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Local SEO Success: Free Strategies to Boost Your Business Visibility & Attract Local Clients

Local SEO Success: Free Strategies to Boost Your Business Visibility & Attract Local Clients

Struggling to attract clients in your area? You’re not alone. Many local businesses face the challenge of getting noticed in a crowded market. But what if there was a way to boost your online visibility, ensuring that local customers find you exactly when they need you?

This is where local SEO comes in. It’s a powerful strategy to elevate your business in local search results. 

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is about making your business stand out in online searches within your community. It’s an effective strategy to draw in more business by ensuring you appear right where your potential customers are looking. The best part? You don’t have to spend a dime on ads to achieve this. 

Let’s explore how local SEO can transform your business’s online presence and bring those local clients straight to your door.

Free Local SEO Tactics to Boost Your Rankings 

Imagine being the first name that pops up when someone in your area searches for what you offer. That’s the magic of local SEO. It’s not just about being online. It’s about being found by the right people in the right place at the right time. 

Google My Business (GMB) Optimization

Google My Business is your digital storefront on Google. It’s the first thing people see when they search for your business, so you want to make the most of it. 

Follow these steps to optimize your Google My Business listing: 

  • Claim and Verify Your Listing: Claim your GMB listing and get verified to prove your business’s legitimacy to Google.
  • Fill Out Every Detail: Complete every section of your GMB profile. This includes your business name, phone number, address, website, categories, attributes, etc. The more comprehensive your profile, the better Google can match your business with local searches.
  • Choose the Right Business Categories: Select categories that accurately represent your business. Your primary category should be the main line of your business, with additional categories to cover other services you offer.
  • Write a Compelling Description: Your business description should clearly state what your business does, what sets it apart, and why customers should choose you. Keep it concise but informative.
  • Post High-Quality Photos: Photos greatly enhance your listing. Include interior and exterior shots, images of staff at work, and any products or services. Regularly update your photos to keep your profile fresh and engaging.

Tailoring Your Website for Local Appeal

When local customers search for services or products you offer, your website should be among the first they find. 

Achieving this visibility requires a focus on website localization. This process ensures your website speaks directly to your local audience, making it more relevant and attractive to them. 

Here’s how to do it:

  • Research Local Keywords: Understand what terms locals use when searching for your products or services. These keywords often include your city, neighborhood, or region.
  • Incorporate Keywords Naturally: Sprinkle these local keywords throughout your website’s content, including titles, headings, meta descriptions, and body content. The goal is to appear for local searches without compromising the natural flow of your text.
  • Update Regularly: Local trends can change, so review and update your keywords periodically to ensure they stay relevant.
  • Dedicated Pages for Each Location: Create a separate page for each area if your business operates in multiple locations. Also, ensure each location page is fully optimized with local keywords, meta titles, and descriptions. 

Amplifying Visibility Through Local Directories

Local directories are powerful tools that can significantly enhance your visibility in local search results. It can help you reach those who are actively searching for your products or services.

  • Google My Business: An absolute must for any local business. This is essential for appearing in Google searches and Maps. 
  • Yelp: A popular directory for customer reviews, widely used for restaurants, entertainment, and services.
  • Bing Places for Business: Similar to Google My Business, but for Bing’s search engine.
  • Local Chambers of Commerce: Adds credibility and local relevance, often providing a backlink to your website.
  • Industry-Specific Directories: Identify and target directories specific to your niche. These can range from TripAdvisor for tourism and hospitality to Avvo for legal services, offering highly targeted visibility.

Boost Your Local Presence with Social Media

Social media is a powerful platform for engaging directly with your local community and enhancing your business’s local visibility. It allows you to reach more local customers, engage, and build relationships with your audience. 

Here’s how to use social media to enhance local visibility:

  • Localize Your Social Media Profiles: Ensure your business profiles include your location. This can be as simple as mentioning your city or neighborhood in your bio or about section.
  • Use Geo-Tags and Check-Ins: Use geo-tags to mark your location whenever you post on social media. Encourage customers to check in at your business, sharing their location with their network. 
  • Promote Local Events and Offers: Social media is the perfect platform to share information about local events, promotions, or offers. These can be events you’re hosting, participating in, or simply supporting.
  • Participate in Local Conversations: Engage with other local businesses and community groups on social media. 
  • Use Local Hashtags: Research and use local hashtags related to your city, neighborhood, or local events. This makes your content discoverable to those interested in your local area.

Strengthen Your Local SEO with Strategic Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. They are among the most influential factors in SEO. 

Search engines view backlinks as an indicator that others vouch for your content, boosting your site’s authority and search rankings. Acquiring backlinks from reputable local sources can significantly enhance your visibility in local search results.

Consider these strategies for acquiring local backlinks:

  • Partner with Local Businesses: Collaborate with non-competing local businesses to link to each other’s sites. For example, a local gym could partner with a nearby health food store for mutual promotions.
  • Sponsor Local Events or Charities: Sponsoring local events, teams, or charities boosts your community involvement and often results in a backlink from the event’s promotion page or press releases.
  • Join Local Business Associations: Membership often comes with a profile page or directory listing that includes a backlink to your site. Examples include the local Chamber of Commerce or business improvement districts.
  • Participate in Local Awards or Contests: Being nominated or winning local awards usually gets covered by local media and can generate backlinks from news sites and award directories.

Remember, the quality of backlinks matters more than quantity. Focus on building relationships with reputable local entities that add value to your community. 

Final Thoughts

Embracing local SEO is a game-changer for businesses aiming to enhance their online visibility without the hefty price tag of traditional advertising. 

Local SEO success begins with optimizing your Google My Business listing, website localization, getting listed in local directories, engaging on social media, and building meaningful local links.

Each action you take solidifies your presence in the community, making it easier for local customers to find and choose you over competitors.

Now is the time to harness the full power of local SEO. start improving your local SEO today and watch your business thrive, all without spending a dime on ads.

Local SEO Success: Free Strategies to Boost Your Business Visibility & Attract Local Clients

Local SEO Success: Free Strategies to Boost Your Business Visibility & Attract Local ClientsLocal SEO Success: Free Strategies to Boost Your Business Visibility & Attract Local Clients

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5 Ways to Boost Sales Without Increasing Your Marketing Budget

5 Ways to Boost Sales Without Increasing Your Marketing Budget

Most business owners think it’s impossible to generate sales without paid advertisements. This is why we often see startups spending a considerable chunk of their budget on ads.

But let’s face it. Small businesses don’t have a limitless marketing budget. In most cases, they need to think creatively to boost their sales. Increasing your sales with a limited marketing budget can be challenging, but it’s not impossible.

In this blog post, we’ll share five ways to pump up your sales without increasing your marketing budget. The best part? They can help you build a stronger relationship with your audience.

Leverage the power of social media

While not everyone on social media is interested to make a purchase, it’s one of the most cost-effective marketing channels. It gives you the chance to promote your products and get in front of your audience with very minimal effort.

When used correctly, it can help you generate more leads, build a relationship with your audience, and get them to buy your products later on. Plus, social media platforms have analytics, which allows you to monitor and track results.

Consistency is the key to social media success. Your audience value a steady presence, so make sure you post consistently. You don’t need necessarily need to post every day. If you can only post two to three times a week, then that’s fine. What’s important is that you stick to your posting schedule.

Keep your audience engaged with video marketing

Videos are one of the most popular choices for content consumption today. Believe it or not, videos can help you generate more sales. In fact, 80% of marketers claimed that video content helped them directly increase sales, and it can help you too. 

One of the reasons why videos increase sales is because they tell your story more emotionally and dramatically as compared to photos and plain text.

People are more likely to share the video with their family and friends if they are interesting, informative, and entertaining. This helps you reach a massive audience. Even better, 84% of consumers say they’re convinced to buy a product after watching a brand’s video.

Nurture leads with email marketing

Email marketing may look complicated and intimidating if you haven’t done it before. But it’s not as complex as it seems. Plus, it’s a great way to build a relationship with your audience and turn them into brand enthusiasts.

You see, not all customers who visit your products will buy from you. Some are just looking. Others would actually add products to their cart and then abandon their carts for some reason. In fact, studies suggest that 7 out of 10 customers abandon their carts. It doesn’t matter how good your products are; this happens most of the time. 

One of the most effective ways to turn prospects into customers is by nurturing them. You can educate them about your products. Let them know when you’re running a promotion. The goal is to establish trust and convince them to buy from you.

Another way to recover lost sales is by sending abandoned cart emails. It’s a follow-up email that is sent to customers who left your site without purchasing. The goal is to encourage customers to complete their purchases.

Generate leads with a strong SEO strategy

To boost sales, you need to have a strong digital presence. SEO is a great place to start.

Studies suggest that 89% of customers start their buying process with a quick Google search. They look up reviews for products they’re interested in. Or search for the best restaurants near their home.

SEO can help improve your online visibility and drive more traffic to your website, giving you more opportunities to convert leads into customers.

Implement a customer loyalty program

Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in converting leads to customers that you fail to realize that your best customers are right in front of you. 

Existing customers are 67% more likely to purchase your products than new customers. Why? Because they already know how good your products are, how fast your delivery time is, and most importantly, they know that they can trust you. This is why it’s essential to maintain a relationship with your existing customers. 

Loyalty programs play a huge role in retaining customers. They work because they make your customers feel more valued and appreciated.

It makes them more likely to choose you over the competition, which leads to repeat purchases, referrals, and more profits. 

Final thoughts

There is no denying that it’s possible to boost your sales with a tight marketing budget. Sure, you can focus on social media marketing, publish SEO-optimized content, or publish video content every week. All these can help you gain more exposure and eventually turn prospects into paying customers. However, relying solely on free marketing strategies will require a lot of time and effort on your part.

If you want quicker results, it is be best to re-invest a portion of your profits into your marketing and advertising budget. It will save you valuable time and provide a more scalable way for your company’s growth.

5 Ways to Boost Sales Without Increasing Your Marketing Budget

5 Ways to Boost Sales Without Increasing Your Marketing Budget5 Ways to Boost Sales Without Increasing Your Marketing Budget 

 

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How do a Pinterest Audit

Today, we will go through Pinterest, and we are going to do an audit on our account. So we have been working with Pinterest for a long time. We use Pinterest for many of our clients, driving traffic back to their website through a very strategic Pin strategy, posting to different boards, Tailwind communities, and different Pinterest groups, and also through promoted Pins. We were coming in to do this anyway to make sure we’re doing as we say to do. It’s one of those, “Do as we say, not as we do.” [chuckle] We want to make sure that what we’re doing with our clients, that we’re doing for ourselves as well. So as you’ll see, we are in our business Pinterest account. And when you come to your Pinterest account, you want to make sure that it is a business account. And you’ll see your home feed here. The reason why you want a business account is because of the analytics and the ads. So with a business account, there are also a few different Pins you can create. The analytics are very important because they will show you how many views you have each month on your Pinterest account. It will also show you what pins are being saved and have the most engagement, and your ads to promote those ads to drive more traffic back to your website.

Business Pinterest Account

We’re going to go to the business hub. And this is kind of the behind-the-scenes; this will tell you just a sneak peek of our analytics, which we’ll get to first. What our public profile looks like. So over here, on the right-hand side, you’ll see your logo. If this is a personal account you’ve been using, there should be an option that says “Switch to Business Account,” and that’s what you want to do. So a couple of things, you can change this header. You can have a specific header there as you have on your Facebook or your YouTube channel with your business name, what you do, your logo, things like that. We have it just set up to show our most recent Pins. So that’s more of a personal preference. This is a good space for that brand-building, we work with many different types of bloggers, so this may be a great area for your branded images with your mission or topics you cover. If you are a mom blog that works with kids ten and younger or just giving your audience a little insight into who you are, that’s a great place to have it.

Your logo or image here, your company name, and this all depends on your brand. Caitlin and I have branded Social Speak Network, so that’s our logo; that’s obviously what all of our social media is. But as a blogger, you may be branding your name, so this may be your name if you don’t have a business name for your blog. So it depends on what brand you’re using; that’s what would go here. And then your description, making sure it’s apparent what it is that you do. And then you’ll see we have only 635 followers, we’re following 129 people, but we have over 43,000 monthly views. That’s good for us. Pinterest is not a social media platform, It’s important to have followers, but you’re not banking on the number of followers you have on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. It comes down to your Pin strategy. That’s the most important piece.

So you’ll see that these are all the Pins that we have created and that we’ve put up on our account, and you’ll be able to see how many times they have been viewed, and these have just been posted this week, so there’s not a whole whole lot of views on them yet. You’ll see that the ones that we pinned a few months ago have many more views. So what I want to do is look at what the Saved button is, which will change our profile to show the boards that we have. Now, when you think you can click on All Pins, we’ve had 63,000 Pins. And there is a mixture here of what we want to do. We talk a lot about healthcare digital marketing tips. We have social media marketing for small businesses. We have SEO and blogging tips, social media management for bloggers, finding your target market, Instagram marketing tips, Facebook marketing tips.

Setting Up Pinterest Boards

Some of these boards like this one that only has 18 Pins, we have it pinned there for a while, so we can either move those Pins to another board or let that board go if we’re not utilizing it. With our SEO, you can see that we have 663 Pins there and 500 Pins in our healthcare digital marketing. So focus on the boards you’re going to be utilizing the most, and what’s important with those is that you have an SEO-friendly title, so search engine optimization. Remember, Pinterest is that search engine, so what is your audience looking for? Are they looking for how to find your target market? This is great because that is what this board says. And if you click onto the board again, we haven’t used that board a lot because we only had 16 Pins. Then the description. To describe what that board is about and what types of Pins people will be seeing on that board. And again, you want to utilize those keywords here as well.

You can add notes; if you post to a different group of Pinterest boards, they’ll have notes of those rules. That’s a great either way to utilize that Notes section. Doing your Pinterest audit, going through each of your boards, and ensuring that you have a keyword-friendly title, a description, if you click this Edit button, the pencil, this is… So here, I don’t have a description for email marketing, so email, maybe it should be, “Is email marketing dead? No. It is very much alive and works great. In this board, we will show you how to grow your email list and utilize email marketing for your business.” So email marketing tips, you can add a board cover. It’s going to pull up the Pins from that board, and you can pick which one you want, okay? Let’s see; we’ll do this one. Click done. And then if you don’t like that board cover, you can go back, click Edit, and then maybe find this one, and then that looks perfect.

You’ll have the name, the description, and then click Done, okay? So go through each of your boards and make sure that you are utilizing the space correctly. Here in our content marketing strategy, we have over 1700 Pins. But here on How to Build an authentic business brand, we only have 10 Pins. These tips can go into maybe our business tips, and we can get rid of that board. You can also have secret boards. We love using Pinterest to get ideas on what other people are pinning. So you can create a board here at the plus sign and click Board, and then this can just be Pinterest image ideas. Keep this board secret. So what this means is as you’re scrolling through Pinterest, you can save images to this board, but they will not show up on your profile, this is just for you to see as an admin, and then you can pull that board up and look at, “Oh, okay, this is what I liked about that image,” and… As you need. So, “Oh yes. Oh, I love how they did that. That’s perfect, I like that image. Oh, this is cute.”

Pinterest Images

Because you’re going to see, there are different styles to Pinterest images and different lengths, and the longer lengths work better. Here’s an infographic. This image here is slightly longer than this one, but it’s a little hard for me to read and seems a little cluttered. I may be more apt to click on this one because it’s cleaner. So look at what types of Pins you like, what images you like, and then save them to that private board so then you can get ideas when it comes time to create content, okay? So now you have these four Pins here in my super-secret board, and we are all set. So after you do the audit on your boards, you want to come over to your analytics. And I always just click on the overview. And now, with Pinterest, you also want to try different; Types of content. Images are number one. Try the square images. If you use Tailwind, you can link your Instagram to your Tailwind, and you can pin the exact images you’re putting onto Instagram on Pinterest. So that makes it easy to monitor those square images. Are they getting clicks?

If you pin them, you’ll need to change the link because they’re going to link back to your Instagram account automatically. If that’s where you want them to go, great, otherwise change the link back to your blog. As I said, the long images. And if you’re using Canva, Canva has a great tool to create Pinterest images at different sizes. So you can try different sizes, as I said but also get creative with your Pinterest templates of adding video into these templates. So that will help increase those user views because you can add your video to this image, customize the colors, add a different change of the content, and then be able to put that onto Pinterest. You would also just have animated images like this that say, “10 Great Places To Travel With Kids.” It stops the scroll on Pinterest. So as you use different types of content, you’ll want to monitor it in your analytics. Looking at your Pin’s impressions, you can look at engagements. And this is just going to be the last 30 days.

And then, and you can see okay, so on Wednesday, I had 85 engagements on our Pinterest account. That’s awesome. What about Pin clicks? We want to make sure we’re driving that website traffic to the right places. So we had 60 clicks on Monday, the 27th. Obviously, on Christmas, we still had 30 clicks, which it’s Christmas Day, and people are still on Pinterest, so Pinterest never sleeps. It keeps going and going. This is a great platform for you to be able to look at to say, “When is my audience on Pinterest, what days of the weeks?” And so that’s where you’re gonna wanna monitor your engagement, what are my top boards? Business tips and social media management for bloggers, we’ve had 5700 impressions, 56 outbound/inbound clicks, and this is no promotion, this is just organic, 31 saves, 111 pin clicks. So this is interesting to be able to see the difference between the boards, what’s working more, and what’s not. And then also here are…

Repinning Pins on Pinterest

Some of these are our original content, and many of them are curated content, meaning Repins from trusted sources, like pin, from CoSchedule, Social Media Today, Hootsuite, Buffer, etc. We look at Social Media Examiner Neil Patel, the people in our industry that we get our information from, and we’ll repin their boards, or their pins to our boards. And then many of them are, obviously, with our logo on it, this is our own. So it’s cool to see, okay, so this one here had 2500 views or impressions, but I can create an image similar to this with our branding and see if it gets even more views. So Pinterest gives you all of the data you need to be successful on Pinterest. Here we have 740, so 6.2% engagement on this pin, 2.2% engagement on that pin. So it’s good to know what people are clicking on, what images they’re finding attractive, to draw them to that, and so that’s really where we want to then focus on, okay, what about this post drew people to it, where it makes them wanna click, and keep going, because this pin was created August 27th, and this is the stats for December to this month, so it’s really cool to look at where… What’s working, and what’s not working.

Then the other part is, if you go back to your profile, you can promote some of the pins or as many pins as you want that you have put up, and this is where it helps drive that traffic to your website even more. So here’s why Pinterest is good at driving blog traffic, I clicked promote, and it’s going to bring me here: what is the destination URL you want, what is the daily budget, and how many days?

I think 84% of Pinterest is done mobile-y, so it’s important to see what it would look like computer view, but that mobile. So that’s what it would look like a computer, this is what it would look like mobile. Most people use Pinterest on their phones. So take time, go through your Pinterest account. If you need help figuring out what board names you should have, how you should be creating those pins, what that strategy looks like, let us know, we do have Pinterest management packages, and we are helping our clients with that creative process, but also more the time management process. If you’re using the right tools you can pin from anywhere from 25 times per week up to 200 times per week, if you’re utilizing the right tools, so… And that’s a mixture of organic content, pulling from your blog post, from your social media post, and then that’s also that repining, pulling from people that you know, and trust, that are like-hearted, and like-minded to your business, and being able to pin their pins to your boards as well.

If you need help, head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com today, schedule a free 30-minute consultation, let’s get you pinning correctly today. Thank you so much, have a great day.

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How to Blog to Boost SEO for Healthcare Providers

Blog to Boost SEO for Healthcare Providers

In today’s episode we are going to be talking about blogging for your healthcare center or your wellness practice. Blogging is one of the best ways for you to share your knowledge and your education with prospects and with your network online.

Additionally, a well-written blog post helps to boost your search engine (SEO) rankings for your website thus driving more traffic, to your website for specific keywords and keyword phrases.

It’s always important as you’re writing a blog post to keep both that end-user, or that potential patient in mind as well as keeping the search engines in mind too.

How do you go about finding topics to blog about, how do you go about writing that blog post and structuring it, and how do you share it after it’s written?

These are the key elements that we will be covering today in the video about How to Blog to Boost SEO for Healthcare Providers.

For a step-by-step guide to blogging, please visit: How to Easily Write a Blog Post.

Watch the Episode

Listen to the Health and Wellness Marketing Podcast Episode

Read the full digital marketing for healthcare transcript:

00:00 Caitlin McDonald: Hello and welcome to the Social Speak Network podcast. I’m Caitlin McDonald and I am the co-founder of Social Speak. And today’s episode we are going to be talking about blogging for your healthcare center or your wellness practice. Now blogging is one of the best ways for you to share your knowledge and your education with prospects and with your network online. Additionally, a well-written blog post helps to boost your search engine rankings for your website thus driving more traffic, to your website for specific keywords and keyword phrases. So it’s always important as you’re writing a blog post to keep both that end-user, or that potential patient in mind as well as keeping the search engines in mind too. So how do you go about finding topics to blog about how do you go about writing that blog post and structuring it and how do you share it after it’s written. So that’s what we’re going to be covering today.

01:19 CM: So the first part of that question is thinking about what topics you should blog about. Now, it’s always important to blog about something that you are knowledgeable about. So you want to make sure that you’re blogging about topics within your practice or industry that you actually know about and care about. If you are not the specialist in that topic, find somebody in your practice who’s better suited to write about it or who can at least edit the information that you’ve put out. We find this often especially with some smaller health care centers where they have one person who’s in charge of doing the blogging. Unfortunately, they don’t necessarily have the expertise in whatever specific topic there is. For our team, for example, when we are going into a new practice, we make sure that we are matching that practice up with a writer who’s going to be suited to talk about those topics. If we’re talking about Pediatrics, or if we’re talking about pain management, we might have two different writers for those two topics. They’re very different, and they require a different level of understanding of who that patient is, what that patient journey is, and everything like that. So let’s get back to writing that blog post, so to find a topic to write about one make sure that it’s something that you are very knowledgeable about two, make sure that some people are searching for it.

03:03 CM: So what I typically recommend doing is taking out a pen and paper, and actually writing a list of different topics that you talk about with patients and with prospects. So by this I mean, what are the questions that people are asking you what are their top concerns what are they looking for, what benefit does the practice provide to them what are the specialties of your practice, what additional things can your services and specialties help to solve for your patients? Now take a look at this list and what I recommend doing is hopping on over to Google and starting to type in these, phrases, what you’ll see is that Google will pre-populate other searches that are related to it, or searches that other people search for. Now, there are also tools that you can use to do this research. So, I like first starting out doing your own brainstorm looking at Google search results, and just set your timer takes about 30 minutes to do this exercise, make as many notes as you can.

04:22 CM: I often find myself hand-writing them, probably it would be a little bit more streamlined if you do this for yourself, in a spreadsheet so that you don’t replicate work overtime. The next thing to do is either head on over to Keyword finder kwfinder.com or over to Neil Patel’s Uberselect app. Now, this is a new app that he has brought to the market and it currently is completely free. So what you do is, within this app and I’ll have a link down below, excuse me Ubersuggest not Uberselect Ubersuggest app. And so it’s Neil… Excuse me, app.neilpatel.com/en/ubersuggest is one way that you can get there or you can just do a Google search for it as well but what you do is there is a related keyword ideas sort of tool within there, and so you can actually type in some of those keywords and keyword phrases.

05:30 CM: And you can see what other search results folks are looking for. Keyword finder you can do the same thing, however, now it is limited to just a few searches per month on that free account. So I do recommend jumping over to Neil Patel’s tool. When you are utilizing this tool and I don’t have it up in front of me. So that’s going to be a whole new blog post and tutorial about how we utilize it. But when you use it, you can see one, what keywords your competitors are looking for and two what those related search terms are for the ones that you enter into that search field. Now, we recommend filtering these results so that you are looking for keywords with a low keyword difficulty score. We recommend starting off if you’re just starting off blogging, putting in a keyword score, a maximum keyword score of about 20, maybe 30.

06:30 CM: Now, this means that it is hypothetically easier to rank for these keywords, you’ll find that typically the result that pops out there is going to be a long-term keyword so a keyword phrase rather than back pain, for example, another thing that you can do is you can plug in the number of searches per month for that keyword. Now as you’re starting off blogging we recommend writing blog posts and trying to rank for keywords that don’t have as many searches for them. So I would plug in a number like 500 here.

07:12 CM: So you’re looking for searches where there are fewer than 500 searches for them and where the keyword difficulty score is fairly low. The reason why we do this is, and I’m taking this from one of our interviews a while ago, is because we follow the skyscraper approach to keyword research and blogging for that SEO benefit. What this means is, if you visualize the Skyline, we are targeting the low-buildings, So we’re targeting the buildings that, Yes, they don’t have as much traffic, but they also don’t have as much competition for them. Then over time, as you’re proving your worth to Google, you can start bidding for those higher skyscrapers. So you can start writing content that has more searches and higher keyword difficulty, score. So you’ve done the list of your brainstorm of all the topics you’ve jumped over to the Ubersuggest app on Neil Patel’s website, you’ve done your keyword research there and you’ve chosen a topic now what do you do? This part is actually my favorite, and it’s seeing what other people have written about that keyword phrase.

08:39 CM: And so what you want to do is just type it into Google and take a look, open up a few of the searches excuse me, search results that come up for that phrase. When you open up the articles I recommend, not reading them word for word, but doing a cursory skim, just to see what other headlines and sub-topics people are talking about. Then close all of the windows take out either your notebook and piece of paper again or jump over to your spreadsheet or a Word document, you could even open up your blog post if you want to a blog post draft and write the outline that you want to follow for that blog post. Now I always recommend putting that title, excuse me, putting that keyword phrase as the title of the blog post or at least in the title of the blog post this will help you rank even better and also make sure that people who are searching specifically for that phrase know that you are the place to go when they see it up in the organic listings. So you’ve done the cursory outline for your blog post and now we recommend filling in the content.

10:03 CM: So what you’re going to have, what you should see on your paper are major topics that you want to cover, sub-categories or sub-topics that you want to cover, And then maybe a couple of bullet points that you wanna make sure that you touch on. So underneath each of these items, type in two to three or more sentences or bullet points for each of these. Now, if you do that, and if you are putting together a robust outline, you might find that at that first go, you already have a 1500-word blog post. I’ve done this before where I’ve done an outline and the outline itself, was over 500 words long. That makes writing a longer blog post very straightforward. Now, let’s say you sit down to fill out these bullet points and you just have a mental block, you can’t think of anything to put down. I recommend jumping over to Google Docs, and under, if you open up a new doc, you can click tools, and then you can do a voice record. So if you do this you can actually record yourself speaking and make a transcription of what you’re going to say and so you can create a few sentences, if you feel more comfortable speaking rather than sitting down in writing, you can at least talk through some of the bullet points so that you have something that then you can convert into a nicely written blog post.

11:35 CM: Now, if all else fails, if you have this outline that’s put together and that’s tapping into your knowledge about what topics should be talked about, you can then Hop on over to WriterAccess or Upwork on, to have somebody else fill in the blanks and write the content. This is an easy way to make sure that you’ve done the research in terms of what other people are looking for, you’ve added your expertise on that specific topic, and then you’re just getting someone to fill in the blanks now to make a blog post work even better for your business there are a few additional things that we recommend adding, the first is video so you’ll see in all of our videos excuse me, in all of our blog posts. We have a video embedded in the blog post as well. Now, having this video adds a multi-media element to your blog post, the multimedia element, allows different people to come and view it. People who wouldn’t necessarily be reading your blog post, maybe they’re more interested in listening to it or watching it.

12:46 CM: So, this adds additional SEO benefit because you’re keeping people on your page longer, and you are uploading the video to YouTube which is in fact the second largest search engine and also owned by Google. So you might be adding an additional place for your name and brand to show up in search results. Another thing that you can do with this video is you can create a transcription of it. So I talked about transcribing with the Google Voice On the Google Doc in order to write the content but if you do a video, that goes into deeper detail on one or two of the topics that you talk about in the video, you can actually create a transcription of that video and add that to the bottom of your blog post. I believe it’s something around 10 minutes of speaking typically equates to about 2500 or 3000 words. Now, imagine what that can do for the content on your website. Now, after you write your blog post, it’s important to make sure that you’re going through for formatting.

14:09 CM: When we go through for formatting we take a look at the outline that you originally created and make sure all of those main topics are header twos, then those sub-topics are header threes, and the topics below that are header fours. Typically within a longer blog post, you’ll see something like two header twos, three to five header threes, and four or more header fours. This allows Google to see what those most important categories are and if your website was structured properly in the CSS and the styling those elements are going to be bolded, or have more, more prominent on a page rather than just the written text. Additionally, we recommend linking two services pages from that blog post. So again, let’s say you’re talking about back pain and you have a service that is great for back pain. It could be a massage, it could be surgery or a specialist. You want to make sure that that Back pain text is linked to the services page or more information about how you can help with back pain. This is called inner page linking.

15:27 CM: And so by doing that again, you’re getting people to more resources. You can also add a section of related posts to your blog post so let’s say you’re talking about one specific specialty within your blog post link to or add the related blog post that also has to do with that specialty or potentially this is a physician interview link to the other blog posts that have physician interviews And it helps keep people on the site longer, so that they know like and trust you more. It also signals to Google that people are finding the information that they want when they view your site and that helps to increase the Domain Authority and where your website is positioned compared to competitors, in the organic search results. The last thing to do with your blog post for your health care and wellness center is to share it with the world. So the past few weeks we’ve been talking about a lot of different tactics that you can do to make this happen. The first would be sharing it on social media, the second sharing it to your newsletter, the third making sure that you are sharing it through sponsored advertising on Facebook. This could be as a boosted post. Your organic reach you’re going to find is fairly low. And we talked about this with the reach apocalypse the other week. So you are going to have to boost the post with at least a little bit of money behind it in order to make sure that it is reaching your audience and other people who might be interested in reading it.

17:11 CM: Now, I hope that this has been helpful. If you have any questions about how to write a blog post for your wellness center please don’t hesitate to reach out. We have blog posts and other resources about how to do this over on our website at socialspeaknetwork.com, And we would love to chat with you to see how we can help with the process. So thank you so much for tuning in. My name’s Caitlin McDonald, I’m here with the social speak network and I can’t wait to see you next time on our next podcast episode.

How to Blog to Boost SEO for Healthcare Providers

How to Blog to Boost SEO for Your Family Medicine PracticeHow to Blog to Boost SEO for Your Health and Wellness Practice

How to Blog to Boost SEO for Your Mental Health Practice

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How to Easily Write a Good Blog Post for your Business (Top Tips)

how to write high quality blog posts quickly

In 2018 we published a blog on how to easily write a blog post for your business. This is a supplemental video to that blog with updates for blogging in 2021!

Namely, don’t hesitate to write shorter blogs if they fully answer the question at hand.

With the rise in mobile searches and voice searches, Google has prioritized some answers that get straight to the point rather than blogs that include the answer within a long drawn-out piece of content.

You’ve been told that you need to write blogs for your business, you now understand these blogs need to be >2,500 words, but how do you find the time in your schedule to actually write a good blog post?

Everything in marketing always comes back to finding systems that will work for your schedule to write an educational and informative blog post quickly.

In this post I’ll be going through my top tips for writing a good blog post quickly.

If you are just tuning in, over the past few weeks we’ve been talking about how to perform keyword research and find related keywords to include in your blogs:

Ok, so let’s jump in an get started.

First and foremost, when you write a piece of web content, it should be about something you are knowledgeable about.

If you are a psychotherapist who specializes in EMDR, but have never done Brainspotting, don’t try to write a blog post explaining the intricate details of Brainspotting. (I’m not an expert in either, so for our psychotherapist clients, I pass the writing of those blog posts to one of our all-star copywriters.)

As you are creating your content strategy and your blogging calendar, try to include blogs that are timely and relevant, but make sure you feel comfortable actually sharing information on them.

A 2,500 blog post may seem daunting as you are getting started, but it really doesn’t need to be when you follow the tips outlined below.

Tip 1: Once you have your topic, see what other articles have been written about it

Before you even get in the writing zone, do a quick Google search about the topic you want to write about. Remember, you want to get a sense of what those related keywords are to include in your content anyways, so this step has a dual purpose.

For this post, my search was for Write a Good Blog Post Quickly.

Guess what comes up?

A blog titled 5 Ways to Write High-Quality Content – Fast

5 Ways to Write High Quality Content Fast

Hey! That looks right on the mark for my blog post.

Ehh, actually after a quick read-through, this blog doesn’t include all the information I want to, but that’s okay! I know it is highly ranked on Google for my proposed keyword and includes super basic topics:

  • Have a brainstorm of ideas you can pull from
  • Batch your time
  • Know your own self and when you are most creative
  • Write ahead
  • Keep it simple

These are great tips, but again, I want to be more technical in this blog post on easily creating systems for writing a blog post quickly.

Don’t worry, my efforts to research what other people are already writing haven’t gone to waste.

If you do find a blog post that nails your topic on the head, make a quick note of the outline they follow including:

  • The headers they use
  • What keywords or topics stand out
  • The general flow

Then … CLOSE THE WINDOW. This is your blog and you need to make sure you aren’t plagiarizing. You want to make the blog post your own not a word by word replica of what you just read.

So why is it okay to open up an article or two that just don’t include the information you want to include? Well… It could be that you want to write about something completely off the grid or it could be that nobody has actually taken the time yet to post a detailed enough guide on the topic you want to explore.

If I open up an article that just doesn’t seem to include the information I want to share, I take a moment to consider what I would include in my blog post that is missing from the blog I just read.

Not sure what Keywords to include in your Blog?

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Tip 2: Take a Moment to Write Down What is Missing from the Blog Post you just read

Let’s go back to 5 Ways to Write High-Quality Content – Fast. Though the author has some great content tips, he’s missing some major items that help me write my own blog posts effectively.

Namely, the author is missing the steps to:

  • Research what other pieces of good content are ranking on Google
  • Create an outline for your blog post
  • Transcribe audio or video to create not only great written content for your website, but also to include multimedia in your blog posts.
  • Include filler adjectives and words
  • Outsource writing for blog posts

The post also has an incorrect fact about how short, concise content is the way to go. You don’t want to ramble on and on, but you want to give valuable information that will actually benefit the reader rather than a quick 300 word blog post (I’m already at 800 words and only on tip 2 for writing high quality blog posts quickly… you better buckle up).

Creating a list of what is missing from the example blog posts will help you create an outline for the informational blog that you want to write for your website.

Tip 3: Write down an outline for the content you are writing for your blog post

You now have the list of elements that are typically included in blogs related to your chosen topic.

You also have the specifics that are missing from the posts that you would like to include in your blog post.

AND, from before you even started your blog, you have the keywords you wish to include and the related keywords from Google.

Even though you already have this information compiled, I always find it helpful to write an actual outline for your blog post.

Why?

There are a number of reasons why you should, but most importantly it is because:

  1. You are a busy professional who will get called into a meeting or be interrupted by a conference call.
  2. You are a mom (or parent) like Amber and myself who will need to change a diaper, make sure homework is getting done, or run their child to T-ball.
  3. Do you really have the focus to write 2,500 words in one sitting?

As you get interrupted, it may feel like you can jump right back into the task at hand, but in reality, it takes your brain a few moments to get back on track and figure out where you are with your blog post.

Creating an outline allows you to more easily spend 15-30 minutes here and there on the blog without out feeling like you are spending half the time rereading what you’ve already written and trying to decide where to go next in the blog post.

Having an outline also keeps you on track for the final parts of your blog. Many writers often cut their blog short towards the end because they are just over the process of writing. Having an outline allows you to take a break, but not loose focus.

This process is called Batching your time (see I am including some of the information from the blog post example).

Tip 4: Batch your time while you are preparing to write and actually writing the blog post for your website

As I just mentioned, batching your time is the process of focusing on one at a time rather than trying to multitask.

Here, it means not checking your email or jumping to Facebook while you are writing.

Each time you shift your focus, your brain needs to reorient itself.

In the process of writing your blog post for your website, there are some things you can do to help you batch your time:

  1. Focus on each step in sequence: Keyword research and finding related keywords, researching similar blog posts, creating your outline for your own blog, actually writing the blog, going back and editing the blog, finding images for your blog, writing the title of your blog post.
  2. Don’t try to edit your blog post until you’ve gotten all of your information down.
  3. If you realize you need more information to write thoughtfully on a topic, but you’ve already done your initial research and are in your writing stage, make a note and then jump to the following section that you can write about. Unfortunately, if you jump back to reading articles, trust me, your blog will take 10 times longer to write.
  4. I’m sure I have more, but because I am using this blog as a way to show my own blog writing process, I’m jumping to the next section because additional points are not coming to me at this time. I may come back and add them, but for now, I move on. 🙂

So again, you want to think of writing your quality blog post as a process. Just like anything else in business, processes help to make you efficient and effective. Batching is one way to help you write your long blog post quickly.

Tip 5: Don’t Write! Transcribe from Audio and Video to Create your Blog Post

This is one of my favorite tips for busy professionals who just don’t seem to have the time to get into a writing groove.

10 minutes of audio creates a blog that is about 2,500 words long.

So, after writing your outline for your blog post you could use an audio converter or record a video to transcribe your words to text to include in your blog post.

Some tools I recommend are Google Docs and YouTube.

Let’s take a look at Google Docs first. 

Head on over to Google Drive and click to create a new document. Better yet, you could create your outline as a Google Doc so you can add to it on the go if needed.

Under Tools, there is an option for Voice typing (Ctrl+Shift+S).

voice typing google

Click this, start talking, and your document will start filling up with words.

Now when I do this speech to text, I do find that I need to edit the text as I go. I’ll talk for about 5 sentences, stop the recording, and then edit what was written. You may be able to do the entire document based off your outline and notes, however.

The iPhone speech to text works well, as well. I’ve actually ‘written’ blogs while out for walks with the girls, but Apple will stop transcribing every couple of minutes, so you need to make sure you don’t keep talking with nothing being written down.

I’m sure there is other software you can use that also records your audio for use in a Podcast. Or you can send the audio file off to Rev.com for transcription at $1/minute. Totally worthwhile if you have spent hours trying to get into writing, but not filling the page with any content.

The other option is to use YouTube to transcribe a video.

Using your computer camera or your phone, record yourself talking through the outline you created.

When you upload your video to YouTube, you may need to first verify your account (enter in your phone number in the settings) to post videos that are over 10 minutes long.

Typically, most of our clients who generate a transcription of their blog upload their videos as Unlisted or Private, though I am all for listing these videos as Public to get more of a reach – blogs with videos perform really well, YouTube is a search engine, and you can share your video to social media (always think of how you can repurpose your content as you create it). Make sure the space you are in looks professional if you also plan to publish the video as Public and include it in your blog post.

After you have uploaded your video, click in to edit it and find the link that says Subtitles/CC.

youtube subtitles

You will be prompted to select your language (I use English though at times I’m not sure).

Then, click under Published where English is listed again.

subtitles for youtube

On the next screen you can download the subtitles created by YouTube as .srt.

save subtitles you tube

 

I’m not sure what a .srt file actually is, but all you need to do is convert it to a .txt file online and you will be able to open it with your computer. In the past I’ve used Subtitle Tools for the conversion, though a Google search for “Convert .srt file to .txt for free” will work just fine.

The text that is created will be formatted a little strangely with about 7 words per line and no punctuation. Honestly, I get a little overwhelmed by this, but the ability to create the video and written blog in one go is well worth the effort to run through your post and edit it.

Your outline makes this easier as well. 

You can work through small chunks and sections by pasting the text under the corresponding blog header. Please let me know if you often work through your transcripts, I’d love to feature more tips about converting a YouTube video into a blog post.

Again, if spending $10-$20 isn’t a problem, you can submit the video to Rev.com and utilize their transcription services.

Tip 6: Outsource your Blog Writing

We frequently outsource blog writing. I’ll keep this section short, but you can find experts in your industry who cost anywhere from $0.03 per word to $0.65 or more per word. So, depending on your budget and time you have available to provide an outline and edit your blog post, you may decide for yourself what budget for the blog writing really makes sense.

We utilize freelancers on Upwork.com and WritersAccess.com to find niche bloggers for our clients. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I’m not an EMDR or Brainspotting expert, so why would I spend hours trying to write that blog post when someone else can write it for a fraction of the cost of my time to research.

Depending on your industry, you can also probably find Guest Bloggers who would write a post on your site for free if they can include their bio and a link back to their own website.

With Guest Bloggers, just make sure their content is unique and reserve the right to edit it slightly so the headers include your focus keywords and related keywords.

I love guest bloggers because they often then will share the link to their own networks or link to it from their website, which then in turn helps get new visitors to your website and helps in SEO.

How to quickly write a great blog post for your business, #blogging #bloggingtips, learn how to write a long blog, how to blog for your business, blogging for business

How to quickly write a great blog post for your business, #blogging #bloggingtips, learn how to write a long blog, how to blog for your business, blogging for business, #business

Wrap Up

Writing a high quality, long blog post doesn’t need to be a difficult task. Depending on how you work you may find that you are better suited to transcribe and audio or video file rather than sitting down and typing.

The most important starting point for any blog, however, is to make sure that you create an outline. I just sat down and busted out this blog before 9am, but it is on a topic I am VERY familiar with (have you checked out our blogging course yet?).

You may not have time to finish a blog in one chunk, so be sure to batch your time to most effective and efficient.

What long blog posts are you working on writing? I’d love to check out your work!

Not sure what Keywords to include in your Blog?

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Interested in learning more? Take a look at these articles:

Blogging in 2017 – The Startling Truth About Blogging

Blog SEO Checklist

4 Reasons Why Contests Should be a Part of Your Marketing Strategy

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Local SEO for Health Centers and Businesses with Multiple Locations

Local SEO Tips

In this blog post, we review the steps to make sure you are optimized for local searches for your business or health and wellness center with multiple physical locations.

Local SEO for Multi-Location Businesses Includes:

  1. Creating a page specific for that location rather than having every location only listed on one page
  2. Adding content specific to that location on this new location page – Claiming a Google My Business profile for each location
  3. Adding other directory listings for the locations
  4. Optimizing on-page settings such as the meta description and page title
  5. Linking to the location page from the content created by your specialists in the blog
  6. Building reviews for your locations
  7. And More!

Listen to the Podcast:

In today’s podcast and blog post, we’re going to be talking about search engine optimization for businesses and healthcare centers that have multiple locations and share the same website. So we’re going to go through some of the dos and some of the do-nots, as well as how to take this step-by-step list to the next level. So let me just pull up my notes so I don’t forget anything.

The first thing that you’re going to want to do is take a look at your website. Now, if you have one location page on your website and it lists off all of the locations there, that’s a great start. However, if you then have all of the location information such as the specialties, the directions, the hours it’s open and everything like this, all on that same page too, you’re going to need to do a little bit of refreshing in 2021. So what I want you to do is call up your web developer or whoever opens up… Excuse me, whoever manages your website, and ask them to build out a specific page on your website for every single location.

The Content on your Location Pages and URL Structure

Now, the reason why you want to do this is because you want to show Google where to send local traffic. It’s said that nearly 50% of all searches are local, so you want to make sure to have that local content and that local specific page on your website. So an example that I wanted to show you is actually Rogers Behavioral Health, and they have locations all through the United States. So here’s their website, and if you look, they have all of these locations. So a few things I wanted to show you is for them, I would potentially have this top menu also link to the main Our Locations page. And here, they have a database where you can search for the locations. They have a lot of different locations. However, you can click on any of these locations and it pulls up a page specific for that location. Now, here, if you take a look, their URL structure is how we recommend it’s set-up. All of the locations are with locations is the top page, a parent page, and then the location name. You could take this a step further and have locations/California/Los Angeles, for example, but this is a great structure to have your URLs and to set up those permalinks.

If we scroll down on this location page, you’ll see that the content between the pages (I have Minneapolis up here as well) isn’t the same on every page. So if you find yourself creating a location page for all of your locations and adding the same content to it, I want you to stop right there. Before you create the location pages, please take the time to create content that’s specific for that location. You can even talk to the managers, for example, or the specialists that you have at the location, and have them help put together the content for you.

Make sure your location page reflects that specific location

The big difference is how they list the services for that location. So Los Angeles, for example, has OCD and anxiety and depression recovery, whereas this other location has also eating disorders and trauma. Then you’ll notice they have a slideshow of that location. So this gives people peace of mind that they know where they’re going, they understand sort of what that next step is when they reach out to your center. And also you can have a video. It looks as though this one, maybe the video isn’t loading or my Internet is slow, but you could have a video for that specific center as well or location as well. Here, we also recommend having the doctors or the specialists who are at that location listed off with a link to their bio as well. So you want to give your website viewer everything that they need to know about that location listed right here on this specific page. Here, we have the hours, as well as the Google Map nested right in here as well. So these are all great things that you should include on that specific page for your business when you have those multiple locations.

Add Meta Data and Unique Content to Each Location Page

The next thing that you need to make sure of, and this one I kind of went through some of the elements for making sure that it is structured and optimized for local SEO, so having that unique content, having the headers here, listing off the directions and how to call them, all of these are great things to have for search engine optimization. But taking it a step further, we also recommend making sure that the meta description and the meta header are correct for that location too. So you want to highlight the location’s information and make that the meta description truly reflects what the specialties are of your specific locations. If you have a WordPress website, we typically use the Yoast SEO plugin, however, there are handful of other ones that do the job really well for your website on page SEO and kind of that behind the page SEO.

Create a Google My Business Page and Directory Listings

After this, the next thing that you want to do when you are optimizing your website for search engine optimization for multi-locations with your healthcare center is making sure each of them have a Google My Business page. Now, you probably have set this up, so just go and make sure that all of the settings are correct, and we’ve talked about how to do this in the past. The Google My Business page, you should have one for every single location, including your corporate location. That’s okay. However, if you have a virtual office or an office that’s just temporary, there’s no need to create a new listing for that. It’s more of a hassle to remove a listing than to just make sure that your listings that you want to be up are accurate.

Use Moz to Manage Location Citations

We often use a service like Moz Local in order to manage and optimize other directory listings that include information on your locations. So we typically do use Moz. You do have to be a little careful with the settings as it can push information to profiles that you already have created, such as your Facebook page, or you can do this manually as well. One of the benefits of Moz with it’s pushing information through is that you’re sure that the same information exists everywhere, and that’s something Google likes to see. It wants to see that you are consistently showcasing your business, that is has the same address, the same hours, the same description, the same keywords, and then Moz also can push through images and videos for your different locations as well. I believe at this point, Moz is about $125 per location, but there might be bulk-buy discounts as well.

Focus on Growing Online Reviews for Each Location

The following thing that you should do for each location is make sure that you are getting reviews for that location. So this is a process where you can either get testimonials from your clients, from your patients directly when they leave, or send a follow-up survey with a link to then leave that review afterwards. Additionally, something that you can do is sign up for a service. Social Prime, for example, has a service where they actually text patients as they are leaving their appointments to leave a review. We recommend setting this so that it leaves a review on the Google My Business profile rather than focusing on other profiles. The reason why is because first and foremost, you want to make sure that you have a consistent stream of of reviews coming into Google, and that can help boost your local online presence.

Link your Google My Business Page to the Location Page on your Website

One other thing with the Google My Business page, rather than linking back to the website as a whole, you want to make sure that you’re linking to your location pages, so you want to direct people to the page where they can find out about that location rather than to the homepage of your website. The same is true if you decide to have different Facebook accounts, for example, for each of your locations, you want to make sure that those URLs link to the specific location page on your website.

Create Internal Links from Blog Content to Location Pages

Once you have this all set up for your different locations and you have the specific page on your website, you have the directory listing set up, and you have optimized everything, you want to make sure that then you take it a step further. As we always talk about, you want to rely on your specialists in order to create content for a blog post, for example. And we recommend always testing out doing these physician or doctor interviews or specialists interviews as an easy way to get that key worded content. From here, if a specialist is at one of your locations, as you are starting the blog post and writing it and doing an introduction, link back to that location page on the website. This helps Google to see who is affiliated with what location and make sure that you have those internal links going to the location page, which will help it grow in the organic listings. Another thing that you’ll want to do is if you currently are building backlinks into your website, make sure that you’re focusing on that location page as well. So whatever the specialists search is plus the location name.

I hope that this has been helpful. Please let us know if you have any questions about how to build SEO for your healthcare center or your business that has multiple physical locations. Again, my name’s Caitlin McDonald, I’m here with the Social Speak Network. And if you’d like to schedule a consultation to talk about the search engine optimization process for your own business, please head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com and click that free consultation button. We’re happy to sit down and chat with you. And of course, if you found this to be helpful, click subscribe on iTunes or Podbean, or of course, follow us on YouTube. Thanks so much and I’ll see you soon.

Local SEO for Health Centers and Businesses with Multiple Locations

Local SEO for Family Medicine Practice with Multiple LocationsLocal SEO for Health and Wellness Practice with Multiple Locations

1.Local SEO for Mental Health Practice with Multiple Locations

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6 Timeless Keyword Research Tips to Boost Your SEO Content Strategy

6 Timeless Keyword Research Tips to Boost Your SEO Content Strategy

Keyword research can be laborious. The research process often takes hours, only to find out that just a handful of the keywords are worthwhile.

Sure, it is a time-consuming process. But it isn’t something that should be taken lightly. Why? Because SEO helps make your website more visible. And when done right, it can dictate not just the traffic you get, but whether or not that traffic converts. But how can you make the most out of your SEO keyword research?

Use these timeless keyword research tips to ensure you attract qualified traffic.

Focus on long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are longer, highly specific phrases. These are keywords that people are more likely to use when they’re closer to a point-of-purchase.  

Obviously, you’re going to draw less traffic with a long-tail keyword than you would with a more commonly used one. But since long-tail keywords are more specific, it will be easier for your site to be found by the audience for your particular niche.

With shorter keywords, competition for rankings can be fierce. Targeting longer, more specific keywords is a win-win. You get better search rankings, more qualified search traffic, and lower cost per click.

Check the on-site search queries your visitors are looking for

Sometimes, you don’t have to look too far to find what you’re looking for. The keywords you need are already in front of you. You just need to take note of them.

Some of your visitors are typing in keywords into your search bar because they are hoping that they’d find the answers they need on your website. Visitors are telling you what topics they want. Now, all you have to do is to create content around these topics.

This is the simplest, yet most underutilized technique. I want you to understand that those on-site searches are a gold mine of data just waiting to be looted.

Use Google Trends

Google Trends is one of the most powerful, yet underutilized tools for SEO. We highly suggest that you use it to your advantage.

You can use Google Trends to conduct keyword research for free. Just type in a search term in the homepage, and it will automatically give you a list of Google’s most popular keywords over the past year. In addition, Google Trends will also provide a list of relevant keywords based on your search term, along with the percentage of search volumes for each one.

This feature is powerful because it helps you identify which keywords are growing in popularity and which ones are becoming less popular over time.

Take advantage of Google suggest

Have you ever noticed that Google gives you suggestions when you enter words in the search box? You’d be surprised as to how accurate and helpful these suggestions are.

You see, Google takes note of everything we search for. It can provide you with a list of popular search topics in seconds. So next time you’re compiling a list of keywords for SEO, try using this technique. Let Google give you all the answers. Doing this will not only help you find interesting keywords, it saves you a lot of time too.

Compile a list of local keywords

While it is a good idea to rank on competitive keywords, you shouldn’t ignore the power of local keywords. This is particularly important when targeting audiences within a specific geographical area. In fact, 80% of consumers use search engines to find businesses in their area.

Focus on keywords you think your audience might use when conducting local research. Local searches may yield lower search volumes, but it’s more about driving traffic that is ready to convert. Remember, local searches tend to be from people who are looking and ready to convert.

Local keywords will not only play an integral role in optimizing your local SEO strategy but also help in driving patients to your practice.

Analyze your competitor’s winning keywords

When all else fails, emulate. If you want to take your SEO to the next level, then you’ll need to start looking at what your competitors are doing. This can work to your advantage as it can help you target consumers who are searching for these keywords. After all, the goal is to outrank your competitors, right?

To do this, you can use tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush. For SEMRush, it’s as easy as entering your competitor’s website. It’ll give you a list of keywords they are ranking for in an instant.

On top of that, SEMRush also provides the URL of sites that rank for each term. This allows you to further understand what pieces of content are working for your competition.

Final thoughts

The world of SEO has evolved significantly over the years. Google now places more emphasis on content quality than keyword density. But let’s face it. Keyword research still remains the cornerstone of any successful SEO strategy. Hence, it is important to do it well. The keywords you use will ensure that your content is relevant and easily searchable on Google. 

 

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National Podcast Week – The importance of keeping your content up to date

National Podcast Week - The importance of keeping your content up to date

It is National Podcast Week, and in today’s podcast, we will be covering some great information!

Today the questions we will be covering are:

  • Why is it important to Google yourself and your practice?
  • How do you fix outdated or wrong information on old directories?
  • How often should you be updating your content on your website and social media sites?
  • How does each social platform work for your practice?

Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Podbean and iTunes

The importance of keeping your content up to date

 

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5 SEO Strategies to Get More Patients for Your Practice

5 SEO Strategies to Get More Patients for Your Practice

People are searching for everything online – from restaurants that will deliver food to their doorstep, to the latest fashion trends. Searching for a health practitioner is no exception.

Your potential patients are looking for you online. The search engine is usually the first place people go to when looking for a healthcare provider. As such, the goal is to make sure you show up at the top of the search engine results page.

When done properly, SEO has the potential to earn an impressive ROI for your practice and attract the leads you need to grow.

Here are 5 SEO strategies to get more patients for your medical practice.

Optimize your website

A well-optimized website can help bring in people who are interested in your service, but who aren’t necessarily familiar with you. Not only will it help boost awareness of your practice, but you’ll also look more credible to prospective patients.

Doing SEO requires knowing who your target audience is, as well as their pain points. You need to start by conducting keyword research.

Using keywords that best describe your business and industry will help make your website more visible. Tools like Keyword Tool and Google Keyword Planner can help you find keywords and key phrases people search online to find your practice.

Create high-quality content

Building a website that highlights your service isn’t enough to get you the top spot on the search engine results page. You also need to create high-quality content.

Not too long ago, ranking your website on search engines was easy. All you need to do is write keyword-packed contents and you’ll start seeing results. But not anymore.

Search engines like Google love fresh, unique content. While keywords are still a vital ranking factor, you also have to consider the quality of your content. Write for your audience first and then search engines.

Having more custom content on your site can drive more traffic to your site and help you rank higher in search results. Write content that is interesting, informative, and unique. Make sure that you do it better than your competition.

Claim and optimize business listing

If you want to attract more patients, then you need to get listed in local directories. While most patients do use search engines when finding healthcare providers, not all of them would book an appointment immediately after making a quick Google search. In fact, studies suggest that 77% of potential patients do further research and read reviews before making a decision.

Claiming and optimizing listing on local business directories can increase your chances of being found by search engines.

Prospective patients usually visit third party sites such as Google My Business, Healthgrades, and more. You want to increase your local footprint to ensure that they find you no matter which site they are looking for. Having customer reviews will also help you gain the trust of prospective patients.

Optimize for local search

One of the best ways to convert a searcher to a patient is to ensure that your location shows up at one of the top three positions in a search engine’s “near me” map.

Potential patients usually search for facilities and doctors nearby. Optimizing your site for local search will make you more visible to people in your area, and ultimately contact you right when they need you.

Be sure to register your business on Google maps. Don’t forget to add your location to your page titles and content on your site.

Build a strong social media presence

Living in the digital world, having a social media presence is a must. While social media isn’t a direct SEO ranking factor, it does help with your ranking somehow.

If you want to get SEO benefits from your social media marketing, then you need to optimize your profile first. Also, make sure that you post updates regularly. You don’t need to create an account on different social platforms. Just choose one or two platforms and maintain an active presence on those channels.

Share your blogs on social media. This will help you reach a wider audience as well as build trust. If people start sharing your content, it’s more likely that more people will link to it. Links are a hugely important SEO ranking factor.

Final thoughts

With the world going digital at a rapid pace, more and more people are turning to the internet to find answers to their health queries and find health practitioners.

Your medical practice can’t grow if it lacks the attention of prospective patients. It’s time to start taking a more focused and strategic approach in getting your practice in front of thousands of potential patients with search engine optimization. If you still haven’t invested in SEO, then you’re giving away clicks to your competitors.

5 SEO Strategies to Get More Patients for Your Practice

5 SEO Strategies to Get More Patients for Your Practice5 SEO Strategies to Get More Patients for Your Practice

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