The changing landscape of SEO comes from both the search engine itself and from the searchers. On top of that, the content strategies of millions of marketers are evolving to address those same changes. All this puts you in a tough spot. How do you keep up and respond to the competition for viewers?

This has been an exciting year in digital marketing. As technology continues to improve and more businesses invest in digital, the competition for attention online is increasing, but the consumer experiences continue to get better and better because of it. It is proof that competition in the marketplace can be a great thing and make us all better at what we do. Here are some digital marketing trends your company should be thinking about for 2017 to stay in the game and come out ahead:

Coming up with a good keyword strategy is difficult, especially in this day and age when everyone knows the benefit of having their site search engine optimized. With every site on the Internet trying to lay claim to their own little space on the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) it becomes incredibly important to know how you can get yourself near the top of the results pages. With that in mind, here are six important tips to take into account for your search engine optimization.

Search. This is something that has not only seemed like a vague, mysterious world for anyone outside of marketing but also to many marketers for many years. I know many who have, dare I say, pretty much abandoned search engine optimization (SEO) strategies because they don't really trust what anyone is saying out there about what really works. They believe they're just going to end up going into a rabbit hole and never getting that time back in their life.

Blogging appears to be a permanent resident in the house of great marketing, but writing something helpful for your readers can be much more difficult than you’d think. Your audience is probably drowning in irrelevant search engine results, social media posts and spam already, making it exceedingly difficult to stand out amongst the clutter.

Fortunately, there are ways to check your writing to ensure it will not only be visible, but easily understood and actionable. 

This week a colleague sent me a Business Insider article with a series of screen shots from the "coolest websites in 1996."

They're horrifying.

They look more like something you might see on Tetris or Super Nintendo (remember those?) than websites for big, serious names like Fidelity, American Express, or Bank of America.

For the last two-to-three years, a revolution has been taking place in the world of SEO optimization and search engine page ranking (SERP).

If you're keeping abreast of online marketing trends—and what dental or medical practice isn't—you've probably heard of them: the algorithm changes like Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird that Google started rolling out in 2011. But they're worth hearing about again, because these changes mark a momentous shift in search, and hence in your success at attracting new patients through your web and social media marketing efforts.

Are you wondering why someone might take the time to write a blog or pay to have one professionally written and managed by someone else for their business's website?

Because it works.

Blogs have evolved a lot in the past 10 or so years when they were first people rambling their thoughts in their basement for the world to read. Now, they're a serious source of business.

By now, you have likely heard of Google+. You might have even taken a peek at it, but are less than convinced that you need to be using it.

Every dentist, doctor or specialist with an office vying for patients would do well to look again.

Google+ is part of Google, the search engine behemoth that today largely defines search engine ranking, which in turn largely decides the success of your practice’s online marketing efforts. Opening a platform with the Google name is like entering real estate from a family named Trump or politics from one named Bush. You draw attention because of who or what stands behind you.

"I trust his work. I trust him to take good care of me."

These words, spoken by a patient in a "welcome to my practice" YouTube video of Dr. Jared Waite at Aspen Ridge Dental Care, are perfect. They get right to the heart of what inbound marketing via social media is all about: projecting yourself and your practice to a mass audience as capable, attentive and worthy of any would-be patient's trust and care.

Effective social marketing, however, isn't easy. It takes preparation and planning, an investment of time and money, and a fair bit of creativity.