This is an important update for all our clients – Have your medical website been affected by Google’s recent updates to their algorithm (Panda & Penguin)? Has your medical search engine optimization strategy and google search rankings dropped since April 2012? Welcome to a new era of medical search engine optimization, where your server side, off page factors, link structures, authority and social signals count more then keyword padding and keyword linking structures. I will briefly go over some of the information here, however, those of you who are affected should call 1-877-267-4111 or use our SEO contact form for a free medical search engine optimization consultation immediately so we can analyze your site, traffic and any issues affecting your visibility.
At first when we saw a rapid decline (in some cases medical marketing clients that we have been working with and managing their sites for years that have maintained first page Goggle rankings on all keywords – suddenly loose or worse – drop off completely on highly competitive terms) we started to explain to our clients that authority and social signals were going to be more important – social networking for example with peer groups – not just special offers, discounts and freebies – will be the future of medical SEO. Many clients did not believe us, and many had blamed poor link practices, or paid link practices they were involved in for this earth shaking change in Google’s search algorithm (some believed that SEM – or Pay Per Click was the only way to go). We have learned a lot in the last six months and have been able to resurrect these medical web sites and increase their rankings easily – (and maybe more importantly we have been releasing new medical web sites every week that manage to rank for keywords quickly).
Today, we were invited into a google webmaster hang out with John Muller Google Switzerland Webmaster Trends Analyst and was able to verify and find out valuable information to help our future medical/health clients as well as those medical web sites affected by the recent google updates. Here are a few key points from the Google on air hang out that we are applying (and have been using since April 2012) for medical search engine optimization on medical web sites and blogs.
(aside – if you are not using Google hang outs and on air – you are missing out )
Medical Search Engine Optimization Tips:
1) If your medical practice is in NEW YORK CITY are you affected by server location during ranking of results in Goolge?
We found out that yes you are going to get a negative score if your server is, lets say in Canada, or in California, if your medical/health business is in New York, but it is only one factor in the geo-targeting structure Google has set up for search results – your Author information, city & state textual information on every page of your medical web site, google plus business and google places pages and your social signals all affect google geo-targeting in search engine results more then server location. The better your medical search engine company has worked to link all these factors the more likely your medical web site will rank in the search engines.
2) Originally, Matt Cutts Google Senior Engineer and Panda Penguin Spokesperson – had said that if your site has been affected by recent Google algorithm changes (that were designed to make search engine end user experiences better) you would receive a message (if your medical website was a spammy site) in webmaster tools. However, many of our clients had been affected negatively (Negative Medical Search Engine Optimization is possible today now more then ever watch out!) as well as many clients receive a lift in rankings who never had performed any medical SEO. What we discussed with John Mueller was what to do with STUBBORN sites that even after working and bettering the medical web site content and authortiy in every way – maybe even redirecting pages, etc – it still would not rank – but never received any notice from Google that manual penguin, Panda action was taken – John Mueller suggested (and we felt a little dumb) – to submit a Google request for reconsideration, even though we were not formally told that the site had been affected – Great Idea JOHN – YOU ROCK – we are going to do this with a few stubborn sites – and let you know what happens.
3) Above were the big things we got out of talking with Google today about our medical web sites and search engine optimization practices. For those that want more information – here is the main things we know and have been doing (There are many factors that effect your medical website, however we are going to talk about the most likely to affect your search engine rankings since Google’s latest algorithm updates):
A) Authority – using microdata and microformating, and proper keyword placement in the body of the document. Old tactics like adding keywords many times in meta tags, adding to images, and alt links – etc – are frowned on. Let me mention authority one more time – as it relates to the next important part – social signals – by using rich snippet microdata language we are basically associating a Google plus profile to a Medical Website – this actual authority and identity is base factor in medical search engine optimization.
B) Social Signals – including posting of article (or site) links from a medical web site to a Google Plus Profile – Some people are going around the internet saying the plus ones and like mean something in Search Engine Optimization – but our real world experience is that FOLLOWERS of Google Plus Pages and Facebook FANS of Medical/health business websites count a lot more weight. Furthermore, we have done some tests and found that by Tweeting, Facebookin’ and Google Postin’ a new page or site – to Active MD’s Social Network we are able to quickly get medical web site pages indexed and ranked – in less then 24 hrs. Proving that authority and social followers are the types of social signals Google is looking for – not +1 and Likes – this makes serious sense since what Google is trying to stop is companies being able to just post non-relevant content to drive traffic that ends in bad user experience. Social signals proves a real person is really providing authoritative content!
C) Linking Structures – there is actually a lot of confusion around this issue and I will not go into detail here – however – the quality and relevance of your incoming links from other websites may count against you – here is what we know for sure – the latest Google updates have affected Medical Websites – and ONE SMALL PART of it may be that they have purchased links from sites that GOOGLE has found to be SPAMMY untrustworthy sites or directories – or has an unusual amount of low quality links – like comment spam links to a medical site – comments that have nothing to do with a medical web site – like we love your information – go to this link! Ha! This area is seriously complicated and what we have found is that many Medical Search Engine Optimization companies WRONGLY telling customers that their issues are because of bad links and not the information listed above. So again let me assure you that those links may have given you weight on some terms previously – but will not any longer – that does not mean you have to remove links – that is ridiculous – you just need to fix pages, remove duplicate content, fix 404 errors and make sure you use 301s. (one of our new link practices is to build link juice to a Google Plus or Facebook Medical business page – rather then to the site – which will not fail you.)
Here is a basic video about Google April 2012 updates – if you do not believe this is happening – featuring Matt Cutts
Here is Matt Cutts, Google’s Chief Quality Engineer (and main spokesperson on all things Panda & Penguin) in this 3 minute video from July, 2012. about the basics all websites should do to ensure they are not effected by Google’s April 2012 updates.
http://youtu.be/5_rIR0cT468
This is a 3-minute basic rules for 2012 medical search engine optimization – and for our medical clients edification – however, if you are a DIY medical practice – by all means – Good Luck – Those that want accurate timely results contact us at 1-877-267-4111 or use this convenient on-line form.
