After launching our hospital’s new website (www.inova.org), my team has been focusing on improving the site’s ability to be found online. That means a strong emphasis on Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
By far, the primary way people discover our site is through search engines (between 60-70% on average). Optimizing a website for search engines should be the highest priority when marketing a website. For those of us that understand SEO, you know this process can involve multiple techniques – creating good on-page content, ensuring search engines can “crawl” your site, browser titles, SERPs and many others.
But the more advanced we become at learning SEO techniques, the more the algorithms change to prevent us from gaming the system. As Google puts it on their blog: “good search engine optimization can also mean good marketing: thinking about creative ways to make a site more compelling, which can help with search engines as well as social media.”
Social media and SEO?
I suspect Google’s mention of social media isn’t just as a way to boost Google+ usage. Every day, more people are using social media sites to discover content online. And that content is shared widely within social networks. SEO experts agree that the lines between SEO and social media are blurring (while linking back to your page from Twitter, Facebook or other social media sites will help peole find your site on social networks, these links don’t help with SEO).
Here are a few ways to ensure your social media is optimized to augment your SEO strategies:
- Create good online content. The more people that tweet, like, pin or +1 your content on social sites, the better impact that has on your sites “find-ability” (through search engines and social networks, alike). Don’t worry about the keyword strength of your content, focus more on content that’s worth sharing.
- Add photos, video and other multimedia content to help tell the rest of the story. Social media sites like Pinterest and YouTube rely heavily on photos and videos. Plus, you can use videos to explain harder clinical concepts on your hospital website (and it positions our doctors as content experts – added bonus!). Since Facebook is now the second most popular video-watching site (http://mashable.com/2012/08/19/facebook-second-video/), including video content also helps bring more people to your site.
- Encourage people to share your content. Either by placing share buttons on each page of your site, or just keeping your content short and to the point, thinking about social sharing is going to help people promote your content through social channels.
- Keep your URLs short…and memorable. Friendly URLS are not only helpful for SEO purposes, but they make it easier for people to remember them when posting them on social media sites. Plus, short URLs fit within a tweet. If you have to use a link shortener (like bit.ly), be sure to get a personalized account so you can track clicks.
- Use keywords on social media. Keywords are the words that people are using to search for your site through Google and other search engines. Be sure to use these keywords on social media, as well (YouTube video titles, Facebook posts, “About” descriptions on Twitter and Google+).
Combining the power of great content, social networking and good SEO strategies will ensure that your building an effective and comprehensive digital strategy.
Want to learn more about building a solid digital strategy for your organization? Join me and Chris Bevolo at SHSMD 2012, for our pre-conference workshop “The Metamorphosis of a Digital Strategy” where we’ll help your hospital fully utilize digital marketing tools to meet your strategic goals.