If you are looking to grow the patient list for your physical therapy clinic then standard SEO is just not going to cut it. You are also going to need to look at what you can do for your local SEO in order to engage with local people. Let's look at the benefits of local SEO and how you can start taking advantage of them.
It is now fairly common knowledge that SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the act of working with your online material to improve your search engine rankings and thus drive more traffic to your website. However, in recent months SEO has been taken to a whole new level by putting a local slant on it! Local SEO is targeted at improving search engine rankings that specifically relate to the geographical location of the person looking for a service.
Local SEO is a great tool for businesses like your physiotherapy clinic which have a physical location. Working on your local SEO is going to make your clinic more relevant to people within a targeted area. The latest Google updates mean that whenever someone searches for a physical therapy clinic, the results that will be returned are based on their ip address and will show the physical therapy clinics in the area surrounding their current location.
There are a number of great benefits that your PT clinic is going to be able to take advantage by addressing Local SEO. These include the following :
You will come up against far less competition. Since local results will eliminate similar businesses in other parts of the country you will only be pitting your clinic against other clinics in close proximity.
When it comes to finding a physical therapist, people are only interested in local clinics. They do not want to waste time trawling through search results that include physical therapists from other states! Local SEO means that you will appear in results targeted to the right people – those who live in your catchment area.
Local SEO is also great for lead generation in your area. There could be lots of potential patients right in your neighbourhood who you could be targeting and working on your local SEO is going to help connect you with them and let them know that your PT clinic is there.
A growing number of people are searching for local service providers using their mobile phone and this is where local SEO really comes into its own. Location is a huge part of mobile searches which have the ability to connect consumers with local businesses effortlessly since they can just click the listings to call the business.
There are lots of different techniques that you can use to give your clinic's local SEO a much needed boost, some more effective than others. Here are X of the techniques you should start with.
Claim Your Google+ Page
When we talk about search engines, we may as well just say Google since it dominates the market and that means making sure you claim the Google+ page for your physical therapy clinic to ensure it is crawled by their robots for maximum visibility in local search results. You can complete your clinic's profile, gather reviews and interact socially all in one place. In order to verify your location, Google will mail something to your address allowing you to get your PT clinic put on the map in your local area.
Use Local Idioms in Your Content
A great way to prove to potential customers that you really are a local business, you might want to consider including some local dialect and idioms in the content that you produce. This will make it much more engaging for locals. You might also want to include nicknames for your city so that you can catch those searches as well. For example, a physical therapist in NYC might choose to include 'The Big Apple' in their keyword choices.
Research Local Keywords
Speaking of keywords, it is essential that you include your city or town in your keywords. Expand on your research to make sure that you know what locals are using when searching for PT clinics in your area.
Ensure You Have Consistent Citations
When it comes to local SEO, links are pretty much irrelevant, but citations are very important. Citations are references to your clinic's name, address and phone number and they lend credibility to your business. Make sure that you have up to date listings in local directories as well as national directories like Yelp and Yellow Pages.
Local SEO is becoming increasingly important for PT clinics looking to increase traffic. Find out more about some of the other ways that you can boost traffic for your PT website by getting in touch with us today.