In order to grow your business and find new customers, you must have a strong online presence. Without one, nobody can find you and you will soon get lost in the crowd.
For businesses such as therapists, customers need to know they have connected with the right one and so your website must be visible, easily accessible and content-rich. Your customers need to trust that they will be dealt with by a professional who cares about them, their needs and providing the best level of service they can. The only way they can confirm this is by having a great, positive online presence. They don’t want to spend hours scrolling through page after page of therapists, looking for you. You must be on the first page of any search engine result to stand out. The only way to achieve this is by making sure your search engine optimisation (SEO) is up to scratch.
Below are 5 tips you need for your SEO to improve your online visibility:
1. Do your research and use relevant keywords
Make sure you use all relevant buzz words relating to your business. Include every word you think relates to your work, no matter how generic you feel they are. Keywords are essential to building your online presence. Put yourself in the shoes of a customer: what would you use in a search engine to find your business? Type these words into a search engine and look at what pops up. How are they different to you and what have they done to get in the first few results?
There are a number of online tools that you can use to generate keywords relating to your business. Spend some time doing this to ensure you’ve got all the bases covered.
2. Optimise page content
Once you have your list of keywords (see above) you need to use them in your content. Review what’s written so far and see if you can add anything without overloading the content. Use a handful of keywords for future content to ensure that your online presence stays relevant.
There are three main components to optimise your content; headers, body copy and images. Make sure to use subheadings and caption your photos as well. They’re all great opportunities to use your keywords.
3. Optimise page titles
As with the content, page titles are key to being seen. You achieve this by using HTML rather than what your reader sees (you can edit HTML in your website control panel). If HTML scares you, again, research how to use it properly or speak to an expert to set it up for you. It will pay off – having put yourself in the shoes of a customer, you will have noticed that page titles are what you see first in a search engine result. Make sure they are clear, concise and explain exactly what the page is about to drive the right customer to your therapy business.
Use as many social media platforms as you can and provide a link to each and every one of them on your website. In this day and age, people use social media more than any other medium to seek out references and companies – use them all to your advantage. Post regularly and with interesting, relevant content, linking back to your website, making sure to keep it uniform across the platforms. Marketing is vital to your online visibility. Most of the time, search engines use social media for the top results, and you’ll want to be amongst it.
5. Build links
Where possible, link your website to other reputable companies and ask them to do the same in return. Sharing is a great way to get the word out about your business but be careful how you do it. Take time to research the best way to link with others – search for Google’s top tips and follow them closely. You don’t want to hurt your online presence by linking too much or with the wrong business.
Building links is a tough job but if done well, it can be a crucial part of your SEO plan.
