Medical Marketing Enterprises, L.L.C.

Website Optimization, SEO, Reputation Management for Medical Practices

Too Many Keywords: One Post = One Keyword

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Using too many keywords in your article will dilute your message and hurt your SERP rankings.Your website articles should contain no more than 1 or 2 main ideas (aka topics, keywords).  Writing exhaustive reviews on every post to show off your expertise is an SEO mistake, it will prevent your webpages from ranking for any keyword.

Using too many keywords dilutes the main idea (and the actual relevance) of your article.

What is a Keyword?

A keyword may be the main idea, subject or topic of your article.  A patient will also type keywords into the search bar when “Googling” something on the Internet.

Each page or post of your website is indexed separately for just a few keywords. Each webpage (vs. website) can individually rank high on SERP for particular keywords.

It’s much more likely to get a single page of your site to rank for one or two keywords than to rank for several.

It’s as if too many keywords compete with each other.

What is Your Main Idea?

A similar problem occurs when medical practices place all their doctors on the same “About Us” page.   Just as one page can not rank for multiple keywords, one page with too many doctors will not rank well as no specific doctor can standout.

Most patients are looking for very specific doctor and will use specific keywords to filter their search.

For instance, my “About” page will rank well for searches containing the words “retina specialist in northern Virginia,” yet I won’t rank well when a patient is looking for a cataract surgeon or glaucoma specialist.

More Pages = More Rankings

Another advantage of “one post one keyword” is that you will have more pages to be indexed.  More indexed pages mean more visibility of your website!

For instance, in our doctor example, let’s have each doctor have her own “About” page instead of having one page for, say, 5 doctors.

There are now 5 pages that may be optimized and rank well for your practice versus 1!

What Can You Do?

Keep your copywriting limited.  If you can’t get all your ideas into the same article, write another article!  We recommend Scribe SEO to help with your writing and keyword analysis.  This simple plugin will take away most of the guess work with your writing.  It has been a great tool for me!

Articles focused on one main idea are also much easier to read for your patients.  If you are creating an “About” page for your business, create a separate page for each provider.  This way, you can customize the SEO for each doctor!

Articles should be straight forward, focused and written to answer/inform quickly.  SEO is easiest if optimizing for one or two keywords.  Your article has a better chance of rising to the top!

To your success!

“Randy”

Randall V. Wong, M.D.
Medical Website Optimization
www.MedicalMarketingEnterprises.com

Content Marketing and SEO

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Every website owner (you) of every small business must understand 3 terms;  content marketing, SERP and SEO.  Not only is content marketing the ONLY way to get your website to market your practice, but it is the only way to achieve and maintain high rankings on a search results page (SERP).

Click ads and social media won’t do it either.

Just as winning a stock car race is a combination of the right components and maximizing performance, so too is getting your website to rank!

Content marketing is basically SEO.  Using the tactics and principles of content marketing, one webpage may outrank the other.

Websites Not Ranked on Theme

Too many practices make the mistake of paying to simply redesign a website.  While the fancy graphics and a modern look do help with your pages’ navigation and branding (and show you care to have a website!), they have no impact on ranking your site.   None.

Websites are ranked and evaluated solely on the content of the site.

Google Compares Webpages Based Upon Content

Google and other search engines evaluate your website based upon its content.  The content of your site is comprised of any file containing text (Word, .pdf, text files, Power Point, etc.).

Google reads, analyzes and then ranks every webpage in the world.  Using the content of your article, Google then compares and ranks it against similar articles yielding the results (SERP = search engine results page).

Your Internet marketing strategy is to get your webpages ranked as highly as possible to improve the likelihood of future patients finding your website.

No other method can get you high rankings.  Click through ads, social media campaigns and email blasts simply will draw attention to your website article, but unless the strategies of content marketing are employed, only the article itself will get you the high rankings you desire.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The acronym SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  “Optimization” is the process by which you define your article for the search engines.  Maximizing your SEO means that you are making the extra effort to ensure the search engines know exactly

For instance, two articles of identical content on different websites will rank differently based upon the “SEO” of each article.  The article where the SEO has been maximized will achieve the higher rankings and, therefore, will have higher marketing value than the SEO naive article.

Search Engine Optimization, therefore, only pertains to content marketing and its usefulness applies only to websites that provide content on their sites.  Search Engine Optimization, therefore, is a way of ranking comparable content (articles) from different sites.

SERP

The search engine results page (SERP) is the listing of “results” Google provides after you’ve “Googled” something.  The SERP pages are a listing of the most relevant articles that may answer your query, that is, the content of these articles is felt to be most relevant to your needs.

Your goal is to have your website’s pages rank highly on SERP for a variety of keywords, or subjects.

Using the methods of search engine optimization, Google (Bing and Yahoo) then compares similar articles and ranks them according to better SEO techniques.

Websites paying attention to SEO will fare much better (i.e. rank higher) than those that ignore SEO.

Race Car Analogy

I often use the analogy of a race car to help explain some of these terms.

Theme:  The theme of the your website is analagous to the paint job of your race car.  It makes it look nice, but has nothing to do with the actual speed of your car nor the ability to win a race.

Content:  The content of your site would be components of your racing vehicle.  The racing tires, the fuel injection system and the performance engine.

Search Engine Optimization:  The analogy here is the professional race car driver.  Using the best components, the driver uses her knowledge and experience to drive the car to maximize it’s performance.

SERP:  Basically the finish line.  While racers don’t always finish first, they do strive to finish as high as possible.  Using the effective content marketing and SEO, your webpages may not always place first, but you want them in the “Top 10,”

To Your Growth And Success!

Randy

Randall V. Wong, M.D.
Medical Website Optimization
www.MedicalMarketingEnterprises.com

The Anatomy of a SERP Page

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Good medical SEO will get your pages ranked highly on SERP.

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page.  There are 3 basic areas to a results page; the organic section and two are paid advertising.  Good content marketing, optimization or SEO (search engine optimization) is focused on getting your pages ranked highly in the “organic section” as opposed to the paid advertising areas.

I created this search engine results page using the following search terms:  Medical Marketing Enterprises.

SERP or search engine results page. Medical website SEO and website optimization.

 

A – Banner Advertising (PAID)

This section has the colored background and is always in the top left position.  These are “banner” ads and are paid advertising.   The keywords used and amount of competition will determine the price.  In general, these ads rotate and are related to specific search terms used to generate the search.

For instance, the 3 results in section A all paid Google to place these ads and are related to my search keywords “Medical Marketing Enterprises.”

C – “Adwords” PPC Advertising (PAID)

The section on the right are also paid advertising.  These are the famous Google “Adwords” PPC (pay-per-click) advertising whereby an advertiser pays Google to place these small 4 lined ads on the side of your SERP when you are searching for related terms.  See how they all “relate” to Medical Marketing?

You’ll see these ads pop up all over the place;  email, and other websites are common places.  Advertisers only pay Google when a serfer actually clicks on the ad (hence, “pay per click”).  For a medical practice, these PPC ads are very affordable, but do nothing to increase your page ranking.

B – Organic Search: The Target for Your SEO Goals

You want your pages to rank highly here.

This is the listing of true, legitimate search.  Pages listed here appear based on their relevance to the search terms used to create the search and are not paid advertising (such as the banner ads and Adwords).

Pages ranked here are the most relevant to your search terms, have the best SEO and pagerank.

It is in this area where we want your pages to rank in the “Top 10” or “Above the Fold” (newspaper term used to connote the “most important).

The goal of every medical practice is to get their webpages ranked highly in the organic section.  Using content marketing strategies and good SEO, your pages will attract the most traffic due to the high visibility.  Content marketing (i.e. getting your pages ranked highly on the organic search) is the only way a practice can attain and maintain high SERP rankings.

Compared to the paid advertising, the organic search is free, and thus, has the best ROI (return on investment).  It is how my website increased my surgical volume over 30% last year….all through content marketing.

To Your Growth And Success!

Randy

Randall V. Wong, M.D.
Medical Website Optimization
www.MedicalMarketingEnterprises.com

 

 

What is Your PageRank?

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 PageRank compares websites based on relevance and qualtiy backlinks. Medical marketing Enterprises. Medical SEO

 

PageRank (PR) is an SEO valuation method, used by Google, to compare websites.  It is a grading system and is different from SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

PR is a numerical grade from 0-10 used to establish the relative “worth” or importance compared to other, similar webpages.  0 is a poor grade and 10 is the best.  I believe only two sites are “10’s”;  Google and Facebook.

A Man Named Page

The PageRank algorithm was actually created by an individual named Larry Page.  It is patented by Stanford University and licensed by Google. (This was news to me!)

The algorithm used to establish ranking uses several variables, but is essentially based upon the number, and quality, of inbound and outbound links to and from your website.

Links Are Votes

Inbound links are hyperlinks from other sources leading TO your webpage.  Outbound links are hyperlinks FROM your site to another page.

In this context, links are viewed as votes, or endorsements, for another site.  For instance, if  your page has multiple links arriving from other sites and those sites have a higher PR than yours, your site PageRank will improve.

On the other hand, if  your page has multiple links from other sources of inferior grade, your pagerank may actually drop.  Also, if your outbound links are to real duds…your PR may drop, so choose your links carefully.  Link to known, reputable sources.

Reputation and Relevance

Google’s quest is to find the best websites relevant to a keyword search (i.e. your question or phrase you are “Googling?).  The algorithm values incoming links from reputable websites, that is, incoming links from websites of similar relevance (subject matter) are weighted heavily.

Why?

My website on retinal diseases is a health related site (BTW, this is actually a backlink from this site to my retina site).  While I may claim (using health related keywords, meta tags, titles, etc.) to be a health related site, a better endorsement of my site is when other health related sites, especially of higher PR, link to mine.  These are quality links:  similar type of site and of higher PR.

As a consequence, this cuts down on the spammers and makes it harder for poor quality sites to get your attention when using link farms (mass quantity links of little relevance or quality).

What Can You Do?

Most likely, it will take  6 months to a year to gain a PR of 1.  One other criteria for PR is age of the site (and also the duration for which you purchased your URL – 5 years is great).  This “trust” variable is used to combat spammers (those trying to get high rankings but only for a short, short time).

As a small business (i.e your medical practice), a PR of 2 is more than adequate.

I use a free plug-in called SEOquake to check pageranks.  It also gives me my Alexa ranking and the number pages indexed by Google.  It’s free.  Many others exist.

A good PR improves your ability to rank well on SERP (your ultimate goal).  Your page should rank higher than pages with similar content if the PR is higher.  It’s that simple.

Often, I will “guest post” as a method of building links.  Within my post, I’ll have a few links back to my own site, yet this post will be published on a site … with a higher PR than mine!

To Your Growth And Success!

Randy

Randall V. Wong, M.D.
Medical Website Optimization
www.MedicalMarketingEnterprises.com

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