 |
Proceptive Dental Monthly Email Newsletter - September 2007 | |||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
| Tuesday September 4th, 2007 : A Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Marketing... | ||||||
| ||||||
|
A Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Marketing... As the Internet continues to grow, more and more dentists are going online in an effort to expand their market and increase their patient base. What many of these dentists are now discovering is the tremendous amount of time, investment and labor required just to get a website listed and ranked on the major search engines. It is can be extremely hard to make an educated decision on search engine optimization when you have limited to no knowledge on what a search engine spider is, why links effect your rankings or how long it takes a typical website to get listed in the various search engines. What makes the choice for an optimization program even more difficult is the handful of unethical search engine optimization and marketing companies preying on this lack of knowledge in order to sell inferior and unnecessary products at inflated prices.
Steps to successfully create, promote and market a website online...
There is no one step to ensure top rankings in the search engines. Each engine has its own algorithm, with some of them determining ranking results from the calculation of over 100 factors. What this means is that a website might perform well in MSN, but may falter in Google and not even show up in Yahoo. While some of these factors may play a more important role (link building, on-page optimization), all of them contribute to the overall success of a website.
Since none of the search engines provide detailed information on their proprietary search algorithms, it is up to each SEO company to develop cost effective programs that successfully incorporate optimization techniques and delivers results. While there are several common techniques that all SEO companies agree are effective, each company has its own take on the best way to implement them.
The following guide has been written to help dentists who are new to the Internet by explaining some of the fundamental steps of search engine optimization and the importance each step plays in the generation of top rankings.
Purchase A Relevant Domain Name
The first step in the development of a successful website is the domain name. Your domain name needs to not only reflect your specialty and area of practice, but should also be memorable in order to build branding (i.e. yourtowncosmeticdentist.com). Make it easy for your patients to remember your site so they can easily return or tell others about your site.
Domain names also play a small role in the rankings for your website. A domain name that incorporates the main keywords for your practice can give your overall rankings for those keywords a slight boost.
Create A Search Engine & Consumer Friendly Website Layout
Websites need to be designed to not only make it easy for your visitors to find your various dental services, location, hours and other information on your site, but also to provide good internal link structure in order to get top rankings in the search engines. A properly designed website will also allow the various engines to find and pick up all of your website's pages (this process is called "spidering") for inclusion into their index. This can also be accomplished through a site map.
If you are looking to generate leads for new patients from your online visitors, make sure that your contact information and phone number are prominently displayed on each page, or make it extremely easy for the visitor to find new patient forms from the home page. Some successful sites will place a small contact form on every page of their site to ensure that their potential client can easily contact them.
A successful site should also incorporate calls to action, which might guide the visitor to fill out the new patient form, or ask them to "call now" to set up an appointment. These calls to action are proven techniques utilized by successful websites in other service industries.
Finally, a great dental website should be an accurate reflection of the dentist and the dental practice. Even in this day where people are contacting more and more electronically, people still want to connect with people. They want to feel comfortable and make a connection with the dentist, especially if they are a new patient. That is why it is imperative that you have warm, friendly pictures that highlight you, your staff and your dental office.
A well planned out and successful dental website should be designed to offer an enjoyable user experience, capture potential patient leads and be built with a solid foundation of search engine optimization and marketing techniques. These components will create a website that is not just an online place holder describing your dental office, but an active marketing tool which consistently brings in new patients for your practice.
Keyword Research Keyword research is not only one of the most important steps in successfully marketing a website, but it is also one of the most overlooked. The purpose of keyword research is to determine what phrases your potential patients are using in the search engines to find your services. By utilizing optimization campaigns that focus on these targeted keywords, you not only increase your market visibility but also increase the chance you will be found by more of your local potential patients.
Effective keyword research takes the main services that your practice offers and finds the different search term variations that are being used to find them. As every individual has their own method for searching, the combination of relevant keyword phrases is nearly endless. If you were to ask ten different individuals to search the web for the same product or service, you are likely to find that each individual used a different search phrase in the search box to find the same item.
Proceptive Dental researches and creates these different phrase combinations, analyzes them for popularity and relevancy, and then compiles a keyword list designed to maximize exposure for each individual dentist in their local area.
On-Site Search Engine Optimization A great looking website and a high ranking website don't always go hand in hand. In order to have a chance to achieve the top ranking positions for the important keywords relevant to your practice, your site must be optimized correctly. There are numerous factors involved in the on-page optimization of a website, including correct title tags, descriptions, keywords, meta tags, headers, keyword density, links and more.
On-site optimization is the first major step towards getting your site placed with the various search engines. For a small number of websites in non-competitive markets, on-site optimization might be all that they need in order to get top rankings. For the majority of sites, programs that include link building, monthly maintenance and off site support are necessary in order to get the desired results.
An important issue to consider is that the search engine algorithms regularly change, so while your website might be optimized correctly today, a change in an algorithm could make that optimization ineffective. That is why many websites elect to enroll in monthly optimization campaigns that continuously monitor search algorithms, and make needed optimization changes in order to stay relevant and effective. Most of these monthly programs include regular ranking reports and analytic programs in order to gauge the progress and success of the campaign. This information also allows the SEO company to make minor "tweaks" and changes to your campaign in order to achieve higher placement for your practice's important keyword phrases.
Website Hosting Anytime your website is down, you lose business and potential potential. It is imperative that you entrust the hosting of your website to a reputable company with a strong history of reliability. Having your site down for any length of time can also cause your search engine rankings to drop.
Submissions to the Search Engines
Once your professional website has been designed, created, optimized and hosted, it is time to let the search engines know it is out there. One of the ways to do this is through manual submissions.
In the past, it was necessary to have your site continuously submitted to the search engines in order to ensure inclusion. Because of this, several automated software programs were created to accomplish this task, with many of them boasting submission to thousands of search engines. What many of these programs fail to mention is that most of these engines are obscure, unknown search engines which generate little to no traffic.
Nowadays it is no longer necessary to submit your site multiple times to the different engines through automated processes. In fact, all of the major engines prefer to find your site on their own through industry relevant links.
Proceptive Dental provides manual submissions which are done individually by hand to ensure that all submission guidelines have been met and will not result in any penalties to your website.
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 have 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.
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 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, basic link building, directory submissions, off-site support, monthly maintenance and a robust performance guarantee, 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!.
 Dentist Spotlight - Latest Hometown Dentist Addition Dr. Murray of Pampered Smiles - Pampered Smiles provides TMJ (neuromuscular), sedation and cosmetic dentistry services in Atlanta, Georgia. - Welcome to Hometown Dentists Dr. Murray!
~~~ That's all for now! ~~~ Join us next month for more news, articles, tips and advice! Regards, |
|
|
© 2006-2007 Proceptive Dental. All Rights Reserved. |