How Duplicate Web Content Can Harm Your SEO

The internet seems to have all the answers nowadays, whether you are looking up a cooking recipe, facts about a country, or trying to prove a friend wrong about a song lyric. Society seems to revolve around the internet nowadays, but what happens when you are using your search engine to gather information but multiple data appears? Duplicate web content is when content is present on the internet in more areas (URL) than one. This is often harmful to your SEO when trying to provide the user with the correct or link with true data for your research and viewing purposes.

What is SEO? Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process in which the visibility of a website or web page contents show up, free of traffic, in your search engine’s results. Although duplicate web content may exist, it can be harmful to your SEO as it becomes confused when providing users with authoritative pages and results. The search engine will avoid showing you these multiple entries of data on the web as it will not show duplicate web content. Instead, the search engine will have to choose which is most likely to be the original and relevant for your search. The SEO as it will have to choose what to include and exclude from your search results, forcing it to make a decision that ultimately it does not know how to make.

Often your SEO won’t know whether to link all duplicate web content into one page or keep it separate and there will be confusion in prioritizing the most relevant search results for the user. In this case, the search will lead to higher traffic and you may see the dreaded troubleshooting results or error page you are redirected to. It is suggested that almost 25-30% of web content is duplicated. As SEO’s have a hard time when facing this problem, so do websites and users as often the web content to site (such as for companies and businesses) is not displayed and made available to users who rely on this information and companies who make a living off of the information the users gain from these sites.

To avoid duplicate content, make sure the session ID when the user visits the website is the same as that stored in the URL. Another helpful tip to look out for is the “printer friendly” pages as this can cause multiple duplicate versions of the pages that get indexed during the user’s search.  As the internet is a big place and can be helpful if properly utilized, one can find almost everything on it nowadays, so be sure the information you find and use is trustworthy and most significant to what you are looking for.

Need help delivering your message, driving referrals, driving demand, creating media opportunities and much more? We can help. For more information on how Prescription PR can help build recognition for your medical practice, please call (631) 392-4255

What is Reputation Management and Do You Need It?

Reputation management is more important than ever in this day and age. Gone are the days where a disgruntled customer’s grievances were only aired to family members, neighbors, and friends as grievances today are posted online for thousands of potential customers to view.

This shift has put a lot of power in the hand of the consumer at the apprehension of business owners. Although we all strive to provide top notch service to each and every customer, sometimes things happen out of our control that can lead to a negative review.

Negative reviews can be extremely helpful in providing feedback for your organization’s service delivery and it allows you to fix this issue for future customers. Although they can be beneficial, we don’t want to lose possible future customers because of past transgressions displayed for the world to see online.

The key is efficient and effective communication as most customers who complain want to feel heard. Research has shown that organizations who respond within 24 hours of a negative online post often boast higher customer satisfaction ratings from those same customer.

Taking the time to reach out to the customer to fix the situation or reacting diplomatically to the criticism on the public forum their grievance was posted on are good examples of effective communication. Potential customers will hopefully see that your organization cares about the concerns of customers and will feel comfortable pursuing service.

One of the more difficult parts of this process is catching a grievance in a timely fashion. With Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Instagram, and more, reputation management can be very time consuming and stressful. The most advantageous method to this process is to seek professional help and guidance.

A public relations firm can monitor your online presence and alert you of any negative feedback while you are running the day to day operations of your business. They will also respond to the negative feedback on your behalf in an optimal manner. A public relations firm deals with these issues on a daily basis from multiple clients and they have the best experience to handle any situation as they arise.

Reputation management needs to be apart of your focus and a facet of your business on a daily basis. Only you can determine if you have the time to go through the process yourself or if you need to hire outside help, but either way it is an absolutely necessary to maintain the vitality of your business into the future.

Need help delivering your message, driving referrals, driving demand, creating media opportunities and much more? We can help. For more information on how Prescription PR can help build recognition for your medical practice, please call (631) 392-4255.

Start 2016 Off Right by Hiring a Marketing Company

It’s a new year and it’s time to take control of your businesses’ future! Whether you’ve been in business for several years or coming up to your one year anniversary, now is the perfect time to assess your past and future growth.

Is your client base still growing? Is your revenue still growing? If you are noticing business growth is waning or stagnating, maybe it is time to do something different. A new approach may be the best option for your business if what you have done before is no longer providing optimal returns.A mistake many organizations make is within their marketing strategy. In an effort to save costs, firms fail to properly market their products or services by either doing limited marketing or attempting to approach the process themselves, which is a recipe for failure.

One of the most effective methods in providing the highest profit margins per time and money spent is by outsourcing your marketing. Rather than attempting to create your own market strategy, bringing in experts who understand the industry best will be able to tell you what areas you are lacking and will provide recommendations on where to go next. You will be able to concentrate on the core tenets of your business through providing quality products or services without having to get your hands dirty in the rudimentary aspects of marketing.

In today’s day and age, thoroughly understanding the aspects of digital marketing, including social media and SEO (search engine optimization) is crucial to succeeding in this market climate. Without the proper background and experience, you can be misdirecting your time and resources. It is best to entrust your businesses’ future with industry professionals the same way your clients come to you for your products and services.

Need help delivering your message, driving referrals, driving demand, creating media opportunities and much more? We can help. For more information on how Prescription PR can help build recognition for your medical practice, please call (631) 392-4255.

Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions

Every time we approach the new year, people constantly tell themselves that they will make healthier choices and improve their lifestyle overall. However, it is much easier to state those resolutions than to actually keep them. It is difficult to keep up with resolutions when you can have so many distractions and temptations that can deter from the end goal you are trying to reach. Instead of making such broad, vague statements regarding the improvement of your lifestyle, people are more likely to follow through with their resolutions if they set smaller, specific, time-based goals.

Achieving one small goal at a time will be reassuring and then will encourage you to continue with the rest of your goals for the rest of the year and beyond. Being able to pinpoint a specific set of goals and achievements will increase the amount of successful resolutions that are made each year. Without a plan, it is easy to be discouraged and feel as though the end goal is impossible to accomplish.

To accomplish a successful resolution, it is easier to really think of one resolution that is important to achieve rather than have an incredible amount of pressure on you to achieve multiple different resolutions.

It is also advisable to not visit past resolutions. It will just be more pressure on you and will likely end in frustration and disappointment. If you take a few days before the new year to really think about an important resolution, you will realize that different people have different needs and wants for their life, which is why choosing a resolution to fit your life will work more than trying to follow what all your friends are doing.

With the new year comes new resolutions, so keep these tips in mind to have a successful 2016!

Need help delivering your message, driving referrals, driving demand, creating media opportunities and much more? We can help. For more information on how Prescription PR can help build recognition for your medical practice, please call (631) 392-4255.

What Social Media Platforms Should My Practice Be Implementing?

The use of social media outlets is the fastest growing platform for digital marketing. You may be asking yourself how can my business take advantage of this platform to its fullest potential? What sort of social media campaigns should we be implementing?

Social media campaigns are evolving into more visually stimulating content. Videos are being used more and more to reach the target audience and to hold their attention. Social media is not just an easy way to connect with people anymore as it has become a source of entertainment for this generation. Your goal should be to create content that both educates and entertains. Keep videos short and sweet—they shouldn’t extend too far beyond three minutes.

Although videos are continuing to grow as the most popularly viewed content on the web, it is not the only way to effectively capture your audience’s attention. Social media users love memes too. People love funny pictures with clever and relatable captions written on it. A clever meme can spread like wildfire around the internet. While you do not necessarily have to create original memes, attaching a funny meme related to your post is a good way to get more people to stop scrolling and read your post. It’s all about aesthetics as verbiage alone is not capturing the audience’s attention.

This generation is certainly more visual, but that’s not to say social media consumers aren’t also reading articles and blogs online. They are, but the layout is different nowadays. The sorts of content individuals are reading online consist of “10 ways to…” and “12 reasons why…” type of articles, and they tend to include memes, .gifs, and videos in order to break up the words.

People are looking for clever and relatable writing. If you do not have a clever opening, your readers may quit after the first couple of sentences. It is important to have bolded subheaders as that is all people scrolling through the article are interested in reading or have time to read.

Remember, when it comes to social media it important to keep it short, sweet, and visually stimulating.

Need help delivering your message, driving referrals, driving demand, creating media opportunities and much more? We can help. For more information on how Prescription PR can help build recognition for your medical practice, please call (631) 392-4255.