Organic SEO plays an instrumental role in Progressive Dental Marketing’s ability to produce top-ranking websites for our clients. As our resident search engine optimization (SEO) strategist, Sean Salamone performs a range of duties to help our clients gain the Internet exposure they need to connect with their ideal patients, such as performing strategic keyword research, reviewing customers’ present site content and structure, providing technical advice to clients, and assisting with content development. Salamone recently returned from a week-long continuing education course at the SEO Academy and presented a list of best practice SEO strategies to the rest of the PDM staff.
According to the SEO Academy, one of the foremost search engine optimization training schools in the country, the tips below can go a long way when it comes to helping your site rank higher in Google.
Content Writing Tips & Tricks from the SEO Academy:
- Write for readers, not search engines. We all want our content to rank highly in Google, but the days of using unscrupulous tactics to obtain first page results are long gone. Because Google’s algorithms have become sophisticated enough to detect unethical “black hat” SEO tactics like keyword stuffing, invisible text, doorway pages, and spamdexing, websites that use them can result in your website being banned from a search engine.
- Aim for 300-500 words per web page. A single sparse paragraph won’t give your site the SEO power to rank in Google, but potential patients will lose interest if you drone on and on. SEO strategists generally agree that between 300 and 500 words is the ideal target length for the content on your website pages. (The same rule doesn’t apply to blogs; your blog entry can be as long as it needs to be in order to fully explain your ideas.)
- Evaluate reader level and write for your readers. The average American adult reads at a 9th grade level, so it is extremely important to write content that your target audience can understand. Since your typical patient probably did not attend medical school, they will likely have a difficult time comprehending a website full of medical jargon. Readability tests like the Fleishman Scale (also known as the Flesch/Flesch–Kincaid readability tests) are designed to help you assess comprehension difficulty when reading a passage of contemporary academic English. Our copywriters are trained to translate medical procedures into easy-to-read content that speaks to your patients.
- HTML Headings. HTML headings are the words that display on the “tab” when you click on a page of a website. HTML titles are the various titles that appear on your website pages.
- HTML Titles. HTML titles are similar to the various titles and subtitles you see in newspapers; they begin at H1 and go through H6. If you integrate relevant keywords into your HTML titles of your website pages, especially the first one, they are more likely to rank highly in Google.
- Meta Descriptions. Meta descriptions are HTML attributes that provide concise explanations of the contents of web pages. Roughly 155 characters in length, they are the snippets of content that appear in search engine result pages (SERPs).
For more information on how we can optimize your dental website with our best practice SEO marketing strategies, please call us at (727) 286-6211 today!