Look Before you Leap...

How often do you think about where you are looking? It isn’t common for a person to analyze the exact spot they are looking at, instead our brains are meant to decipher the information we receive instantaneously into practical thoughts. Very few people think about why they are looking at a particular object. Why did your eye focus on that big red text? Why did that image direct your attention to the text below it or to the right of it? Visual queues are used throughout print media, online media, television media, and in the living world around us. We generally take these queues for granted and just take it all in.

While that’s all nice and good, how does this relate to Search Engine Optimization? It has everything to do with it. Where exactly does a user look when they do a search on Google? We all know it’s important to rank high, or on the first page, but how should our ranking be positioned? Where does the average person focus their attention when searching the web, in particular Google?

A new study conducted by Enquiro, Did-it, and Eyetools has concluded the majority of eye tracking activity occurs within a triangle located at the top left of Google’s search. They dubbed this phenomenon as the “golden triangle”. Their findings conclude it is important where the eye falls on the page since most user clicks happen pretty quickly after the search is done. The study returned interesting percentages for the number of views a ranking will receive. Rankings 1 thru 3 all see 100% of users looked at the ranking. Subsequently rank 4 showed an 85% user looks. As listings went below “the fold” (the line in which you have to scroll to see more content) the rankings dropped off in percentage of views. Rank 5 showed 60% where as ranks 6 and 7 showed 50%. Ranks 8-9 showed 30% and ranking 10 had 20% of overall views. The research concluded that the amount of eye movement declined rapidly as it passed the 4th and 5th rankings. While more research is being done and analyzed, these findings are concurrent with what the researchers expected.

As a LASIK surgeon and an internet user, take a moment and step back when viewing a page, and look for those visual queues that drive your eyes around your practice’s website. Think for a second, why am I looking at this? Just as a position on a search engine is important, it is also important to guide the users coming from the search engine around your practice’s web page. If a user doesn’t find the information they are looking for, they will go directly back to the search engine to look for a website that does.

Start Building Rapport With Your Visitors

Your LASIK website often is your first opportunity to develop credibility with prospective LASIK patients. And since they will likely spend more time viewing your website than any other marketing message you create, it is also your greatest opportunity to establish a rapport with them, as they voyeuristically examine you and your practice from a distance. Unfortunately, most websites, particularly their copy, are presented in a somewhat generic manner, with little very little of your “personality”. The solution: Add a blog to your website.

Blogs, or web logs, are journal entries that you can make yourself on a regular basis, without the hassle and cost of going through a webmaster to update it. You can enter your personal insights, helpful consumer information, new discoveries, suggestions, your verdicts and awards, testimonials or other positive comments your clients have shared with you, etc.

It is an effective way for you to distinguish yourself from other cookie-cutter LASIK surgery websites, and for you to display your knowledge and ability to clearly articulate, demonstrate how you think, show your commitment to a client/case, and let potential patient get to know you on a more personal basis.

Keep in mind, you are in a professional service industry where patients choose surgeons (not necessarily institutions or practices) that they like and trust. Start building rapport by letting them know “who” you are.

Bill Fukui
Page 1 Solutions

Advantages of Stats-Tracking Software

The importance of having solid statistical information can never be underestimated when facing tough decisions. Do you have solid statistical information to support decision-making for your LASIK web marketing strategy?

If the answer to this question is no, then maybe you should consider adding stats-tracking software to your web-marketing arsenal.

There are an abundance of stats-tracking software packages available on the Internet today, targeting virtually every niche and industry out there. However, only a handful offers comprehensive data that answer the questions: Who is coming to your website? Where are they coming from? How do they find your site?

Page 1 Solutions offers a stats-tracking package for its clients called Urchin that answers these questions and more.

There are numerous advantages to being able to track, record and monitor your website’s statistics. One of them is being able to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular marketing or advertising campaign by funneling traffic from a particular campaign through a unique domain name which can be tracked and monitored independently of others pointing to your website.

Another important advantage that a good stats-tracking software package offers is the ability to more effectively predict what changes are necessary for maintaining and even accelerating the growth of your web-marketing campaign and overall Internet presence.

It is important to remember that the addition of stats-tracking software is only one part of an effective overall web-marketing campaign. Your practice’s website and web-marketing campaign must be complemented with other strategies such as optimization, having effective calls to action, and adding fresh content to the site on a regular basis to be able to realize it’s full potential.

If your website and web-marketing campaign are in need of a boost, contact Page 1 Solutions today. We can help your firm realize its full web-marketing potential.

Think Fresh (Content)

I was watching television with my daughter Stephanie recently and we were talking about marketing slogans, specifically Subway’s “Think Fresh” campaign. It occurred to me that what consumers want in their meals (“lots of visibly fresh ingredients”) is the same thing they want in their information when researching on the web. Equally important, this is also what the search engines (specifically, Google and Yahoo!) are wanting in your website’s pages, as well – unique, fresh, original content.

BEWARE OF USING TEMPLATED COPY - Although it may be hard to believe, search engines have ways to recognize the originality of your website’s copy. If your page’s content is the same cookie-cutter content used in lots of other LASIK surgeons’ websites, many search engines will perceive they have already indexed that information, and not give your page a lot of credit, regardless of well it may be “optimized”. This is particularly an issue with Google.

Obviously, there is a higher cost to develop new original copy to your website. At the same time, you will likely pay a bigger price in lost opportunity by cutting corners with utilizing templated copy. Developing and continually adding fresh content to your website significantly increases your opportunity to generate a much greater return on investment.

So, “Think Fresh!”

Bill Fukui
Page 1 Solutions

New Year Resolutions

Are you committed to making your LASIK website your #1 referral source. It's not easy and will require time, attention and money, but if you make the investment, it will pay dividends. Here are a few things you can resolve to do that will pay off in 2008:

1. Add two new pages every month. Search engines are looking for fresh original content - and consumers are too. So help them out by adding new pages to your website every month. There are lots and lots of things to write about. Just think about all the questions you answer for your clients every day. We can help too. Page 1 writes lots of content for our attorney website sites every day. Think ahead. Identify 12 topics for new content. We will write all twelve pages and you can review and edit them all at once. Once approved, we will add two pages a month like clockwork and the search engines will see your site as a growing resource about consumer oriented legal information.

2. Add a blog to your site. For the same reasons explained above, a blog can be a tremendous resource. It doesn't take long to make an entry. 15 minutes at most. Just think about what you did today or what issues came across your desk. Dictate it and add it in. If you write two or three blog postings a week, the search engines will start to take notice. You can make it easy on yourself by asking your marketing director or other staff in your office to write blog entries. The more the merrier. You just need to make that commitment.

3. Add a privacy policy to your website. This is a minor item, but it does help create an aura of legitimacy to your website.

4. Get more inbound links. Links are one of the major ways that search engines judge the credibility of your website. The more links you get from more credible sites, the better. Ask your colleagues at other non-competing firms to link to your website. Ask LASIK professionals and ophthalmology labs to link to your site. Go to the websites of your college and medical school. Make sure your listing with the alumni association includes your website address - maybe link directly to your bio page. Ask for links back from charities or other community organizations that you contribute to or participate in. All these will help you, but you can still do more.

5. Buy links (carefully) from reputable websites where you can do so without indicating that you are buying them. We can help you with this.

6. We will help you with links from directories. There are lots of them.

7. Make sure your yellow page listings (online) all link back to your website.

8. Write articles and get them posted in the local newspaper. Most of them include an online edition. There are lots of websites that will accept a credible article from you. Make sure that you include a hyperlink back to your website.

9. Write a press release each time you have a success. Send it to your local publications. There are lots or places that will publish your press releases.

This only scratches the surface. There are lots more ideas where this came from. The point is RESOLVE to get busy to help promote your website in 2008.

Happy New Year!

Dan Goldstein
Page 1 Solutions