COLUMN TECH TALK Is your site optimized? A Surefire tips to get your website high up in online search results BY JESSICA FOSTER pproximately 2,500 years ago, a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus ex-pounded the doctrine that the only constant is change. He could easily have been forecasting the constant change that is occurring today in digital marketing. In 2015, your search engine optimi-zation (SEO) efforts (those little things you do to get your website high up on online search results) should be evolv-ing to reflect the indexing changes that Google and other search engines have adopted. These changes do affect your website ranking, which means they can affect your revenue potential. Fortunately some aspects of this sci-ence remain unchanged. However, there are a few new best practices that you will need to adopt to maintain and increase your website presence and rankings. Let’s list some of the more important factors that are most likely to have a positive impact on your website traffic. Content is still king Internal and external links Achieving the highest return on the time and money in-vested into your website is as simple as adopting relevant page content that frequently references the search terms you wish to be ranked highly for on search results. Simply put, when you have good quality, informative content on each page that directly relates to the services you provide and states the geographical area that you serve, you will do well. Regular content update Stale websites are defined as those whose content has not been updated for some time – this can be measured in months, not years. Search engines, like Google, place a higher value on sites whose content is regularly updated, as it is believed that this activity attracts new and return visi-tors. Remember to keep your updates on-point with respect to their subject matter. JESSICA FOSTER writes on behalf of mindZplay Solutions, provider of practice management solutions and websites. To learn more, visit www. practicejewel.com. 32 Canadian Chiropractor July/August 2015 Sites offering visitors with value-added, related services are considered to have a higher degree of importance versus content-only sites. Pages linking to other internal pages offering additional information or services, such as your online “appointment book”, are encouraged. Appropriate usage of external links means ensuring that the links point to high-quality websites with content that is relevant to your service – search engines such as Bing, Google, Yahoo and others will consider this favorably when ranking your website. Suitable, high-quality and reputable websites that ‘backlink’ to your site will also be viewed positively and will contribute strongly to search engine placement. Optimize social media Your social media presence on Facebook, Google+, You-Tube, LinkedIn, and the like, can also have a synergistic effect on your website’s ranking. For example, search en-gines will increase the importance of your website in ac-cordance with the number of appropriate, high-quality social media pages that are back-linking to your clinic’s website. If you have a Twitter account or a Facebook fan www.canadianchiropractor.ca
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