Just like any other type of business, physical therapy practices can benefit from putting a SEO campaign into place. However, creating an effective SEO campaign can be a fairly overwhelming prospect for those who are not entirely clear on how to go about it – especially given the fact that SEO is constantly evolving! There are a number of things that you can do, even as a beginner, in order to kick start your SEO campaign.
In order to get started, you really need some basic knowledge about what SEO actually is and why it is important for your PT Practice. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and refers to improving the content of your website and social media content in order to make it more attractive to search engines. The better your SEO, the higher up the search engine results your website will appear which in turn will make you more visible to those searching for a physical therapy clinic. With around 85% of consumers now using the internet to find local services like PT practices, securing one of the top spots in the search engines is more important than ever.
In order to start driving more traffic to your physical therapy practice, you need to start working on improving SEO. The following tips will give you a useful starting point to start building an effective SEO campaign.
Start With A Killer Website
The starting point for all physical therapy practices should be creating a great website that visitors will engage with. IT should be user friendly, pleasing to the eye and full of useful, relevant content. You need your potential patients to stick around for as long as possible once they happen upon your website, so take the time to make it into something special. This is the foundation of SEO for your practice. The better your website actually is, the better first impression you will make!
Quality is More Important Than Quantity
One of the most important things that you need to remember about SEO for your physical therapy practice is that the quality of the content you produce is far more important than the quantity. In the past, many physical therapy practices attempted to drive traffic to their website using a range of approaches designed to push as much content out as possible including mass positing of blogs and purchasing cheap back links from less than reputable sources. However, these days there are much stricter requirements from search engines like Google, who are looking for better quality content that will actually offer some value to readers. This means that when you are creating content, whether it is for your website or your social media accounts, you will need to make sure that you are providing helpful content that addresses potential problems that patients are likely to be experiencing. It is better to put out high quality content at longer intervals than to take a scatter-shot approach and publish weak content daily.
Review SEO Reports Regularly, But Don't Over Analyze Them
It is important to review your SEO reports on a regular basis so that you can chart the progress of your campaign from month to month. This is an important cornerstone of the marketing for your physical therapy practice, so it is essential that you can see which areas are improving and highlight those that need some extra attention. However, you do need to strike a healthy balance between being diligent and over analyzing these reports. SEO is very important, but you should not be focusing on it to the extent that your website suffers.
You do need to pay attention to areas that affect on-page SEO such as your page titles, page loading speed and using optimal keywords. However, you still need to make sure that the content is helpful above all else. The SEO comes second to the value of the content itself. In addition, you also need to turn your attention to off-page SEO matters as well including, local listings, video marketing, PPC campaigns and more. The SEO techniques applied to your website are only the beginning.
SEO can have a massive impact on the traffic that is driven to your physical therapy practice's website and can therefore help to generate new patients for you. If you need some help in developing the SEO strategy that is right for your practice then get in touch with us today and discuss your options.