Distance Selling Pharmacy SEO

Pharmacy Website SEO

Pharmacy Web Publicizing Rules of the trade

To start we will take an example. Best to do it with www.douglaspharmacy.com

First type “douglas pharmacy” into google.

Find out what it is and understand it - What it is? Who are the clientele? What is the websites USP?

Douglas pharmacy specializes in travel medicine. So this differentiates the pharmacy on the web from people like Boots who offer mainly cosmetics and prescriptions in their locality.

You may have to go to page 1,2,3,4, within Google search, even further if necessary. Research is key, if you do not know what you are publicizing how would other people know?

Somethings you need to do...

The list below is prioritized meaning the first point is the most important, ie you should concentrate on this. The last point is the least important. The main principle ways of increasing page rank:

• Back link's
• Blog Commenting
• Forum Posting
• Social Bookmarking
• Directory Submission
• Adds Posting
• Ping Submission
• Youtube commenting

0.Select Your Keyword

Know your keyword(s). Its all well and true to say that you want to be higher on google for your site but you need to be specific. You need to select say 5 keywords which you want to rank higher for. The key to this is think of where the best opportunity is. There are parameters which can help KEI is pretty good in that it weighs up specific keywords in relation to how many rankings there are in google, but it doesn't take into account how competitive it is in the market. There could be multiple large reference sources on the web which will swallow the top 10 positions (your main target) quite easily. 

So it is imperative, that if you are in a competitive market to go for a niche of that market UNLESS you are in a newly established industry where you can become the front runner. So how do you tell if you are in a competitive industry? In this example type “Douglas Pharmacy” into Google, do you see many Google adverts? Do you see the site high in Google rankings (given that you are essentially typing the url into Google)? If not you are in a non-competitive market and high KEIs are a good place to start for keywords….

1.Google Listing

Google is the number one search engine in the world and will probably be so for generations to come, so its a good idea to think this is your main target for SEO. There are some basic things which you can do to get a good footing with Google:

• Google Plus: Although this is becoming less and less important, it is good to set up a gmail account for your business say smithpharmacy@gmail.com and use this to set up a corresponding Google Plus account page. This will then prompt you to make a business listing. It is a good idea to put in an address at this point so that Google can geolocate you if someone searches for "pharmacy" in your area.
• Submit your site to Google: this is an easy one and takes only a few minute. Just type "submit to google" into google or just use this link.

2. Create blogs

Blogger.com is quite a good place to start here. You can also easily link this to your new Gmail account.

Create a blog with the name of the pharmacy “douglas pharmacy” or something more niche like "homeopathy pharmacy delivery"

In the post it is best to right something original about the site, something like it stocks more African Hair care products and that there is a 10% deal right now.

The main purpose here is to firstly direct people to the site and secondly to make sure that the url is visible this will help with google ranking.

3. Content is King

Google thrives on new updated content.

If you have any info on new pharmacy products which would fit into the site as a web page that would be extremely useful.

Write only new unique content into your internal blog on the site, ideally this should sit on a sub domain such as blog.yourpharmacysite.com.

4. Link reciprocation

You find a website which is related to your pharmacy such as a GP in the UK, find their contact email and send them an email saying:

We run a site which is similar to your own. We would like to do a link reciprocation as to increase our and your google ranking. If you send us a banner we will post it up on our site and we will send you a similar one and you could do the same. Contact yourpharmacy@gmail.com

5. Youtube

What is the second most popular search engine on the web?

This is a bit of a tricky task but you have to make a submission to YouTube.

First if you don't have an account, in this example make "yourpharmacy" as the account name.

You need to submit a video about the site

There are many screen capture programs go to (http://download.cnet.com/) type in screen capture. You can use to do this but make sure it looks professional and is informative. A few examples of programs: CaptureWizPro, BSR Screen Recorder, Debut Video Recording Software Professional Version

A simple way to do this is to get a screen capture software and record you typing something interesting like:

"Do homeopathic remedies really work?"

"Where is the cheapest online pharmacy?"

"Where can I buy brewing equipment online?"

"How can I discreetly but incontinence pads?"

Make sure the screen capture movie has music so that people don't fall asleep! You could take this a step further with better video. Nearly everyone now has quite a good hi res camera on their phone you could use this on a tripod filming yourself answering general questions about pharmacy or medicine. Creating lots of content like this and then using Youtube's video transcribing service can create lots of text which you can embed on your site which Google will recognise as unique rich content and improve your SEO.

6. Directories

Many websites provide a directory service.

Yahoo when it was established was a directory service which categorised web sites on the WWW.

You could go to Yahoo and submit the site or search in google for “website directory”

Make a submission but make sure its in the right category

In this example you would go for “pharmacy, medicine, online doctor” or similar to what the have available. If you cannot find a precise category submit the closest as any submission is better than none.

7. Add robots.txt for the website.

If you do not know what this is type it into google. You will need to generate this file and upload it to your site via ftp.

Somethings to avoid...

Do not pay for Google advertising - this is a tricky area as Google historically doesn't like pharmacies advertising online, however it can be done. The issue is that its is an extremely competitive market and some big names are throwing lots of money at it. Unless you become extremely niche with your keywords like "discrete erectile dysfunction medicines Croydon" you will make a very tiny splash in an extremely large pool.