Data Breaches Threaten Podiatrists’ Social Media
From: Podiatry Content Connection
We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve
you. -- Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, March 2018
With a second major Facebook security breach discovered in September, and shareholder companies calling
for the ouster of Zuckerberg as Chair, Facebook is an increasingly questionable place.
User activity on the social media platform is still very high, and remains an important tool in new patient
acquisition, but we have to wonder if Facebook would ever get so weighted down by data security issues that
it would ever pull the plug on itself (as Zuckerberg implied).
If our favorite social platforms disappear, or if users abandon them in distrust, how will potential
podiatry patients come across your website?
Answer: Search Engines and Search Engine Optimization
No matter which social media vehicles are in favor going forward, people will always use search engines to
find the information they seek. They may favor Google, Yahoo, Bing, or other engine. They may ask Siri, or
Alexa or Google Home for assistance. But, they will always seek out information. Websites employ a
powerful tool to be found in these searches: Search Engine Optimization, otherwise known as SEO.
SEO has been a “thing” for a long time. In earlier days, websites scattered keywords, words that people
might use in their search, throughout the text, often haphazardly and not in context. The idea was that Google
and other engines would “see” that the sites contained words that were relevant to a particular search, and
would rank them higher up in results.
These days, keywords have taken a backseat to long-tail keywords, keyword phrases that qualify the search
by adding more detail. All keywords and phrases must make sense in context, or search engines may
penalize the site in their rankings.
SEO has become very sophisticated in many ways. Google uses AI to go through every bit of your website to
find applicable, new and interesting material that will answer searchers’ queries as fully as possible.
The most important SEO strategy Podiatrists can employ today and in the future is to
continually offer amazing, searchable content-- blogs, articles, photos, infographics,
and videos.
This means that your website is never “done.” It may be time-consuming to constantly post new info, but if
your site is staid, it will dive in Google rankings, and may go the way of Google+ and MySpace and virtually
disappear.
PODIATRY CONTENT CONNECTION specializes in helping podiatrists be more visible, attract and
gain new patients online. PCC provides continually fresh content for podiatry blogs. For a
complementary website analysis or more information, contact. Randy Rosler at 917-572-5088.