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Page decided to develop their ownsearch engine, now called Google.Using a brilliant and innovativemathematical algorithm to stream-line SEO results, Brin and Pagedesigned their search engine to lookdeeper into a website’s content.Google examines not only onsiteitems, such as meta tags, content,and titles, but also offsite functions,such as other websites linking toyours. They also effectively dis-patched early brands of SEO abusethat fooled search engines into rank-ing sites higher than they shouldhave been.

TodaySEO is one of the key elements toany practice wishing to grow busi-ness through its website. At thistime, Google continues to dominate

Your practice may have agreat website and still youmight not be getting a lotof business from it. To getmore traffic (visitors), it’s

important to streamline your web-site. This process is called searchengine optimization (SEO). WithoutSEO, your website traffic will suffer,and it may not even be found duringa Google search.

The purpose of this article is toprovide some background on SEOand to explain and share informa-tion on how to improve your searchengine results, what we call “searchengine ranking.”

The Beginning of SEO and GoogleWhile they were students at StanfordUniversity, Sergey Brin and Larry

Search EngineOptimization and Web 3.0Paul Stubenbordt

searches, with an 85% market share.Yahoo is a distant second at 6% andBing comes in third at 5.5%. Theseare the “big three,” but let’s face it:Google claimed its victory when itwas officially added to the OxfordEnglish Dictionary on June 15, 2006.You don’t “Yahoo” the answers tolife’s little questions do you? No, yougoogle them.

The Secret to SEOOptimizing your search enginerequires working with title tags, metatags, keywords, and cross-links withother websites.

Title tags. Title tags tell usersand search engines what subject aparticular webpage is all about. Yourwebmaster should create a new titletag for each page of your site. Eachtitle tag needs to be descriptive of

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AE Fall 2010 29

the content of that particular page.For example, if we’re discussing thetitle tag for your cataract page, thetitle tag would look something likethis: “Cataract Surgery Los Angeles,Cataracts L.A.” It’s important to notuse long title tags or stuff keywordsinto a title tag.

Meta tags. Meta tags go more indepth than title tags. They givesearch engines a summary of what awebpage is about. This is embeddedin the HTML code and is generallyinvisible to the website viewer. Ameta tag can be a few words or acouple of short paragraphs, forexample, <Smith Eye Associates spe-cializes in Cataract Surgery,Crystalens, ReSTOR, ReZoom … EyeSurgeon Doctor Orange CountyLaguna Hills San Clemente IrvineNewport Beach Huntington Beach>.

Search engines will use small por-tions of the meta tags to rank yoursite. It’s important to use descriptivekeywords and an accurate descrip-tion of that particular page. Just liketitle tags, you should have uniquemeta tags for each page.

Keywords. It’s important tohave relevant keywords in your titletags, meta tags, content pages, imagenames, and even your URL. Sayyou’re that L.A. eyecare practicementioned earlier. When people liv-ing in Los Angeles search for a LASIKsurgeon on Google, they might typein “LASIK L.A.” For a cataract sur-geon in Los Angeles, they might type“I need a cataract surgeon in LosAngeles.” For your site to show up inGoogle, it’s important to have agood mix of relevant keywords suchas Los Angeles, L.A., Orange County,

Irvine, LASIK, cataract, laser visioncorrection, etc. To make the processsimple, Google offers a free keywordsearch tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal).This tool gives you multiple optionsto get the best keyword list thatwould work for your site.

Consider this tip about keywords: Remember that the patient,who is a layman and not a specialist,won’t always be able to spell medicalterms. Keep this in mind whenchoosing your keywords. If yourname is difficult to spell, includecommon misspellings of your nameor certain procedures in your key-word list as well.

Finally, consider the use of long-tail keywords. These are three-, four-,and even five-keyword phrases that

SEO is one of the key elements toany practice wishing to growbusiness through its website.

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successful website. Great content isbeneficial not only to patients, butalso for search engines.

It’s also important that yourcontent be not only original butunique from page to page. Searchengines penalize your website whenthey find duplicated content.Penalization brings your site downin search engine rankings. Googlealso suggests that you offer exclusivecontent or services that others don’toffer. This could be a unique piece ofresearch or a recent news story high-lighting a procedure your practicehas to offer.

Also, having fresh, up-to-datecontent is vital for increasing trafficto your site. One of the best ways todo this is to create a blog. You canblog on just about anything. Here’s ashort list of ideas: • New products and services• How-to articles, such as “How tofind an eye surgeon”

• Special offers, contests, or promo-tions

• Informational blogs about eyehealth

• Research information

The Future: Web 3.0—theIntelligent WebThe internet has gone through manychanges since its inception. In the1990s, the first online sites were verybasic, read-only content. Then cameWeb 2.0, also known as the “interac-tive web,” which focuses on user-cre-ated content posted via blogs, “com-ment” features, technologies such asYouTube and Skype, and socialmedia sites such as Facebook andLinkedIn.

Now we’re looking at a furtherevolution of the internet, dubbedWeb 3.0 by Tim Berners-Lee, theman who invented the (first) world-wide web. With Web 3.0, you cantype a complex request and the

are very specific to what someone issearching for. Here are two examples:“Dallas LASIK surgery financing” and“premium lens cataract surgery.”Long-tail keywords are easier to rank,bring more visitors to your site, andresult in more conversions fromprospects to customers because thepeople who use them are searchingfor specific information, rather thanjust “shopping.”

Links from other websites.Search engines also rank your sitebased on inbound links. But insteadof simply counting all inbound linksequally, search engines will givesome links more weight than others.For example, beware of buying linksfrom a link farm. This is a companythat sells links with the intent ofraising page rank instead of traffic.Google highly frowns on this, thusdecreasing page rank.

So how do you start the cross-linking process? Often pharmaceuti-cal companies have consumer web-sites that highlight lasers, lenses, andprocedures. Make sure that you’re ontheir site if you’re offering theirproducts. They might ask you toreturn the favor by placing their linkon your site.

If you advertise locally, ask yourradio, TV, or newspaper representa-tive to place a banner on their sitethat links to your site.

An online press release on sitessuch as www.prnewswire.com andwww.prweb.com can create some ofthe most powerful links. You couldwrite an article on DSEK surgery andwhen people search for DSEK online,your press release could show up onyahoo.com, aol.com, and cnn.com,which all link back to your site. Allof these sites are heavily weighted bythe search engines.

Content and BloggingGreat content is the key to having a

Running the Practice Marketing

search engine will analyze it almostlike a human, using results of yourprevious searches to customize thesearch to your wants and needs.Here’s an example: “I want to haveLASIK Vision Correction in Dallas.What are my options?” The Web 3.0search engine will analyze yourrequest, search for all possible solu-tions, and carefully organize resultsbased on past searches, where youlive, where you like to shop, etc.Over time you may just need to typein “Where should I have LASIK?”The search engine analyzes your likesand dislikes and gives the rightanswer—for you.

We don’t know exactly whatWeb 3.0 is going to be like. We don’tknow what effect it will have onSEO. We do know it will cause a shiftin SEO and web design, so ensurethat your webmaster stays up to datewith these evolutions in technology.

Bottom LineThe internet is the future of commu-nication and advertising. It’s notonly about having a great-lookingwebsite, but also about having a sitethat will be found when someonegoogles, “I need a cataract surgeon.”If you don’t take the time to proper-ly optimize your site, you might bemissing out on obtaining newpatients.

To determine whether your siteis optimized for today’s searchengines, consider consulting with aqualified webmaster (and be sure tocheck his/her referrals). You havenothing to lose and patients to gain.AE

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Paul M. Stubenbordt (817-416-2010; paul@refrac-tiveconsulting.com) is presi-dent and founder ofStubenbordt Consulting inSouthlake, Texas, which spe-cializes in business develop-ment for ophthalmologists.