Posts Tagged ‘search engine optimization’
August 17th, 2009 by Patrick Hare
One of the ways to keep track of how Google is viewing your site is to use some of the more esoteric commands available to searchers. These commands make it possible to filter information in the Google index, and get a picture of how Google considers the relationship between your backlinks, metatags, and on-page content. One of the best ways to improve your search engine rankings is to use these universally-available commands to diagnose common problems.
Here are some commands and ways we use them to check site issues:
- Site: This command shows all the pages that Google has found for your site. It should always be followed by your website in the format of site:example.com. If you have a lot of subdomains and only want to see the main site, you might try site:www.example.com. This command can be combined with other keywords, which lets you find specific pages, so the format “site:www.example.com dry dog food” would show you all pages on example.com about dry dog food. This tool is especially useful if you are trying to discover keyword blurring (or cannibalization) issues, because you can check to see if a single site is referencing the same topic on multiple pages.
- Allinanchor: Ostensibly, the function of this command is to tell you which sites are getting specific anchor texts (which are linked keywords) from other sites and web pages. For instance, if you search on “allinanchor:running shoes” you should be seeing a Google’s preferred order of sites that are getting links for that term. In the world of Google, rankings are heavily weighted on link popularity, and in most cases your site’s result for a given keyword should appear in the vicinity of the allinanchor ranking. If you are significantly below your allinanchor, your site’s architecture or content may not be matching up with its links. If you are significantly ahead of your allinanchor score, then you may be up against competitors who don’t do a good job with SEO.
- Allintitle: This command tells you how many pages online have a particular set of words in their titles. This can be useful for seeing how other site titles are configured. Since the title of a webpage is the primary way of defining page content, you can find relevant topics more easily with allintitle. A great way to combine two functions, and sniff out keyword blurring, is to use this in conjunction with the site: command so you would type in “allintitle:dog food bowls site:example.com” so you can see how many pages on the site have titles about the same topic. Excessive title repetition can drag down search engine rankings, so this is one way to get a quick list of the pages you should modify.
- Allintext: Want to find pages which mention a topic in their body text? This command ignores other considerations like anchors and titles and goes to the on-page content. Once again, too many similar pages can water down the focus on an important page. When in doubt, focus your energies on the page that gets the best allinanchor score, or has the most topical links pointing at it.
- Allinurl: This command searches out URLs (or domain names) which contain a certain word or phrase. Search engines give some preference to domain names that contain keyword matches. You could use this command to find sites that you may want to buy. You can also see if other sites are adding descriptive phrases to their own URL structures, so you might see example.com/dog-food-bowls/red.html. Once again, this is a good way to check your own site structure for duplicates, especially if you have a site with thousands of pages.
- Cache: If you don’t know whether or not your site is cached, and you don’t have the Google toolbar, you can simply type in cache: followed by your website. You can even do this for specific pages. The advantage of this command is that Google will tell you the last time it cached your page, assuming that it has been cached. To see what Google has read on the page, click the link that says “Cached Text” and you can see what words on your site that Google has found. As always, it may take a few days for Google to apply cached text to its index, so your result in the Google index may show an older title or description.
- Related: The related command is important because it can tell you which sites Google thinks are related to your own. In some cases, you may find that your site is listed among sites that are not relevant to yours in any way. This can happen if you’ve gotten links from questionable sources. This condition is known to some as bad co-citation, which means that you are associated with low quality sites by means of their links to you. Ideally, you want your list of related sites to contain your top competitors, or sites which are similar to your own. The solution? Get quality links from relevant sites, become a better a topic leader in your field, and make sure the content on your site is more relevant. You can even link out to your competitors in a way that does not directly pass high-value anchor text for a term you want to be found on.
- Linkdomain: This command only works in Yahoo, and shows how many links that a site has. Google (through the link: command) only shows a few links, so Yahoo has a clear advantage on this front. A command like this is very useful if you want to see how many links your competitors are getting, and you can download the first 1000 links to a spreadsheet. You can also use the link: command in Yahoo, but it only shows links to a specific page. If you exclude the domain itself (by way of the format “linkdomain:example.com –example.com) then you can see links pointing at the site, but not on the site itself. There are also dropdowns in Yahoo Site Explorer that will do this for you.
Several other Google commands not mentioned here can be found at Googleguide.com. There are many commands which make it easier for searchers to find what they are looking for, including weather forecasts, movie showtimes, phone book listings, and stock prices. In the world of search engine optimization, the above commands can help you get competitive intelligence about your online rivals, see if there are weak ranking factors on your own site, and let you know how many of your pages are visible to the search engines. If you’re still in need of better rankings, a professional organization like Web.com Search Agency can assist you in improving your site, obtaining high quality links, and applying proven marketing strategies that improve visitor traffic and sales.
Tags: search engine commands, search engine optimization, seo
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August 12th, 2009 by Patrick Hare
Need to get internet traffic for your travel website? Despite recent articles in the media, people are still checking out rates with online travel agencies, whether they are price shopping or learning more about destinations. If you are doing online marketing for trip packages, student tours, travel insurance, or airfares, then you need to take advantage of all the features that search engine marketing has to offer.
For instance, search engine marketing for travel websites can help put your site in the running with giants like Orbitz, Travelocity, and Hotels.com. If you serve niche markets (like luxury travel) or special destinations, then you can be competitive and get the kind of customers that you want. Cruise and tour operators use search engine optimization (SEO) to get found for packages related to specific cruise ships, personalized tours, and specialty adventure trips which can’t be created online.
Even though many agents still do most of their work over the phone or from a terminal, the internet is a great place to get business. In fact, agents with superior website marketing (through their own companies or through professionals like Web.com Search Agency) can create a loyal customer base. Search Engine Marketing and Pay-Per-Click (sponsored match) programs make it possible to target very specific market segments, so a few hundred leads per month can result in sustained customer growth.
Large travel aggregators may be too volume-based to go for niche customers, but travel agents who can offer different or specialized tours can definitely compete in the search engine world, even among the giants. Even if you have a hometown travel agency with walk-in clients, you can create a search engine marketing strategy that gets more local business and phone calls. Although travel agents aren’t as common as they used to be, savvy professionals can find ways to bring in customers who aren’t interested in DIY travel packages, and even though these people aren’t going to book their trips online, they are still looking for travel agents on the internet.
Tags: search engine optimization, travel seo
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August 12th, 2009 by Patrick Hare
An article today in CNN shows how specialized cars record information for Google maps and other sources. If you’re a small business owner, you may want to know that your business should be listed on Google’s map section as well. In most cases, it only take a few minutes and you may find it to be quite profitable.
By being part of the Google Local results, your business can be found above other natural search engine results when people do specific local searches. This can be a tremendous advantage for your business, assuming that all the information on the map is correct. As a business owner, it pays for you to “claim” your business listing and ensure that the phone number, address, and website address (if you have one) are correct, since people have been known to hijack this information.
Google’s Local Business Center is one way to make sure you become part of local results. Additionally, Web.com Search Agency can help you get your business in local online Yellow Page directories, in search engine results, and on sponsored ads which can be shown nationwide or just limited to your hometown. For anyone offering a local product or service, getting found on Google Maps and Local Search Results can be highly profitable.
Note: For more information on adding yourself to Google Local, see our previous blog entry.
Tags: google local, search engine optimization
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August 3rd, 2009 by Patrick Hare
As many people already know, search engine optimization usually doesn’t have one single factor that instantly fixes search engine rankings. Instead, there are a series of small items, both on and off-page, that contribute to the “picture” that a search engine has in its electronic brain. When it comes to pictures, search engines still aren’t good at image recognition, so they need help with classifiers known in HTML code as “alt text” or “alt tags.”
Properly written alt tags still have a place in SEO best practices. While many search engine professionals have ignored them in favor of bigger factors, they can still be the fractional difference that puts your site ahead of your competitor’s. Fractions count in the world of SEO, so here are some tips regarding how alt tags should be treated.
- Don’t stuff your alt tags. In the past, people used to hide content in image alt tags, so you could hover over a picture and get a paragraph or an extended list of keywords separated by commas. The alt text should describe the image, or simply parrot any words that are embedded in it.
- If your site was built a few years ago, or you had work done on it in the past, you should check all of your alt tags to ensure that they aren’t spammy or inaccurate.
- Alt tag content should be original. If you have multiple tags with the same content, it should be changed, or perhaps deleted from less important images.
- If your navigation uses images instead of text, there should be alt tags matching each image. Ideally, you may want to consider using text for navigation in the future.
- Not every image needs alt text, especially if you use graphical elements to build a page. You might confuse the search engine if you have tags like “rounded upper right corner” and “tracking pixel.”
- Whenever possible, don’t exclude your images directory in the robots.txt file. The alt tag describes the image, and services like Google Image Search use this information to put you in results that may be seen in various places, including the top of a general search query. There are people who make quite a bit of money by having products listed in image search.
- If the image is of a product, include the brand name and part number in the alt tag.
- Alt text does not have to be as complex as Wikipedia makes it, but it should still adequately describe the image, using a selection of relevant keywords.
- Use proper punctuation and sentence structure for longer tags. Sales messages (“Buy now and receive FREE SHIPPING”) usually are not recommended in alt text. Most people won’t see it, and search engines may downgrade your page for being spammy.
- If your image is linked, then the alt text of the image serves as a version of anchor text, which defines the link. For instance, your company logo may link back to the homepage, so your alt text should be relevant to your home page keywords. Note that if you have an alt tag that is relevant to your current page, and are linking the image somewhere else, you may be diminishing your page’s relevance. In this case the alt tag should be rewritten to match the target page’s topic.
Alternative text for images goes back to the principle of usability, since pages would often load very slowly, so the alt text would tell you what you were about to see. It is still helpful for visually impaired people who want to use the internet, and should not be omitted for any image that is important to your site. As with any content, consideration should be given to how the keywords in the tags blend with the rest of the work on the page, so you don’t end up with high keyword density or keyword blurring.
As we stated above, alt text may not be the “smoking gun” that solves your SEO dilemma, but it should not be neglected. Anything that helps a search engine spider understand your site and its content is going to be an effective part of your SEO strategy. As search engine algorithms get more complex, they may indeed be able to decipher the context of your images, and a picture that matches its description is going to have an advantage over one that does not.
Tags: alt tags, alt text, search engine optimization, seo
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July 30th, 2009 by Patrick Hare
The recent search deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! is going to have an impact on search engine rankings, but unfortunately that impact won’t be fully seen until Bing and Yahoo results get merged over the course of the next year. Yahoo is going to be displaying Bing results, which are powered by what was once known as MSN Live Search.
People who monitor their search engine results on a monthly basis can attest to the high level of volatility in search engine positions on the former MSN, so there will be some curiosity as to whether Yahoo results will be as volatile. Bing also will have access to Yahoo’s search technology, so integration of best practices will hopefully have a positive impact on the churn seen by the average customer.
Both Yahoo and MSN have sponsored result platforms. Yahoo’s platform has been known as GoTo, then Overture, and is now called Yahoo Search Marketing. MSN/Bing’s platform is known as Adcenter. The latest terms of the deal indicate that Bing (Adcenter) will be the preferred platform for ad serving. People who have been in Pay-Per-Click for a few years know that Yahoo served up ads on MSN Search until early 2006. There is probably even an advantage for Bing, since cash-strapped marketers have been cutting back on lesser known ad serving platforms while trying to get maximum exposure on Google. Now, there will once again be a single ad serving platform. This favors Bing since there are even some cases where people didn’t bother to sign on to Adcenter, but now people will need to transition to the platform for Yahoo placement.
How does this impact paid inclusion? Yahoo has a program called Search Submit, which allows people to buy their way into the natural search results. It was previously sold through Inktomi and AltaVista, which Yahoo acquired and rebranded as Search Submit Express and Search Submit Pro. For some search engine purists, paid inclusion leads to less trust in Yahoo results since they are effectively populated with sponsored results. On the other side of the coin, there are sites that count on Search Submit Pro for a substantial revenue stream. At the time of this writing, there is no comment on paid inclusion, but its addition into Bing might give Google leverage from a trust perspective. Google does not allow paid inclusions in its natural results, so it could argue that it has “clean” results that aren’t bought and paid for.
Since Bing is going to be the default for search results, customers who want to be seen on Yahoo and Bing should consider adding fresh content on a regular basis, periodically getting more links to their website, and ensuring that the site is not presenting any obstacles to search engine spiders. Incidentally, this is the exact advice we would give to people who want better Google rankings, but our experience does show that Bing shows fresh pages faster, and is not necessarily as dependent on link popularity. Bing also appears to give preference to domain names that match keyword searches (just like Google) and is often the first search engine to rank new websites.
Until all the details are worked out, and various government agencies bless the whole transaction, SEO customers should concentrate on ranking factors that are universal to all search engines. In almost every case, optimization is based around the Google algorithm, since Google still controls the greatest market share. Over the past several years, there has been little demand for “better Yahoo results” from SEO clients, since a site’s success or failure in search results is generally determined by Google. Similarly, people weren’t clamoring for MSN placement, but the marketing push for Bing has led to a lot more inquiries about being visible in that engine. As always, the keys to good SEO results involve having a resource rich site, trustworthy links, and a structure that search engines can read. No matter how Bing and Yahoo blend their results, these factors are still going to be important, so anyone with a well optimized site is going to have a big advantage when the dust finally settles.
Tags: ppc, search engine optimization, yahoo msn deal
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July 28th, 2009 by Patrick Hare
(Special note: if your site has been filtered or penalized, we would recommend professional SEO consulting to discover all of the underlying causes.)
In the world of search engine optimization (SEO), there are 2 definitions for the sanctions that can be placed on your site by a search engine. The first is a penalty, and the second is a filter. Each one has different causes and remedies, but if you’ve dropped out of the first few pages of results then there are SEO issues that need to be addressed.
What is a penalty?
Generally speaking, a penalty is one of the worst sanctions you can get from a search engine. It can involve losing all of your page rank and essentially having your site “de-listed” from the search results. Penalties are caused by violations of search engine guidelines including cloaking, keyword stuffing, spamming, and using prohibited or “black hat” optimization methods. A penalty is more difficult to fix than simple filtering.
What is a filter?
A filter is considered any factor applied by the search engine that moves your actual ranking below the position it should occupy. For instance, if you normally had a #1 ranking but a search engine wanted to penalize you for over optimization, you could end up in the #30, #95, or #950 position on the search engine. Normally when the filtering factor is changed or removed, your search engine ranking will go back to its proper position within a few weeks.
When a site or page is filtered, you are still getting indexed and cached by the search engine.
What Causes Filters to Get Applied by Search Engines?
- Duplicate Content – Pages on your site, another site owned by you, or a competitor’s site have substantially similar or identical content. Even if your site had the original content, a search engine may consider it to be duplicated if it was found on another website first.
- Over Optimization – Obvious optimization tactics can trip up a search engine filter, sometimes even unintentionally. If you have too many keywords, too many links pointing to a page with the same anchor text, too many instances where site content elements (Title tag, Header text, and regular text) match up with anchor text, or keyword stuffed internal site linking, then you can be tripping up an over optimization filter.
- New Site – Also known as a “sandbox” filter, new sites are generally filtered by search engines. This filter has been put in place to keep people from spamming search engines with multiple new URLs containing questionable content. Essentially, your site will need to earn the trust of the search engine, and time is a factor in trust. In some cases a new site can avoid this type of filtering, but usually the factors involved are beyond even advanced optimization.
What kinds of filters can get applied to my site?
There are 3 Major Filter Types:
- Keyword filters – If you find yourself filtered for only a few key phrases, and especially the ones for which you are using heavy anchor text linking practices, then a keyword filter may be to blame.
- Site wide filters – If your whole site has been impacted, than there is a factor that is causing your whole site to lose rankings. If your site is new, it is likely filtered.
- Link filtering – Links to your site may have lost popularity. Search engines continually reevaluate all sites on the internet, and link popularity involves hundreds of factors. If a powerful site linking to yours lost its trust for any reason, the link to your site would lose its value and you would see a rankings drop. Therefore, it is always best to diversify your inbound link popularity.
What are the different levels of filtering?
Some of the observed filter types include a “minus 30” filter that moves your ranking back by 3 pages, or 30 places, and a “minus 950” filter (also called the “950 penalty) which places you back 950 spots, or on the 95th page of search results. There also appear to be “custom” filters which may be based on a variety of factors but will cause your rankings to go below where you would expect them.
Where should I expect to see my ranking if I am not filtered?
For a well optimized site, the test in Google would be to type in allinanchor: with your top search phrase. Therefore, if your phrase was “cat food” and you typed “allinanchor:cat food” into Google, you should find your site ranked based on link popularity for that term. If your normal rankings for “cat food” fall significantly below that spot, you are either filtered or your on-page optimization is not acceptable.
How do I check for a penalty?
To check for a penalty, search for your URL, or do a site: command for the site. If you can’t find your site, and it was there before, you may be getting penalized. Make sure to check for other non-penalty factors such as robots exclusions or crawl failures.
- Is the site removed completely from the index?
- Does the site rank for its own URL?
- Does Google Webmaster Tools indicate a quality issue?
How do I check for a filter?
Do an allinanchor search. Using Google, type allinanchor: followed by your preferred keyword phrase. If you are looking for multiple phrases, the search has to be repeated for each phrase. If you site shows up in a substantially higher place for allinanchor: then it may be filtered.
How to fix a penalty:
- Using Google webmaster tools, check to see if you have any notices from Google indicating spamming, bad links, hidden text passing viruses, etc.
- Remove any hidden text, hidden content, cloaking, duplicate content, viruses, or spyware from your site.
- Check the latest version of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to make sure you haven’t missed anything.
- File a reinclusion request. This can be done through Google Webmaster tools. Alternatively, you can wait up to a year for the penalty to be lifted.
How to Fix a Filter:
- Identify the cause of the filtering.
- Make the necessary changes using SEO best practices.
- Wait for the search engine to recache the site and any site from which a bad link was pointing to yours.
- Wait for reindexing. There is a delay between recaching (where a search engine spiders a site and reads all the content) and reindexing (where the cached data is applied to your rankings).
Some of the newer information to come out of search engine circles indicates that there may be a permanent probation for sites that get reincluded into the Google index. This would make sense, given that a site that is likely to have broken spamming or quality rules may do the same thing in the future. Depending on the severity of your site’s infractions, whether you committed them yourself or whether you got them from a website you purchased, it may make more sense to start from scratch. Whenever you are buying an existing website, checking for penalties and filters should be pa
rt of the due diligence in the purchasing process. Even though search engines may reset some of their ranking factors when sites change hands, a penalized site may have other factors that are impossible to remediate.
Tags: penalized site, search engine filter, search engine optimization, search engine penalties, search engine penalty, seo
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July 28th, 2009 by Patrick Hare
One of the top questions asked by our clients is “Why Can’t I find my site in DMOZ?” Also known as the “Open Directory,” DMOZ is one of the web’s oldest directories and a link from it conveys a good value in the eyes of search engines like Google. Unfortunately, the DMOZ directory is infrequently updated and some people have not seen a submission approved after years of waiting.
Several factors are at work in DMOZ listings. First, a person needs to submit the listing to the proper category. Each category has its own editor and there may be a more relevant category unknown to the submitter. If an editor gets a submission for what is perceived to be the wrong category, the submission will get forwarded to the “right” category. The submission, even though it is from another editor, ends up at the back of the queue.
Second, not all editors update their listing categories, and some editors may have a financial stake in not allowing new listings. For instance, you may be selling fishing rods and your competitor may secretly be the editor of the fishing accessories category. DMOZ tries to prevent this from happening, but there is no easy way of establishing for whom an editor may work. Furthermore, editors may not be diligent in reviewing all of the listings requests they get, or there may be a backlog of requests ahead of yours, all of which need to be reviewed by hand. Because questionable sites have been submitting themselves to DMOZ, much of this backlog could consist of “junk” submissions.
Finally, there is some indication that a resubmission request for a website actually cancels out the original submission. Therefore, a request that was 1 year in process will end up at the back of the line when a new submission request is made. Assuming that an editor is reviewing the category, the request is now at the back of the line.
With DMOZ, we have found that inclusion has become the exception and not the rule. Normally we recommend submitting only the most basic information about your site, without any superlatives or “sales oriented” language. When choosing the category, first look for any other relevant categories. One way to do this is to search for your competition on DMOZ, and see if they come up in a category that is similar to yours. In the absence of a DMOZ listing, Web.com Search Agency highly recommends other directory link building which is more immediate. Submission to the Yahoo directory is good for SEO, costs $299 per year, and even brings some physical visitors. While we believe that DMOZ listings can have a good positive impact on web rankings, the 2+ year wait for approval is beyond the SEO expectations of our clients.
Special note: some companies claim to have “guaranteed DMOZ placement” for a price. This would appear to violate DMOZ terms and conditions by giving priority in exchange for monetary compensation. If you decide to go with such a service, be sure your method of payment is waiting in escrow or can be charged back if you don’t get the results you are looking for.
Tags: dmoz, dmoz submission, search engine optimization, seo
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July 27th, 2009 by Patrick Hare
The H1 tag has been a component of SEO for some time, and we are still finding it useful as a factor in on-page optimization. Search engines use this piece of code to better classify the topic of the entire page, and recent testing (or retesting, since it has been tested in the past) shows that the H1 is still worth including, even if it means paying for extra coding or programming.
For those of us who are unfamiliar with the H1 tag, it is a piece of HTML code that is used on the “header” of a web page, and it defines a phrase which ideally should describe page content. If you are looking at a page written in basic HTML with an H1 tag, the first thing you will notice is the remarkably large font size. Font size and style can be controlled with CSS on the page code or in a CSS file, so your H1 can conceivably be the same size and font as your other text.
Here are some more tips about dealing in H1 tags:
- Don’t match up the H1 tag and the title tag. Both tags are very important, but if they are identical you risk an over optimization filter. Similarly, your inbound link anchor texts should also not match the H1 tag precisely.
- Only use one H1 tag per page. There are H2, H3, H4, and other tags that can be used, but each page should only have one main topic. Too many H1s on a page will just water down the page’s search engine value.
- As the code implies, H1 goes first. Don’t put an H2 before an H1, and whenever possible your H1 should go above the other text on the page.
- The H1 tag should include the page’s keywords in a way that helps the user. Search engines are getting more and more intelligent, and user experience helps define a page’s value.
- Every page should have a unique H1 tag. Some software platforms will automatically put a company name in the H1 spot, but this does nothing to describe each page’s unique content. If you have a shopping cart system with thousands of pages, you can put the short product description in the H1, but then you should try to make sure it doesn’t precisely match the title. This may require some creative programming. Identical or substantially similar H1 tags on different pages can cause “keyword blurring” which is also not good for search engine rankings.
People with older sites may have avoided H1 tags in the past because browsers like Netscape 3 or 4 would display H1s in their classic large font style. Hopefully your site has been maintained more frequently over the past several years, but in many cases the look and feel may have gotten fixed while header tags were still omitted. As a housecleaning measure, it is usually a good idea to do a mini SEO audit to see if your site is using the proper tag structure.
Making recommendations on H1 tags may seem like old advice to seasoned SEO professionals, but we have seen several cases where the addition of an H1 tag improved search engine rankings. In some cases (like in shopping carts or sites built with content management systems) the H1 was removed or deliberately omitted because it would have matched the title tag. If you have built your site with a CMS, you may want to check with your vendor to see if a plug-in or update has fixed this problem.
Given that SEO involves making a lot of small changes to improve your website’s value in the search engines, the H1 tag can definitely have a positive impact for sites that may be lingering in the search engine rankings. By ensuring that your site has proper H1 formatting on as many pages as possible, you may notice a positive impact in a very short amount of time, especially if your other SEO initiatives are already in process.
Tags: h1 tag, search engine optimization, seo
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July 24th, 2009 by Patrick Hare
Since the early days of the world wide web, there have been advertising. At first, horizontal “banner ads” were all the rage, and were sold by the “impression” which meant that the advertiser could spend as much as $10,000 for a quarter million impressions. By the year 2000, it was generally apparent that people had conditioned themselves to ignore banner content, and the collapse of banner advertising contributed to the “dot com bust” in the same year.
The internet marketing model that replaced banner ads, and turned search engines like Google into economic titans, is Pay-Per-Click, or PPC. The reason that it became successful is that most PPC ads are triggered by online searches or relevant context. Ads that show up near online searches can have a conversion rate that beats similar spending on radio, newspapers, and television. Contextual ads (also known as content match) that show up near online articles, blog entries, or social media posts also can grab the visitor’s attention in a more cost effective way. An intelligent contextual campaign can be targeted for demographics like age, income, interests, and hobbies. For example, if you sell used video games online, there are settings in Google and other PPC services that can show your ads on a particular website about gaming, or even specific topic fields on that site. In a similar fashion, you can show ads on Myspace and Facebook in specific sections that are relevant to you target audience.
As an internet marketing tactic, PPC also functions as a form of audience response, since different messages can be tested at no extra charge. An online marketing campaign can rotate several different text advertisements or image-based ads, and quickly see which one gets the most clicks. Secondarily, conversion tracking tools can indicate how many of those clicks turn into sales. One of the reasons for the recent failure of large newspapers has been the shift from newspaper ads to online advertising. This is because effective internet marketing campaigns make it possible to generate revenue from actual demand, as opposed to buying a print publication presence that may or may not achieve results. Secondarily, the ability to gauge customer reactions in a real-time environment allows advertisers to modify their messages and campaigns until the most profitable model is achieved, and this could take years with traditional advertising.
Any discussion of PPC marketing should include natural search engine optimization. The search results presented in engines like Yahoo and Google tend to be more trusted by users, specifically because they are perceived as not needing a bidding system for positioning. In reality, it is possible to buy your way into Yahoo’s “natural” results with Yahoo Search Submit . In Google, search engine optimization is not used to buy your way into the top rankings, but it can be used to position your website as the best resource for a given search. By using advanced internet marketing tactics, you can create a website that becomes an accepted source for specific products and services, which will lead to revenue growth and brand equity.
No matter what your internet marketing initiative, you should be sure to nail down the tactics that are going to be used and the expected cost. One of the pitfalls of paid online marketing is that a badly run campaign can cost thousands (or even millions) of dollars in wasted clicks. PPC campaigns and other techniques require continuous real-time monitoring and adjustment. Any agency that manages your internet marketing should have experience and be able to show transparent results on a regular basis. A well run campaign will filter out the high volume of traffic that is unlikely to convert, while funneling qualified search engine traffic into your website. Simultaneously, you should be getting conversion advice regarding your website, so interested potential prospects can be turned into enthusiastic paying customers. Online and internet promotion strategies are helping many companies become profitable, even in a down economy, so now can be a great time to move your advertising dollars into a space that offers lower costs and a higher ROI.
Tags: internet marketing, pay per click, search engine optimization
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July 23rd, 2009 by Patrick Hare
Creating effective search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing (SEM) campaigns for medical professionals involves a slightly different strategy than a campaign for other professionals. There are several different reasons why this is the case. Aside from considerations related to FDA, AMA, and other regulatory guidelines for physician advertising online, websites for doctors have their own unique challenges.
In some cases, the first challenge is the medical professional. In many cases doctors expect to get their website traffic from people who search for them on a first name basis. This is rarely the case. Some more web savvy physicians are aware that people are actually searching for medical terms and specialties. Specialized terms are not as common, but can be quite lucrative. For instance, a person searching for “dentists” may want anything from a cleaning to a root canal, but people who are looking for “oral surgeons” are probably dealing with a more expensive problem. As search engine professionals, one of our first tasks involves educating doctors, dentists, and alternative practitioners about what search engines are looking for, and how people use search engines.
Normally it only takes a few weeks to get a doctor found for his or her name, but it takes longer to get found for a field of practice. In most cases, doctors and medical clinics serve patients who live within a few miles of their offices, while hospitals have a larger footprint. For doctors who operate in sparsely populated areas and small towns, or who don’t have too much competition in their practice, search engine rankings can be achieved fairly easily. On the other side of the coin, it may be difficult to be found for a term like “dentist NYC” because the city has a large population, or for “Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeon” because there is a high level of competition for such surgery in this area despite the town’s low population. If you aren’t on the first page of search engine results, then 90% of web searchers are not going to find your site, so the need for optimization quickly becomes apparent to most doctors.
Medical professionals who want to get found on search engines can therefore expect a “sliding scale” when it comes to SEO based on these factors. Challenging and competitive search engine cases will require robust web page modification and the acquisition of links from related websites. This is because links from other sites serve as an endorsement for your own website. Better site links are more costly and confer more prestige, in the same way that an internship at the Mayo Clinic carries more weight than a residency in the Caribbean. If you can get links to your website from medical journals, schools, and other publications, you may gain an advantage over doctors who have not done so. Search marketing agencies can also help you secure sufficient links to get found for your specialty, with everything from local directory submission to more complex link acquisition.
Here are some tips for better search engine placement and new patient growth:
- If you’re operating in a local area, make sure you mention your office location and nearby towns or communities from which you expect patients.
- Make sure your site has a clean, modern look that inspires confidence.
- Show your phone number prominently at the top of each page.
- If you take credit cards, show the logos for the ones you accept.
- Show medical insurance providers that you accept. Make sure you mention this in the text of your site, not just in images, because search engines aren’t good at identifying pictures.
- List all of your specialties. People search on a variety of medical terms, so be sure to include them. If you have specific medical equipment that may attract patients (like an open MRI) then be sure to let people know.
- Avoid graphic images of procedures or before/after unless people get fair warning before viewing.
- Submit your site to online Yellow Page and local directories (we can do this for you).
- Keep your site fresh by adding a blog or new content. If medical care laws change one way or the other, giving more information to patients may be helpful. Generally speaking, search engines reward relevant content, so giving more information to potential patients can improve your search engine rankings.
Anyone who sells medical services, whether through a doctor’s office, walk-in clinic, hospital, or office compex, should understand the emergence of the internet as a tool for finding medical care. In the past, phone book advertising dominated the medical marketing field, and there are still plenty of people who check the yellow pages for doctors. However, an emerging segment of the general public is using the internet not only to find doctors and clinics, but also to compare service offerings, locations, and specialties. Many medical professionals have even found success selling high-end cosmetic and alternative treatments to patients from around the globe, exclusively from online advertising. For those doctors, dentists, chiropractors, cosmetic surgeons, psychiatrists, dermatologists, and podiatrists who just need to be found in their own neighborhoods, there are several inexpensive ways to promote themselves online. In the same way that people consult specialists for their medical problems, a search marketing specialist may have the answer to your search engine traffic and new patient growth.
Note: Click Here to learn more about Medical SEO
Tags: medical sem, medical seo, search engine optimization
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