Will Google Make Mobile Sites Extinct?

What Is Your Google Potential?

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Background: Dr. Zubowski is a well-established board-certified plastic surgeon in Northern New Jersey (Paramus).

Challenge: Northern New Jersey medical practices face two unique challenges when attempting to market themselves online: 1) They must compete with droves of marketing-savvy doctors in nearby Manhattan and 2) Their region lacks a well-defined metropolitan area; instead, many small communities sit in close proximity to one another. It’s fairly easy to achieve good Google rankings for a small local town, such as Paramus, but because there are so many of these small but populated towns — and because the area lacks a central, well-defined market — consumer search patterns normally include the region, e.g. “Plastic Surgery New Jersey” or “Cosmetic Dentist North Jersey.” This search pattern pulls a lot more competition into the SEO battle. New Jersey practices are, in essence, competing with the entire state for the top search results. Enter Ceatus Media Group.

Solution: Dr. Zubowski had worked with a number of SEO and website management companies, but his Internet marketing efforts were reaping few benefits. In June 2010, Dr. Zubowski came to Ceatus with the goal of attaining significant Internet presence for his region. Ceatus immediately went to work dissecting his website and making it Google-friendly in hopes of achieving top rankings for the most important search terms. Ceatus personnel also crafted his Google Places strategy, and more recently, his Google + Local strategy, so that Dr. Zubowski’s listings would appear at the top of the search results.

The Right Track

Is your SEO working? There’s no way to know without proper tracking.

Chic new design, authoritative content, intuitive navigation — when it comes to SEO, you have your ducks in a row. But how do you know if your strategy is actually working? It’s impossible to know for sure unless you have some way to keep track of the people visiting your website. Luckily, the top Internet marketing companies offer tracking as part of their product line, often as a value added.

Why Tracking?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a complex, continually evolving process, not a static entity. Why? Because the Google algorithm that determines which websites appear on the first page of the search results is in constant flux. Your position in the search results pages can (and likely does) change every time Google updates its algorithm.

To make matters more unpredictable, the team at Google often changes its mind as to which elements it considers “valuable.” One day, your website is flying high; the next, it’s nowhere to be found. Your website is continually compared to other websites and constantly rewarded and penalized according to Google’s latest whims. It’s a challenging and time-consuming task to maintain high placement in the search results pages, because it’s tough to keep up to speed with what Google wants.

In this chaotic environment, the only way to assess the effectiveness of your SEO strategy is to track certain key factors and modify your strategy based on the data.

3 Essential Tracking Strategies

There are a number of useful tracking options out there; analytic software, tracking phone numbers and proxy websites are three of the most important.

Analytic Software. To understand who is visiting your website, you need sophisticated software to analyze your website data. One of the more familiar options is Google Analytics. But whichever software you use, it should be able to tell you how many visitors come to your site, which search terms got them there, where they came from, how much time they spent on your site, and which pages they visited.

Tracking Phone Numbers. Want to know which of your Internet advertising investments are paying off? Tracking phone numbers are a good place to start. These dedicated numbers are an extremely effective way to determine which calls derive from which source (organic SEO, PPC ads, directories, etc.).

To ensure that you get a real assessment of the value of each marketing instrument, you will want to make sure that your SEO company provides more than just a list of calls and time spent. With your approval, they should also listen to the calls to determine if the calls lead to booked consultations. Our experience shows that only about one-third of phone calls represent patient leads, so a simple list of calls doesn’t provide a realistic evaluation of your marketing investments.

One note of caution regarding your website phone number: Your excellent reputation and referral sources are responsible for many calls originating from your practice website. To avoid confusing traffic/leads generated by your SEO company’s efforts with visitors that would have visited your website anyway, such as word-of-mouth referrals or prospective patients searching specifically for your name, don’t allow your SEO company to place a tracking phone number on your website. PPC ads, directories, etc., should have their own tracking numbers, separate from the number listed on your website, in order to track the leads/treatment volume generated by these lead strategies.

Proxy Website. A proxy website is a copy of your website that is used for tracking purposes. The proxy is exactly the same as the original website, except that the phone numbers are different. Your various advertising campaigns (directory listings, PPC ads, etc.) link directly to the proxy website; this and the unique phone number allow your SEO company to see which calls and emails derive from visitors who entered the site through your ad campaigns.

The Right Thing to Do

Ceatus Media Group offers all of these tracking tools for free. Why? Because we know that tracking is a necessary component of an effective SEO strategy. Generating Internet visibility and increased patient referrals is a process, and one size does not fit all. Every client has different needs and every market presents different challenges. As our premier SEO team implements your customized strategy, we continually monitor multiple variables and adjust our strategy to maximize your benefit. Listening to and evaluating phone calls, analyzing website traffic reports, and creating reports for email leads are all part of our regular duties, and therefore we include them in your SEO package — at no charge.

To learn more about SEO and tracking, contact Ceatus today. Let us help you maximize your Internet marketing success — we’ll make sure you’re on the right track!