“How do I improve my search engine optimization (SEO)?”
This is without a doubt the most common question doctors present to me. Since it is so common, I thought it would be ideal to share the question and answer with everyone. The answer is quite complicated; however, I have been blessed with a reading pool of probably the smartest people on the planet. Therefore, I have no reservations about sharing the answer with everyone.
SEO has two main rules:
- Content is king. The more original content a web site has, the better it will perform on search engine results.
- If you need to improve SEO results, then refer to rule 1.
These rules are the foundation to all SEO success including other vertical data structures such as video, social structures, and blogs.
Although the Mantra “Content is King” has a nice catchy sound, the reality is “Unique, high quality, unduplicated content is actually king” – Not quite as catchy, but definitely SEO effective.
Unique, high quality, unduplicated content is King
It is king for three reasons:
- It engages the reader and feeds the search engine spiders.
- Increase search engine rankings and traffic.
- Promotes the likelihood of quality links from other sites.
1. Engage the Reader and Feed the Search Engine Spiders
Example: Let’s use TV news. Every single news station basically has the same story. The reporter tries to engage the listeners and keep them watching by using unique and unduplicated content. They may interview someone on the scene or have an expert of the topic.
Doctors need to take the same approach to their web sites. Patients like to read, watch, or hear unique, high-quality content. Doctors with successful high ranking web sites place original spin on their procedures or on their facility that will differentiate them from their competitors. The spin should be unique, obvious, and easy to find for the readers. Updating content regularly will encourage patients to return to your site. It also encourages search engine spiders to return. The search engines will re-index and re-score your web site with new content. Original content will score better than standardized content.
2. Increase Search Engine Rankings and Traffic
Search engine algorithms are programmed and designed to crawl a web site in a fashion that simulates a person. Search engines reward web pages that correlate content with keywords and cross links. Search engines also score web pages by ranking the content. Unique, high quality, unduplicated content scores better than generic content, ultimately resulting in superior page visibility ratings from a search engine. New and unique content will have a positive effect on the search engine results.
3. Promote the Likelihood of Quality Links from Other Sites
Quality inbound links to a web site are a very influential factor in determining search engine rankings. A web site with unique, high quality, unduplicated content entices others to link to your site.
With the rise of social media sites (myspace.com, dig.com, facebook.com etc.) your site content is ever more important. Your readers have the power to submit excerpts of your content to these sites with backlinks to your site pages for all to read. Prudent doctors use this information to regularly produce articles, blogs, and press releases. This fresh content contributes to the optimization of your web site and provides exposure to potentially millions of readers on various social media sites. A doctor can literally plan a marketing campaign around the burst of traffic received from social media links.
MyAdvice offers several ways to have unique, high quality, unduplicated content introduced onto your web site. One effective tactic is to use our article indexing package. It is a quick, painless, and inexpensive method of producing original content. Basically the doctors send us papers, documents, or articles that they have written in the past, and MyAdvice reproduces them on an a web page that has the same aesthetics as your site. The Visibility team will create any applicable crosslinks between the web site and the article. We will call out the spiders to re-index the site.
Doctors – It’s time to blow the dust off those old research papers and put them to use! These papers are excellent sources for high quality, unduplicated content.
Another tactic is to outsource MyAdvice’s copywriters. Our copywriters will produce unique, high-quality, keyword-rich documents. The process is a bit more time consuming (about a two-week turnaround time) and more expensive then article indexing; however, the content will be accurately targeted for your patients.
Blogs are another fantastic source for original content. There is a time and effort cost involved in maintaining a blog; however, blogs allow doctors to control the content and focus on agenda, target keywords, target cross links, and create unique, high quality, unduplicated content.
