Frequently Asked Questions

How long will it take for my site to make it to the top of Google?
Can you guarantee me a top ranking?
What are your rates for search engine optimization?
How do you handle PCI scans?
How long should it take my new site to rank?
Are you "black hat" or "white hat"?
Why can't I do SEO myself?
What's the difference between "paid" and "organic" or "natural" SEO?
Why do your SEO packages require a three-month commitment?
Do you design Web sites?
Can I change things on the website? Or do I need to pay every time I need something changed?
Do you write press releases?
Do you write articles?

Have more questions? Please contact us and we'll be happy discuss any other concerns.

How long will it take for my site to make it to the top of Google?

Comprehensive search engine optimization (SEO) work is a process that typically takes several months. The factors that influence the speed that your site advances in the rankings include the age of your site, the existing quality of the website and how it is optimized, your competition, and the skill of the firm who is optimizing your site. That said, you should see positive change in your rankings within the first month. We have helped clients with brand new websites rank on the first page of Google for competitive keywords within 1-2 months.
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Can you guarantee me a top ranking?

Our diligent work will certainly result in improvements but we don't guarantee that your website will reach a particular position on any search engine. We do guarantee to work closely with you to develop a successful search engine optimization strategy for your business. Although we employ a proven method of website optimization, each site presents its own unique set of challenges and opportunities for long term success. We do promise that we will not engage in SEO practices that violate search engine webmaster guidelines for honest and ethical standards. We do promise that you will receive the very best in customer service. A real person is available for you to talk to, and your phone calls and emails will be promptly returned.
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What are your rates for search engine optimization?

We have three major marketing packages: the Site Intensive, the Hero Plus, and Hero Paid Search Management. Rates for other work, such as press releases or copywriting, are determined on an individual basis. Please contact us for more specific information about our prices. While most of our clients receive the services they need from one of our packages, our marketing packages and services are fully customizable.
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How do you handle PCI scans?

As PCI standards become increasingly important for the credit card processing industry, a number of companies have begun to offer services that periodically scan your website and identify potential vulnerabilities or concerns that could effect your level of PCI compliance. Some of these vendors, such as McAfee and Trustwave, offer badges you can place on your website to demonstrate that you are taking a proactive approach to credit card security.

We welcome these scans and appreciate the ongoing data they give us regarding our performance and how we can improve our security practices. However, these scans and the related monitoring and communication result in additional resource / service burdens.

To help our clients understand the nuances of PCI scanning, we have put together this list of concerns and situations and how we will handle them.

PCI scans are evaluations of your specific website, as well as the web server where your site resides and the core software that is running on the server. Results of PCI scans are used to report your PCI compliance status to your merchant account provider.

We have never had a situation where a problem identified by a PCI compliance scan could not be fixed and/or resolved.

We cannot know how long it will take to fix a vulnerability or problem until we have seen the PCI scan report. Most problems can be resolved within one week, and frequently in one day.

If a PCI scan identifies a problem that is in our core software or our servers, we will fix these at no charge.

If the PCI scan identifies a problem with a third party software integration, a feature/functionality we developed specifically for your website, a data feed, or data/content taken from another site/source, we will need to charge you to fix the issue (at an hourly rate of $55 or $100 depending on the nature of the problem).

PCI security scans are programs that run automatically and autonomously. They scan thousands of websites built on a massive variety of platforms and servers and, needless to say, they are not set up to run custom scans for each possible variation. Sometimes, a PCI scan will identify something incorrectly as a vulnerability or it will mark something as a problem that is irrelevant to your website. We call this a false positive. In such cases, there is not something for us to "fix", instead, there are standard procedures (each company is different) we have to go through on your behalf to get the matter resolved. Depending on the vendor, there can be a significant amount of communication involved. We will need to charge you to review and/or resolve the issues (at an hourly rate of $55 or $100 depending on the nature of the problem).

PCI scans are very thorough and often present non-critical issues that do not effect PCI Compliance or website security (ie. Level 5 issues vs. Level 1 issues). These are usually informational or not relevant to your website (false positives). Our policy is to ignore these. If you would like us to evaluate / deal with non-critical issues we will need to charge you to resolve the issues (at an hourly rate of $55 or $100 depending on the nature of the problem).
Many vendors require you to fill out a twelve part questionnaire describing your security practices. Some of the questions may relate to the website and some may relate to your internal business practices. If you have specific questions for us related to our security practices, we can usually answer them. If you would like assistance with filling out the questionnaire, we can assist you at a rate of $55/hour.

We offer a robust PCI-Compliant payment solution through Element Payment Systems that eliminates the need for the credit card information to travel through your website and our web servers. This solution helps to avoid the hassles related to PCI Compliance and provides an excellent level of security. Please let us know if you would like to find out more details.

How long should it take my new site to rank?

The formulas that the search engines use to determine relevancy are highly guarded secrets and continually evolve, so the amount of time it takes for your site to be ranked well varies and is somewhat unpredictable. It often takes new sites several months to see appreciable ranking results. Six months to a year is not uncommon. However, we have helped new sites achieve top spots after just a month of working with them. While we can't give you any guarantees that you'll be number one within a certain amount of time, we will work diligently to optimize your content in a number of ways to give you the best chances.
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Are you "black hat" or "white hat"?

We follow standard webmaster guidelines for ethical search engine optimization services. We do not advocate or assist with cloaking, hidden text, doorway pages, or other controversial practices. Our search engine optimization success is built on the proven techniques of providing quality content and making your site attractive and usable for both search engines and human visitors.
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Why can't I do SEO myself?

You can, but sifting through the mounds of resources to find the nuggets of useful information can be challenging. There's a lot of conflicting information out there that can be confusing, and following some unethical practices could unknowingly get your site in trouble. It takes a lot of time, experimentation, and hands-on effort to learn how to optimize a website. We at HEROweb Marketing already know the ropes, and we will put all of our collective skill into ensuring the success of your site.
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What's the difference between "paid" and "organic" or "natural" SEO?

"Paid" search engine optimization relies on paid advertising to achieve top listing in the "sponsored listings" spot in the sidebar of the search engine results page (SERP). While a paid advertising, pay-per-click method can definitely help to increase your traffic and conversions, ultimately what everyone wants is to rank well naturally. This means that when people search for the targeted words and phrases that relate to your products and services, your website comes up highly in the search engine results. To achieve naturally high search engine rankings requires time and well developed content. It can be a good idea to utilize paid advertising when your business is first starting out, or to supplement your natural traffic. Learn how HEROweb can manage your Paid Search campaigns.
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Why do your SEO packages require a three-month commitment?

Search engines do not like a website to undergo many changes at one time. It is far better to make small changes over time. The three-month period allows us time to make changes and follow those changes with monitoring. Google and all the other major search engines are always changing their algorithm, which is the logical method they use to calculate a website�s relevancy and rank. Without monitoring over time, you risk losing momentum and falling behind.
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Do you design Web sites?

Yes! We have been designing websites for over ten years, using the full-featured MightyMerchant Ecommerce Platform. Our designs are custom-fit to your business needs�we assign you a designer and you'll get to know him or her pretty well.

HEROweb websites stand out. See some of our website design work. We'd be delighted to build the same kind of online business for you.

Can I change things on the website? Or do I need to pay every time I need something changed?

Not a problem! Using the very easy-to-master MightyMerchant content manager system, you'll be in full control of your site at all times. Add products, write descriptions, put up special promotions–all from your own home or office computer, at any time of day or night.
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Do you write press releases?

Yes! We can assist you with writing, editing or polishing up a news release for your business. Just give us a call to discuss your business needs.
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Do you write articles?

As part of our Hero Pro SEO package we will write three articles for you and submit them to article directories. If you like, you can engage our services for other article writing, however, the deadline will depend on the amount and priority of the other work we already have scheduled. There's only a handful of us, and we give personal attention to each client! You retain the copyright on all articles.
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Have more questions? Please contact us and we'll be happy discuss any other concerns.