Five Tips To Maximize Organic Traffic to Your Cardiovascular Marketing Website

Increasing website visibility in organic search results is increasingly critical for patient acquisition.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for smart PPC campaigns. However, research has shown the vast majority of Internet users click on organic search results before they click on a sponsored link. We recommend our clients optimize their sites for organic search first and then allocate appropriate budget dollars for paid search.

I recently saw a great post with 5 tips to consider for boosting website traffic:

Use online press releases to generate buzz.

• Post a link to your release on targeted social media sites, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn groups and relevant blogs.
• Investigate free distribution services such as PRlog.org and Free-press-release.com.

Develop an inbound link strategy.

• Display a list of reciprocal links to industry sites, health information sites and relevant blogs.
• Contact these sites to see if they’d be willing to swap links with you—a link to your site for a link to theirs

Contribute to high-quality content directories that will link back to your site.

• Upload relevant editorial to directories such as eZinearticles.com, ArticlesBase.com and Goarticles.com. There are also many more niche directories that focus on health topics.
• This is a great way to repurpose newsletter copy, for example, and establish an inbound link to your site.
• There is also a syndication opportunity, as third-party sites may come across your article when doing a Web search and republish your content on their own websites. “

Incorporate your 
 your top 10 to 15 keywords and variations of those words into the copy on your site.

• Search engines crawl Web pages from top to bottom, so your strongest keywords should be at the top with the least relevant at the bottom on both homepages and sub-pages.
• Include key words in your title tags (the descriptions at the top of each page) and meta tags. Your alt tags/alt attributions (images) should have relevant descriptions, as well (Your web partner or internal IT resource should be able to help with this).

List your site in online directories by related category or region.

• More prospects searching specifically for heart-related will find you.
• Some directories have a nominal fee. But there are many other directories and classified sites that are free and can be targeted by location and product type.

If you decided to implement any of these strategies, remember to monitor results over time through Google Analytics or whatever you use to measure site traffic. Results of organic search initiatives can take time to fully play out, but watching monthly numbers over the course of several months should show progress.

10 YouTube Tips for Cardiovascular Marketers

If you’re still not using YouTube, you’re missing a powerful opportunity to engage with your patients and prospects.

With just five years under its belt, YouTube is now the second-largest search engine according to ComScore.

What started as a platform for individuals to garner their 15 minutes of fame has become a important marketing channel with the ability to target specific groups.  Because it is a search engine, people interested in particular content — like medical issues (Pink Glove Dance) — will find it.

It’s also cost-effective.   We’re having great success using it with clients who might not be able to afford a traditional broad-based tv schedule.  If you’re considering adding YouTube to your marketing mix, take a look at these ten tips that were recently published in Ad Age:

1.  Select your channel name (with care).

Create a keyword-rich channel to improve the odds of your video showing up in relevant keyword searches.

2. Craft your message.

Keep it simple – and short.  Between three and five minutes is sufficient.  Because viewers tend to tune out before the end, deliver your message early on.

3. Content, content and more content.

Upload at least three videos at the launch of your channel in order to gain popularity and visibility on YouTube and other search engines. There’s an ROI reason, as well: A marketer pays for just one view (click) but can get between one to five views, depending on how many videos viewers watch.

4. Use SEO best practices when building a profile/channel page.

Use keyword-rich descriptions and titles in the profile area, and also include links to your own site.

5. Build video pages to exploit SEO and linking.

Maximize organic search visibility and drive quality traffic to your video by including keyword-rich titles, descriptions and video tags on your video upload page.

6. Consider YouTube for a teaser strategy.

Posting a short version of a video on YouTube with a link to a longer version on your website is a traffic-driving strategy.

7. Watermark your videos.

Embedding all frames of your video precludes stealing and helps to promote your brand. If the watermark itself is a particular domain or URL, viewers might remember it.

8. Consider privacy and comment options.

Whether or not to allow comments on your channel is a debate worth having before launch. Based on your needs and culture, you may decide to disable the comment option. Doing so allows you to avoid negative posts and to maintain control over your content.

9. Investigate promoted video ads.

Paid search in YouTube’s world is called promoted video ads. Served around YouTube search results, these can be an efficient way to drive targeted traffic to your channel.

10. Capitalize on YouTube’s insights and analytics to target precisely.

YouTube’s tools allow advertisers to see the number of views, where they originate within YouTube, where viewers are coming from based on IP data, as well as what key words are driving traffic. Analyzing this information allows you to adjust and improve the user experience on your channel.

I would add one more tip:

11.  Make sure your video production is of a high enough quality that it accurately reflects your brand.

Just because the “air time” on YouTube is free doesn’t mean you should skimp on production quality.  Videos that look “homemade” may be fine for individuals who want to share things with their friends.   However, the brands that are having the most success with YouTube have realized that their content needs to look just as professional as if it were running on traditional tv.  As the content on YouTube continues to expand, the amount of “junk” is also expanding.  It’s critical to create content that stands out and is worth passing along.

Seven Reasons to Pair SEO and PR in Cardiovascular Marketing Strategies

If you’re not incorporating search engine optimization into your media relations strategy, you may be missing out on opportunities.

Earned media and organic search engine rankings are increasingly interdependent. With so many traditional media outlets moving into the digital space, media relations strategies have to keep pace.

Here are seven good reasons to incorporate search engine optimization into your PR processes:

1. Reach Journalists where they’re looking.

Research shows that journalists are changing their behavior in researching stories. Optimizing news content and digital assets presents a significant opportunity to “be” where journalists are looking.

2.         Search extends reach of PR & communications.

Your content may be of value to many audiences outside of the media.   Patients, prospective patients, physicians and potential employees are influenced by news content. Optimizing what can be searched extends the reach of PR and communications efforts far beyond traditional news distribution channels.

3. Increase unsolicited media placements.

Web sites that optimize and promote news content receive unsolicited mentions from industry news sites, blogs, online and offline publications. Optimizing news content for search can increase the effectiveness of traditional media relations outreach efforts.

4. Bypass media channels: direct to consumer

It’s important to have a content strategy for news because it fortifies your brand.  Optimized content can be searched for and found by anyone:  patients, prospective patients, physicians and potential employees to name a few.

5. Optimized PR facilitates marketing goals

Online news content is often republished, through blogs and other social networks. A link-building strategy can drive direct traffic to your site and increase search visibility due to the influence of links.

6. Protect your brand & online reputation

“Lack of control” is often cited as a fear of online marketers. However, organizations that publish content can ensure that it is optimized for brand terms, products,  names and any other brand asset they wish to protect in the search results.

“Don’t wait until someone creates a yourbrandsucks.com web site that ranks #1 for your brand name to start working on your search results reputation. Be proactive about optimizing content on and especially, off the corporate web site for brand names,” says Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing Blog.

7. Demonstrate more value from PR & Communications

If you’re like my clients, you’re being asked to produce more results with fewer budget dollars these days. Search traffic earned through optimized news content can help you show results that are directly attributable to your efforts.

If you have examples of search strategies that are working for your organization, I’d love to hear from you.

Improving Cardiovascular Marketing Efforts – Seven Ways to Generate More Click-Throughs

You don’t have to resort to cheesy methods to generate more click- throughs.

It turns out that successful business e-mailers use some of the same techniques that work when e-mailing with friends.

Recently, I was working with a client to analyze ROI on a cardiovascular marketing campaign.  It was an integrated campaign that used a broad mix of traditional and non-traditional media.  In reviewing the results, we were struck by the growing efficiency of our e-mail tactics.  Both our open rate and our click-throughs have been increasing, which led to a discussion about what we can do to boost these metrics even more.

I think this article from Julie Rains of Wise Bread offers some tips worth considering:

1. Contain one main message in each email, or clearly articulated and delineated messages for newsletters.

Your recipient can quickly read, understand, process, and take action on one main idea.

Strong messages don’t “distract with extraneous information,” according to Jeff Finkelstein, who masterminds Internet marketing campaigns for client organizations and corresponds with clients via email as well as phone calls and face-to-face meetings for his company, Customer Paradigm.

2. Make a specific offer (or request).

Make a single offer, such as a heart-healthy cookbook (a recent big winner for one of my clients), a free webinar, an article on a hot topic, or a request to complete a survey.

3. Give a clear call to action, preferably one that requires swift or immediate response.

Explain the action needed to accept the offer or get more information. Tell the recipient how quickly that action needs to take place in order to receive the benefits of the offer.

4. Have a descriptive but compelling subject line.

Differentiate your emails and reference your offers in your subject line to inspire more curiosity.

Possible exception:  In a few instances, Rains says highly anticipated newsletters can get away without a distinct subject line.  However, in my opinion, you would need a very strong brand presence and an exceptionally strong message that has consistently been delivered over time for this to work.

5. Embed easy-to-find links that allow message recipients to take immediate action required to accept offers.

Ideally, there will be multiple gateways to offer pages  through clearly identifying links contained in email messages.

Eye-catching images can be effective, but remember to provide text links that are more easily read on mobile devices.

6. Give customized recommendations that make sense to the recipient and, ideally, fulfill wants and needs or provide solutions to real-life problems.

Offers should be designed and messages crafted to reach customers based on segmentation or past behaviors

In an article on click-through benchmarks, Lyris, a provider of online marketing tools, states that click-through rates (CTRs) for “highly segmented and personalized email lists (B2B and B2C) are often in the 10 percent to 20 percent CTR range” and “trigger or behavior-based email campaigns (emails that are sent to recipients based on some behavior they showed, such as clicking on a product link, visiting a specific Web page, etc.) are often in the 15-50 percent range.”

7. Your company has permission to send and the recipient welcomes your contact.

Few click-throughs may signal a problem with your approach to getting contact information. Don’t pressure site visitors to sign up for special offers or newsletters (by requiring an email to access information on a landing page, for example). And try not to ask for registration so early in a site visit that the prospect isn’t fully aware of your mission, positioning, and scope of product and service offerings.

What Cardiovascular Marketers Can Learn From A Shoe Salesman

Who knew that selling shoes and marketing cardiovascular programs had so much in common?

Inspire, Connect, Entertain and Educate: These are things we all want to do with our patients and prospective patients.

It turns out that Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh strives for the same things with his customers and employees.

I’ve always been a believer that health care marketers can benefit from watching successful brands in other categories.  That belief was strengthened after reading a recent interview with Hsieh.

Hsieh is an early adopter and active user on Twitter and has helped pioneer an approach to social media that is informative, engaging, and fun.  Here’s his litmus test for how he decides what to tweet.

“I tweet at least once a day and my goal is to have each of my tweets fall into one or more of these 4 categories (ICEE): Inspire, Connect, Entertain, or Educate — all of which I believe are somehow related to happiness. I get a lot of requests from people (including many Zappos employees) to send out a tweet promoting them or something they’re doing, which I generally turn down because it doesn’t fall into one of the ICEE categories.”

More about his four categories:

•         Inspire and Be Inspired: You can inspire others through tweets (for example, a great quote or a link to an inspiring article), and you can be inspired by following people that are trying to do the same thing (for example, @theseantourage, @gretchenrubin, @workhappynow on Twitter).

•         Connect and Be Connected: In addition to connecting yourself with other people, you can also connect people with each other.  There are about 500 Zappos employees on Twitter, and the company has aggregated all their tweets together.

•         Entertain and Be Entertained: tweets that make people laugh or smile.

•         Educate and Be Educated: Twitter is the source of many great articles and blog posts.  It’s a great source for content that can be retweeted  used in a variety of ways.

Hsieh also has some interesting thoughts on workplace culture and happiness in general.   We all know that a positive attitude is important to patients who are facing cardiovascular challenges.

To see the whole interview, click here:

10 Tips for Developing Great Cardiovascular Marketing Content

A recent panelist at the Search Engine Success New York conference shared 10 tips I think are worth considering:

Here’s the list from Byron White, Chief Idea Officer, ideaLaunch.

1.  Develop a content marketing plan. Many digital marketers just dive in without any type of plan.  This is always a mistake  Before going any further, you need to get organized and understand next steps.

2.  Use free and paid research tools to research terms. There are a slew of both free and paid research tools which can help you define keywords necessary to create a keyword glossary.  Use tools in conjunction with your own creativity to create an inclusive list of terms.

3.  Find the hot topics and keywords. By understanding the industry and leveraging tools, you can discover hot/trending topics and keywords to be a part of your mix in addition to the mainstay terms.

4.  Develop customer profiles for testing/research the competition. Building customer profiles and competitive research allows you to draw upon a knowledge base when creating content to both stand out from competitors and connect with your audience.

5.  Develop an SEO plan with “keyword silos” – made up of long tail and short tail keywords. In addition to building a keyword list, group it into like terms in order for your content team to leverage it in an effective manner during content creation.

6.  Score content for SEO strength. Either via an automated tool or manually, score existing content for SEO strength in order to gauge what to optimize first.

7.  Infuse your brand with great content. On the web, your content is your brand (and your brand is your content).

8.  Create stories. People connect with stories more than just product pages and lists of features.  Tell stories and connect with prospects at a much deeper level.

9.  Define great content. Know what great content looks like before you develop it.  You can’t create something remarkable unless you have a vision in mind.

10.  Document content publishing date. This is a frequently forgotten, but important tip.  Only by documenting the new content publishing date can you track/trend success of that content over time.

Of course, metrics are key – track interaction and engagement with content.  Get to a point where you understand how your content, whether a blog post or a product page, is converting and working for your brand.