The first step in conducting Search Engine optimization is to determine what keywords your potential clients and employees might be using. By the term “keyword” we include both search terms of a single word as well as “keyphrases” of two or three words. It’s equally important to remember to “localize” your search terms.. using the “city” or “state” your service area covers.

It’s a good idea to focus on at least five or six keywords, but no more than a dozen. When you get rolling, you may want to extend this to addtional keywords.

There are 4 steps to this keyword research process. We will go over these 4 steps in our next post.

Before we go into depth about search engines and how they work, there is an important distinction to be made between search engines search sites and search directories. Search engines have a proprietary way of indexing and catagorizing Web pages that they keep confidential. They build an index or directory you search through at a search site. These search sites are AOL.com, Netscape, EarthLink.com, and DogPile.com, to name a few.

Search directories are the third form of Web Page organizationon the Internet. Search directories use information that is provided by Web page owners and do not use indexes. There are a number of directories on the Internet. Examples are dir.yahoo.com, dmoz.org (Open Directory Project), and Aviva.com. Web Page owners submit their URL, listing and description to search directories, organizing the information within sub-directories. These submissions are edited by human editors who may shorten or reject a submission. Search engines sometimes use the data provided by search directories to help improve their search results, but directory listings can also provide valuable links to your Web page that can improve your page’s ranking. They are an important part of your search engine strategy.

Carebuzz continues the interview with Mr. Jack Halpern, MPS and a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator in New York and New Jersey. Mr. Halpern has held several key leadership roles during his 30 years in the Nursing Home Industry. These included administrator and executive management, supervising, housekeeping, and building services. MyElderAdvocate.com 

Inquiring minds want to know how blogging and “other social media tools” are working for Mr. Jack Halpern…

Carebuzz: How is blogging working for you? Is it meeting your expectations?

Mr. Halpern: I heard about blogging about three years ago. I decided to use my blog to establish myself as an expert, which I am (no modesty in this area). It took me a long time to establish my blog. My blog has been visited by 425,000 people over 2 years.

Last week my blog was listed on the NY Times Online page as a resource by Jane Gross. I have not made any money on my blog as yet. That will come.

Do CEOs, Business owners, and Presidents of companies really have the time to do this? An interesting article in Business Week talks about how some CEOs and business organizations are using these tools to stay in touch. Business Week says “the best chief executives are nothing if not efficient, and what’s more efficient than 140-character memos?” That’s their take on Twitter.

The article features Digg’s CEO Kevin Rose. The story includes the number of people he follows (102) and the whopping number of followers.. over 61,000! So, who has the time, you ask?

Business Week goes on to say that Twitter is microblogging - the latest tech tool to enter the C-suite. CEOs and employees broadcast company updates, use the tool to share a personal side of their lives with employees, and network with other executives. Many CEOs have begun to make tweets part of their daily routine. And it’s not just the Silicon Valley crowd—chief executives in marketing, publishing, and retail are also populating the site.

Carebuzz has been on Twitter for over 2 months and this story gives me more ideas for how to use Twitter not only for our company but for our clients! What about you? Are you the type of CEO or business owner who is efficient enough to use these social media tools? If not, why not?

And there’s blogging, very similar to tweeting.. but of course, a larger scale. Keeps your potiential clients up to date on what your company and services are all about and best of all, keeps your name in front of them when searching on the web.

When we first started working with home care, home health, hospitals, long term care, reverse mortgage companies several years ago, we were surprised! The first thing that we noticed - most providers of senior care services did not recognize the need to be visible on search engines.

Some providers purchased Googe Adwords which can be helpful. But the most part, they had a website.. and did not market it. I guess the reasoning is “we have a website and that should be enough”. So, is it?

Good questions to ask yourself when asking whether you need more search engine visibility:

1. Do a Google search on “your company” industry keyword term, add your local city, and click the search button. For example, if you are a home care agency, the keyword search would be home care, senior care, elder care, at home care, and then add your local city; home care chicago. Do your competitors show up on first and second pages of Google? If they do and your website is not found in the first 4 or 5 pages, then you (obviously) need more visibilty.

2. Do a little research, on the web, on “users on the web” - this will give you information on the number of people using the Internet.

3. Go to this site https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - and do a query on your industry and local city, i.e. home care chicago and see how many users are searching on the Internet for that keyword term.

I just did a query using the above tool on the term home care chicago - guess how many people in November 2008 searched that term? 3600!!!

You may not even realize just how many people are looking for you on the web.