The so-called “Medic Update” was really a heightened application of concepts of “Your Money Your Life” (YMYL) detailed in google’s Quality Raters Guidelines training manual. This applied to web pages that “could potentially impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.”

Examples of YMYL web pages are News and current events, Civics, government, and law, Finance, Shopping, Groups of people and Health and safety.

The algorithm update was dubbed the Medic Update because it seemed to have the most impact on medical website’s ranking; 42 percent of the sites affected were in the medical, health, fitness, or healthy lifestyle space These concepts apply to all websites in the google index but they are more important to the YMYL websites because of their potential effect on user’s well being.

What Google Medic update factors affect search rankings?

The factors that affect the search rankings for YMYL websites really apply to Search Engine Optimization for all websites. Google calls these factors Website Quality (WQ). Google’s WQ uses Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EAT) as an indicator. Let’s have a look at each as it pertains to a medical website.

Expertise: Medical advice should be written or produced by people or organizations with appropriate medical expertise or accreditation.
Authority: There should be evidence of medical expertise/authority as the website’s main content (MC) and on 3rd party websites.
Trustworthiness: Google specifies this as “adequate Information about the Website or Creator of the MC for the Purpose of the Page”.

This may seem daunting but it’s really much of what we already do to optimize all websites. But it does emphasize how important this part of SEO really is.

How to Optimize for E-A-T

Here are some of the important general measures to take to optimize your website’s for EAT.

1. Bolster your company’s about page and individual authors’ bio pages to include details on credentials and expertise.
2. Client reviews and testimonials for your services. Foster user reviews across the web.
3. Building up your company’s authority on other platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other authoritative websites.
4. Add contact information on every page, or at the very least have a robust Contact Us page with phone, email, physical address, etc.
5. Get favorable press coverage in reputable outlets, and getting authors bylined in other high-authority publications.

Query Intent Theory

Mirroring your website’s content to searchers’ intent is important to any SEO campaign. What this means for us is that even if your website has great EAT, if the content doesn’t mirror your clients search intent, you can still struggle to rank and thus lose site visits.

The solution is to try your best to match your top funnel page content to how a user would actually ask/expect the question to be answered.

Content Theory

The longer and better organized the page’s content is (relative to your competitors’ similar page) the better results you may have in rankings. The idea is to thoroughly answer the questions and or provide information about the medical services you provide. As part of any SEO campaign competitive research this content theory should be applied.

NetLocal SEO
Address: 226 W Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: (215) 874-0744

John DiBella

John DiBella is the founder and CEO of NetLocal, a local SEO agency specializing in SEO for consumer medical practices and author of the ebook SEO for the Small Business Owner.  email: john@netlocalseo.com

www.netlocalseo.com/

A website’s ranking in the search results is an important indicator of its overall health. A high rank can increase visibility, drive traffic, and potentially improve conversion rates. A low rank may signal that something is wrong with the site or content, or it may indicate a problem with Google’s indexing algorithms. Either way, this typically indicates a need for some sort of corrective action to be taken by the webmaster.

Want to learn more about how NetLocal can help you measure your SEO success? Read on!

What is SEO and Why Does it Matter?

SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization. It is the activity that increases visibility of your website on internet search engines. Whether it’s organic SEO, which refers to natural rankings on search engines, or paid SEO, which refers to paying to place your website on the first page on a search engine (usually for a limited time), you need to know what you’re doing or else your site will not get found by the right people.

The Importance of Keyword Research

Keyword research is important for SEO, because it helps you to figure out what kind of topic you want to write about. It also gives you an idea of the people who are conducting keyword searches on topics related to your business. And finally, it helps you choose keywords that bring in more traffic.

It’s important to note that SEO is a complicated process, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer to optimization. However, following the basic principles of SEO will help you to improve your website’s visibility and ranking.

How to Optimize Your Website for Search Engines

A great way to make your website more search engine friendly is by using keywords. Keywords are words or phrases that a user might type into a search engine, such as “chocolate chip cookies”. This is important because the keywords you choose will determine what kind of traffic your site gets from various search engines. Some tips for finding good keywords include:

• using Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool to find popular keyword ideas
• looking for keywords where your site already ranks high on the first page of Google results
• using a word cloud generator to visually brainstorm ideas
• reading articles about keyword research and picking out ones that have been successful

Ways to Measure Your SEO Success

In order to measure your SEO success, you need to track your website’s visibility and ranking in SERPs over time. There are a number of tools and services that can help you do this, including NetLocal.

Your SEO success can also be measured by tracking keywords and organic search traffic over time on your website. You should track the number of visitors that come to your site from search engines and your market trends over time (Google Analytics is a free tool that you can use). By assessing the number of visitors that come to your site from search engines, you can determine whether or not your SEO efforts are successful.

You should also track organic visits over time to determine if the changes in SEO visibility and rankings are due to your efforts. If you continue to make progress over time, then this could be a sign that your SEO efforts are working.

SEO is an ongoing process and things like social media, content marketing, and online reviews influence how visible you are in SERPs. You should also track these metrics so you can understand what factors affect your search engine visibility. This will help you determine which changes to make when optimizing your website, especially if your website is new.

You should also track conversions and sales or other metrics that are important to your business over time. Tracking the impact of SEO on your bottom line (and not just how visible you are in SERPs) will help you understand whether or not it’s working for you, especially if there aren’t obvious changes in your website’s rankings.

When you track your SEO success, it will help you understand what works for your business and it can also give you an indication of which areas need improvement. Measuring is the only way to know whether or not your efforts are paying off so you should measure frequently and consistently in order to see real results.

How NetLocal Can Help

NetLocal is a leading provider of SEO and online marketing services. We offer a variety of tools and services to help our clients track their SEO progress and measure their success. To learn more about our services, check out the rest of our website.

Conclusion

SEO is an ongoing process. It can be difficult to measure success, but by using the principles of SEO and tracking your progress over time you’ll be able to see how it’s helping or hindering your business. You should measure frequently and consistently so that you know what works for your business!

NetLocal offers a wide range of services including website design, development, social media marketing, and online reputation management.

NetLocal SEO
107 W Pine St Suite A
Lakeland, FL 33815
phone: (863) 943-2425

John DiBella

John DiBella is the founder and CEO of NetLocal, a local SEO agency specializing in SEO for consumer medical practices and author of the ebook SEO for the Small Business Owner.  email: john@netlocalseo.com

www.netlocalseo.com/

Smart Lipo

Smart lipo, or laser lipolysis, is a procedure that uses energy from a laser to contour the body. It achieves this by heating fat cells and turning them into a liquid that can then be suctioned from the body. Since humans don’t grow new fat cells, the effects of smart lipo are permanent. Smart lipo is ideal for anyone who has multiple trouble spots and desires fast results. In fact, most individuals experience changes within one week of treatment. In addition, this procedure is much less painful than traditional liposuction.

Over the past year, there has been a monthly average of over 900,000 Google searches for phrases related to smart lipo. On average, smart lipo treatments cost about $8,000.

Brazilian Butt Lift

If you’s like a bottom that’s full and round, a Brazilian butt lift may be the treatment for you. Gleuteoplasty offers results without surgery or implants, which lowers the likelihood of infection. It involves the transfer of fat from one area of the body to the buttocks. Platelet-rich plasma is then drawn and deposited to the area as well. This ensures that the fat will be fed after the procedure. In the end, this treatment results in a natural appearance and is particularly successful with people who want to show off a more shapely figure.

Brazilian butt lift searches have maintained their high volume over the past year, with a monthly average of over 281,000 related to the treatment. On average, BBL treatments cost about $8,000.

Hair Transplant

According to the American Hair Loss Association, 95% of male hair loss is caused by androgenetic alopecia, or male pattern baldness. Luckily, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports that hair transplants offer positive changes regarding the fullness of patients’ hair. During a hair transplant, the doctor moves the patient’s existing hair to thinning areas. In approximately nine months, noticeable hair growth will be evident.

The hair transplant is one of the most popular treatments on this list in terms of its search volume, with over 520,000 related searches being made on a monthly basis over the past 12 months. Not only that, but its search value has risen from 77 in 2016 all the way to 99 as of today. The average hair transplant costs about $9,000.

Laser Hair Removal

Do you have unwanted hair that you wish you didn’t? Laser hair removal is the solution for you. The most common areas of treatment include the legs, bikini line, chin, and armpits. To enjoy its benefits to the fullest, you’ll likely need up to six treatments. During each session, the laser’s heat is applied to your hair follicles, stopping hair growth. Also, a cooling gel may be applied to sooth the warm sensation and prevent skin damage. Results last several months. 

Laser hair removal has been on the rise in terms of its search popularity in recent years. Its search value jumped from 48 in 2020 to 84 as of today, and phrases related to it have driven over 989,000 average monthly searches over the past year.

Laser Skin Treatments

There are a number of facial laser treatments that can fix common skin concerns such as sun spots, acne scars, rosacea, and wrinkles. Certain lasers have the ability to remove the outer layer of skin and heat the layer below to encourage collagen growth. Others use intense pulses of light to achieve the same effect. Both improve patients’ skin tone and texture. One of the most popular laser skin treatments is Fraxel. It provides effective wrinkle removal and recovery time is very short. It’s not uncommon for it to shave years off of your appearance. The best part about laser skin treatments is that surgery is not necessary. Not only that, but a single treatment usually provides patients’ desired results.

Laser skin treatments have been a mainstay in Google’s search rankings for years. The search engine has recorded an average of over one monthly million searches related to botox over the past twelve months, and its search value has risen 45 points since August of 2020.

Cosmetic Injections

Most visible signs of aging are linked to loss of volume in your facial tissue. One of the safest and most effective ways to fill those lines around your nose and mouth is by injecting dermal fillers like Juvederm and Restylane. These fillers contain hydrochloric acid which plumps skin and keeps it hydrated.

Since there are a number of cosmetic injections on the market, it’s best to consult with an experienced medical provider to determine which will work best for you. Each product has unique formulations and is more effective when applied on certain areas of the face. 

During treatment, your treatment area may be numbed before the filler is injected. Noticeable results are almost immediate. Mild bruising and swelling are common side effects, but they disappear rapidly. Results last up to 18 months. 

Cosmetic injections are almost always in high demand, and search results reflect the public’s desire for this treatment. In fact, Juvederm’s search value has nearly doubled since April of 2020, increasing from 33 to 64. In addition, there has been a monthly average of over 641,000 Juvederm-related searches for the past year.

CoolSculpting

CoolSculpting is a non-invasive body contouring treatment that eliminates up to 25% of fat cells in the treatment area. This treatment is also known as cryolipolysis. In other words, it freezes fat cells off of specific body parts. During the treatment, extremely cold temperatures break the fat down so that it can be sucked away. 

The cold temperatures numb the treatment area, which means that the procedure is virtually painless. In addition, the treatment takes approximately one hour and requires no recovery time. CoolSculpting does not tighten skin, so results must be sustained by healthy eating and regular exercise.

CoolSculpting may not be the most popular treatment on this list, but it still commands a robust search volume. A monthly average of over 448,000 related Google searches is too impressive to ignore.

Teeth Whitening and Straightening

A person’s smile can affect his or her entire personality and the light in which others view them. With crooked or stained teeth, you may have to hide your mouth. To correct such issues, you can opt for a professional whitening or straightening procedure. Although there are whitening kits available on store shelves, you can achieve better results by getting treated by a licensed professional. In fact, it’s possible to see immediate results. Your teeth can become a few shades lighter after just one visit! 

Crooked or misaligned teeth can also be treated with conventional metal braces or Invisalign. Invisalign is a set of plastic trays customized to a person’s bite. As your teeth begin to shift, you switch out the trays until you’ve achieved your desired results. This process is much more comfortable than traditional braces, and, when you finally have straight, white teeth, your self-esteem will rise and you’ll be proud to show off your smile.

Teeth straightening isn’t in very high demand according to the search rankings, but the public is still very much interested in teeth whitening at the moment. Over the past year, users have searched “teeth whitening” an average of 246,000 times per month.

Research shows that certain search engine optimization offers the highest possible return on investment for businesspeople. Using SEO to advertise the medical esthetic services listed above is the best digital marketing strategy for those seeking a return on their investment. An optimized site for a doctor’s practice or a particular procedure can climb search rankings and deliver new clients for years after it’s implemented.

John DiBella

John DiBella is the founder and CEO of NetLocal, a local SEO agency specializing in SEO for consumer medical practices and author of the ebook SEO for the Small Business Owner.  email: john@netlocalseo.com

www.netlocalseo.com/

Local SEO vs SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, has never been a more important tool for small businesses. When 97% of people learn more about local businesses online, the ability to appear at the top of local search results via SEO is crucial.

Local SEO is a step up from normal SEO for businesses that wish to target local customers. While SEO aims to increase your business’s ranking in search results on a national or even global scale, local SEO focuses on capturing close-by searchers.

There are several steps that businesses can take to improve their local search ranking, such as optimizing their websites and creating a Google My Business listing.

2. What is Google My Business?

Google My Business (or GMB ) is a service that lists local businesses, and it is one of the more popular business directories- it is sometimes known as creating or managing a ‘business profile’. These profiles commonly appear on Google Search and Google Maps, and can also appear through mobile searches.

Both chain brands and small businesses can make use of Google My Business, but smaller business owners are more likely to need to personally manage their Google My Business accounts. Often, business profiles already exist, as anyone can create them. By using Google My Business, you can either create or verify a business profile and take control of your business’s online presence.

Optimizing your business through Google My Business can lead to higher rankings in local search engine results, as the algorithm can present your business to local searchers. Potential customer can then see your personalized business details (such as opening times and pricing) and also visit your business’s website and social media profiles.

3. Keyword Research for Local

In order to optimize local SEO, research into local keywords is required. These are usually terms related to a business’s industry combined with city locations from the local area. For example, ‘barbers Chicago’ or ‘coffee shop Boston’. They are an integral part of local SEO strategy.

Local keywords can also contain ‘keyword modifiers’, such as ‘top’, ‘best’, and ‘fast’. In general, business owners can benefit from thinking from the point of view of their ideal customer: what are they searching to find your business?

4. Why is Google My Business Important for Local Business SEO?

A GMB listing can aid businesses in appearing in organic results for potential customers from their geographic area. As even more general or vague searches show local businesses on the results page where possible, it is crucial to have control over your Google My Business account.

Reviews, such as those from Yelp, are showcased on your GMB listing. High-quality reviews that are positive about your business can improve your ranking on search engines like Bing and Google.

You can also learn more about the potential customers in your geographic area from Google Analytics. Data from Google Maps can inform you of where people asked for directions to your business from and how many people saw your business on Maps compared to Google Search.

Google My Business Insights can also show you the most popular search terms that led customers to your business listing. A top SEO tip would be to use this data to inform your creation of local SEO keywords.

5. What are the Top Optimization Ranking Factors for Local Listings

A. Business Listing Factors

1. Proximity

Convenience can be the difference between a potential customer visiting your business, or a competitor. It is an important factor in customer decision-making – and Google is aware of this. If your business location is close to a customer, your listing will appear higher on the SERPs (or search engine results pages).

It is difficult to alter proximity without literally moving a business’s physical location or service area. Ensuring that accurate location information is available throughout your digital marketing can improve this factor.

2. Online Reviews

From Yelp to Tripadvisor, reviews can come from anywhere. Customers can also review your business on your GMB profile. As a result, positive reviews are highly-valued by Google, but the importance of reviews for customers also can’t be ignored.

Brightlocal’s 2020 Local Consumer Review Survey found that 79% of consumers trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations, such as those from family and friends. Encouraging customers to leave reviews on your business’s web pages and social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook can be an astute move for your SEO strategy.

3. Google listing Settings…..Category

Choosing a relevant category for your GMB listing is a key aspect of local SEO marketing. Irrelevant categories can hurt your business’s search engine rankings.

Business owners choose one main category, which should be the business’s primary focus. Up to nine secondary categories can also help search engine optimization and should showcase other services which the business offers.

4. Keyword in Business Title

Filling business titles with irrelevant keywords can cause GMB profile suspension. But keywords within the business name can improve listings – if business information such as the name is kept consistent throughout social media, landing pages, and other web pages.

5. Location Keyword in Business Title

Similarly, location keywords can aid local SEO and organic results rankings. One way to use a location keyword in your business title may be to alter the business’s legal name to reflect this location keyword.

Such an action would be a sensible step for a business that attracts the majority of its traffic from content marketing with local SEO through Google.

6. Local Citations

Wherever a business appears online is called a local citation. These are likely to mainly come from your own website and social media, but can also be built up through data aggregators, which act like digital versions of the Yellow Pages.

Ensure that business information such as contact phone numbers and addresses are the same throughout local citations so that potential customers aren’t confused.

B. On Page Factors

1. Authority through backlink link building

Backlinks are the backbone of high-quality local SEO. The main way that Google can ‘verify’ websites is by checking their backlink profile, which can be maintained through link building.

There are several different ways to build up a strong backlink profile. Reaching out to other local businesses and forming local links can be useful, especially for smaller businesses. Guest posts on other related websites can also build up these useful links.

2. Trust

However, it is crucial to be selective about where the links are located. Choosing websites with high DR (domain rating) scores is essential, as these websites are seen as trustworthy by search engines. Local businesses with this amount of trust are rare but valuable.

3. Schema

Schema markup is a vocabulary of HTML tags added to the HTML of a business’s website. Due to a collaboration between Google, Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo!, information such as star ratings and publication dates can be added to listings on SERPs.

Moz has an in-depth guide on Schema markup that explains it step-by-step.

4. Enhanced Proximity through POI Pages

Completely filling out your Google My Business page means that your business will appear on Maps. This allows your business to appear in the map pack or local pack (three search results below a small map).

Emphasizing specific attributes, provided by you or reviews, can optimize this POI page. This also adds to the completeness of the page and, consequently, customer trust.

5. On Page content, tagging, meta title and meta description

Using local keywords on business website pages can greatly aid in local SEO. But there are aspects of website page content that can’t be seen – meta titles, or title tags, and descriptions.

Meta titles are at the top of every page’s HTML and should be less than 60 characters including spaces. Meta descriptions don’t affect local SEO as much as meta titles, but they can prompt your audience to click through to your website. These should be between 155-160 characters long.

6. NAP, phone number, address and business name

People who Google local businesses are often wary of scams. While increasing trust with Google can be achieved through local links, business owners should also keep customer trust in mind.

NAP (Business name, address, and phone number) information on your landing pages, social media, and any other aspects of your business’s online presence can build up that customer trust. If NAP is in a consistent format and plain text form (not an image or video), it can also boost local SEO.

Affordable SEO Harrisburg, PA | Netlocal
5002 Lenker St suite 203,
Mechanicsburg, PA 17050
Phone: (717) 461-3960

John DiBella

John DiBella is the founder and CEO of NetLocal, a local SEO agency specializing in SEO for consumer medical practices and author of the ebook SEO for the Small Business Owner.  email: john@netlocalseo.com

www.netlocalseo.com/

NetLocal Local SEO Services for Small Business

Did you know that the google search algorithm factors in the geographic location of the searcher?
When someone searches “hair stylist” or “laser hair removal” on google, the algorithm assumes they are looking for a hair stylist or laser hair removal service geographically near them and offers local businesses in the results.

NetLocal specializes in Local SEO that leverages this algorithm factor to optimize your website and google listing to rank higher for searches by potential customers in your area who are actively looking for your services.

How do we do that?

We use a range of SEO techniques that magnify your geographic address and/or service area while building trust and authority for your website.
By doing this your website and google listing can rank higher for searchers in a wider geographic area.
We only work with local businesses. It’s our specialty. Our track record speaks for itself.
Get started now. Submit a free analysis form to get a personalized video analysis of your business’s local SEO.
We’ll provide an analysis along with recommendations for improvement.

Offices in:

NetLocal Philadelphia 226 West Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA 19103 phone: (215) 874-0744
NetLocal Chester Springs.122 Pottstown Pike, Chester Springs, PA 19425 phone: (484) 291-4916
NetLocal Lancaster 565 Greenfield Rd, Lancaster, PA 17601 phone: (717) 406-1763
NetLocal Allentown 1908 W Allen St Suite 104, Allentown, PA 18104 phone: (610) 492-7070
NetLocal Altoona 1407 Blair St Suite 2, Altoona, PA 16648 phone: (814) 499-1601
NetLocal Harrisburg 5002 Lenker St suite 203, Mechanicsburg, PA 17050 phone: (814) 499-1601
NetLocal Bentonville 609 SW 8th Street 6th Floor, Bentonville, AR 72712 phone: (479) 202-9092
NetLocal Hartford 100 Pearl Street 14th Floor, Hartford, CT 06103 phone: (959) 245-1715
NetLocal Little Rock 400 West Capitol Avenue Suite 1700, Little Rock, AR 72201 phone: (501) 391-1238
NetLocal Wilkes-Barre 45 E Northampton Street, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701 phone: (570) 281-8357

John DiBella

John DiBella is the founder and CEO of NetLocal, a local SEO agency specializing in SEO for consumer medical practices and author of the ebook SEO for the Small Business Owner.  email: john@netlocalseo.com

www.netlocalseo.com/

Real-Time Analytics

Multi-Channel Funnels

Mobile Reporting

Flow Visualization
Flow Visualization is a tool for showing how people navigate through out your website. Google has completely redesigned the navigation tools available in the old version of Google Analytics.

Video demo & Usage guides for Visitor Flow, Goal Flow

Over the next few weeks as they make Google Analytics v5 the default for all users, they are simultaneously rolling out the report email scheduler and PDF export.

Need to check something in the old version?
Google is extremely confident in their new version but if you need to refer to the old version, there is a safety latch.  Look in the top right corner of Google Analytics and you’ll see a link for Old Version. Switch back and forth as much as you need, but keep in mind, that the old version will only be available until early next year.

Want help adjusting to the new version?
The Google Analytics Help Center is up to date on all the step by step of how to navigate Analytics using the new version. Google has also been running a series on the Google Analytics blog that explores many of the changes and new features. And, there is a section of the Google Analytics Help Forum where you can ask questions and discuss the new version.

To stay up to date on new features, make sure you opt-in to receive Newsletters in your Google Analytics account settings.

John DiBella

John DiBella is the founder and CEO of NetLocal, a local SEO agency specializing in SEO for consumer medical practices and author of the ebook SEO for the Small Business Owner.  email: john@netlocalseo.com

www.netlocalseo.com/

Authority  – (trust, link juice, Google juice) The amount of trust that a site is credited with for a particular search query. Authority/trust is derived from related incoming links from other trusted sites.

Blog – A personal journal published on the web consisting of entries or posts displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent posts appear first.

Content – (text, copy) The part of a web page has the highest value for and be of interest to the user. Advertising, navigation, branding and boilerplate are not usually considered to be content.

Conversion – (goal) Achievement of a quantifiable goal on a website. Sales, ad clicks, and sign-ups are examples of conversions.

Conversion Rate – Percentage of users who convert – see conversion.

Crawler – (bot, spider) A program which moves through the worldwide web or a website by way of the link structure to gather data.

Directory – A site devoted to directory pages. One example of this is the Yahoo! directory.

Duplicate Content – Content which is similar or identical to that found on another website or page. A site may not be penalized for having duplicate content but it will receive little, if any, trust from the search engines compared to the content that the search engine considers being the original.

Google Bomb – A combined effort of multiple webmasters to change the Google search results usually for amusing effect. The “miserable failure” – George Bush, and “greatest living American” – Steven Colbert Google bombs are famous examples.

Google Juice – (Trust, Authority, PageRank) Trust / authority from Google, which flows through outgoing links to other pages.

Googlebot – Google’s spider program

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) – directives or “markup” which are used to add formatting and web functionality to plain text for use on the internet. HTML is the mother tongue of the search engines, and should generally be strictly and exclusively adhered to on web pages.

Impression – (page view) When a user visits a webpage.

Inbound Link – (in-link, incoming link) Incoming links to a website or web page. In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node.

Index (Noun) – a database of web pages and their content used by the search engines.

Index (Verb) – to add a web page to a search engine index.

Indexed Pages – The pages on a site which have been indexed.

Inline Text Links – Hyper-links within the copy of a web page as part of a sentence.

Keyword – (Key Phrase) The word or phrase that a user enters into a search engine.

Keyword Density – The percentage of words on a web page which are a particular keyword. If this value is unnaturally high the page may be penalized.

Keyword Research – The hard work of determining which keywords are appropriate for targeting.

Keyword Spam – (keyword stuffing) Inappropriately high keyword density.

Keyword Stuffing – (keyword spam) Inappropriately high keyword density.

Landing Page – the page that a user lands on when they click on a link in a search engine results page (SERP).

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) – This mouthful just means that the search engines index commonly associated groups of words in a document. SEOs refer to these same groups of words as “Long Tail Searches”. The majority of searches consist of three or more words strung together. See also “long tail”. The significance is that it might be almost impossible to rank well for “mortgage”, but fairly easy to rank for “second mortgage to finance monster truck team”. Go figure.

Link – An element on a web page that can be clicked on to cause the browser to jump to another page or another part of the current page.

 Link Building – actively cultivating incoming links to a site.

Link Exchange – a reciprocal linking scheme often facilitated by a site devoted to directory pages. Link exchanges usually allow links to sites of low or no quality, and add no value themselves. Quality directories are usually human edited for quality assurance.

Link Juice – Google’s “currency”.  In other words, it’s the “secret sauce” that enables you to beat your competition for ranks on Google.

Link Popularity – a measure of the value of a site based upon the number and quality of sites that link to it.

Link Spam (Comment Spam) – Unwanted links such as those posted in user generated content like blog comments.

Link Text (Anchor text) – The user visibility text of a link. Search engines use anchor texts to indicate the relevancy of the referring site and link to the content on the landing page. Ideally all three will share some keywords in common.

Long Tail – Longer, more specific search queries that are less targeted than shorter broad queries. For example a search for “trucks” might be very broad while “2006 red Dodge Ram” would be a long tail search. A large percentage of all searches are normally long tail.

LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) – This mouthful just means that the search engines index commonly associated groups of words in a document. SEOs refer to these same groups of words as “Long Tail”. The majority of searches consist of three or more words strung together. See also “long tail”. The significance is that it might be almost impossible to rank well for “mortgage”, but fairly easy to rank for “second mortgage to finance monster truck team”

META tags – Statements within the HEAD section of an HTML page which furnishes information about the page. META information may be in the SERPs but is not visible on the page. It is very important to have unique and accurate META title and description tags, because they may be the information that the search engines rely upon the most to determine what the page is about. Also, they are the first impression that users get about your page within the SERPs.

Natural Search Results – The search engine results which are not sponsored, or paid for in any way.

Pagerank (PR) – a value between 0 and 1 assigned by the Google algorithm, which quantifies link popularity and trust among other (proprietary) factors.

Search Engine (SE) – A program which searches a document or group of documents for relevant matches of a user’s keyword phrase and returns a list of the most relevant matches. Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo search the entire internet for relevant matches.

Search Engine Algorithm  – A program used by search engines to determine what pages to suggest for a given search query.

SEO – Acronym for search engine optimization, the process of increasing the number of visitors to a Web site by achieving high rank in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that users will visit the site. It is common practice for Internet users to not click past the first few pages of search results, therefore high rank in SERPs is essential for obtaining traffic for a site. SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be indexed and favorably ranked by the search engine.

SERP – This is an acronym for Search Engine Results Page.

Social Bookmark – A form of Social Media where user’s bookmarks are aggregated for public access.

Social Media – Various online technologies used by people to share information and ideas. Blogs, forums, wikis, social bookmarking, user reviews, and rating sites (Digg, Reddit) are all examples of Social Media.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) – Website or brand promotion through social media

Spider (bot, crawler) – A specialized bot used by search engines to find and add web pages to their indexes.

Text Link – A plain HTML link that does not involve graphic or special code such as flash or java script.

URL – Uniform Resource Locator – AKA Web Address

John DiBella

John DiBella is the founder and CEO of NetLocal, a local SEO agency specializing in SEO for consumer medical practices and author of the ebook SEO for the Small Business Owner.  email: john@netlocalseo.com

www.netlocalseo.com/

I will ponder some of the questions around topic this in this post.

As a small business owner;  ”has my phone been ringing?” is really the bottom line, yes? But it hard to be sure what marketing effort, or combination of efforts, generated the calls. So what metrics should the small business owner use to measure SEO ROI?

What Information Should Your SEO Provider be Sending You

But to answer that we need to answer the question of where the SEO company’s responsibilities begin and end first. The SEO may be getting rankings for the right keywords but the website may not be designed to convert. Or maybe they are not writing compelling Titles to improve click through. Good ranking and poor business results can be due to a combination of many factors.

To achieve good SEO ROI all the links in the chain must be in place; The right keywords, compelling titles for high click through and landing pages designed to convert. So what metrics should the SEO use when reporting to the client if they are going to be truly honest about results?

A high percent of conversions for local businesses are in the form of phone calls. We could ask our clients to diligently track by asking every lead how they found them. And many businesses do. But that can still be misleading because callers many times are confused as to what web source they actually looked at to reach the business.

Three Analytics Stats to Consider

Along with Keyword ranking reports NetLocal SEO clients also get reports on these three additional metrics.
1. look at the keywords you are being found for. Are they they kinds of search phrases people looking to buy would us? Are there head keywords? Are there a lot of long tail keywords? Is the list growing over time?

2. Bounce rate. The bounce rate is the % of people who come to your website but leave quickly, within 10 seconds. There is no hard standard that I’m aware of but I would say that (I’ll probably catch heat for this. I’m basing this on our client’s who I know have good landing pages and are getting clicks for productive keywords) 45% is good. Anything less is great. Anything over 60% or 70% is problematic. A high bounce rate can mean that you are getting clicks from wrong keywords or that your landing pages aren’t effective.

3. Click through rate. Once you have achieved good positions you need the searchers to first at least pick your link to click on. More clicks (for productive keyword searchs) the higher your odds are for getting a call. And it is also an SEO signal. The higher click through rates benefit your rankings.

If your SEO campaign is doing well in all three of the factors above the result should be increased leads. Your in house sales will have to take it from there. Don’t just look at the keyword rankings. That will not necessarily indicate a successful SEO campaign.

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John DiBella

John DiBella is the founder and CEO of NetLocal, a local SEO agency specializing in SEO for consumer medical practices and author of the ebook SEO for the Small Business Owner.  email: john@netlocalseo.com

www.netlocalseo.com/