed clients are the happiest of clients.
Yes. Due to the nature of our work, technically we can support clients anywhere in the world. We remain focused on Alaska-based SEO and website maintenance customers, however. Alaska is a big place, and in many cases we've supported clients whom we've never met in person. We're available via phone, text, email, or video calls when necessary. Our work is completed from a home office, café, anywhere we need to be that has an internet connection. Technology is amazing. We might even be performing your website updates from a remote cabin, given we're getting a good cellular signal.
AKSYS provides ongoing, monthly SEO (packaged with other beneficial services) on a subscription basis, managed through your own PayPal account. You have total control over starting and stopping service. We can send regular invoices if necessary.

The minimum service includes 2 hours of labor, including regular reporting, enhanced website security, and 60-80 online business listings, all for only $240/month. Some clients may require more time from us to perform additional posts to the website, managing of a Google advertising campaign, or other tasks, in which case they may opt to subscribe to 4 hours/month or 7 hours/month services. Non-profit organizations may be eligible for a 10% discount. Clients who refer other, ongoing, subscription based clients will be provided a discount of up to 10% per client referred, for the duration that the referred client maintains their subscription to our services.
Yes. We often provide redesign, update and upgrade services to clients with an existing website. We can even convert an old HTML-based site into a new, more functional Wordpress platform. If the client already has a Wordpress-based site, and the client intends to hire us for ongoing support and SEO services, often time the redesign fee is very little. It's not uncommon for AKSYS to redesign a Wordpress site for as little as $500, assuming the site is not overly complex and that the general content is remaining the same.
Yes. This happens all the time. Additionally, if needed, we can assist with moving your website into your own, personally controlled website hosting account.
Yes, we can. Email accounts can often be created within your own Web hosting account. We can create them and help you set the accounts up on your different devices such as a mobile phone or desktop computer.
We have helped numerous customers to recover their website from a viral infection or malicious site software and functionality alterations. Not all situations are the same, but often, especially with Wordpress managed sites, we can clean the infection, limit the chance of the problem happening again, and restore the website to its former glory.

NOTE: Our ongoing clients benefit from enhanced website security. We rarely have difficulty with our existing clients' sites, and if an issue does arise, we handle it at no additional cost. Furthermore, we maintain backups of our clients' sites so that the website can always be restored to a previous state.