The Clinic Marketing Podcast - Local SEO & Healthcare Digital Marketing Tips for Clinic Owners & Wellness Providers

Climbing Google's Ladder: Essential SEO Strategies for Clinic Owners [Propel Playback]

• Darcy Sullivan

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The number one question we’re asked is, “How do I improve my website’s position online?” It’s a great question and you may be surprised at how simple some of the steps are to rise in Google rank. 

Today, we’ll scratch the surface on how you can start improving your ranking through some common SEO (search engine optimization) best practices. Free, organic traffic is the goal, we want to help you achieve it! 

In this episode, we’ll go over:

  • Some SEO basics
  • Why organic website traffic is important
  • The three critical parts of SEO
  • Why keywords, target audience, and user experience are important 
  • Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) 
  • And, more!

Are you ready to propel your practice? Let’s do it!

Episode Webpage - https://propelyourcompany.com/improve-clinics-website-position/

Send in your questions. ❤ We'd love to hear from you!

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Speaker 1:

Hey, there, it's Darcy Sullivan from Propel Marketing and Design and the Clinic Marketing Podcast. Thank you so much for listening here. I think you're going to enjoy this clip. It's from a popular episode in our archives, don't forget. You can leave a review on iTunes. It would mean the world. It helps spread the word about this podcast. All right, let's get into the episode.

Speaker 1:

In today's episode, I'm answering the number one question. I get asked time and time again how do I improve my position on Google and those other search engines? While I get asked this question time and time again, it sometimes comes in different forms. I get asked this question time and time again. It sometimes comes in different forms. I get asked how do I get more free, organic website traffic? How do I optimize my website for search engines? How do I get started with SEO? Well, that all falls under the same umbrella and it's what we're talking about in today's episode.

Speaker 1:

In today's episode, we're going to go over some basics of SEO search engine optimization and while they might be basic, they're definitely not boring, especially when they bring more traffic to your website. Now, before we dive in, I just want to let you know that some of the stuff that we're covering today I pulled directly from my latest free training. Now we're not going to cover everything that's in that free training, so if you want to sign up for that free training, you can visit propellyourcompanycom, forward slash, learn or look for the link in the show notes. In that training we cover how to put together a winning SEO and content marketing campaign. Ways to improve your website performance. We talk about optimizing your Google business profile listing. That's the listing that controls your Google Maps listing and used to be called your Google my Business listing. We go over all of that and so much more. So I invite you to sign up for that by visiting propellyourcompanycom or clicking on the link in the show notes. Okay, on with today's show.

Speaker 1:

Today we're talking all about the three key elements for SEO success. So let's start at the beginning. What is SEO exactly? Seo is short for Search Engine Optimization. It focuses on proven strategies and tactics to maximize the number of visitors to your website by positioning your website high on the organic list, that's, the non-paid results in Google and those other search engines. So, again, today we're not talking about paid ads. That's a talk for another day.

Speaker 1:

Today we're talking all about organic website traffic and I have to tell you, seo is more important now than it's ever been before. Why? Well, social media reaches down and it's a rented space. As I'm recording this, facebook is continuing to decline its daily active users, and we all know that Facebook users, and we all know that Facebook, twitter, tiktok I don't care what social media form you are using there's a chance they could go down, and what happens Then? You don't have the ability to connect with your target audience. We also know that the cost of advertising is continuing to increase, but the moment you turn off those ads, that's a heck of a lot of website traffic you're gonna lose, whereas if you take the time and energy to invest in SEO, you reap the rewards for not only days, months, but it can be years to follow, and we're gonna look at how that comes to play in today's episode.

Speaker 1:

Now, before you say SEO sounds scary or I'm not a tech whiz, I'm going to tell you it's okay. The whole point of today's episode is to start to look at it in the non-scariest way possible. See, it used to be that to win big at SEO, you had to do all these crazy things behind the scenes. It took tons of time and it was a headache. But here's the thing Google's gotten smarter, people have gotten smarter and, with the evolution of technology, we now have these amazing website platforms that make it easier than ever for you either to put together a website, maintain your own website or make modifications to a website that you have and as you're listening to this, I'm guessing that you probably are even on one of them, like WordPress or Squarespace, clinic sites, wix, you know, the list goes on and on, but the nice thing is is that they're a good, solid foundation that again allows you to make modifications.

Speaker 1:

Well, no matter what website platform you're using, things are about to get a little sweeter. Why? Because we're about to get a little sweeter. Why? Because we're about to talk about Oreo cookies. Yep, you heard me right, we're going to chat about Oreo cookies. See, I have a huge sweet tooth and this one day I was biting into an Oreo cookie and I thought, huh, you know what? This seems like a really good, simple way for me to explain SEO to someone. And right now you might be scratching your head going, darcy, you sound kind of crazy, but stick with me, okay.

Speaker 1:

So you have your Oreo cookie. It has a top wafer, a bottom cookie wafer and the sweet stuff in the middle. This sweet white stuff in the middle of an Oreo cookie is literally called stuff, except it's with one F and it is delicious. Well, just like there are three critical parts to an Oreo cookie the top wafer, the bottom cookie wafer and the sweet stuff with one F that hold it all together, there are three critical parts to SEO, and that's what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. You have on-page SEO, off-page SEO and that sweet stuff in the middle that holds it all together. These are the three core elements to any winning SEO campaign. On-page SEO includes actions that you take directly on your website to improve your website rankings, website rankings. Off-page SEO refers to strategies you put in place outside of your website to help drive more traffic and improve your position online, and that sweet stuff in the middle that holds it all together. Well, that includes identifying your target audience and connecting with them. So there you have it On-page SEO, off-page SEO and, just like an Oreo cookie, that sweet stuff in the middle that holds it all together. And we're going to start by talking about that sweet stuff in the middle.

Speaker 1:

A successful SEO campaign, and truly any type of successful marketing campaign is rooted in the foundation of identifying your target audience, how your brand can connect with them, your place in the market and making sure that you're using the words that your ideal patients are searching for, that you're using the words that your ideal patients are searching for. If you haven't taken the time to clearly identify your target audience or your buyer personas, you'll want to look at the show notes for this episode. It'll have a link to that free training where we dive into this in more detail. It'll also link to a blog post we wrote about this. Now we have an upcoming episode where all we do is talk about how you can connect with your target audience. So I don't want to go into too much detail about that today, but I do want to make sure that you have taken the time to clearly identify these personas, because if you haven't taken the time to do that, your messaging is going to be off. The words that you're targeting online are not going to match your target audience's searches and your images might be off as well. Everything is going to miss the mark. So if you haven't done this yet, please promise me that you'll take time to sit down and clearly identify your target audience and ask yourself these two simple questions what is it that brings someone in to see you for the first time, and who is your ideal patient? These questions will help direct you to identifying your target audience, because there's that old saying that when you market to everyone, you market to no one. So you want to make sure you're crystal clear on that and we want to make sure that we're using the words that your target audience is using.

Speaker 1:

In the realm of SEO, we call these keywords. Keywords are words or phrases in your web content that make it possible for people to find your site through search engines. Listen, if you're not using a keyword on your website, it's going to make it more difficult for Google to rank you for that keyword. I can't tell you how many times I sit and talk to chiropractors, physiotherapists, physical therapists who think that they've got specific keywords throughout their website and they're just not there. So we want to identify who our target audience is. Then we want to identify the search phrases they're using to make sure that we're using those throughout our SEO and content marketing plans. I just want to make sure that you have a list of those most common words that you think that your ideal patients would be searching for, and make sure that you're actually using them on your website and in your social media and other content marketing efforts. We talked about identifying your audience, identifying the words and keyword phrases that they're using or might use to search for the services that you offer. We also want to pay attention to your location. We want to look at how far would somebody drive to come to see you, because we want to make sure that our content lines up with targeting those areas. You might need to target more than just your local city, because somebody might drive 15 to 20 minutes to come see you. So that's it for step one, that sweet stuff that holds the SEO campaign together. Now let's talk about your website.

Speaker 1:

The second element of a winning SEO campaign is on-page SEO. Again, these are the actions that you take directly on your website to help move it up the list on Google and those other search engines. We want to make sure, from the get-go, that your website has a quick load speed and that it looks good on mobile platforms. People don't like slow websites and Google doesn't like a slow website, so let's make sure that your website loads at a proper speed. We want to make sure that you're following best SEO practices on your website. And, again, if all of this is new to you, I strongly recommend that you take that free SEO training, because it'll walk you through a lot of this in a lot more detail than what we're going to go through today. But you want to make sure that you're following best on-page SEO practices. This includes making sure that you're using title tags and meta descriptions. You want to make sure that you're leveraging those keywords that we talked about earlier, that you're including header tags, that you're using internal links, that your images are optimized meaning that you're not using an image the size of a billboard for the place of a postage stamp, that your content is easy to scan. And, again, with the evolution of these website platforms like WordPress, squarespace, etc. It's easier than ever to make small adjustments that you're going to see big rewards with.

Speaker 1:

When somebody comes to your website, we want to offer them an amazing user experience. In the world of SEO, we call this UX UX for user experience. We don't want your visitors to have to overthink. We want easy navigation. We want to make sure that all of the important pages are just a few clicks away and they can find the information they're looking for. The truth is, you don't need a million blog posts about nothing. You need key pieces of content that are going to align with what your target audience is searching for, and the one thing you can do today to make sure that you start seeing better results on your website is to make sure that your call to action, your action to book an appointment with you, is clear as day and is really easy for somebody to just click on and make an appointment right then and there. After all, that is the main goal of your website is for somebody to click the Book Now appointment and make an appointment with you. We talked about a few fundamentals when it comes to on-page SEO, and again we'll be diving into more detail on specific elements in upcoming episodes. But just to revisit what we covered for on-page SEO, you want to review your website and make sure that you're offering your visitors an amazing user experience, make sure that you're using the keywords that your ideal target audience would be searching for and that your content on your website is in direct alignment with the content your audience would look for and connect with, and we want to make it as easy as possible for somebody to book an appointment with you.

Speaker 1:

But to win big in SEO, it doesn't stop there. You also need to take actions outside of your website. This is the third key element of SEO the off-page SEO. Off-page SEO are those actions that you take outside of your website to increase website traffic and to move your website up the search engine results. And this all starts with your Google business profile. Your Google business profile is what used to be called your Google my Business listing and what controls your listing in Google Maps. In an upcoming podcast, we're going to dive into Google business profiles in more detail, but all I want to say about it right now is that you have to have a claimed Google business profile and your listing should be optimized. So if you haven't taken the opportunity to claim your listing and optimize it, please do so, and I'll include a link in the show notes to some resources on that.

Speaker 1:

And again, tune back in because in an upcoming episode of Propel, your Practice, we will be diving deeper into the Google business profile. We'll be talking about Google Post, we'll be talking about Google Maps and so much more, but to really own the first page of Google in the organic section, you can't do that without having a Google business profile. We also want to make sure that all of your listings online for your citations we call these NAPs name, address and phone number that they all match, and we want to do this for a number of reasons. One, it's a solid signal that you have a quality company and business. And two, nobody wants to end up at the wrong location or calling the wrong phone number for your business. So if you've moved, or if you have a new address, a new phone number, a new website, a new company name, make sure that all of your listings online are congruent and that they match.

Speaker 1:

Now there's a couple more key elements that I just want to start to scratch the surface with today when it comes to off-page SEO. One, your online reviews. I think we all know how important online reviews are for your business. If you haven't put a plan in place to start collecting online reviews, you're going to want to do that. There are a couple other things that you should consider with off-page SEO. These can be link building, putting together a content distribution plan, maybe considering running press releases. There's so much more that you can do outside of your website, even from promoting it at events. That will, in turn, help with your SEO and help with your website rankings.

Speaker 1:

Today, we started to scratch the surface of how you can start to get more organic, free website traffic to your website, so we talked about those three key elements of SEO success On-page SEO, off-page SEO and that sweet stuff in the middle that holds it together. If you enjoyed today's episode, I would love it if you could please leave a review or share it with somebody that you think would gain value from listening to today's episode. I would love it if you could please leave a review or share it with somebody that you think would gain value from listening to today's episode. As a reminder, this podcast has been brought to you by Propel Marketing and Design. At Propel Marketing and Design, we help chiropractors, acupuncturists, physiotherapists, physical therapists, wellness practitioners and other clinic owners improve their website rankings. If you're interested in learning more about how we can help you improve your website rankings, please visit propellyourcompanycom, where you can book a discovery call.