Internet Marketing News: SEO vs PPC

Medical SEO vs Medical PPC: A Search Engine Marketing Overview

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a form of internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). It provides the opportunity for potential new patients to find your medical organization online when conducting search queries using search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc). It is a very popular and profitable marketing strategy for healthcare organizations, but you must comprehend the difference between its two components: Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click advertising, Below, I discuss the two strategies and offer some of the benefits and limitations to each.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or un-paid (“organic”) search results. The higher you rank, the higher you appear on the search results pages, the more exposure your brand gets and the more visitors/traffic your web pages will receive. There are a variety of ways to improve a ranking for a search result, but most involve the content that exists on the website. Including keywords in a web page’s meta-tags and page descriptions is important because of what the search engine’s algorithms are programmed to identify. The biggest influence to a ranking is going to be how well a website’s content matches the search query. Adding keywords you want to rank for in your content, as well as continually providing new and unique content, will improve your ranking when search engines “crawl” the website (“crawling a site” refers to an Internet bot that systematically browses the world wide web and existing web pages, typically for the sole purpose of indexing search results). Updating content requires the search engines to frequently and continually crawl the site.

Benefits: One benefit to implementing an SEO strategy for generating referrals is that it provides a level playing field for all competitors in the market. Your ranking cannot be influenced by out-bidding a competitor and is based on the content that exists on your website and your website’s domain authority. Domain authority is a measure of the power of a domain name and is one of many search engine ranking factors. Creating or optimizing content for maximum search results can be a very cost-effective marketing strategy that can have long-term results. Another benefit to SEO is that you can target specific keywords that potential patients may be using in search queries. Adding these keywords or phrases to your website’s content will boost rankings and visibility. You are also able to target new potential patients at the local level; using local modifiers with phrases such as “Florida Hand Centers” or “New York City Vein Care”.

Limitations: SEO does have some drawbacks. First, SEO is a long-term strategy that takes time to implement and even more time to see ranking improvements. A website will not jump to the top of the rankings a day after adding keywords to your content. It takes time for the search engines to continually crawl a website and determine there is a fit between your content and the search query. It also takes time to build your domain authority so that you can outrank your competitors on similar search terms. SEO requires a continued dedication to providing new and unique content (such as blogs), which take time to write and a level of commitment that many may not be able to provide. For targeting purposes, SEO realistically (unless you have a very large SEO budget) only targets ‘local’ keywords like ‘Miami knee replacement’ (as ‘national’ keywords like ‘knee replacement’ are simply too competitive to achieve page 1 rankings). A good SEO strategy should only involve targeting 6-10 keywords/phrases, leaving many other searched terms or keywords unaccounted for in your online marketing strategy. Lastly, when evaluating SEO success, it is important to peel away (e.g., not include) any visitors that come from ‘branded’ searches (searches done on your physician or practice names), as these visitors generally found you (initially) via other means (e.g. are existing patients, found via offline advertising, etc.). Branded searches often make up 70-80% of organic visitors, but add little incremental value.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising: PPC advertising is an internet advertising model used to drive more traffic to websites. Advertisers typically pay the publishers (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc…) when their ad has been clicked by a web user (Cost-Per-Click or CPC). Typically, advertisers will bid on specific keywords or phrases that are relevant to their target market, with a combination of the highest bidders and the most relevant advertisers garnering the top spots in paid search results. Paid advertisements are typically seen as the first three spots of a search result (usually having a beige/gold background) as well as along the right hand column of a search result page. PPC campaigns will have a strong enough ROI as long as you have a high enough procedural value on the specialty you are promoting.

Benefits: There are a few major advantages to PPC programs. First, with PPC, you are able to see an instant impact. Once you determine which keywords/phrases to target, your program is visible on search results. If you are looking to drive referrals and have immediate results, PPC is a great fit as a marketing strategy because you don’t have to wait three to six months to begin seeing the results. Another benefit to PPC is that you can target both local and national keywords, exposing your brand to more web users. Lastly, with PPC, you can target anywhere from 300-1000 keywords/phrases for your campaign, leaving no stone unturned when it comes to uncovering new patient opportunities.

Limitations: Some of the drawbacks to running successful PPC campaigns, like SEO, is it requires a significant time commitment with constant ad optimization, results tracking and analytics. There are over 20 different targeting methods that can be used when running a PPC campaign and if you don’t have the experience managing these types of campaigns, things get overlooked. Professional advertisers typically create numerous ads (often over 100), carefully select keywords (100s or even 1000s), geo-target/geo-optimize, target non-English languages, optimize for different devices (tablets, mobile and desktops), manage quality scores, schedule ads to optimal times, and monitor click-through-rates (CTR) and conversions in order to have a successful campaign. For a PPC campaign to be successful, it often requires someone managing it that has a certain level of expertise, experience and attention to detail. Unattended, PPC campaign costs can spiral out of control without showing any improvement in results.

When determining what form of online marketing strategy to implement for your healthcare organization, few strategies can compete with the ROI and exposure generated from search engine marketing. Both PPC and SEO need to be a part of your online medical marketing strategy if you want to maximize your organizations exposure to new patients. The problem is the time commitment and the experience level it involves to run these types of programs successfully. Those organizations who embrace both strategies are going to be extremely visible online (showing in organic as well as paid search results) and be top of mind when patients begin looking for treatment of their specific condition.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/medical-seo-vs-medical-ppc-search-engine-marketing-overview-0604135#6DmwgvOL719ITSLe.99

3 SEO Tips: Way to Increase Website Traffic and Business

3 Sustainable SEO Tips: Why Recover From Google Updates? Don't Get Hit!

We've all been there at one point or another. Shoot, you may be going through one of the five stages of Google grief right now.

This summer was a tumultuous one for Google algorithm updates. Since the beginning of May, we've gone through seven of them, each varying in severity, but the public outcry has been consistent: A group panics, some remain calm, and the Interwebz explodes with "How to Recover" posts.

Wouldn't you love to be in a place when you laugh in the face of Google algorithm updates? These tactics could help you get there.

1. Focus On Your Branding, Not Your Ranking

Look at the results for "flat screen TV" and tell me what the listings have in common. Do it. I'll wait.

They're all brands.

That's where search engines are going. They're favoring real company stuff over stuffed keywords and one-way links, and you don't have to be a household name to do it. It means doing things like:

•     Sponsoring local events and community involvement.
•     Giving away content (and maybe the occasional iPad) for free.
•     Paying attention to what your users want and giving it to them.

Perhaps the big brands do have it easy, not because they have the household name, but because they were around before everyone started freaking out about links, title tags, and keywords. They were doing things the right way that got them exposure – well, most of them anyway – and when things went online, that did too.

2. Give Users a Good Experience

It's impossible really hard to have a good website that ranks well for a long period of time if it doesn't give your users a good experience. If people like your website, they come back. They share it.

We know Google is making a push where a site's quality is more important than the number of links pointing to it:

In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by creating high-quality sites that users will want to use and share.

While that's still largely subjectively – How exactly do you define "high-quality sites," Google? – and I hate giving guarantees when it comes to search, there's one thing I'll rest my laurels on: Your website will always be "quality" if it gives your users a good experience.

Incorporate user experience consulting into your search and digital engagements. This includes things like:

•     User research.
•     User testing.
•     Split testing.
•     Conversion rate optimization.

Visual Website Optimizer is a great tool for split testing because it allows you to make layout styling changes without needing a developer, which, if your agency is like mine, is harder to get your hands on than Google's actual ranking factors. You can also set up usability testing through there if you don't have in-house resources for a full user test.

But this isn't just about giving users a good experience on your website because, before they even make it there, they're likely interacting with you someplace else first. Think about the links they're seeing of yours, how you look in SERPs, your Facepook posts, your graphics, everything: If you were a user, would you click on them?

3. Preserve Your URLs

Outside of breaking news, old URLs will rank the best. While 301s and canonicals are heaven sent for SEO professionals, they strip out a fraction of equity, and in this day and age, even the smallest amount can make a huge difference.

Unless absolutely necessary – like you're dealing with a site architecture that's been picked apart and puzzled together so many times that it's one hot mess – keep your URLs the same. When you add new features to a product or update your service offerings, do it on the same URL.

Apple does this with each new release of the iPad or iPhone. When they launch an update, it goes to /iphone/ or /ipad/; they don't create entirely new URLs for the product they're promoting and instead shuffle the old version to a new URL. This means you're launching a product with some equity already built up.


Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2289835/3-Sustainable-SEO-Tips-Why-Recover-From-Google-Updates-Dont-Get-Hit