7 Need-to-Know Techie-Terms for Better Website Performance
It’s human nature, I suppose, to make quick judgments based on appearance. You know, the “first impressions” thing.
Does an upscale restaurant serve a better meal than the “Corner Deli” place? Is the guy wearing a Brooks Brothers suit (and $200 necktie) better at being an attorney or financial advisor? Will a sleek and slim new MacBook (in stylish gold or space gray) out-compute a Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite?
Of course the answer is, maybe…maybe not. Appearance and first impressions are important and powerful, but that’s not a definitive test. You know, the “book-by-its-cover” thing.
Healthcare marketing pros know better than to mistake “pretty” for effective. Visually pleasing marketing materials—including your hospital or medical practice website—can be “pretty poison.”
A “good looking” website might as well be a blank canvas if it isn’t doing its job of reaching and attracting visitors, and outperforming the competition in organic search rankings. This is the work of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). And for a more-than-skin-deep assessment, here are some key terms to know in a healthcare website audit.
Organic Search Rankings: the web page listings produced by a search engine based as they relate to the words used in the search or search terms.
Backlinks: “also known as incoming links,” according to Wikipedia, where “the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page.”
Description Tags: or meta description tag is the concise header summary that previews the content of a web page, typically limited to about 150 characters.
Image SEO: is those brief patches of code that tell search engines about the images or graphics. The visitor sees and understands the picture, but the SEO spiders need to read the code description as “alt text” or image tag.
Mobile-Friendliness: Search Engines—Google in particular—want to know that your “regular” or desktop website can easily been seen on the small screens of smartphones and mobile devices. Being mobile-friendly (or unfriendly) can impact search results.
Website Content: is everything the visitor encounters at your site, including text, images, videos and other elements of the user experience. Each and all of these elements have a part in SEO performance.
Website Speed: as well as page speed is an indication of how quickly the content is presented to the visitor. SEO techniques aim to make the “load time” as brief as possible because, as we all know, the visitor will be gone in a digital heartbeat.
Generate your complimentary website performance report…
Check on these and other key assessment factors with an instant healthcare website audit. This SEO Report analyzes the essential factors that determine your organic search rankings. Try it. It’s free and takes less than a minute. Consult with a healthcare SEO agency such as Healthcare Success for further assistance in improving your website performance.
Steve Jacobs
