The Proceptive Perspective Dental Blog

Today brings us the second and final part of the the Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Marketing. In this part we will discuss:

• Link Building
• Reciprocal Links
• One Way Links
• Directory Links
• Pay Per Click (Sponsored) Search Engine Campaigns

• Link Building

With the advent of Google’s Page Rank, links have quickly become one of the more critical elements involved in any successful search engine marketing campaign. Not only has Google placed a high importance on incoming links, but the other major search engines like Yahoo, MSN and Ask quickly followed suit. All of these engines currently incorporate the factoring in of industry specific links as a major component in their search algorithm.

While any link that points to your website can provide a benefit, it is important to know that not all links are considered equal.

Below you will find details regarding the 3 most common types of links with each of them playing an important role in generating rankings.

• Reciprocal Links are typically the types of links you would receive when participating in a “link exchange” program. When you place a link on your website to another site, the owner of the other site will reciprocate and place a link back to your site. While these links are the least beneficial of the three types of links, they still provide some advantage, especially if the link is coming from a website in a similar industry. However, with Google’s most recent update, it appears as if reciprocal links can actually hinder rankings in Google, especially if the majority of your inbound links are reciprocal links.

• One Way Links are similar to reciprocal links, except you are not required to put a link on your site in exchange for your incoming link. While not as stable as directory links, one way links are some of the most powerful links available today, especially when they originate from other dental websites. These one way links commonly occur when a website finds something of interest on your site that it wants to inform its visitors about. These links can also be the most difficult to obtain, as most sites do not want to place a link to your website without getting a link in return.

• Directory Links are some of the most effective and stable links you can currently have pointing to your website. Some of the most popular directories are Yahoo (which originally started out as just a directory), Best of the Web, Business.com and DMOZ.org (also known as the Open Directory). Directory links are one way links, and are given greater relevance by some of the search engines’ algorithms.

It is important to know that all directories are not equal, as some provide a greater benefit in rankings and page rank for the websites that gain inclusion. Each directory also has its own requirements for inclusion, with some charging fees and other requiring sites to meet specific criteria. It is for these reasons that Proceptive Dental has carefully selected only the best directories from the Internet to be used in conjunction with our search engine optimization & marketing programs.

While where your links come from is important, another relevant factor is the anchor text used for each link. Anchor text is the clickable portion of text displayed for a link. The search engines see the link text and then associate that text with the page the link points to, which in turn helps your rankings for that particular phrase. Because of this, it is important to utilize specific keyword phrases that are important to your practice for the link text used in each link. It is also important to vary the text to best represent the “theme” of the destination page on your dental website. Proper anchor text can make the difference between getting listed on the first page for an important keyword phrase, or not being found at all.

• Pay Per Click Search Engine Campaigns

By this stage in the marketing, your dental website has now been created, optimized, uploaded, submitted to the engines and has a good number of inbound links. So where are all the new patient leads? What a lot of new websites quickly discover is that it takes time for the search engines to come out to your site, “spider” the information from it, include you in their list of indexed sites, and then display rankings for your keyword phrases.

Plus, the rankings you receive in the early stages of any optimization campaign will pale in comparison to the results you should see 3 to 6 months down the road. This means that initially the traffic levels for your website will probably be marginal at best. Google, in fact, gives websites with tenure online higher listings then those sites that are new, or have been online for less then a year.

So how do you get an influx of traffic to your new or newly optimized website? Pay per click (or sponsored) search engine advertising is the quickest way to start getting keyword specific traffic to your dental site. Through proper bidding, and the utilization of targeted keywords, pay per click traffic can prove to be a cost effective way of generating traffic for your website.

Since most Sponsored Search Engines allow you to set budgets on the amount of traffic you purchase, you can easily run a PPC campaign without the risk of going over your allotted online marketing budget. As your website begins to generate organic rankings and traffic on its own, you can always begin to reduce the amount of money budgeted for your PPC campaign.

Recently the Pay Per Click Search Engines have come under scrutiny for a rising amount of reported click fraud. In fact, several recent independent reports suggest that fraudulent clicks account for up to 20% of pay per click traffic. While click fraud is a serious issue, one that can only be solved through action by the Per Click Engines themselves, it does not mean that you can not run an effective pay per click campaign. Proceptive Dental offers Sponsored Search Advertising (PPC) campaigns that utilize proven techniques to generate affordable, targeted traffic to your website, while avoiding common mistakes that can lead to fraudulent clicks and ineffective campaigns.

Still not sure what type of program is right for your dental practice?

Since every dental client has different goals, and every website is unique, there is no one program that can guarantee success for everyone. If you are looking for a comprehensive program that includes on-site optimization, link building, directory submissions, monthly maintenance, ongoing optimization and site analytics, then you will want to consider Proceptive Dental’s Search Engine Optimization & Marketing campaigns. These programs include all of the techniques and strategies that are imperative to achieving top listing on today’s most popular search engines.

I hope that this guide has been informative and helped answer some of your questions regarding Search Engine Optimization & Marketing. Regardless of your needs, size or budget, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you your online goals and the best ways to achieve them. Please feel free to contact us through our No Obligation Consultation Inquiry form on our website, by email (chris@proceptivedental.com) or toll free at 1-800-405-0776. I look forward to speaking with you soon!