Frequently Asked Questions

  1. How much does a web site cost?
  2. What is Search Engine Optimisation?
  3. How important is Google PageRank?
  4. How is Google PageRank determined?
  5. My site has been live 6 months now. Why don't I have a Google PageRank?
  6. Why is my web site listing so low on search engine results?
  7. Why is my web site so slow to download?
  8. Does my domain name and Top Level Domain (TLD) affect my search engine listing?

1. How much does a web site cost?

The cost of a web site is determined by your requirements. However most web sites that have high quality design, a content management system and some stylish animation or interaction cost between €2,000 and €3,000. See the links below for examples of such sites:

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2. What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search engine optimisation is the technical process of improving your web page listing on search engines. All work in this regard is carried out using industry standard techniques on the code in your site.

Click here to read more.

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3. How important is Google PageRank?

Not as important as it used to be. In the words of Google employee Archie Watt:

"Don't worry. In fact, don't bother thinking about it. We only update the PageRank displayed in Google Toolbar a few times a year; this is our respectful hint for you to worry less about PageRank, which is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked. PageRank is an easy metric to focus on, but just because it's easy doesn't mean it's useful for you as a site owner. If you're looking for metrics, we'd encourage you to check out Analytics, think about conversion rates, ROI (return on investment), relevancy, or other metrics that actually correlate to meaningful gains for your website or business."

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3. How is Google PageRank determined?

PageRank is an algorithm. It is primarily determined by external factors to your web site. To achieve a high PageRank you must have related web sites linking to you or many unrelated sites linking to you ideally with high PageRank's. In general anything above 4/10 is good. Below is a list in order of what types of sites you should request link to yours in order to get a high PageRank:

  1. A few related high ranking sites (6/10 or higher)
  2. A good few unrelated high ranking sites (6/10 or higher)
  3. Many related lower ranking sites (below 6/10)
  4. Many many unrelated lower ranking sites (below 6/10)
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4. My site has been live six months now. Why don't I have a Google PageRank?

It can take over six months to get a PageRank from Google. The ranking is out of 10 but it is only one factor in over 200 that determine how high up search engine results your web pages list. Have a highly optimised web page with good content is more important than PageRank.

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5. Why is my web site listing so low on search engine results?

Many reasons. Here are a few:

  • Your site is less than six months old. It can take up to one year to catch up on competitor's web site if they have been established for years, even if you have done everything right.
  • Your web site is not optimised for search engines. Click here to read more.
  • Your web site had been hacked and served malware for a while. Obviously search engines will be wary of sending traffic your way for a while.
  • You are trying to compete with 100,000 of others for the same keywords. Sometimes it is better to target niche keywords rather than the same as everyone else. Everyone cannot be on the first results page.
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6. Why is my web site so slow to download?

Many reasons. Here are a few:

  • You are on a shared server with other web sites and there is a heavy load.
    • Asked to be moved to a server with less loading or upgrade your hosting package to a more powerful server.
  • Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) connection is slow. You may have a high contention ratio from your ISP which means that lots of other people are using the same connection as you in your area.
    • Pay for a better ISP package or change ISP.
  • Poor Page Speed. Images, JavaScript and CSS files are not optimised on your web page or the page is constructed poorly. 80% of the time taken to download a page is taken up on the visitors browser, not the server.
    • All JavaScript and CSS files should be combined and packed. Images should be compressed. Images must have dimensions so that the browser does not have to 're-paint' the window. Sprites (combined image groupings) should be used for many small images to prevent multiple HTTP requests. PNG graphics should be used not GIFs, as they compress more efficiently. For more information see my Page Speed service.

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7. Does my domain name and Top Level Domain (TLD) affect my search engine listing?

Yes. And here is why. Firstly I will use the example of www.nevada.ie as the domain name with the alias 'www'. The TLD is nevada.ie

  • If you type the keywords 'nevada web design' into any search engine I will probably come first. This is because I have my site optimised for the keywords 'web design' but my trading name is 'Nevada' and my domain name is 'nevada'. I would have been better of choosing the domain www.dublin.ie or www.dublinwebdesign.com but luckily it is not the determining factor for search engine listings. You live and learn.
  • The Top Level Domain (TLD) is nevada.ie. So what if I wanted to target the German market? I could translate my site into German and create an alias for my domain http://deutsch.nevada.ie/ and set the language to German for search engines and I would have moderate success. I would have much better success if I bought and used the domain http://www.nevada.de and registered that with search engines because they will give a German domain a higher listing. And also German people would be much more likely to click a nevada.de TLD than a nevada.ie TLD.

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