Google Medic Update Proves User Experience Is King
A Google algorithm update that rolled out at the beginning of this month delivered a major shake-up to websites belonging to health care organizations. Many are calling it the “Medic Update.”
Health care sites began seeing big fluctuations in their rankings at the beginning of the month, and in many cases, the changes were not positive.
Although the algo update affected the health care industry the most, it appeared to affect a few other industries, according to Search Engine Roundtable, such as:
- eCommerce
- Business
- Finance
- Technology
- Entertainment
Google claimed it was simply a routine “broad core algorithm update,” the same as it releases several times each year. But to us, we know this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill algo update, especially since we have various types of health care clients.
How Do Health Websites Respond?
The best response to Google’s de facto new guidelines for health care sites is to stay the course, meaning keep trying to improve on the quality of your content and user experience (UX). Don’t give up on organic SEO!
Also, if your website is offering medical advice, make sure it’s coming from a medical expert. Or, at the very least, make sure it’s signed off by and attributed to a medical professional. This will help with search engine trust and a little Google concept called “authorship.”
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Ethical Addiction Treatment Marketing Alternatives
Medic Update Message from Our CEO
“Worried about the ‘medic update’? There is no fix – nothing quick and easy, anyway. The algorithm change didn’t target health sites exclusively; many websites in other categories were negatively impacted, as well. Why? The truth is, people are making better websites these days and Google expects more. If you want to rank with Google, there’s no secret: Continue to work on improving your website, make better content and create a better overall user experience. That’s what it takes.”
– Jenny Stradling, CEO of Eminent SEO
Featured Resources
Creating better content and UX is always recommended, and that’s what we do (for resellers also)! Here are a couple of articles that illustrate what we mean:
Beware Boredom: Keeping Your Content Marketing Strategy Fresh in 2018
4 Ways News Websites Fail to Deliver the Optimal User Experience
After all, how are you supposed to get traffic to your website when the search engine pages for your targeted keywords only display one featured snippet – and perhaps a handful of sponsored links?
And even when Google does not have its own in-house services to place at the top of a search results page, it’s taking steps to make sure that users have no need to navigate away from a Google property.
Yes, this feature might have been convenient for the people wondering which team Brazil would face in its next matchup. However, its mere existence surely ruffled the feathers of website owners who had hoped that their coverage of the tournament would drive organic traffic to their site.
If you answer yes to any of these three questions, then your website is a good candidate for a new chat feature:
Web chat is just one piece of the larger marketing puzzle. You need to take a multi-channel marketing approach. This means leveraging your website, social media, email, Google My Business, PPC and several other direct and indirect “channels” in order to interact with prospects and encourage them to take a specific action.
A web designer’s job is all about capturing the essence of a client’s vision and transforming it into a model of a potential website that is both aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly. Similar to the way an engineer is responsible for designing the blueprints and models for a bridge before construction begins, a web designer’s task is to create the look and feel of a website before the web developer can bring it to life.
Having the design and development teams work side by side ensures that everyone is able to plan and execute the project efficiently and effectively. Allowing the design team to run their sketches and mockups for the website past the development team on an ongoing basis guarantees that the initial design approved by the client is both practical and achievable.
Do you want to make that sale, after all? Then you have to be patient and feed your target customer the knowledge they need to make that purchase – likely weeks, months or possibly a couple of years down the road.
Today’s ideal workplace involves instant communication and mass access of data and information. Providing employees with the latest technology allows them to perform their duties on time and with minimal effort.
While training and employee empowerment are a great start, you also have to motivate, encourage and reward. A gloomy workplace reduces productivity.
Note: This is a guest blog post written by Helen Cartwright. 
View the beautiful new site and, if you feel inspired, please consider donating. Every penny counts.
Several of our addiction treatment center clients here at Eminent SEO have asked us about this news: “Exclusive: Google unveils vetting process for drug rehab ads.” So, we took to our blog to answer the most pressing questions stemming from this recent Google development.
There’s an intuitiveness to digital marketing that if your campaigns aren’t geared toward each platform uniquely, your advertising and social spends may miss your proposed target audience. Why? See our latest neuromarketing blog post.
