Are you a psychologist looking for ways to increase your clientele? Prospective clients today have now increasingly utilized the Internet to look for psychologists. They search on Google and phone the first couple of psychologists that pops out of the list. With this in mind, you must work on making yourself visible on search pages through SEO.
The Importance Of SEO In A Psychologist’s Service-Driven Business
Local SEO is a sound investment for any psychologist wishing to ramp up their clients’ list. Let’s explore good reasons for this:
SEO Helps Lessen Advertising Expenses.
Running a business website does have its fair share of costs. But it’s significantly lower than the advertisement costs in the long run. SEO techniques applied to your site will help it rise to Internet visibility, which will drive a steady stream of traffic that you can convert to actual clients. This will eventually will serve as an alternative yet cost-effective advertising outlet.
SEO Can Deliver Fast Results For Your Business.
You are at an advantage if you use SEO for your business website now. It’s because not a lot of psychologists currently utilize SEO on their sites. You can create a geographically targeted campaign that will face less competition with your peers. Hence, your SEO campaign has a tremendous potential to be visible on Google Search’s first pages in as little as a month.
The 5-Step SEO Guide For Psychologists
Now that you’ve seen SEO’s good impact on your profession, follow these steps to harness the power of SEO for your business website:
- Create a keyword list.
Keywords are phrases or words that help people locate your site in search engines. Your keyword must reflect the services your business is offering.
Keywords are divided into two categories:
- Buying Intent Keywords – These are words that prospective clients use to search for your business online actively. They have the active intention to use your services. Examples of buying intent keyword would be:
Psychologists to treat PTSD in New York
Counselors for children in Dallas
- Research Intent Keywords – These are used by prospects when they are not actively seeking your services. Prospects might simply be researching with the future intent to get treatment from you. Examples for this keyword category may include:
- Enhance your pages with keywords.
You can optimize your pages with subtly-inserted keywords to instantly boost traffic to your site. There are two places where you can do this – Google My Business and your website.
- Google My Business
Google My Business is a tool integrated with Google Maps so that visitors can see an overview of your practice and services as they look for the location of your business. A bonus: Pages enhanced with Google My Business do rank higher in Google searches.
Utilize this tool by filling up its elements correctly:
- Business Verification – Claim your business page and submit your site to Google’s verification process.
- Name, Address, Phone Number – Otherwise known as NAP, these elements are crucial to let Google and your prospects learn about your business.
- Description – Create a 100 to 200-word summary of who you are and what services you can give. End with a call to action. Naturally, insert relevant keywords inside your description.
- Categories – Add 3-5 categories to describe your services. You may add “Counselor” and “Psychologist” and narrow down to your scope of practice.
- Office Hours – List down your operating hours. Create a separate list apart from the usual office hours if you offer emergency services.
- Images – Add clear photos of yourself, your facilities, and your staff. Change the generic Google logo to your logo.
- Enhancing your Website
Your website’s homepage and service pages must be fully optimized with keywords to make it visible to search engines and prospects. Here are a few tips on how to optimize your site:
- Pick a primary keyword from your list, preferably from the buying intent keywords. You’ll be naturally inserting them throughout the elements of your homepage and service pages.
- Utilize title tags on your homepage. Use 50-65 characters in describing your practice. An excellent format to try is indicating your profession, location, and business name.
- Meta-descriptions are short summaries of your professional services. It’s typically 100-150 characters long. Briefly introduce your practice and end with an engaging call to action, utilizing relevant keywords as naturally as possible.
- Create a page copy that concisely describes your business. Make it 500-1,000 words long. Detail your practice and core services offered, and top it off with another call to action. Again, use your keywords naturally and don’t try to force them in if they won’t fit.
- Service pages are for you to present each of your core services. Apply the same tips listed above and use relevant keywords related to your particular core service for each page.
- Add Links and Citations
Links and citations in your site help widen your online scope. They make your site more credible in the eyes of prospects and search engines.
- For links, reach out to established colleagues in professions that complement yours in your area. Ask them to trade links with you. For example, you can link to a reputable school counselor in your place. Subtly adding links to relevant credible and authoritative sites is also a must.
- Citations are listings of your business name, address, and contact number online. You can create one from your social media pages, local Chamber of Commerce site, mental health service directories, and yellowpages.com.
- Add Reviews to your site and Google My Business
Prospects often check the reviews of a new business before deciding if it is worth it to use their services. Hence, you may ask your existing clients to leave reviews on your Google My Business page and directly on your website. Send them an email to ask for their reviews, adding the direct links to both sites for their convenience.
- Monitor your SEO Campaign Results
Analyze the results of your SEO efforts to track which parts of your campaign are working and which of them need improvement. Follow these easy tips for tracking your campaign performance:
- Track your website visitors with Google Analytics. This tool generates monthly reports on traffic-related metrics, such as the following:
- The overall number of page visitors
- Traffic for each of your pages
- Which portion of that traffic came from using Google Search
- Conversion is a targeted behavior that your prospects must be performing after going through your site. This metric is important because it leads to prospects becoming your actual clients. You can monitor your conversions in Google Analytics as well.
- Have your webmaster install Google Search Console in your website. It’s a free tool that can show you your search engine rankings. Check in with your rankings once a month.
- Consider switching to paid rank monitoring tools if you seriously want to check both your Google My Business and your business website page.
Wrapping It Up
Using simple yet effective SEO techniques will help ramp up your business as a professional psychologist. Five steps that will help you do this include:
- Pick relevant keywords.
- Optimize your web pages.
- Add citations and links.
- Ask for business reviews.
- Track your SEO campaign performance.
Get started on SEO today and see more clients coming into you as a professional psychologist now.