Month: December 2013

Social Networking Not Working for Your SEO Rankings?

When Hummingbird, Google’s last big algorithm update, rolled out in the last quarter of 2013, businesses that were doing social media right finally received some well-deserved credit. The problem is, most businesses don’t do it right, or don’t do it at all.

A Short History on SEO Fools

Since the inception of Facebook Business Pages, perhaps before then, many business owners and marketing professionals have tried to fool the system. Humans crave the get rich quick opportunity. Many people selected SEO companies based on their results, and those SEOs that successfully tricked the system were the leaders. Google’s reputation as a great source of relevant, high-quality, information was at stake as irrelevant content moved to page one of search results, and Google’s gurus had to find a way to filter out irrelevant or low-quality information.

A good example of Google’s quality issue can be seen in how the company dealt with duplicate content. Until Google became hardcore about ranking sites with duplicate content lower than those with original text, online marketers tried all kinds of quick-fixes, like keyword stuffing—adding pages of gibberish with keywords to a website—and stealing text from competitors (which is also copyright infringement). Another sneaky, now outlawed, practice was to place keywords on a website in the same color font as the background, so they weren’t visible to consumers, but search spiders saw the words as relevant for indexing and ranking a webpage.

These tactics became known as black hat tactics. Just like the bad guys in the old west, SEO villains who stole rankings from honest businesses with integrity-based SEO strategies were deemed “the bad guys.” We, “the good guys” are the white-hat cowboys, who stand for justice, honesty, and all things good and beautiful—even in our business dealings, when profits are on the line. Ultimately, the good guys win. Read More

3 Website Tests for 2014 SEO Success

Is Your Website Build to Be Found in 2014?

“Page one of Google” is a moving target with changing factors. Smart businessmen and women are looking at their 2013 numbers and expenses, trying to determine what to change for the coming year. What tactics will improve profitability, patient numbers or number of customers, and visibility? Of course, we all want to be on page one of Google, but for what keywords? A solid SEO strategy requires time and effort. It also requires looking at what Google considers important. In today’s blog post, I’ll give you three things Google considers high priority, and I’ll explain how to tell if you’re compliant, what these things really mean for your business, and what they mean to Google. 

Compatibility with all screen sizes.

Two people. According to studies, one shops for services and products on his smartphone.

Is your website built to rank high in online search?

If you aren’t sure, test it out here: Responsive Site Tool.

  • What it means to your business: With half of your potential new patient base searching for your services online, you cannot afford to go another month without a responsive website design. MDPM Consulting builds all of our custom websites on a WordPress content management system, with completely responsive capabilities. Our designers actually build out the site design according to how it should look on desktops, tablets, and smartphones, prior to site development.
  • What it means to Google: When Google’s algorithm indexes your website’s code, it can determine whether your site is responsive. Those sites that are responsive get more credit in mobile search, because the site owners are providing Google’s search clients with what they need. Read More