Category: SEO

A Quick Intro to AI SEO
Key Insights:
- In the past few months, artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed the way marketers think about search engine optimization (SEO).
- From content creation and optimization to keyword research and link building, AI’s many use cases can benefit any SEO strategy — yours included.
- These tools can be a boon for SEO. We must exercise care, however, to assure we’re presenting accurate information. The output of AI tools is not true “subject matter expertise,” but instead a statistical reckoning of what word comes next.
The age of AI-powered advertising is here, and it’s here to stay.

Today, 64% of marketing businesses have already adopted AI tools into their strategy, with that number on the rise as more YouTube tutorials, crash-course articles, and emerging tools pitch new, game-changing use cases by the minute.

Among its impressive list of functions, however, AI might just take the cake in conquering the art and science of the one thing digital marketers swear by most: search engine optimization.

In this post, we’ll look at some of the most revolutionary ways you can use AI to enhance your SEO strategy and rank higher in the search results — all in half the time and effort you’re spending now.

So, What Exactly Is AI SEO?

AI-based SEO involves the usage of artificial intelligence tools to help improve a website’s organic performance in search results.

Trained on massive data sets, these Large Language Model (LLM) AI tools can support your SEO strategy by analyzing your website, offering insight into not only what you should improve but how you can improve it, and then doing most — if not all — of the recommended work for you.

It’s no secret that SEO can be complex, and the effort it takes to see impactful results can bog down even the most seasoned strategists. But now, apps like ChatGPT are automating the nitty-gritty tasks that go into climbing search rankings, like keyword research, on-page content optimizations, and metadata generation.

Between the headache spared from hours spent in Google Search Console to the writer’s block solution to crafting compelling page titles, the pros of using AI for SEO are unlike anything the industry has seen before, and they’ve only just begun.

The Benefits of Using AI for SEO

The power of AI technology is hitting certain industries the hardest, with online marketing and search engine optimization being at the top of the list.

What does this mean for you?

Hopping on the AI train doesn’t mean caving to the bandwagon. It means adapting to what will eventually become an industry standard and staying competitive at the same time.

You may be left behind if you fail to embrace this sweeping change. But the good news is it comes with a laundry list of benefits, with some including:
- Increased efficiency: AI can automate much of the time-consuming work involved in SEO, freeing up your team to focus on more strategic tasks.
- Improved accuracy: Machine learning can analyze large amounts of data and identify trends on your site that would be difficult for humans to find. This ability can help you make more informed decisions about how to improve your website’s SEO.
  - Caveat: When it doesn’t know the real answer, ChatGPT and other LLM-trained AI tools can “hallucinate,” making up very convincing-sounding wrong answers. So, be sure to verify any “facts.”
- Enhanced personalization: AI can be used to personalize the user experience on a website, which can lead to increased engagement and conversions.
It’s important to keep in mind that, although AI can act as a plus-one to your team, it can never replace the level of quality assurance that comes with the human touch. Today, there’s still a need for strategists and creatives to prompt the machine and edit the output to make sure it’s accurate and reflects your values, voice, and tone.

This idea of the human prompt – AI output – human edit is referred to as the AI Sandwich.

AI can significantly improve and streamline your efforts, especially if you do your homework to find the proper tool and use it the right way.

How to Choose an AI SEO Tool

Once ChatGPT broke waves and grabbed the world by storm in November 2022, countless tech companies started the race to create the perfect platform that wins the busy marketer’s time and dollar.

With the sea of options currently available (and more to come), there’s a good chance you’ll find that the hunt for the right AI SEO tool isn’t so cut-and-dry. Some platforms will have overlapping capabilities, others will have exclusive features, and all will claim to be the best of their kind.

Just because the market is highly saturated, however, doesn’t mean you’re bound to a continuous cycle of trial and error until you get it right. Before you invest any significant budget, time, or trust into an AI SEO tool, you’ll want to consider:
- The features and functionality of the tool
- The price of the tool and the required length of subscription
- The reputation of the company that developed the tool
- The reviews of other users and industry leaders
Many businesses and marketers may opt to take the free route, turning to ChatGPT’s basic version to satisfy their SEO needs. Although the conversational chatbot may be a relatively safe starter bet, accessing its latest, most powerful language model, GPT-4, comes with a monthly subscription fee of $20.

Most other quality platforms, like Jasper and Frase, will also require dishing out some dollars. As with any tool, the cost is quickly justifiable if they save you time and money.

Keep in mind that not all AI tools are created equal. Some will have significant limitations or steep prices, so be sure to remain critical while testing your options and only settle once you’ve verified your choice(s) work with your SEO game plan.

How to Use AI to Step Up Your SEO Game

After choosing an AI SEO tool, it’s time to put your platform to work and usher in the results you’re looking for.

Write and optimize your content with ease

Writing winning content and giving it a longer shelf life just got a whole lot easier with a little help from AI and machine learning.

Enter your topic, keywords, URL, and just about any other instruction into an AI-powered content creator tool, and you’ll get an optimized output at lightning speed that’s as competitive as it is time-efficient.

And, if you’re just trying to find your muse, you can ask ChatGPT to recommend titles, headlines, and even outlines to get your started.

Find the right keywords

In the land of search engine optimization, your keywords are one of your biggest allies. But if you don’t have an experienced SEO company aiding your strategy, determining the right targeted searches can feel like a losing battle.

Your saving grace? A list of keyword ideas, segmented by search intent, sorted by difficulty, and fueled by search ranking success — all AI-generated with just a few keystrokes.

And, ChatGPT can even put them in a nicely organized table for you.

Build your links up

66.31% of pages on the Internet have no backlinks. If you’re in that number of sites with no links pointing back to you, you’re missing out on valuable opportunities to build your authority in the eyes of Google and benefit your SEO.

Fortunately, ChatGPT and its machine-learning friends can help you with link building by:
- Analyzing the topical focus of your current content
- Composing a list of on-topic sites you might reach out to
- Generating a great email to the webmaster to make a connection
What Are the Risks of AI for SEO and Business?

A chainsaw is a great tool if you need to chop down a tree. If you find yourself trapped in a shed in the countryside, perhaps not so much.

We are already seeing AI-generated content farms clogging up the pipes of the internet in ways human content never could. And many companies are starting to think of all the ways they can use AI to cut costs.

Dropbox recently announced significant layoffs, citing AI as both an opportunity and a threat for competitive impact.

ChatGPT and the other tools spawned by use of the OpenAI API are only a few months old, and there’s now ways to predict their ultimate impact. If you’re concerned your content or the content you’re getting from contractors are going to trip up that AI filter (not a real thing, by the way), there are tools to help you check the likelihood of AI. Beware, of course, because false-positives happen, so you don’t want to base hiring, firing, or disciplinary decisions on their output.

At Search Influence, we’re cautiously embracing the opportunity to enhance our existing processes. We are reluctant, however, to go all in given the potential risks.

Search Influence in New Orleans: SEO-Proficient, AI-Curious

When used with care, artificial intelligence has the potential to improve SEO outcomes. It seems everyone from small startups to tech giants are turning to this new way of bringing in business.

As Uncle Ben says in Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

As a New Orleans digital marketing agency, Search Influence embraces what the future of AI holds. We’re using it to get results for our clients across industries. Whether it’s to inform our keyword mappings or help optimize our blog posts, we believe in the power of AI-based SEO and doing our part to welcome this new era of advertising — the right way.

Curious about where AI SEO will find its place in your marketing strategy? Let’s start talking about it together.
April 24, 2023
Lack of SEO Skills and Strategy Leave Critical Gap in Higher Education Recruitment Funnel, According to Study
Joint study into higher education recruitment strategies indicates foundational marketing tactics are missing the mark in execution.

NEW ORLEANS, April 6, 2023— Research conducted by UPCEA, the leading association for professional, continuing and online (PCO) education, in collaboration with Search Influence, a higher education digital marketing agency, shows that higher education institutions targeting non-traditional students do not reach and recruit prospective students to their full potential. The results of the newly released study reveal that the majority of schools lack search engine optimization (SEO) skills, knowledge, strategy, and effective reporting to leadership.

Research Highlights
- Schools say SEO is important but aren’t executing it strategically.
- Institutional leadership is not informed of SEO performance metrics.
- Most institutions do not have a comprehensive SEO strategy.
The study surveyed 70 UPCEA institutional leaders and 68 marketing leaders to understand higher education institutions’ current SEO marketing practices that target non-traditional students. The study compares answers against best digital marketing practices, specifically SEO, to determine the key findings. In addition to this, the research includes an assessment of the SEO readiness of 100 member institutions.

The study finds a gap between what institutional and marketing leaders believe are best practices for SEO and the actual SEO readiness of their institution, indicating that SEO is an area of opportunity for many schools. According to survey data, although marketing and institutional leaders value SEO as a tactic, 51% of respondents said that their unit does not have an established search engine optimization plan or strategy.

“Innovative marketing practices are important to carry higher education through its current crossroads,” said Jim Fong, Chief Research Officer at UPCEA. “The adult learner is more savvy than previous generations, and institutions need to meet students where they are in order to have a competitive advantage in an evolving and complex economy.”

“The higher education institutions surveyed know SEO is important. And many think they’re doing SEO. This study shows that most lack an outcomes-focused strategy. Even if they did have a strategy, they, themselves, indicate they lack the skills to execute or the reporting structure to hold their teams accountable,” says Will Scott, Search Influence Co-owner and Chief Executive Officer. “Given the dollars they’re spending and the proven returns from search engine optimization, it’s clear that a focus on SEO would have a big impact on schools’ student funnel.”

The study suggests that current SEO strategies are lacking because PCO units do not have the skills, staff, or resources to develop one. A second contributing factor is the lack of leadership awareness of SEO-related metrics that would provide a deeper case for support to inform decisions such as budget, department staffing and employee skill development.

The research was conducted as part of a two-year partnership between Search Influence and UPCEA. This partnership provides UPCEA members with custom Search Influence resources that help improve student recruitment through SEO and paid ads strategies.

The full report can be viewed online: Higher Education SEO Research Study

UPCEA and Search Influence will discuss the significant findings from the research study in a higher education webinar on April 27, 2023.

Additional Resources:
About Search Influence:

Search Influence is a women-owned, ROI-focused, digital marketing agency that helps institutions drive prospects into and through the recruitment funnel with analytics-backed strategies, including search engine optimization and paid digital advertising. Founded in 2006, Search Influence’s core purpose is to optimize potential. Search Influence collaborates with well-regarded institutions both nationally and locally in New Orleans. Search Influence collaborates with well-regarded institutions including Tulane University School of Professional Advancement, University of Maryland School of Public Policy, and Palo Alto University.

About UPCEA:

UPCEA is the leading association for online and professional continuing education. Founded in 1915, UPCEA now serves the leading public and private colleges and universities in North America. The association supports its members with innovative conferences and specialty seminars, research and benchmarking information, professional networking opportunities, and timely publications. Based in Washington, D.C., UPCEA builds greater awareness of the vital link between adult learners and public policy issues.

For Media Inquiries

Search Influence:

Shira Pinsker; Marketing Manager

(504) 208-3900; [email protected]

UPCEA:

Molly Nelson; Vice President of Communications

(202) 659-3130; [email protected]
April 6, 2023
Higher Education Technical SEO to Solve Your Website Woes
Higher Education Technical SEO to Solve Your Website Woes at #UPCEA2023

As higher education institutions continue to evolve, it’s more important than ever to ensure that their websites are up to date and optimized for organic traffic and search engine performance. To accomplish this, universities must be aware of best practices for higher education technical SEO, the implications of changes made to their websites, and the impact of subdomains and OPM microsites.

Buttons above not showing? View Session Slides here. Download higher education SEO research and data here.

At the 2023 UPCEA Annual Conference, Paula French of Search Influence and Alicia Jasmin of Tulane SoPA will share their hard-won knowledge to help you avoid the most costly mistakes.

What is Technical Search Engine Optimization?

Technical SEO is the process of optimizing a website’s structure and internal elements to improve its rank on search engines.

This starts with an SEO audit aimed at fixing technical issues that could be negative ranking factors that commonly hold education websites back from their full potential. Some of these technical SEO issues also make for a bad user experience, such as broken links, duplicate content, and lack of internal links.

What Are the Benefits of Technical SEO?

When implemented correctly, technical SEO can help universities maximize their organic search traffic and improve their visibility on search engines. This helps universities reach their target audiences, including prospective students, more effectively and efficiently.

You know how important it is that your digital strategy and your school website are supportive of student search intent. But all that hard work will be for naught if the search engine crawlers can’t find your great content.

You owe it to yourself to understand the common (technical) issues that many schools – and even some SEO agencies – miss when doing SEO for education websites.
If you are serious about reaching potential students with your education SEO strategies, technical SEO is as important as your content strategy.

What Will You Learn in “The Devil’s in the Details: Using Technical SEO to Solve Your Website Woes?”

Attendees will learn how technical SEO, when part of their digital marketing strategy, will help you:
- keep the search engine crawlers happy
- stay ahead of the constantly updating search algorithms
- most importantly: reach their intended audience: students
Gain insight into how website structure can affect search rankings, the impact of subdomains and microsites, and the steps needed for a successful website migration.

FAQs

Q: What is SEO?

A: SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of optimizing a website’s structure and content to improve its ranking on search engines. As we learned in the Search Influence and UPCEA Higher Ed SEO Research Study it is not a given that your educational institution even has an SEO strategy.

Q: What is the difference between technical SEO and other forms of SEO for higher education?

A: Technical SEO focuses on the elements of a website’s infrastructure and coding that can affect its performance on search engine result pages (SERPs). This includes optimizing the website’s structure, fixing technical issues, and assuring the structure supports the keyword strategy.
Other forms of higher education SEO, such as on page SEO, content optimization and link building, focus on improving the quality and relevance of higher education websites’ content for users.

Q: How does technical SEO benefit universities and search engines?

A: Technical SEO is a critical piece of higher education digital marketing that can help universities maximize their organic search ranking and improve their visibility on search engines, including Google search. This helps universities reach their target audiences, including prospective students, more effectively and efficiently.

Also, technical SEO can help universities ensure their website content is of the highest quality and relevance to the user, making it more likely to be featured on the SERPs.

Q: What will I learn in Alicia and Paula’s technical SEO session?

A: You will gain insight into how website structure can affect search rankings, the impact of subdomains and microsites, and the steps needed for a successful website migration.

Case Study: Higher Ed Microsite Migration SEO

Additionally, you will learn about the latest tools available to gauge your search engine visibility, as well as tips and tricks to ensure your website is up to date and optimized.

Q: Who should attend this session at UPCEA?

A: This session is ideal for higher ed marketers and marketing teams who are looking to understand the technical SEO implications of recommendations for their websites from their education marketing agency.

It is also beneficial for those who wish to learn more about tools, processes, and strategies to make sure their SEO efforts truly optimize their online visibility for organic search traffic.
March 16, 2023

ChatGPT: Data Mining and SEO With OpenAI and Bing

Key Insights

Pubcon Austin 2023 might as well have been called “The State of AI SEO.” And it was fantastic.
ChatGPT and Bing GPT are a really easy way to toe the water of AI for data mining and SEO.
Development in AI, in all forms is moving lightning-fast. You need to be there, and you also need to be thoughtful how you engage.

[bctt tweet=”According to @w2scott, ChatGPT and Bing GPT are a really easy way to toe the water of AI for data mining and SEO.” username=”SearchInfluence”]

Introduction

I attended and presented at Pubcon Austin a couple of weeks ago (February 2023) and came away with a ton of new ideas to use ChatGPT for SEO and how to do more effective ChatGPT Data Mining.

Typically, a major conference will put out a call for speaking ideas months in advance. Pubcon is no different, and in the early fall of last year, the organizer Brett Tabke did just that.

At the time, I had nothing that I was super passionate about presenting.

But, since the winter holidays, I have been obsessively playing with OpenAI ChatGPT and a dozen or so AI content tools.

I reached out to Brett Tabke, the organizer of Pubcon, and shared my idea for a talk. He was happy to make room for me on a panel — after giving me the requisite grief for being so late.

If you’d like to see that presentation, I have it online here: Chatbots, AI Content, And The Marketer’s Conundrum.

It turns out that earlier, Brett had put out a call to all of the speakers to ensure they addressed AI in their presentations. So, without knowing it, I was ahead of the curve.

Brett presented a mind-blowing keynote, which gave me some great ideas for better use of the tools, and other presentations showed me some amazing tactical tricks.

What Is ChatGPT and How Can You Use It for Data Mining and SEO?

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI)-based chatbot system that uses natural language processing (NLP) to generate conversations.

It keeps track of the conversation’s flow, context, and previous questions and answers.

This makes it a valuable tool for both data mining and SEO since you can iterate on an idea and get well-formatted (mostly accurate) answers due to its training in the large language model (LLM).

With ChatGPT, you can also ask complex programming language queries and get accurate responses in conversational format — perfect for understanding customer behavior, getting statistics for content, or even the kind of granular location-based information you need for local SEO.

For years, the tech industry has embraced AI. Examples include IBM Watson, Tesla, and more. I detailed a few of these in an article I wrote for Near Media.

ChatGPT’s wide range of applications makes it a great interdisciplinary tool — you can use it to learn new AI models, build generative AI tools, or even translate natural language input into other languages.

It’s a revolutionary example of how machine learning can make everyday jobs more efficient.

In short, ChatGPT is a powerful tool with a wide range of applications — perfect for data mining and SEO.

Now, What About Bing GPT

In addition to discussions of ChatGPT, there was a keynote from Bing’s Fabrice Canel. During his keynote, Fabrice gave the entire audience access to the new Bing GPT.

Interestingly, I had received my preview access the day prior.

It’s important to understand that Bing GPT is not ChatGPT. Bing’s GPT includes the knowledge of the underlying OpenAI LLM, plus the Bing search index.

This is really useful because you can do things like feed it a URL and have it output the data you’re looking for.

As you can see, Bing GPT either breaks down or gets bored and stops with the table. There are also some OpenAI GPT limitations in text input and output size.

But the data is great, and because it’s able to use the Bing search engine, it’s fresh findings.

On the contrary, if you ask the same question to ChatGPT, you get a combination of made-up and outdated information. And, though not apparent here, it took ChatGPT a long time to think about this one.

The only one of the above speakers who actually made it to the podium in 2023 is Aleyda Solis, and that was definitely not her topic.

Also, notice how Bing GPT actually cites its sources. It’s clear the Bing folks are thinking about how this technology can continue to add value to the copyright holders whose content is driving their answer.

[bctt tweet=”Bing GPT cites its sources. The Bing folks are thinking about how this technology can add value to the copyright holders whose content is driving their answer.” username=”SearchInfluence”]

If you’re using it to do ideation or organization for SEO, ChatGPT is probably safe.

You can’t, however, trust ChatGPT data mining to give 100% correct results. So, it’s critical you fact-check everything ChatGPT creates.

I have no doubt that for the lazy SEO, ChatGPT will be abused and ultimately become a tool with which they accidentally injure themselves, like a hammer bouncing back and hitting them in the head.

Some Other SEO ChatGPT Use Cases

Writing code is only one of the many well-documented examples of use cases for ChatGPT.

Other interesting examples show how ChatGPT can answer complex questions like formatting text in HTML and schema.org markup.

[bctt tweet=”ChatGPT can answer complex questions like formatting text in HTML and schema.org markup.” username=”@SearchInfluence”]

It can even organize data into tables, as shown in the example above.

And because of the ChatGPT response methodology, you can iterate on your initial question until you get the right answer. I find that I often have to create follow-up questions to get to the prompt I’m looking for.

ChatGPT also has what they call “reinforcement learning models” that enable it to take feedback and improve.

So, back at the office, we found ourselves preparing for an upcoming industry conference, UPCEA, where our Director of Sales and Marketing, Paula French, will be presenting alongside one of our clients, Alicia Jasmin of the School of Professional Advancement at Tulane University.

The UPCEA conference organizers share a list of attendees but don’t provide their contact information. We are presenting, we have a booth, and we have some sponsored research launching.

So, we want to get the word out to the attendees.

We have a new marketing associate starting, and we were planning to have them go through the list and find better contact information for the attendees we were hoping to connect with.

I had the idea that it might be possible to paste information from that list into ChatGPT and ask it to fill out the remainder.

It worked!

But more on that in a bit.

Natural Language Processing With Structured Responses

Here is an example of a ChatGPT response that finds and organizes data in a way that is now useful for an SEO practitioner — or anyone interested.

I asked ChatGPT for neighborhoods arranged by city within the greater New Orleans area. And it gave me a well-organized response.

Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list, but you can see the opportunity for using this mind data for SCO coming almost directly from ChatGPT.

I asked: “table of neighborhoods arranged by city for the greater New Orleans area”

ChatGPT answered:
Sure! Here’s a table of neighborhoods arranged by city for the greater New Orleans area:

	Neighborhoods
New Orleans	Algiers, Audubon, Bayou St. John, Black Pearl, Broadmoor, Bywater, Central Business District, City Park, East Carrollton, East Riverside, Faubourg Marigny, French Quarter, Garden District, Gentilly, Holy Cross, Irish Channel, Lake Terrace, Lakeview, Leonidas, Lower Ninth Ward, Marlyville, Mid-City, Milan, Navarre, Riverbend, St. Anthony, St. Claude, St. Roch, Touro, Tremé, Uptown, West End
Metairie	Airline Park, Bonnabel Place, Bucktown, Causeway, Clearview, East Bank, Fat City, Kenner, Lakeview, Metairie Terrace, Old Metairie, Pontchartrain Gardens, Severn, West Esplanade
Kenner	Chateau Estates, Driftwood, Grandlake, Greenlawn Terrace, Highway Park, Kenner, Lincoln Manor, Louisiana Trace, Quail Ridge, Roosevelt Gardens, University City
Gretna	Algiers Point, Aurora Gardens, Garden Park, Gretna, McDonoghville, Mechanickham, Westwego
Westwego	Westwego, Nine Mile Point
Harvey	Barkley Estates, Barkley Place, Beechwood, Bellevue Gardens, Beverly Knoll, Brown Derby, Cottonwood Place, Dutch Gap, Harvey, Heatherwood, Magnolia Trace, Manhattan, Woodland West
Marrero	Ames Farms, Barataria, Lincolnshire, Marrero, Oak Forest, Oak Cove, Oakmere, Plantation Estates, Pritchard Road, Westwood
Terrytown	Terrytown
Belle Chasse	Belle Chasse

Note: This is not an exhaustive list but includes some of the more well-known neighborhoods in the Greater New Orleans area.

Chatbots As Personal Assistants

So, about that attendee list…

… I don’t want to expose the information of random conference attendees I don’t know. And, knowing that ChatGPT occasionally gives really authoritative-sounding wrong answers, I figured I could use the speakers at the recent Pubcon to demonstrate this point.

Sometimes, one has to iterate to get the prompt right and, as a result, get the desired response.

I heard it said in a recent presentation that “prompts are the new code.” I think the act of writing prompts for ChatGPT is actually good relationship training. You learn how to ask for exactly what you need without a whole bunch of fluff or drama 🙂

[bctt tweet=”Prompts are the new code.” username=”SearchInfluence”]

So, here’s a table of the speakers at Pubcon Austin. I had to paste information from the website into ChatGPT to give it the core data.

I also had to iterate on this a couple of times because ChatGPT is funny, and sometimes, it will stop giving output for no clear reason.

I find it best to think of ChatGPT as a person. It helps avoid frustration when you cannot connect on the point you’re trying to get across.

OK, So, we’ve got our core data.

Now, I want to enhance it with contact information.

Normally, ChatGPT will refuse to respond to inappropriate requests, like giving you what it thinks is private information — even though it knows the answer. That data is out on the Internet somewhere; otherwise, ChatGPT wouldn’t know it.

Email is one of those items. Ask for an email address, and ChatGPT politely declines.

Nope! Not going to give me Rand’s email address. However, look how nicely it directs me to Rand’s website to make contact.

But, for some reason, if you ask for it in a table, it will give it to you.

Listen. I know how SEO and marketing folks are. Now that you know this, you’ll abuse the crap out of it, and they’ll kill the feature. Please, please only use it when you need it and recognize that, sooner or later, it will go away.

It’s also important to remember, like in the example above with fictitious speakers at Pubcon Austin 2023, that ChatGPT sometimes makes stuff up and does so in a really authoritative way.

So, as I said, ask (for it in a table), and you shall receive.

	Name	Company	LinkedIn Page	Email
1	Gary Illyes	Google	https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyillyes/	[email protected]
2	Dave Rohrer	North Side Metrics	https://www.linkedin.com/in/daverohrer/	[email protected]
3	Aleyda Solis	Orainti	https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleyda/	[email protected]
4	Martha Vanberkel	Schema App	https://www.linkedin.com/in/marthavanberkel/	[email protected]
5	Pat Strader	Data Agility Group	https://www.linkedin.com/in/pat-strader-28972/	[email protected]
6	Lazarina Stoy	Brado Creative Insight	https://www.linkedin.com/in/lazarinastoy/	[email protected]
7	Dave Davies	Beanstalk Internet Marketing	https://www.linkedin.com/in/beanstalkdave/	[email protected]
8	Ryan Jones	Razorfish	https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanmjones/
9	Eric Enge	Perficient	https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericenge/	[email protected]

And this was the prompt:

I cannot stress enough that there is a very high likelihood some of the above data is wrong.

It’s also important to consider that starting from a very specific example, like my use of the Pubcon agenda, may lead to brushing up against copyright protection issues.

Brett, we’re cool, right?

[bctt tweet=”I cannot stress enough that there is a very high likelihood some of the above data is wrong.” username=”SearchInfluence”]

Frequently Asked Questions About ChatGPT for SEO and Data Mining

Is it legal to use AI to write content?

Today, yes. However, there are current court cases working their way through the system that may limit some of the uses.

Bing is ahead of the game today, given their attribution of source documents in their chat output.

What are some of the ethical concerns with AI content?

The biggest concerns I’ve heard are about attribution and disclosure. Google has said they don’t have a problem with AI content, but they believe there should be disclosure.

Does this mean that if you used AI tools to help you generate an outline or develop ideas, you must have that as a postscript? Not in my opinion.

How long until the robots take over?

They’ve already taken over. You may have missed it.

In the first piece I *wrote* on the robot uprising, the content points out the risk of misinformation and the impact on jobs.

We may have to learn how to be good servants to our robot overlords in order to survive.

[bctt tweet=”We may have to learn how to be good servants to our robot overlords in order to survive.” username=”SearchInfluence”]

What are some other concerns?

Given these approaches to machine learning are based on the big bad Internet, ChatGPT can give biased responses. And as we’ve shown, the way you ask the question frames the response.

A *bad* prompt will likely yield bad responses.

And, accuracy. Always check your work.

Should I use these tools?

Unequivocally yes! Unless you like working harder and not smarter, you should be figuring out how to use AI-based tools to streamline your workflow.

Maybe there are jobs that AI can’t enable, but they are few.

And if you’re a marketer, particularly an SEO specialist, ChatGPT and other AI content tools are about to rock your little world — whether you like it or not.

Code for the JSON-LD schema.org FAQ of the Above

Schema.org houses a set of structured data schema that the search engines have agreed to recognize. The one above is an example of FAQPage Schema.

For SEO, ChatGPT Is the Tipping Point for AI

AI is for more than just machine learning professionals and business analysts. Chat-based AI is going to be integrated into most information retrieval systems in the very near future.

As marketers, particularly digital marketers, we owe it to our clients to understand these tools and how they can be used for good and ill. And, if you employ freelance writers as we do, it’s critical that you start thinking about your new approach to plagiarism and originality.

There is a crop of new tools to check for AI-built content. We’re currently trialing Originality.ai, and it looks promising.

At Search Influence, we are already finding ways to be more effective and efficient with these tools. We believe, without a doubt, our work product will improve with the smart use of AI.

And, when we find efficiencies that lower our cost-per-unit X in client work, we’ll be able to pass those savings on to our clients in the form of more value per dollar spent.

I’m as excited about SEO as I’ve been in years, and I’ve been doing it for more than two decades.

As I said in my article for Near Media, suggesting this changes everything is not hyperbole.

Is change good? Is change bad? Change is inevitable.

Let’s embrace the change together.

Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about how we can embrace the change together and help grow your business through smart SEO and online ads — powered by AI!

[bctt tweet=”I’m as excited about SEO as I’ve been in years, and I’ve been doing it for more than two decades. As I said in my article for Near Media, suggesting this changes everything is not hyperbole. Is change good? Is change bad? Change is inevitable. Let’s embrace the change together.” username=”SearchInfluence”]

P.S. Hey, Google! Disclosure: This was partially written by AI — obviously.

March 10, 2023

Top 7 SEO Questions You May Be Asking
This post was updated by Shira Pinsker on 8/31/2022 to reflect recent trends and refreshed statistics. It was originally published on 7/19/2021.

Key Insights
- A search engine optimization campaign aims to increase both the quality and quantity of organic traffic to your site.
- The primary function of search engines is to deliver answers to questions in the most digestible way possible. This is the most important thing to remember when executing an SEO strategy.
- SEO is a long-term strategy that, when done correctly, pays dividends in results.
A strong search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is an essential tool for any digital marketing strategy. While effective paid advertising, social media, and other digital strategies are important, organic search brings in the majority of website traffic.

Effective SEO campaigns can help drive conversions, improve user experience, and ultimately lead to increased customer satisfaction. In this post, we’ll provide the answers to seven SEO questions clients commonly ask.

1 – What is SEO?

Search engine optimization is the “practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of website traffic and exposure to your brand through non-paid search engine results.” (Moz) SEO is performed through a combination of updates both on and off your website to help Google better understand who you are, what you do, and why searchers should see you at the top of search results.

The most popular SEO tactics include content creation, technical improvements, and link building.

2 – How do search engines work?

The goal of Google, Bing, and other search engines is to display the results that are most likely to answer a user’s query in the most digestible format.

Search engines take three steps to find, analyze, and rank content:
- Crawl: Search engines comb the Internet and read over the code and content for each URL they find.
- Index: Search engines store and organize the content found during the crawling process.
- Rank: Search engines deliver content on the search engine results page (SERP) that is most relevant to a user’s query.
3 – How does Google rank results?

To determine organic ranking, search engines use algorithms, a process or formula by which stored information is retrieved and ordered in meaningful ways. The algorithm is ever-changing; in fact, modifications are made on a daily basis. Search engines use three factors to rank pages: relevance, location, and authority.
- Relevance is how your business matches what the searcher is looking for. The primary ways we send signals for which queries are relevant to your business are:
  - Content: All the text, videos, and images on your site. A huge factor in where your page will rank is how well the content on that page matches a search query.
  - RankBrain: The machine-learning portion of Google’s algorithm. While Google does not reveal the specifics of RankBrain, we do know Google’s main goal—fulfilling searcher intent. The best way to fulfill search intent is to provide the most accurate information in the best way possible for people who visit your page. Beyond content, the other factor here is user experience. How easy is it for users to find the information they are looking for on your site.
- Location plays a big role in local search results as they are very attuned to the searcher’s location or the location included in the query. We can reinforce location information through:
  - Content: Using location in metadata and the body of content.
  - Schema markup: Code that tells search engines what content means. Location schema markup helps search engines easily identify and decipher location information.
  - Listing management and building: Building and maintaining correct business listings not only ensures users have the correct location information but also ensures Google has this information and reinforces your location.
- Authority—being well known and trusted—is another important ranking factor. We send authoritative signals to Google by:
  - Backlinks: Links from other websites that point to your website. These work similarly to word-of-mouth referrals in real life. Both quantity and quality of these “referrals” are important. We want links from other sites that Google trusts.
  - Reviews: The number of reviews a local business receives, and the sentiment of those reviews, have a notable impact on their ability to rank in local results.
  - Citations: Multiple, consistent references to a business’s name, location, and phone number strengthen Google’s “trust” in the validity of that data.
4 – How much content does a page need?

A common practice for determining word count is to match the length of the top-ranking pages for your targeted topic. While this method may help you figure out how thoroughly you should cover the topic, Search Engine Journal reminds us “it is important to remember that copy on a page should be there to aid the human visitor, not a search bot.” User intent is king in terms of determining the length of content. The key is to think about what a user is looking for when landing on your page from organic queries. Is your target audience looking for a quick, concise answer or a longer, more in-depth explanation?

5- When will I see results?

The timing of results from an SEO campaign can vary based on the strategies deployed, the competition within your industry, and your business’s characteristics. You can typically expect to see organic improvement at six, nine, and 12 months.

After deploying a targeted strategy, such as optimizing the content on a specific page, you will likely see initial movement in results (organic traffic to that page or keyword rankings for that targeted topic) at six months. Then, you can expect to see further growth at the nine-month mark. Finally, you should see a larger jump in results at 12 months.

6 – Why do my rankings fluctuate?

Fluctuations in rankings are completely normal and very common. Search engines are constantly crawling and recrawling websites and indexing new information. This means that a page’s rankings will naturally rise and fall as you and your competitors adjust your websites. Also, algorithm updates can cause these fluctuations because they affect how the ranking process works.

7 – How long do I need to run an SEO campaign?

The short answer here is forever. Search engine optimization is a long-term strategy. The internet is constantly evolving, and so are search engine results. Google is constantly improving its ranking system based on providing the best user experience, and therefore, what may have been best practice three years ago, may not be today.

Need help navigating the world of SEO? Search Influence is here to help. Contact our SEO experts to learn more about digital marketing strategies that can drive more customers to your website.

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September 15, 2022
Increase Conversion Rates and Improve Rankings with a Mobile-Optimized Website
Key Insights:
- A mobile-optimized website can make or break a business since a bad mobile user experience can result in a loss of leads and conversions.
- With more than half of site visitors coming to sites through mobile, your mobile site must have a positive user experience.
- A positive user experience revolves around how easily a user can navigate a site and complete their goal.
- Google expects your mobile experience to be just as good, if not better, than desktop.
- Ensure a positive user experience for mobile users through site speed, ease of use, and similarity to desktop experience.
In this digital age, it’s standard that people access the internet on their mobile devices vs. a desktop computer. A mobile-optimized website can make or break a business since a bad mobile user experience can result in a loss of leads and conversions. This post will talk about what a positive mobile experience entails and why it’s so important for businesses today.

Why is the Mobile Experience Important?

A bad mobile user experience hurts lead conversions and the overall perception of your company and service.

According to recent studies, over half of internet visits in 2017 originated from a mobile device. As of August 2021, that number has moved to 56.75%. With over half of website visits coming from mobile, your website should accommodate those users. And, with over 53% of users only willing to wait 3 seconds for a mobile page to load before abandoning the page, it’s essential to make sure that the user experience of your mobile site is optimal.

A positive mobile user experience helps retain leads that come to your site from mobile devices and increases the likelihood they convert. A user navigates to your site with a goal. If they aren’t able to complete that goal with ease from their phone, they won’t continue to use your site and service—meaning, they won’t convert.

Additionally, Google has stated they use a mobile-first ranking strategy. This means that before they check the desktop version of your site, they look at the quality, effectiveness, and user-friendly aspects of your mobile site to determine your ranking within the search engine.

You can check out Google’s mobile-first indexing best practices here. Some key takeaways:
- Google expects a positive mobile experience and checks on this by making sure your desktop and mobile versions of your site are virtually the same
- Google verifies your site makes good use of structured data
- Your site has fast load times.
Google provides Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool you can use to indicate whether Google finds a page on your site mobile friendly.

A positive mobile experience impacts the perception of your business. With almost everyone on a mobile device and accustomed to certain standards of the digital world, a bad mobile experience leaves the wrong impression. A user might think, “Maybe if this business isn’t ‘with the times’ and able to provide a good mobile experience, what else can’t they do for me?”

3 Components of a Strong Mobile Website Experience

Positive Browsing Experience

A positive user experience hinges on a user’s ability to navigate a site with ease. In a mobile context, this means a user can navigate the pages of the site to accomplish their goal without having to put in too much thought on how to do so.

The site navigation needs to be easy to find and easy to use. For example, if you have a lot of pages and the menu expands so long when clicked that a user can’t easily click on the pages they need, that results in a negative user experience.

Another example could be looked at in the scope of e-commerce:
- Can the user easily access the cart?
- Can a user easily and intuitively add and remove items from their cart?
Your mobile site should make it so that the user doesn’t have to think about what they need to do; they can just complete the actions they need with ease.

Clear and easily clickable calls-to-actions benefits users when navigating around a site and completing actions. If a user can’t accomplish their goal easily, it will likely result in a lost lead and conversion.

Site Speed

Users and Google value site speed. Users are not willing to wait around forever for a page to load. This case is even more true on a mobile device. If you picture why someone might be using mobile over desktop, it very well might be that they are on the go. A user in the middle of something, needing to be able to accomplish a goal quickly, is even less likely to wait for a page that’s taking too long to load completely.

The Mobile Experience Mirrors the Desktop Experience

As outlined in its best practices, Google expects your mobile experience to mirror your desktop experience. All the same tasks a user can do on your site on a desktop should be as easily accomplished on mobile. For example, a user should have as easy of a time scheduling an appointment on the mobile version of your site as they could on a desktop.

With so many visitors coming to sites on mobile, it’s imperative that your site follows good mobile user experience best practices. This will help with lead generation and with search engine rankings. Not sure where to start? Reach out today and talk to us about conducting a user experience audit for your site.

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Smart phone and tablet
December 16, 2021
What Does An SEO Agency Actually Do For My Business?
Key Insights
- Good SEO agencies focus on your website with the same vigor and attention-to-detail that you have with your brick and mortar.
- Expertise, authority and trust (E-A-T) is the foundation of a good long-term SEO plan. If your website doesn’t have these factors, it is impossible to rank well in search engine results.
- SEO agencies help their clients develop a long-term plan by auditing their site, pinpointing keywords and building E-A-T, which comes with a unique set of challenges because it cannot be directly measured.
Any good SEO agency knows that owners and executives are protective and calculated when it comes to businesses and their bottom line. Because of this, agencies know they must instill trust and deliver results. However, as a business owner/leader, that doesn’t mean you will know exactly what those results should be and how they improve your business results.

SEO agencies may vary in their approach, but their overall goal for your business website is to present it as a resource search engines will want to show searchers.

An SEO Agency Should Help You Understand Your Website’s Strengths and Opportunities

A good SEO agency will first familiarize itself with your website, typically done by conducting a website audit. With an audit—which generates performance metrics surrounding your site’s visibility, speed, and traffic—an SEO agency can pinpoint opportunities and highlight success areas!

Once your agency knows where you are thriving and where you can grow, they can begin forming your long-term SEO plan. This plan will align with the business goals you’ve set and can be a major tool in helping you reach them.

An SEO Agency Should Identify Relevant and Authoritative Keywords

Even those unfamiliar with SEO may have heard the terms “keywords” or “long-tail keywords” tossed around in conversations or articles. In simple terms, keywords and long-tail keywords are the phrases found on your website that match a person’s search query. Without optimizing your content with relevant keywords, Google (let alone searchers) will not be able to find it. This fact alone makes it a key priority for your SEO agency.

While defining the term “keyword” is simple, deciding which keywords to focus on in your SEO plan is not as cut and dry. An SEO agency familiar with your industry and business will be able to successfully conduct keyword research to pinpoint phrases that your customers and potential leads will use to find your content. More than that, they will know how to strategically implement those keywords across the pages of your website for the best impact.

An SEO Agency Should Enhance Local Relevance

Local relevance measures how well your content matches a search query that includes or intends a location. This refers to searches like “urgent care near me” or “restaurants open now.”

A huge chunk of daily searches look for you using locally relevant search results. Recent research done by Russ Jones, the Principal Search Scientist at Moz, found that “58% of people search for a local business on their smartphone daily.” The more your business website is locally relevant, the higher you will rank in those search results.

Jones’ study additionally found that “50% of local searches on mobile lead visitors to a store within one day.” This means more foot traffic to your brick and mortar, not just your website.

An SEO team that knows this will complete tactics customized to your business/industry specifically geared to building local relevance. These tactics should include:
- Maintaining your Google My Business profile
- Creating local listings by promoting NAP (name, address, phone number) consistency across multiple websites—sites that may show up in search results before your business’s actual website. Creating local listings also ensures that Google doesn’t generate and automatic listing for you, which could show potential customers the wrong information.
An SEO Agency Should Establish Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness

An agency looking out for your business’s best interests will prioritize your website content’s expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, otherwise known as E-A-T.

What makes E-A-T challenging is that it is not something you can directly measure and it’s not a direct ranking factor that you can pinpoint. However, a good SEO agency will have the knowledge and experience to establish and influence your E-A-T through various channels.

These tactics include:
- Regularly updating your site with rich content
- Organizing your site’s structure to make the most sense for your customers and industry
- Ensuring that your site is secure
Your site’s show of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are essential factors for your existing customers, potential leads, and Google. In fact, it is heavily referenced in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines because it is the sites with the best apparent E-A-T that Google awards the most visibility to (i.e., those on the first page of Google’s search results).

An SEO Agency Should Improve Expertise

Showing expertise is all about showing what you know and how you know it. It is crucial for SEO because it communicates to searchers and Google that you know what you’re talking about. Not establishing expertise leaves you at risk of being left out of search results.

How do SEO agencies improve website expertise for clients? Through the content on your website. But it is not enough to simply post any ol’ content. Experienced SEO agencies know that the content on your site should do two things:
- Answer the questions your customers ask. You know your industry and customers, and your SEO agency does too. They will have learned both your industry and target market so well that they know exactly what your potential leads need to know from you. This may be done in blog posts or a frequently asked questions page.
- Showcase your qualifications. This will look different depending on your industry. For example, a doctor will add where they went to medical school or completed residencies. This might be done on your About page with a written biography or videoed introduction.
An SEO Agency Should Build Authority

Authority refers to your brand’s reputation within your field.

The list of reputable, authoritative brands on the internet goes on and on. And despite these websites aligning with different industries, they all have one thing in common: Searchers seek them out for specific things. Google notices this and rewards those sites with top rankings because of it. Because those websites have proven to be knowledgeable and reliable resources, their authority is strong and hard to compete within search engine results pages.

An SEO agency will map out exactly how to build your authority in topics you already show expertise in. You can accomplish this by aligning yourself with authoritative experts in your industry with guest blog posts or building up your backlink profile by developing content authoritative experts will want to link to.

Above all, an SEO agency will ensure that all of your content can be fact-checked. The fastest way to damage authority is to share false information.

You may also hear the term “domain authority” thrown around in talks about website authority. The term refers to a score of how likely your site is to rank over competitor sites.

This score, created by Moz, is “based on data from [their] Link Explorer web index and uses dozens of factors in its calculations.” While it is different from E-A-T website authoritativeness, pointing your SEO plan towards E-A-T will help you increase your domain authority.

An SEO Agency Should Increase Trustworthiness

At the base of relationships—personal or business—is trust. If your website and its content can’t be trusted, Google will likely shield searchers from it.

Your SEO agency will show trustworthiness through on-site optimizations that include:
- limiting the number of ads that display at once.
- installing an SSL certificate (the lock icon that shows next to your URL on most browsers).
- ensuring you have a user-friendly, attractive-looking website.
They will also show trust through your site’s content. This means completing tactics like clearly displaying your contact information, reviews or testimonials, and privacy policies.

An SEO Agency Should Make Sure Your Customers Can Find You

Your customers are on the internet and they are looking for you! Your SEO agency’s job is to make sure that they can find you. Contact Search Influence today to learn more about what an SEO agency can do for your business, your customers, and your bottom line.

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Smart phone and computer
November 18, 2021
How Your Website’s Speed Can Impact Your Institution’s Recruitment Goal
Key Insights
- Site speed is a key ranking factor—even more so with Google’s Core Web Vitals rollout.
- Data suggests lower load times leads to a drop in overall conversions.
- You can consistently monitor site speed with free tools.
According to previous Google data, users tend to abandon a loading site after just three seconds of waiting. This means your institution needs a fast, reliable website.

However, beyond the user experience, inadequate site speed can negatively impact rankings. Ever since Google announced that site speed was a ranking factor, the need to consistently monitor and improve site speed has increased tremendously.

Through continuous improvement to site speed, you may see a positive impact on rankings, thus getting your programs, degrees, and other content in front of more potential students. We recommend having all important elements on-site load under that three-second mark to help with your rankings.

This blog post will help you understand why site speed impacts rankings and conversions and explain a site speed audit and how your institution could get started with one.

Does Site Speed Impact Rankings?

Google has used site speed as a ranking factor for desktops since 2010 and for mobile searches since July 2018. Users performed around 61% of searches on a mobile device in 2021, making it essential that your site is quick on mobile moving forward.

It is hard to benchmark just how much site speed impacts rankings because it is just one of around 200 ranking factors Google may consider when indexing your site. However, it stands to reason that if your competitors offer comparable content on a faster site, Google and users may reward that site with more traffic, less bounce rate, and more time on-page.

Overly large images often impact site speed. Just like your computer takes longer to open a large image file, your browser has to execute a similar process. By not compressing these images, you unnecessarily add a lot of load time to the site, thus adding a negative ranking factor.

Site Speed, User Experience, and Engagement

A negative site speed experience will directly impact your site’s ability to hold traffic and to prevent other competitors from stealing that traffic.

There is a direct correlation between load times and bounce rates. After 10 seconds of load time, there is a 123% increase in bounce rate versus a site that loads in one second.

In May 2020, Google introduced Core Web Vitals, which measures what Google considers essential in a website/user experience: largest contentful paint, first input delay, and cumulative layout shift.

Without getting too technical, these measurements essentially tell you how quickly your site is usable. The longer the load times on these components, the longer it takes for the site to be usable, contributing to higher bounce rates and less interaction on site.

Does Site Speed Impact Conversions?

Similar to user experience, if visitors find that the load times and site speed are inadequate, they are less likely to engage with conversion forms. Data suggests that one second in added load times leads to a 7% drop in conversions. If the goal is to drive more students to a program or degree, slow load times may have a tangible impact on the amount of form fills you receive.

Key Factors of a Site Speed Audit

There are so many factors that contribute to a site’s overall speed, but some are fairly common and relatively easy to address compared to more involved technical development fixes. First and foremost, you will want to evaluate your site on desktop and mobile. Nearly any site speed tool you utilize will delineate between the two versions of the site. Some of the more common issues include:
- Unused / excessive JavaScript or CSS: Many sites have scripts, plugins, and other script-dependent items in their coding that bog down crawlers and site load times.
- Oversized images: Frequently sites fail to minimize or compress their images, resulting in large file sizes and longer load times.
- Poor coding: Any broken coding or missing elements can add to a browser’s difficulty in loading a site.
Beyond these fixes, there are plenty more ways to positively impact site speed; however, it is important to note that many of them require a large amount of technical development work. As a result, some fixes are not attainable without essentially a complete redesign of the site. However, anything that will improve site speed will lead to a higher chance of a conversion.

Free Tools for Site Speed Testing

Several tools can help you regularly monitor your site speed and discover errors (for free!)

Page Speed Insights: This is Google’s tool for testing page speed insights. The report contains more information on the technical items and potential fixes. This report is beneficial for evaluating the Core Web Vitals elements.

Pingdom: With this tool, you can more easily break down individual loading elements of a site such as images, JavaScript, CSS, etc.

WebPageTest: Similar to Pingdom, this is a great tool for a technical breakdown of your site speed. You can also customize your location to test site speed from different locations and different browser and device types. Perhaps most helpful – you can run a Core Web Vitals test.

Regardless of the tools you use, you should monitor site speed consistently. Google has introduced new elements to its ranking algorithms over the past few years that indicate that user experience, of which site speed is critical, will continue to be an important ranking factor. If your institution’s site speed is lagging behind competitors, there is a good chance you are losing out on potential students, or at the very least, missing more conversion opportunities.

Concerned about your institution’s site speed? Contact Search Influence today for a consultation.
October 7, 2021
How Hospitals and Healthcare Practices Can Adapt to Google Updates
Key Insights
- Google decides what websites show as local and organic results by considering the business and it’s website’s relevance, prominence, and distance.
- Keywords, content, and connections continue to be required to earn trust with google and keep your website relevant. However, the WAY you think about keywords or the WAY you write content may need to adapt over time to Google’s changes.
- Google trusts up-to-date, accurate, and user-friendly content.
Google is continuously updating their algorithms. These changes are usually small, but now and then, a significant update affects the way marketers have to approach search engine optimizations. It’s crucial for marketers in the medical industry to promptly adjust to these updates because Google has additional regulations for healthcare websites.

The Basics of Google Search and SEO

Before diving into the algorithm updates, medical practices should understand a few optimization basics. Before a user searches for a keyword, Google has already analyzed and organized information from millions of webpages in its Search Index. When a search begins, Google’s algorithms sort through the index using hundreds of different factors to find relevant results. These results are then displayed in different formats so that people can find exactly what they’re searching for. Here is what the results most often look like:

This blog is all about making an impact in local and organic results, not paid search. Organic search refers to unpaid search results that appear because they are relevant. Local search refers to organic results for businesses or places that are in the same area as the searcher. These are often displayed as map results.

Google decides which websites to show as local and organic results by considering three factors:
- Relevance
- Authority
- Distance from the searcher
Relevance is how well a business profile matches a consumer’s search results. Authority is determined by a business’s presence online (links, articles, or directories) and offline (landmarks or locally known brick and mortar businesses). Distance from the searcher is, well, relatively straightforward.

Medical marketers must ensure that their practice’s online presence meets these three important Healthcare SEO ranking factors, which is where search engine optimization, or “SEO,” comes in.

There are three key components to having a successful SEO strategy:
- Keywords: What are people searching for? Which words or phrases do they use to find a new healthcare provider or information on a procedure?
- Content: Does the content on a website truly answer the question the searcher was asking?
- Connections: Does this website have backlinks or mentions from other, authoritative websites? Is there accurate information on the faculty, practice, or doctor listed on relevant directories like Google My Business or Healthgrades?
Despite periodic updates to Google’s algorithms and how they rank search results, these three components continue to be the basis of earning Google’s trust and keeping your website relevant. However, the way medical marketers think about keywords or write content has to adapt over time.

How Do Google Updates Impact Hospitals and Healthcare Practices?

Google is extra critical of health-related websites and has defined a specific content category for pages with content that could impact a person’s happiness, health, financial stability, or safety. These are called YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) pages and include hospitals and medical practices. The “Medic” update in August 2018 reflected the level of scrutiny Google uses when reviewing websites that deal with health or healthcare. Their goal is to discourage misleading information and ensure that searchers find trustworthy advice.

The credibility of the organization that runs the website impacts its rating, which is good news for large hospitals and other well known institutions. Hospitals are often considered a trusted source of information in their communities. On the other hand, smaller practices may have to work a little harder to prove their authority. But to rank well, it isn’t enough to be a trustworthy organization. The website must also have high-quality content.

How to Create Good Content

When writing content for a medical website, it’s vital to think about what Google considers good content and what information potential patients include in their searches. All content should be up to date, accurate, and user friendly. Marketers need to consider the following:
- Be Specific and Substantive: Websites should have detailed, in-depth information. Try to avoid lightly touching on a subject without providing any useful information. Searchers look for clear answers to their questions.
- Directly Answer Common Questions: Survey the medical staff to see the most common questions patients ask before, during, and after an appointment. Then, provide direct answers to these questions on the site.
- Use Subheadings: Use subheadings as a way to guide the reader down the page and direct a searcher to the section of the content that has the information they’re looking for.
- Use Bullet Points & Numbers: Break the information out into lists that are easier for readers to digest.
- Look at Top Ranking Pages: When in doubt, see what the top results for targeted keywords are doing and borrow some of their ideas. What type of information do they provide? How are their pages organized?
When considering what to write about, think of the keywords people are searching for and what information they expect to find. In the medical industry, there are typically two categories for searches: general health and healthcare. When someone searches a health term, they are looking for information about an ailment such as symptoms, causes, and treatments. Sites that rank for general health searches usually belong to large institutions, like the Mayo Clinic, which would be difficult to outrank.

It is important to have local content to leverage Google Maps and Google My Business. When someone searches for a doctor or specialty, like an orthopedic surgeon, they’re looking for healthcare and are considering going to a doctor. Healthcare searches are typically local because people tend to look for treatment in their area.

How to Rank in Local Search and on Google Maps

The earlier discussion about relevance, authority, and distance ties back in here. For Google Maps results, distance is the biggest factor. The physical location of the searcher determines the range of results they see. There’s no easy way to move closer to a searcher, so marketers have to focus on the factors they can control:
- Relevance:
  - Have quality content for each specialty or procedure the practice offers
  - Establish backlinks from trusted directories and other high ranking websites and local organizations
- Authority:
  - Links pointing back to the practice’s site also improve authority
  - Earn media mentions and directory listings
  - Obtain and share as many quality reviews as possible with Google
Remember that the MOST important directory to update is Google, and information in Google My Business should always be up to date! With a verified hospital or medical practice category listing, marketers can set up specific hospital information (such as the different departments or doctors) to give patients a more direct search result.

If you’re ready to start improving your healthcare practice’s ranking for vital keywords in Google, Search Influence knows how to help. We help businesses grow online by developing SEO and digital marketing gameplans tailored for each of our clients. Request your marketing proposal and let’s make it happen today.

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Stethoscope
October 9, 2020
A Quick (How-to) Guide on Updating Hours and Business Info on Google My Business
During a crisis, some businesses can continue operating with modified hours while others might have to close temporarily. Google is working on implementing the “Temporarily Closed” feature on Google My Business (GMB) pages in the upcoming days. We will update this post when the “Temporarily Closed” feature is available.

In the meantime, we recommend updating your hours and sharing a post via GMB to keep your customers informed on your status.

How to Update Your Business Hours on Google My Business:
1. Sign in to Google My Business
  a. If you have multiple locations, open the one you’d like to manage
2. Click “Info” from the menu
3. Next to “Add Hours” or your current business hours, click “Hours”
4. Turn off each day of the week that your business will be closed temporarily
5. Next to each day of the week that your business is open with limited hours, click “Opens At,” and then select the opening time
6. Next to each day of the week that your business is open with limited hours, click “Closes At,” and then select the closing time
7. After you’ve finished setting your hours, click “Apply”
How to Post a Google My Business Post to Share More Details on Your Business Status:
1. Sign in to Google My Business
2. If you have multiple locations, open the one you’d like to manage
3. Click “Posts” from the menu
4. At the top of the page, choose the type of post you’d like to create from the options given. We recommend you use “What’s New” for the latest updates
  a. Options to add photos, videos, text, offers, and a button to your post appear. Click each field and enter relevant information
5. To see a preview of your post, click “Preview”
6. If you’re happy with your preview, click “Publish” in the top right. If you’d like to change your post, click “Back” in the top left. Edit your draft until it’s ready to publish
7. Google removes published posts seven days after the post’s tab of your Google My Business listing
All uploaded media must meet the following size requirements:
- Minimum: 400×300 pixels and 10 KB size limit.
- Maximum: 10000×10000 pixels and 25 MB size limit.
Check out this video if you need to claim your business. We’re here to support you as we all work together and work through what this time means for businesses. For more tips on how to communicate your business status, check out our Business Disruption Marketing Checklist or contact our team directly if there is any way we can assist you.

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Black Smart Phone
March 18, 2020