Who is this BERT and what the h-e-double-hockey sticks is he doing to your website rankings?!?
It’s not a who, it’s Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. BERT is a Google update that has SEOs in an uproar – again, the changes are affecting healthcare (including dentistry) sites.
In theory, BERT is supposed to make search query results more realistic, more natural. It’s a language interpretation tool. It understands prepositions better, eliminates the high-rankings for keyword-ese, so writers can compose content that sounds more like speech. This all sounds very, very good!
Identiwrite has been composing natural-sounding content for years.
Regarding the BERT update, in a blogpost, Google stated: “It’s the biggest change to Google’s algorithm for five years, affecting one in ten search queries. With the Google BERT Update, Google aims to improve the interpretation of complex long-tail search queries and display more relevant search results.”
What I’m Really Seeing
According to SearchMetrics: “From the 7th to the 8th of November 2019, many webmasters and SEOs report massive changes in search engine rankings.”
SO – If you’ve seen your rankings going crazy, this is why. I’ve personally seen a client rank on page one position one, then position 99 the next day, then back to position one on day three. This is insanity for SEOs!
The Good News
On a positive note, if we keep composing good, informative text and publishing it on webpages, blogs, and third-party articles, sites WILL rank high in search.
The strategy behind the copywriting is what’s most important – not that excellence in writing can take a backseat. But we have to understand what kind of content will rank higher than a dentist’s local competitors. An important factor is knowing what the dentist wants to rank high for. “Everything” is not a good answer.
How to Talk to your Dental Writer
Invisalign, crowns, fillings, dental implants, porcelain veneers, periodontal surgery, children’s dentistry, elderly care – these are answers we can use to develop a solid, effective online marketing strategy.
Location is also important. When a dental writer asks what areas you pull patients from, stating that you have a few patients from three states away isn’t helpful. Instead, provide a few city names and zip codes from the areas where most of your patients live. Your project management software can provide this information for you.
Armed with the topics and locations, a writer and SEO strategist can work together to determine:
- What your competitors are doing and how your online presence measures up
- What keyword phrases your site is being found for now
- What phrases and questions potential patients are looking for online
- The exact recipe for high-ranking copy: keywords, secondary keywords, length, how many images to add, what pages on your site to link to and from which phrases – and more.
Life Rule: You Get What You Pay For
Cliché? Absolutely. True? Absolutely.
Honestly, if I could do whatever I needed to do to make a site rank high (higher than another identified site, for instance) on page one for a given phrase, I would need the freedom to write as much content as necessary. I’d also need full access to Google Analytics, Search Console, Google Business, and the WordPress website.
The strategy would take many hours each week – plus the time it would take to write and publish the content. Full transparency: I charge $89 an hour.
If this is what you want, and you’re ready to give me the freedom (financially and with respect to access), then let’s talk. I can do an immediate site analysis over the phone, then follow up with a more in-depth report a competitive analysis.
Then I’ll:
- Revise and expand your website copy
- Optimize the pages
- Blog once or more a week
- Add new pages to your site
- Post to Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter – wherever you’re plugged in
I may also post articles on third-party sites or solicit links (rare) to your website.
In some cases, my clients need new websites – their existing site was built with a proprietary coding style that just won’t suit the quick publication and changes we’ll need to regularly make to the site. Sometimes, an existing WordPress website is fine as is, and we can simply.
