Archive for the 'Internet Marketing' Category

Achieving a “Triple Double” in SEO

obirsen January 24th, 2008

Aligning Responsibilities and Expectations in An Increasingly Competitive SEO World
By Onur Birsen, CPA, MBA

When is the search engine optimizer responsible for failure and when is it the client’s fault? Can clear lines be drawn between the borders of responsibility and when is the equation right for success? In this article, I attempt to provide some insight into these critical questions by making an analogy to a simple expression commonly used in basketball called a ”triple double”. A triple-double is defined as an individual performance in a game in which a player accumulates double-digit totals (i.e., 10 or more) in any three of these categories: points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocked shots.

All professional search engine optimizers agree that it’s their job to educate clients as much as possible so that they have realistic expectations about results. However, in some cases, even if the search engine optimizer does just that, clients can have difficulties coming to terms with certain basic facts about SEO. Of course, SEO is very technical and can be difficult to understand. Also adding to the stress, it’s their money on the line. They want to get a quick ROI like in any other business, but in today’s SEO world, “quick” is just NOT feasible unless some very important and specific set of requirements are met on three levels. These requirements (two pre-requisites, two client responsibilities, two search engine optimizer responsibilities) form the basis of my concept for achieving a “triple double” in SEO:

The Double Pre-Requisites for Quick SEO Success

  1. The domain name to be used for the optimized website needs to been registered and live for at least two to three years without ever being banned, blacklisted or penalized by internet authorities.
  2. The website using the aforementioned domain name must have a healthy number of quality incoming links. Although figures can vary greatly from one sector to the other, as a rule of thumb 100 or more unique incoming links can be considered healthy for a rural LASIK market, and 1000 or more unique incoming links can be considered healthy for a competitive LASIK market. (For help with determining the number of incoming links to your website please contact us)

It should be noted that the word “quick” is a relative term, and in the world of SEO, quick usually means approximately three months.

My experience with SEO in the last 8 years has shown me that a large portion of clients who want SEO services have domain names and websites that do not satisfy the pre-requisites above. As a result, it is an unfortunate fact that for the most part, expectations by clients and actual early SEO results by search engine optimizers often don’t align.

Clients, generally speaking:

  1. Want guarantees about performance before putting down significant sums of money and expect to see results in a short period of time.
  2. Want to see “top rankings” for a small number of specific keywords they feel are very important.

On the other hand, SEO providers:

  1. Reject guarantees and can only provide rough estimates for the time frames for “success”.
  2. Believe SEO is much more than achieving top rankings for a few “priority” keywords.

The magic element for success is an honest reconciliation between the two parties involved. In order to achieve this, both sides need to clearly understand their responsibilities. These two sets of responsibilities for each side complete the “triple double” in SEO.

The Double Responsibilities of the SEO Client:

Be patient and prepare for the process. Assuming the domain name is not brand new, the typical SEO campaign starts delivering results within three months. For new domain names and websites, this can take up to one to two years. Clients may want to call each week asking where the results are. Rather, they should communicate with their SEO company about how to get involved and speed up the process. They should also be prepared for additional recommendations and requests from the search engine optimizer that fall outside the original contract and related budget. During implementation, optimizers frequently uncover new issues and challenges which were not possible to determine at the beginning of the project. Don’t downplay these strategies in order to save money because they may be what are needed to get you to the top.

Contribute, since search engine optimizers cannot be expected to learn everything about your business. While they are implementing the SEO strategy, clients will have to contribute by approving keywords and content, pursuing links and write articles. Genuine content can not be made up by non-experts. If you make your SEO write your content it may discredit you in the long run. Provide all of the content, and then let the search engine optimizers work their magic on the words and sentences to make the content more SEO friendly.

The Double Responsibilities of the SEO:

Explain to clients what their expected involvement during any portion of the campaign will be. Most clients don’t mind getting involved, but nobody likes getting tasks assigned to them when they thought someone else would be taking care of them. If more programming and development may be involved and extra funds are likely to be required due to a competitive marketplace, let clients know of these possibilities before they sign on the dotted line.

Treat each campaign individually. Certain strategies that work for one project may not work well for another. The resources where you go to find links, the keyword density in the content, the types of keywords used and the structure of the website pages will have vary from one clients website to another. The search engine optimizer must take these details into consideration and formulate plans which are specific to the challenge.

Conclusion:

Achieving a triple double in a search engine optimization campaign comes as a result of the understanding and fulfilling of responsibilities by both the search engine optimizer and the client. Assuming this is accomplished, the speed at which the “SEO triple double” will come depends on whether or not the double pre-requisites mentioned at the beginning of this article are met. Three to 6 months is a fair time-frame to accomplish a “triple double” if the pre-requisites are met. Otherwise, when starting out with a new domain name and no incoming links, clients should be ready to wait one to two years before seeing any significant results.

Most importantly, it should never be overlooked that the success of a business itself lies solely with the owner of that business. Therefore, clients must be sure that their businesses can succeed with or without a triple double in SEO. Just like a basketball team needs to play as a team, and win a game regardless of a single player racking up a triple double, a company needs to be able to succeed without SEO in the first place.SEO should be like the butter on top of the bread. Any business solely depending on a SEO for success will probably fail anyway, regardless of the SEOs success or failure.

About the author of this article:

Onur Birsen, M.B.A, C.P.A. is currently a partner and the Chief Technical Officer of Glacial Multimedia, Inc. He has been lecturing for over 6 years within the medical community on the topic of search engine optimization, and holds a degree on e-commerce from Harvard University.

The 3 Pillars of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

obirsen May 16th, 2007

Written by Onur Birsen

Due to the fact that search engine optimization is such a complex field, understanding what it takes to make it to the top of the search engine results can be extremely challenging. Getting lost in the countless details of search engine optimization is easy and common. In this short article, I attempt to provide a bird’s eye view of the organic SEO process with the ultimate goal of making it easier to understand for the average person with no programming knowledge.

In my opinion, the easiest way to understand search engine optimization (SEO), or almost any topic for that matter, is to start with the basics, use everyday examples from other better understood topics, and focus on the similarities between them.

Let’s start by imagining that the internet, like the physical world, is comprised of continents, countries, counties, towns, neighborhoods, and ultimately houses where individuals live. Each website can be thought of like a house, with different sections of the website corresponding to the various floors in the house, and each web page corresponding to each room.

In order for a house to provide optimal living conditions, the following three factors need to be present: construction, furniture and transportation. The house needs to be built from the ground up, with a solid base, using safe and strong materials, and well thought out architecture. Once the structure is complete, it needs to be outfitted with furniture. Finally, the house needs to be reachable by roads, preferably close to large highways/intersections to make it more accessible.

In the same exact way described above, a website requires the following three factors to be implemented in order to become optimized for search engines: code, content, and links.

Code (i.e. construction)

A website’s information architecture needs to be carefully thought out prior to building it. It then needs to be built using quality programming code, compliant to professional standards. Just like one can build a house out of wood, bricks or steel, a website can be built using different programming languages. Depending on where the house is, and where it is in relation to other houses, using certain programming languages can yield better results.

Content: (i.e. furniture)

Immediately after a website has been coded, it is basically an empty shell. As a house needs furniture, a website needs content. The higher the quality of the furniture, and the more appropriate the type of furniture, the better. In the same way, higher quality and more relevant content is extremely important. Too much, or not enough content is also detrimental.

Links: (i.e. transportation)

For both the tenants and their visitors, it should be easy to get to and leave a house. Convenient houses offer options for public and private transportation, have multiple avenues and highways around it with clear signs and directions. Typically, the more densely populated a neighborhood is, the more options there are for transportation, and the higher the market value of the houses in that neighborhood.

In the same way, the more links there are pointing to a website from other websites (incoming links), the easier it is to find it, and the higher the page rank (similar to market value). The easier it is to get to other quality, relevant points of interest from a website (outgoing links), the better. Having a road from a house to another small neighborhood is not as valuable as having a direct road to a major commercial center or vice-versa.

Covering Your Bases

Everyone would agree that having a large house with quality construction, and fabulous furniture is virtually worthless if there are no roads to get to the house. Even you have a well built house, right next to a busy commercial district, you will not live in it if it does has no beds to sleep on. Having the trendiest furniture in your house, located in the best neighborhood is just as useless if passing rain showers cause the ceilings to crack and collapse. Likewise, if you fail to ensure that your website has the three pillars of search engine optimization, you will be facing an increasingly uphill battle marketing your website.

About the author of this article:

Onur Birsen, M.B.A, C.P.A. is currently a partner and the Chief Technical Officer of Glacial Multimedia, Inc. He has been lecturing for over 6 years within the medical community on the topic of search engine optimization, and holds a degree on e-commerce from Harvard University.

Creating Your LASIK Practice Internet Strategy

mdobkowski March 7th, 2007

Understanding The Importance of Building Your Base in LASIK Marketing
by Michael Dobkowski

In today’s competitive refractive surgery marketplace it is time to clearly understand and implement an Internet marketing strategy that will bring your practice into the future. If this is not done your business will suffer. Working from the assumption that organic search engine optimization and pay per click advertising on search engines will undoubtedly bring practices the most potential patients from any marketing medium, it is easy to see why developing a long term strategy makes sense. In order to launch a successful strategy you must build a base of operations or a refractive website that can initiate all strategy. Just getting to understand this point can be challenging for practices.

Many practices have built their own ophthalmology or lasik websites and are well on their way to successful web-based patient acquisition. Creating your own practice website is the doorway to a successful Internet strategy. Practices that choose an easier path and opt for web positioning via directory sites as their core focus will ultimately fail over time. Directory sites can be very useful and play a role in the Internet strategy but the focus should not be on a directory site listing. The reason is simple! When you pay a directory website for a listing you are building web equity for another company. You are renting a space and have no guarantees as to what will happen with this space as the politics and pricing changes. Practices that choose this path often neglect their core site and help these directories to gain leverage and increase page rank. At the same time their site lies fallow with no content updates, no link exchange, and page rank that remains low. Why would you build equity for someone else when you can have your own house? The core focus of your Internet strategy should entail the practice site first and Internet advertising initiatives second. Whether the advertising initiatives are pay per click or a directory site it does not matter. Your website needs to be the center of your strategy. The reason for this is quite simple. Acquiring more traffic will ultimately lead to more interest and more interest will lead to more business.
Once the Internet strategy has been developed and goals have been set you must prepare this site for the task at hand. As with a house you may want to paint it, fix up or plant some shrubs. Your website should reflect the advanced nature of the practice work. Your website should talk to your patients, your website should offer education and incentive offers. Online video is an emerging field that all refractive practices should be utilizing. If done correctly your website will return the investment quickly and keep on giving. The Internet is still a marketing medium that delivers extensive returns because it is still relatively new. The impact of TV advertising and radio will become less effective and cost more to make impressions.
Elements For Consideration

  • Designing a website for ophthalmology
  • Designing a website for LASIK
  • Is the website design and navigation patient friendly?
  • How easily can you navigate the website?
  • Do all of the procedures come on one long page?
  • Do you have multiple contact forms in key places on the website?
  • Are educational graphics used to explain ocular disorders?
  • Does your website contain self-evaluation tests?
  • Do you have patient satisfaction surveys?
  • Does your website collect OPT-IN email addresses?
  • Can you install a contest system and database on the backend?
  • Is your content custom written (not duplicate)?
  • How optimized is the code structure?
  • Do you have a link building plan?

Tips For Optimizing a Website for Ophthalmology

  • Choose a professional company that can show an ROI scenario
  • Talk with clients and people that used this company
  • Choose a company w/ results within your area of interest
  • Choose a company that can help with link building
  • Choose a company that uses white hat/legitimate SEO techniques
  • Choose a company that can design and optimize, not one or the other.
  • Choose a company that will explain what they are doing and not afraid to tell you about it!

Internet Promotion - What Can You Do?

Once you have your website developed your work is not over. This website is a base and all operations will work form this base. Additional website work should be viewed as marketing and promotion of the practice. There are many things that a practice can use a website for. Websites can be used as backend databases for contest systems with voting. Websites can be used to track potential patients. Websites can be used to acquire patients via SEO. Websites can be used to educate your patient base. Websites can be used to open communication lines with your patients with newsletters and e-mail. Websites can be used to clearly explain financing, website can be used to facilitate OD relationships, websites can be used to differentiate you from your competition. The biggest mistake practices make once a website is completed is to leave it a do nothing with it. It must be made clear that this is a vehicle and you must put gas in it to make it go!

Michael Dobkowski is an ophthalmology practice marketing consultant for Glacial Multimedia Inc. If you need assistance with an Internet strategy please contact us 207.878.5900

Pay Per Click Fraud In Refractive Marketing

admin March 7th, 2007


By Michael Dobkowski

March 18, 2005

Pay per click advertising programs such as google ad words and overture
are excellent ways to reach patients seeking the services of a
refractive surgeon, but is it the best way to approach advertising on
the Internet? The success of these programs is undeniable, but are they
really giving an absolute honest return on investment?  

A search phenomenon known as pay per click fraud is impacting
refractive Internet budgets and will continue to affect the
effectiveness of advertising initiatives. Pay per click fraud is the
skewing of pay-per-click advertising data with illegitimate hits. This
can be accomplished in a number of ways, ranging from manually clicking
on the same ad link repeatedly to deploying automated bots. Whatever
the method, the results are the same: Businesses pay for traffic from
someone who has no intention of purchasing anything. Anyone can
participate in pay per click fraud on a micro level but in some cases
this fraud can be massive. You may ask yourself who would commit such
fraud? It is actually a simple answer. Most likely your competition, a
former disgruntled employee, an unhappy patient, an angry optometrist.
A company might do it to deplete or expand a rival's pay-per-click
budget. In refractive Internet marketing a combination of users with no
intent to purchase services will undoubtedly select these ads on the
search engines. As a result your practice will pay the bill or be
removed from the program. Some estimates state that up to 50% of PPC
traffic is illegitimate. While that figure is too high in my opinion,
I'm sure that it does happen to some, perhaps at even higher
percentages.  

Pay per click fraud hurts refractive practice advertisers by driving up
the cost of each click because many online advertising programs adjust
the price of each click based on the popularity of a particular keyword
and the number of competing advertisers. Because LASIK is a very
popular keyword, it can take just a few minutes to register hundreds of
clicks. Click fraud can quickly deplete your pay-per-click account and
leave you with little or nothing to show for your expenditure.

If you are pursuing a unilateral search engine strategy with paying per
click you will certainly face some illegitimate clicks, your budgets
will be depleted sooner, and you will get less valuable requests. A
bilateral strategy needs to be considered. In the long run if you hire
a professional search engine optimization company and pursue
positioning in the organic listings you will simply avoid any chance of
pay per click fraud. Unfortunately a majority of refractive practices
simply do not understand this strategy. Pay per click can be used
effectively but it is certainly no strategy for dominating positioning
in your market niche. I am baffled when I hear of practices spending
upwards of $7000.00 per month on pay per click marketing and their
website has little evidence of proper preparation for targeted
searches.

Pay per click marketing definitely can assist with attracting unique
visitors but a practice needs a more diverse and progressive approach.
So how can you limit or prevent pay per click fraud? Two methods I
would suggest are 1.) limit your monthly budget 2.) Review your control
panel and site log files. If you detect activity from the same IP
address you should become suspicious and try to report this to the
involved search engine. If you notice a lot of clicks from one IP
address, you can trace its origin by visiting the American Registry of
Internet Numbers. By feeding the IP address into their "Whois" search,
they will tell you who has been assigned that IP address, and whether
it's an actual IP or another business entity.

Pay per click advertising needs to be part of your approach to web
marketing. If you are practice not participating you should hurry up
and figure it out. Paid search accounted for 40% of all online spending
in 2004 because it works. Be careful, be smart, and create a search
engine marketing strategy that makes sense.  

Inevitably this new trend in fraud will ultimately lead to lower
Internet marketing ROI. As someone who has championed Internet
marketing in refractive surgery as a great method I am saddened that
these issues are forthcoming.

Popular Search Marketing Myths Debunked

admin March 7th, 2007

By Jennifer Laycock - March 15, 2005

With so much information being spread around the Internet via message
boards, emails and articles, it's no wonder that people have a tough
time sorting out myth from reality when it comes to topics like search
engine marketing. Add to this the fact that certain bits of information
(say the inability for engines to spider dynamic pages) can move from
being a myth to being a truth almost overnight.

Nonetheless, there are a few myths that seem to continue to be spread
and that often pop up among small business owners that are trying to
get enough of a grasp on search marketing to hire a professional to
help them with their site.

Top Rankings can be Guaranteed by a Professional SEO

As with most forms of advertising, web site owners that are looking to
hire a professional SEO often wonder what type of results they will
receive in exchange for the fees that are charged to optimize their
site. SEO customers often ask optimization firms if they are able to
guarantee their work.

Money-back guarantees are often promoted as proof of SEO firms'
abilities. You may have received email advertisements from companies or
individuals who claim they can guarantee you a top ranking in the
search engine listings if you hire them to optimize your site.

The reality is that search engine algorithms change frequently and
professional SEOs do not have any say in what these changes are.
Realistically, no one can promise that a site that is No.1 today will
remain in the No.1 spot after the next update. Achieving and sustaining
top positions is an ongoing battle of trial and error, success and
failure. There are no guarantees. Professional SEOs that follow "best
practice" techniques realize this and use quality traffic, not site
ranking as proof of their success.

So what should be made of companies that promise money-back guarantees
for optimization services? They should be judged carefully and the
guarantee should not be taken at face value. The guarantee is likely
the result of one of three scenarios:

1.) The guarantee is offered on non-competitive phrases. Anyone can
rank a site in the top ten for a phrase that only faces competition
from ten other sites. Unless your site is optimized for phrases that
will deliver targeted traffic to your site, a guaranteed top 10 listing
will do nothing to contribute to your site's success.

2.) The company offering the guarantee is a fraud. As with any
industry, professional SEO has its share of shysters. Just because a
company claims to have a money-back guarantee doesn't mean that they
will follow through on that promise. If the company demands full
payment upfront and promises a money-back guarantee, consider it a
double warning against doing business.

3.) The company really is THAT good. There are some professional SEO
companies that are so good, that they make this promise and stand by
it. Although they may occasionally have to make good on their promise
of a refund, the price charged for services from these professionals is
usually enough to offset the cost of the few refunds that they may
issue. Be warned, these types of firms are the exception, not the rule.

Once I've Reached No. 1, My Work is Done!

Some webmasters may feel that once they have managed to optimize their
site and achieve that No. 1 ranking for their most important keyword,
the work is over. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Search engines change their algorithms and ranking methods constantly.
It's a rare site that manages to ride out the frequent changes and
updates while remaining in the top positions. The listing that is
ranked No. 1 today may be knocked out of the top ten listings tomorrow.

Maintaining a No. 1 position and growing the quality and amount of
traffic that is delivered to your site takes constant monitoring and
planning. Keep in mind that as your site moves into the No.1 position,
you leave unlimited numbers of web sites behind you that are now vying
for the position that you hold. If you want to continue to stay ahead
of them, you'll need to continue to work on adding appropriate and
optimized content, building incoming, targeted links, and exploring new
ways to tweak and update your site so that you can remain in that top
position.

Hidden Text Will Help Me Rank Better

One of the most popular and enduring SEO myths is the idea that
webmasters can improve their ranking by hiding keyword-rich text and
links in their page code in order to increase their keyword density.
Many years ago, webmasters decided that a great way to increase
the  keyword density of their pages, without having to sacrifice
the look or content of their site, was to add keyword text to the page
that was the same color as the background. After all, search engines
don't view web sites the same way humans do, so it made sense that they
would read and index the text without the human visitors ever having to
notice it.

As with any SEO "trick," it didn't take very long for the search
engines to catch on. Search engine spiders have since learned to match
HTML text color with the background color so that they might detect
this method of keyword stuffing. Nearly all major search engines now
publicly denounce hidden text and cite it as grounds for removal from
their database.

In addition to hidden text, the rise of link popularity as an essential
factor in most search engine's algorithms has led to the inclusion of
invisible links. Webmasters will often use single pixel .gif files to
link to other web pages in an attempt to artificially increase their
link popularity score. Once again, the search engines have discovered
this method and have publicly announced their intent to penalize web
sites that make use of this method.

SEO Leads are not as Good as Traditional Leads

Traditional advertising companies often warn clients away from search
engine optimization services because they do not fully understand the
way that SEO campaigns work and they are reluctant to recommend
services that they have not properly experienced.

Many believe that search engine optimization is simply about driving
large numbers of users to a web site. They feel that these users are
not as likely to become customers as individuals that have been reached
by more traditional advertising methods.

The reality is that SEO leads are among the highest quality leads that
can be delivered to a company. Proper SEO is about putting your web
site in a position that allows it to be found at the exact moment that
a web searcher is looking to buy. Search engine optimization does not
deliver the casual visitors to a web site, it delivers an individual
who is looking for you, who wants to do business with you and who is in
a mindset that makes them most open to what you have to offer them.

Proper optimization effectively pre-qualifies traffic by promoting your
site for the exact products and features that you have to sell. A
properly optimized web site that sells used Volvos in Dallas will
deliver users that are looking to buy used Volvos in Dallas. Analysis
of search engine optimization campaigns often reveals higher returns on
investment than any other form of traditional advertising.

FFA Pages Will Help Improve My Link Popularity

As link popularity becomes an increasingly important component in
search engine algorithms, webmasters continue to search out new ways to
gain incoming links. With a limited number of directories to submit to,
webmasters in competitive industries often find they have a difficult
time securing incoming links that will allow them to outperform the
competition.

For this reason, many webmasters have spent time singing the praises of
Free For All (FFA) pages as a way to boost your incoming link count and
traffic. There are several problems with this theory.

1.) Few people even look at FFA pages. The majority of traffic to FFA
sites comes from webmasters looking to submit their site, not from
surfers looking to find your site. In addition, most sites that are
submitted to FFA pages come from automated software, making it even
less likely that a human being will view your site listing.

2.) Links on FFA pages have a limited lifespan. FFA pages are designed
to carry a designated amount of links on each page. This means that as
more sites are added, the older sites are deleted. Because links can be
added and dropped so quickly, there is rarely time for a search engine
to even pick them up.

3.) When it comes to link popularity, relevancy counts. Search engines
are designed to not only locate and count links, but to judge the
importance and relevancy of links. Thus, 200 links from FFA page that
lists 100 other web sites that have nothing to do with yours will not
be counted with as much weight as one link from a popular web site that
is relevant to your site.

Search Engine Optimization in LASIK Marketing: White Hat V. Black Hat SEO in Ophthalmology

mdobkowski May 21st, 2006

By Michael Dobkowski

Choosing a credible SEO company in ophthalmology is critical to your life as a practice. The importance of this will continue to grow, as the Internet becomes the clear driver of refractive patient volume within marketing. Making a mistake on this level could land you a lawsuit or the act of getting black listed by the search engines. After several years of the ophthalmology web development companies (Ones present in industry shows) figuring out SEO, most of the legitimate companies have learned to practice white hat techniques. It is not worth the risk for either these companies or the doctors to try and cheat the search engines. The concern lies more with practices working with companies that A. do not understand ophthalmology, B. do not have a clue about SEO.

Inexperienced companies might committ a black hat SEO technique without even knowing it. LASIK tends to be the most polluted aspect of ophthalmology search engine positioning. Currently today there are several bogus lasik websites that have no clear goal but to gain position and deceive the search engines. This is like driving 85 miles an hour. Sooner or later these sites will be discovered. The increasing amount of link farms in lasik is concerning and leading to cluttering of page 1 results on google. Sometimes it is hard to find one website on page 1 for a term that is a practice site not a directory or a link farm.

Michael Dobkowski is an ophthalmology practice marketing consultant for Glacial Multimedia Inc. If you need assistance with an Internet strategy please contact us 207.878.5900