Google recently shared news of a bug that interfered with the search engine’s ability to index new content. This is not the first time that the problem has come up – back in May, they reported having the same issue. While it may be a little alarming to hear that even Google runs into technical snafus, you may not recognize exactly what this news has to do with your site, and your online marketing efforts. We stay current with SEO-related matters, even when those issues call for action at Google, and not on our end. We are particularly interested in developments that impact indexing, as proper indexing can be crucial to your site’s online marketing success. By keeping you informed about issues that affect you, we can keep you more aware of what your website is doing for you. Staying informed also ensures we are ready to step in whenever a change might be needed on your end to ensure that you keep reaching people online. Read More
Category: Search Engine Optimization
Do Your Clients Need to Vary Their Reviews?
Savvy business owners know how valuable Google reviews can be for their business. Google reviews are a marker of trustworthiness and legitimacy. As we’ve covered before, of course you want high Google review aggregate scores. However, a negative review here and there is not the end of the world. If you haven’t already done so, you should adopt the practice of requesting that your clients leave you a Google review. It can also help your online reputation to build your review scores on other, industry-specific rating platforms as well. As your clients leave you these additional reviews, do they need to vary their content? Read More
Angie’s List Is Now Free
You may have come across Angie’s List. It’s a website where you can find home services like plumbing, HVAC, roofing, concrete, etc. However, the site itself remained behind a paywall of $40 per year until recently. Now that this website is free and open to the public, there are three major search engine optimization (SEO) factors you may want to consider. For instance, if you are a service provider that can use Angie’s List but haven’t been, you may want to start now. Read More
Why Citation Listings Matter To Local SEO
A major portion of Local SEO work is creating local business listings. A business listing is a profile found online with your business name, address, phone, and other miscellaneous information about your business. There are thousands of websites and directories where you can create listings. You may have already heard of the popular ones like Google Plus Local, Yelp, and Bing Local. Read More
Google Updates Google + Business Page Ranking Factors
Check out the updated help page entitled: Improve your local rankings on Google. Google went ahead and added more information on local ranking factors to the page, leveling it up. Prior to this update, there were about 5 paragraphs on the topic, but now there’s nearly double that, including more specific details. How does this affect your local SEO campaign? Read on to find out. Read More
3 Local SEO Moves You Can Make This Week
The quick fix isn’t always the most effective route, but when it comes to local SEO, it’s all about knowing which actions to take to benefit your potential patient. If you’re a local business, local SEO is important to your online marketing strategy. Whether you focus on organic, paid, or content marketing, your website and online presence needs to be optimized locally. Your potential patients are within a certain proximity to your brick and mortar business. Ignoring local SEO is like running a practice without a postal address. Your patients will rarely be able to find you, and you probably won’t get any mail. Your business address is just as important online as it is offline. Read More
What Are Business Citations For Local SEO?
A citation is a reference to your business online. What does this mean? Your name, address, and phone number (NAP) is your citation. Search engines use your NAP to determine the authority of your business online. These citations, however, do not need to be linked to your website to count. They just need to be accurate and consistent wherever they are listed. Not interesting enough to care? What if you lost nearly 75 percent of your potential customers because your business citation listings online were inaccurate, incorrect, or non-existent? A mere 20 percent of those customers raise your profits by quite a bit. Consider your online citation accuracy, and how you can update it. Read More
Referrals Are Not a Stand Alone Dental Marketing Tactic
I have been in the business of business development for over 20 years. It never ceases to amaze me when I hear business owners say “I get all my business from referrals.”
Years ago business owners may have been able to get away with relying on word-of-mouth referrals almost exclusively as a business development tactic. The internet has given people an unprecedented ability to check you out even after they get referred to your practice. The result is, you are missing out on referrals if you believe you don’t need a more comprehensive marketing plan. Read More
Dentist Marketing SEO Piece by Piece
Part 2: METADATA for DENTISTS
This is part two in our series on dental marketing SEO.
Another important factor is metadata, thought it’s not quite as important as dental website content and blogs. There are three primary components to metadata: title tag, description, and keywords. You’ll hear some techies say that keywords are not important, and to Google, they aren’t. However, keywords are important to Yahoo and Bing. Sure, Google has 65% of the search engine market, but if you can please all the search engines all the time, why not?
What is a title tag? This is like a page title.
In the code, it looks something like this: <title>Modern Dental Practice Marketing</title>.
Your title tag should have your main business name and location, if you provide local service (which most dentists do).
What is a meta description? A description is the text that shows up in a search engine results page. Read More