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February 21, 2020 by

Medical Practice SEO, Online Marketing And Lead Generation

Case Study For Medical Practice Search Engine Optimization, YouTube Marketing, Pay Per Click, Facebook Ads, And Lead Generation

medical practice online marketing seo lead generation

This post will show the case study results of a multi-month campaign to help a medical practice (in this case a women’s health center in the Midwest United States) increase website traffic and phone calls.  The doctor wanted to target women, with a special emphasis on those seeking help with all things related to pregnancy.   This particular area of the country also faces a significant challenge with women in child-bearing ages who are currently using or struggling from the withdrawl symptoms of opioid and painkiller use before/during/after pregnancy.

The latter is important to know as it was part of the YouTube video ad campaign targeting.  The goals of course were to get more immediate phone calls; but the goals also were to improve search engine rankings and increase social awareness of the doctor’s multiple office locations within roughly 20-30 miles of each other.

 

SEO For The Medical Practice

Several services are performed at his center including OB/GYN services, mammograms, pregnancy care, and much more.  He also performs specialized women’s health surgical procedures.

The SEO efforts worked significantly well for the searches done in/for the towns where he had his various office locations.  Here are just some of the Google ranking results (“SERP’s”) for many of his desired keywords:

  • OB GYN CITY 1 (#1 in the Maps rankings and #3 in the organic results)
  • OB GYN CITY 2 (#1 in the Maps rankings and #3 in the organic results)
  • pregnancy care CITY 1 (#1 in the Maps rankings and #1 in the organic results)
  • pregnancy care CITY 2 (#2 in the Maps rankings and #2 in the organic results)
  • women’s health care CITY 1 (#1 in the Maps rankings and #1 in the organic results)
  • women’s health care CITY 2 (#1 in the Maps rankings and #1 in the organic results)

 

skeptical woman

If you are making decisions for a medical practice and seek guidance on how to gain exposure to your digital/online web properties which have your practice’s contact information (not just your website) then you likely want to know where situations were not as “rosy” or didn’t work out like expected.  That is a healthy (no pun intended!) way to approach any case study you encounter, like the one you see on this page.

So what went wrong?

There are 10 towns nearest to his 3 main office locations which have median household income (according to Census data) of $50,000 or more.  While his website mentioned those towns, he did not have unique pages set up for each of those desired towns – let alone those unique pages having unique content and optimized SEO tags specific to that town.  This hurt his SERP’s (especially in Google) for the same keywords mentioned above.

Here are the results for two of those nearby, higher-median-income towns:

  • OB GYN HIGH INCOME TOWN 1 (YouTube video ranks #4 and “Areas Served” page of website ranking #7 organic)
  • pregnancy care HIGH INCOME TOWN 1 (YouTube video ranks #2 and “Areas Served” page of website ranking #4 organic
  • women’s health care HIGH INCOME TOWN 1 (#1 in the Maps rankings and #1 in the organic results)
  • OB GYN HIGH INCOME TOWN 2 (no rankings anywhere on page 1 of SERP’s)
  • pregnancy care HIGH INCOME TOWN 2 (website’s “Areas Served” page ranking #10 in organic results – bottom of page 1)
  • women’s health care HIGH INCOME TOWN 2 (no rankings anywhere on page 1 of SERP’s)

 

TAKEAWAYS FOR SEO FOR THIS MEDICAL PRACTICE

There were several things which could have been done better to help him rank in the organic rankings in the SERP’s for the nearby towns.  These include, but are not limited to:

  • Build out high-income town-specific pages, each with unique content on them specific to that town.  Then optimize those new pages for relevant keywords and the town name
  • Create more video content, optimized specifically for that town, and embed it on the new town-specific page
  • Geo-tag stock photos (or photos he provided of his practice locations) and upload them onto the new specific town page
  • Double check with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for any errors or other issues preventing these new pages from getting indexed and crawled
  • Create custom Google My Maps with driving directions from the specific high-income town to nearby landmarks, including driving directions to his office locations and more
  • Get testimonials from patients in the specific town and embed on the new town-specific page
  • Possible schema markup for that particular town’s new page
  • Alt text with the specific town for any image embedded on that page
  • List of services for patients in that specific town such as pregnancy support groups, etc.

 

Had the above been done then he likely would have seen an increase in relevant website traffic from the towns he wanted.  Even if the town specific pages had a lower conversion rate than the rest of his website (hopefully not, but just staying conservative for this example) then he still would have noticed an increase in phone calls from the higher-income towns.  This is because the volume of relevant traffic visiting his website and/or videos (or medical/doctor directory listings) which would be ranking well would be so significant that even a lower-percentage conversion rate (calls or emails) would have generated new patient appointments.

We also could have added more outbound links on his new town pages which would have linked to his directory pages on Healthgrades.com, Zocdoc and other places with favorable reviews.

 

Google My Business (Maps) Results For This Medical Practice

This was very favorable for the 5+ mile radius around each of his office locations.  The statistics and metrics given to us for the Google My Business listings (sometimes mistakenly referred to as Maps results/analytics) for his three main office locations showed several favorable benefits over a 3-month period:

  • Nearly 900 phone calls coming to his two main phone numbers which he used (the same two phone numbers applied to each office location as he had a centralized phone service).  It is unknown how many spam/telemarketer calls came in, but even if it was 2/3 of the time (being vastly exaggerated for this example) this would mean he still received 300 phone calls (1/3 of the 900) from possibly legitimate patients.  Of course some would be for current and previous patients, but he still saw an increase in new patients as a result of his favorable Maps/My Business results in the “Snack Pack” (3-pack) of maps results showing for the local Google searches.
  • We didn’t see as dramatic a pickup in calls from Bing, but there was a steady flow of calls each month coming from Bing
  • We didn’t see many click-to-call metrics coming from Yelp, but this was because we didn’t emphasize Yelp that much during this project
  • He saw several hundred “clicks to website” (as defined inside the Google My Business analytics/metrics reporting) and several hundred clicks to get directions to his various office locations.
  • He received some reviews on his Google My Business/Maps locations.  While he received several favorable reviews on Facebook, not as many went to Google to leave positive reviews.  This is an area where he can improve upon in future months

 

Additionally, his two main office locations (of his 3 in total) showed a dramatic increase in the generic searches where his listing appeared, versus just “branded” (practice name) or individual name (such as his name of “Dr. XYZ”) queries.  This means his various business listings, especially for the two main offices, started to gain significant increases in awareness for searches/queries being done within a 10 mile radius of each location for phrases like:

  • “ultrasound near me”
  • “pregnancy doctor CITY 1”
  • “nearby mammogram facility”
  • etc.

google my business maps lead generation seo online marketing

So why did this happen?  What was done right?

Several things were done to help him improve:

  • Double-checking for correct category, business address, hours of operation, etc.
  • Adding all of the services, surgery types, and other benefits of his practice
  • Including links to his listings on Healthgrades.com and other medical professional directories
  • Geo-tagging the images and then choosing the correct category after uploading into the GMB listing
  • Same for raw video files (uploading the raw files, not just the YouTube videos)
  • Sharing content on the updates as “micro” posts (like a mini-blog) and value-added content
  • Doing link building and social sharing of the micro-website (a business.site URL) which automatically comes with all verified GMB listings
  • Intra-linking the Google-provided properties with other Google assets
  • Other advanced GMB tactics

 

WHAT ELSE COULD HAVE BEEN DONE?

There were several additional things which could have been done to get him even more exposure, thus more prospective patients:

  • More geo-tagged photos and raw videos, especially for the advanced services and surgeries he offers
  • More quality citations, especially from local county-specific and medical-specific business directories which would permit the addition of his practice’s name, office address, phone number and website
  • Building out the high-income town-specific new pages and sharing them on the GMB updates
  • Taking the individual URL’s (links) for each post/update we made and sharing those links on high-authority web 2.0 properties like a Tumblr blog themed about women’s health.  This would have been even better had we claimed a previously-used high-SEO-authority Tumblr name for the blog and re-purposed it to be about women’s health!
  • Using even more of the GMB advanced tactics
  • More link building to the micro-website
  • More Google business reviews with the names of the towns and/or services provided in the text from the individual reviewers

 

YouTube SEO, Advertising And Other Marketing For Medical Practices

This was as close to a “home run” as we could get for the practice, especially for the limited budget we had regarding YouTube.  Like many doctors, he spent way too much on the videographer services (worrying about lighting and the staff worrying about makeup and wardrobe issues) rather than the big concern which was syndication and exposure to his video content. 

Earlier in this post you read that his YouTube videos ranked well in Google organic results (not just YouTube results) for desired local keywords.  The videos which ranked were just 30 second slide show videos with some stock music and just using stock photos and his logo!  While we tried to help him see the bigger picture, vanity and ego played a role here.  He only provided less than $100 for YouTube ads, but we maximized the exposure for what we were allocated; and had he spent less on videographer concerns – and more on getting his video content seen by the right audiences (e.g. women ages 18-24 looking up other pregnancy-related videos in YouTube within 10 miles of each office location) then his phone likely would have been ringing even more!

medical doctor youtube marketing seo ads paid views online video

 

Nonetheless, here are the results from the YouTube marketing he did:

  • Ranked #1 or #2 organic (in YouTube searches) for almost all of his desired keywords for the towns where he has office locations
  • Ranked #1 or #2 organic (in YouTube searches) for over 50% of his desired keywords for the 10 higher-income towns he wanted which were not the towns in which he has office locations
  • Has generated nearly 2500 views on his channel across all of his videos (slide show videos, him speaking on video, his staff speaking on video, and testimonial videos).  Virtually all views came from the counties where he wanted to attract new patients
  • The 2500 views does not even factor in the views of the raw video files in his Google My Business/Maps listings, nor does it factor in views of his videos when uploaded as raw video files on the Facebook pages for each of his office locations.  The number of “views” factoring those would be over another 1500 views.  The 2500 views is just restricted to views in YouTube either organically, as a paid ad/view in YouTube (targeting women 18-35 in his desired counties), and when the video ranked well in main Google searches.

 

WHAT ELSE COULD HAVE BEEN DONE?

The big thing on which he “missed the boat” regarding YouTube is that he never did a thorough video of any kind (him speaking, animation character speaking, slide show video, etc.) talking about the very difficult topic of women dealing with opioid and painkiller problems before, during or right after pregnancy.  The reason why from a marketing standpoint (besides the desire to help these women and innocent babies who would be dealing with all forms of their mothers’ opioid problems) this was a missed opportunity was:

  • We could track that women ages 18-24 in his 4-5 desired counties were watching other YouTube videos on the topic of opioids & pregnancy
  • Many of those videos were on channels which permitted ads to run (typically a video ad before the main video started)
  • Those ad spot opportunities were very inexpensive, sometimes as low as 2-3 cents per “view” (where a “view”, in YouTube ad’s definition, is 25+ seconds of watch time when running as an ad)

 

This means that if he gave us just another $100 to spend, plus just one video speaking directly on the topics of maternity and opioid challenges, then the doctor may have been able to:

  • Get upward of 3000 views (25+ seconds or more of watch time per “view”) from women ages 18-24 in his desired geographic areas.  This would be calculated with a “view” costing him 3 cents, then he would have spent $1 to get 33 “views”.  A $100 ad spend then could have generated 3000+ “views”, possibly more.
  • We could have targeted specific keywords, entire YouTube channels, or even just specific videos which permitted ads to run in front of them like this one:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbeVhMye9NQ

His video also could have been added to a new YouTube playlist on the topic, with his video at the #1 spot (plus a description including a link to his website and phone number), and several videos from authoritative news and medical YouTube channels confirming the issues regarding opioids and pregnant women.

That new multi-video playlist (with his video appearing first) then could have been:

  • Embedded on his website pages
  • Shared on the Google My Business updates/posts section
  • Shared on his Facebook pages
  • Received low-cost paid traffic via Google Display Network ads (an advanced technique here)
  • Included inside a press release about the topic
  • Sent to relevant prospective patients via email
  • Several other ways to show that his words in an opioid-specific video were then being backed up by authoritative other videos (like the PBS News Hour link mentioned earlier)

 

Nonetheless, his YouTube efforts produced solid results and still are ranking well to this day. 

ONE EXTRA BENEFIT TO YOUTUBE ADS

Unlike most other forms of online digital paid advertising, YouTube ads have an unexpected benefit!  That is if you have the videos properly optimized before running them as paid ads in YouTube, then once the ad spend stops… you still may gain long-term benefit.

What does this mean?

In essence, the “views” (25+ seconds or more of watch time when running as an ad in YouTube) coming from the desired geographic area — which match the keywords for which you are optimizing the video — basically help your video(s) rank better in YouTube and, ultimately, Google for desired keywords.  That is why his videos rank well in Google to this day for one of his nearby high-income town keywords.  The paid ads in YouTube came from that town to his slide show video and, once the paid ads/views stopped, the video had gained enough “watch time” and authority to be deemed “authoritative” enough by Google to still rank well for those relevant town-specific keywords.

This is one of the reasons why we fought hard to focus on YouTube ads as much as (if not more than) Facebook ads.  If the “homework” is done properly up front, then the amount spent on ads (views) could be less than Facebook ads… and you might get the long-term SEO rankings as an extra benefit!

 

Facebook Marketing And Ads

His Facebook marketing did okay, but his staff didn’t answer patient inquiries sent through Facebook either at all, or they were very slow to respond.  This hurt his Facebook efforts to gain a ton of new phone calls as women in his area’s younger demographic (18-24) just seem to refuse to pick up the phone and make a phone call to book an appointment.  Most chose to email or send a Facebook message.

Nonetheless, by sharing his videos and some helpful “social” content (like articles about what to do if you believe you are pregnant) and some Facebook ads, we were able to generate about 20-25 phone calls and inquiry appointments for him.

This wasn’t necessarily all that great, considering what could have been the case, but there was no active campaign to have his current and previous patients follow him on Facebook.  That would have been the “seed” to grow the universe to whom he then could share content, with the intent of some of those first-phase followers sharing his “value added” content with their friends and followers.  There were many missed opportunities, but at least the efforts generated new patients nonetheless.

 

 

Instagram, Yelp, Twitter, Tumblr And Nextdoor

instagram medical doctor marketing online lead generation social media

None of these were implemented due to time and budget limitations.  Still, each could have influenced many new prospective patients to call him for appointments as his practice offers a wide range of women’s health services for women of all ages.

Advanced software now can take the Instagram and Twitter and Tumblr platforms to new levels and each can benefit any medical practice across the country in customized ways.  Yes, these social and review platforms even can have search engine optimization (SEO) benefits despite their not being typically associated with SEO or SEM.

In this doctor’s case, Instagram would have been terrific as so many women between the ages of 18-24 use Instagram in his desired geographic areas.  Unfortunately, it is difficult for a third-party marketing service to “handle his Instagram” due to his state’s licensing agencies being stringent on content that is shared on social media.  The content would have had to have been managed primarily by someone on his staff, and there was no willingness to do so by someone with a marketing mindset in his offices.

To clarify, the “marketing mindset” refers to someone who understands that (while staying compliant with state laws and overall levels of appropriateness for the audience) the goal is to grow the practice’s patient numbers.  This would require the intelligent blending of any/all of the following:

  • Choosing the right hashtags to use for Instagram posts.  For example, at the time of this post (February 2020), the Instagram hashtag of #pregnancyannouncement has been used over 570,000 times (https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/pregnancyannouncement/).  Missing the boat on this hashtag and high-volume related hashtags (like #mothertobe and #amipregnant) could lose him valuable new patients from his area.  This wouldn’t even factor in using local hashtags!
  • Incentivizing previous patients to share/like the doctor’s Instagram posts.  This does not mean a monetary incentive, but more of a sense of community and feeling welcomed by the doctor and his staff
  • Choosing appropriate photos showing the overall good feeling his patients get when they arrive at his offices
  • Posts helping with the emotions women feel when they experience any wide number of challenges related to unfortunate health news
  • Attracting to the Instagram page the boyfriends, fiances and husbands in the geographic area to help them better understand women’s health so that they enhance their relationships and trust the doctor (and his team) to protect the health of the women they love
  • When (and when not!) to comment on a patient’s Instagram post, and what to post on behalf of the practice – both from a sense of being appropriate as well as state licensing/compliance agency requirements
  • Much more

 

RECAP

Thank you for reading this far regarding the case study.  There were some solid “wins”, some “losses” and a few missed opportunities.  This website name of “More Than SEO” was chosen for a reason, as you can see that much is required in today’s online marketing environment to grow a local business – especially a medical practice dealing with the high emotions and costs associated with one’s health.

In all, for the time expended and the ad budget given, we are happy with the results but know that so much more could have been achieved.  Either way, you now have a case study showing that medical practice online marketing and SEO is much more than just choosing the color and design of your practice’s website, throwing on the site a few images, and running a few Facebook ads!

We hope that you have a better understanding of your own business model now in order to grow your practice. 

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:  TRUST

trust hands

 

The biggest takeaway we want you to have is that marketing “trust” is now fragmented, even within the very same person you are trying to reach!

For example, if your practice was trying to reach women ages 18-24 in suburban America with a median household income of $50,000 or more then that woman has “fragmented” trust from a marketing perspective.  By this we mean she likely:

  • Doesn’t pick up the phone and call local businesses very often.  She will be more comfortable initiating contact via Facebook or Instagram or email.  Having her fill in complex contact forms on websites (while easier for you to manage) may not necessarily be in her best interest.
  • Spends time with friends online via Snapchat and/or Instagram
  • Won’t respond much (if at all) to local print advertising (e.g. local newspapers, flyers, and local print publications)
  • Might be on Facebook, but may not respond to ads
  • Will be watching videos of interest to her on YouTube
  • Will be making lots of “near me” queries in Google, perhaps via voice searches (e.g. “OB GYN near me” or similar searches)
  • May make home-related decisions on Houzz.com
  • May consult boards on Pinterest for several ideas, especially anything inclined toward static images
  • Will consult national websites for articles like those on Huffington Post or others
  • Uses apps like Poshmark and other apps to make decisions to buy/sell items locally
  • Will rely heavily on local reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc. before making a business decision or a decision regarding her health
  • Will check the reviews not just of the practice but also the social media of the doctor himself/herself.  That is why doctors now have to be more disciplined in their personal lives than ever before
  • May not listen to any local news on the radio
  • Likely doesn’t know or care about your local chamber of commerce
  • Etc.

In previous decades local “trust” was restricted to word-of-mouth referrals, local newspapers, radio, community publications, chamber of commerce, phone book ads, local TV stations, and a few other “trusted” sources.  The internet and social media and apps blew the door wide open so there now are many changes in how someone making decisions for a medical practice (typically in/above the age of 40) differs from someone a generation younger (18-24). 

The big thing is to “get out of your own head” and how you make decisions; and, instead, get “inside the head” of the people you want to become new patients.  Learn how they think, what they trust, and how they make decisions online.  If you do that, stay humble with your marketing, and offer great service (thus generating a consistent flow of favorable patient reviews!), you should see an increase in your business in the coming months.

If you would like help for your medical practice or other medical-related business (ranging anywhere from compounding pharmacies to revenue cycle management to medical equipment) then contact us here:

CONTACT

 

 

 

Filed Under: internet marketing, lead generation, local marketing, medical, online marketing, pay per click, SEO, small towns Tagged With: , , ,
April 13, 2015 by

Repost – Local SEO And Lessons From The Stock Trading World

Greg used to run Search Simplicity, a website dedicated to SEO and other online marketing topics.  This is a repost from a guest post he added to his site back in the early Fall of 2014.

 

Stock Trading Lessons Applied To Local SEO Search Phrases

The author’s views below are entirely his or her own and do not reflect the views of Search Simplicity

Can Stock Trading be Applied To Local SEO?

In the world of trading financial instruments, such as stocks, many market participants like to time their entries and exits using charts.

A common phrase used to describe the advanced study of using charts in the financial markets is called “technical analysis“.

The big question is, “What does that have to do with local search engine optimization?!?”

Great question!

With the underlying assumption (presupposition) that most local businesses don’t care much about “branding”, and instead just care only about new leads/prospects/phone calls/walk-ins and e-mails, a basic principle from stock trading technical analysis can help you get those new leads and phone calls rather quickly from the search engines.

This principle goes to the core of what SEO was founded upon:  keyword phrases.

 

In stock trading technical analysis, there is a principle called “Multiple Time Frame Analysis“.

Multiple Time Frame Analysis means nothing more than looking at a particular stock symbol or index (like the S&P 500) on charts, representing different time frames.

Doing so allows the market participant an opportunity to develop at least one (or more) competitive edge, in order to profit.  The typical “time frames” for any stock or index are as follows:

  1. Yearly charts – where every bar (or “candle” on some stock charts) represents the high/low/open/close price for an entire calendar year
  2. Monthly charts – where each bar/candle represents one month’s data of the four price points (high/low/open/close)
  3. Weekly charts
  4. Daily charts
  5. Intra-day charts (these could vary from 1 minute charts to hourly charts)

You are welcome to look at some of the various stock trading websites and stock charting software packages to get more familiar with these types of chart representations.

Remember that you are looking at the same stock (or index) at the same point in time, just represented in different time frames; and each may give you reason to buy, sell, initiate a “short” position (attempting to make money when a stock drops in value), or be “flat” (not have any position).

The lessons from the principle of multiple time frame analysis can be applied by anyone into Search Engine Optimization (SEO), including local SEO.

Please Note:
For the remaining of this article, let’s use the example of a competitive market, something similar to; Real Estate Broker in Lexington Kentucky (a major city) – (called “CITY” for the rest of the article) or very large suburb.

We can determine if, nationally, there is demand in the search engines for specific phrases related to any particular industry.

We then can assume that a certain %percentage% of people in the local metropolitan market will use the same keyword phrases to look for similar phrases, but at the local level.

Here is how the stock trading time frame charts principle could be applied in a similar manner:

1) YEARLY CHART = the major keyword which would be “Realtor CITY“.

All participants (the Realtors themselves and the clients they help find new homes, plus independent lead-generation companies) are aiming for this keyword.

It’s going to be highly competitive and, even if you reach the first page in (Google) the organic search results, you could possibly drop very quickly, depending on how solid your rankings are and well they’ve been optimized.

Nonetheless, by ranking on page number one, you’ll likely be generating LOTS of highly targeted leads, in a relatively short time frame.

Assuming that the Real Estate Broker has decent search engine visibility, a professional attitude, and does a great job in customer service then he/she may expect a certain percentage of the new customers to become repeat customers.

Follow-up methods such as email marketing, social media marketing, or other methods to keep the Real Estate Brokers name on the minds of (clients) home buyers, could generate repeat business or even a snowball of consistent, referral business.

This is just one very small perk of being in the top spots of Google!

2)  MONTHLY CHART = a modification of the word “Real Estate Broker“.

This could be “24 hour Real Estate Broker CITY”, “local Real Estate Agent CITY”, “licensed Real Estate Agent CITY” or any other similarly targeted search phrase , which has lots of demand (according to the Google Keyword Tool/Planner or other search engine keyword demand estimator).

You won’t have as much demand for this keyword at the local level, but the conversion rate (if you rank near the top) is very high.

Most people wouldn’t type in “24 hour Real Estate Broker CITY” or “licensed Real Estate Broker CITY” unless they have a specific reason for doing so.

The odds of the Realtors website (or other web property like YouTube video, Facebook page, Google Plus page, Yelp listing, etc.) generating conversions, are pretty good here.

Going after business-to-business (B2B) phrases works here as well such as “Real Estate Agent CITY”.

 

 

3)  WEEKLY CHART = a sub-niche of the industry which has lots of demand nationally.

For example lots of people go to the search engines to type in phrases related to certain aspects of Real Estate, like “home buyers”, “luxury homes” or “houses for sale”.

While there LIKELY will be (not necessarily) less demand for “buy cheap house CITY” than “Realtor CITY”, the person searching likely will convert into a phone call or e-mail.

It is then up to the person answering the call or e-mail to make the prospective customer feel enough reassurance and confidence to use the Real Estate company.

Please Note:
The niche (industry) you’re involved in doesn’t matter.

4)  DAILY CHART = low-demand, high-margin aspects of the industry.  In the plumbing industry, certain plumbers are licensed and experienced with high-margin needs such as foundation plumbing testing or backflow prevention.

There likely won’t be much demand for “foundation plumbing test CITY”, but the competition against that keyword likely won’t be very high.

The margins on what that phone call could generate a pretty impressive (!), so it might be worth doing some basic Local SEO for keyword phrases like these.

Make sense?

5)  INTRA-DAY CHART = esoteric aspects where there is some demand and/or modifying a keyword with a brand name.  For example, in the plumbing world some customers want a plumber who specializes in a particular brand of water heater.

They actually may type in “BRAND water heater repair CITY” or a similar phrase.

There isn’t much demand for these phrases, but they do have high “buyer intent”.

For the “Daily Chart” and “Intra-day Chart” type of keywords, you likely won’t need too many inbound, high-authority/quality links to get respectable rankings.

In these cases, make sure that the words are visible to the search engines (e.g. readable text and not just words in an image file) and take care of your basic on-page SEO efforts.

Place the new content on a new page or an existing page that can be accessed through the sitemap and navigation menu, or at least through properly-structured internal page linking.

Continue to earn quality links to your website’s home page and main inner pages, like Greg recommends.

You then will want a few social mentions of the page(s) with the new content such as the brand names and/or high-margin sub-niches.

Mix up Google Plus, a Facebook share, at least 1-2 Tweets for the URL and a few others like:  Pinterest, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Reddit (if appropriate for your industry), etc.

If the sub-niche is a new service (or product) being offered by your company then you may consider an online press release as it would be justified at that point.

For the “Weekly Chart” type of keywords, you will need some quality links.  If you have an official business address, citations always will be great to have as long as they are on high-authority web properties.

Some quality Web 2.0 properties, with unique content and relevant images and/or videos, should be a solid play.  You also can get links from a quality private blog network.

Yes, a REAL private blog network like Greg recommends… not one advertising itself for everyone in the world to join!

For the “Monthly Chart” and “Yearly Chart” major keywords, you will likely need a combination of really good on-page SEO optimization, high quality local citations, high quality links, a strong social media presence and social sharing signals, mentions on local websites (e.g. the local chamber of commerce directory and the BBB) and some properly-constructed tiered link building.  Greg’s suggestions for tiered linking in 2014 (and into 2015) should be sound for you to pursue.

When it comes to these high-competition phrases, you can consider it a “win” if one of your other web properties ranks as long as it has a link to your website and your phone number.

For example, if one of your YouTube videos or your Yelp page ranks # 1 for “plumber CITY” then consider it a win even if it is not your own website ranking.  Use some of the profits generated from the new customers to purchase more authority links and create some terrific unique content.

You also could purchase relevant websites or expired domains that have a clean backlink history AND search engine authority (Moz Domain Authority, Majestic Trust Flow, AHREFS Domain Rank, etc.).

Then convert those into value-added websites/blogs with links pointing back to your website, YouTube videos, Facebook page, chamber of commerce directory listings, etc.

Be sure to mix up the link text (called “anchor text”) using each grammatical version of the keyword no more than once or twice.  Also include lots quality links that have as the text:

  • your business name
  • relevant brand names (e.g. BRAND water heater repair CITY)
  • generic text (e.g. “click here” or “visit this page”)
  • URL (e.g. “http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com”)

Please note that you are NOT subject to a fixed number of five different types of keywords like the stock chart time frames (i.e. yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, intraday).

The big picture is to understand the core principle.  All it means is that you are not mandated to go after only 1-2 major keywords.

Since a local SEO effort is designed, first and foremost to keep the company’s phone ringing each month, be sure to get inside the mind of the customer.

Use the multiple time frame/stock chart principle as a shortcut to help make the phone ring by addressing the main reason someone looks up a local business category in the search engines in the first place:  the prospective customer has a problem and is looking for a business to provide a solution.

Keeping that in mind, take some time to understand (and quantify if possible!) the types of problems that encourage someone to go the search engines in the first place.

By addressing those problems/solutions on your website and other web properties, AND by “playing nice” with the search engines by not over-optimizing or spamming your website, you will be one of the few companies in your metropolitan area to take legitimate steps toward letting the search engines help make your phone ring with new customers or clients.

If you would like more information on this topic then you are welcome to contact me with your questions.

The “multiple time frame” core principle will be the same, but the actual process may vary depending on the type of new local customer or client you are seeking.

Filed Under: keyword research, lead generation, local marketing, Page One, search engine marketing, SEO, small towns
January 11, 2015 by

Making The Phone Ring Part 1 – Local SEO

phone

If you are a local business owner then you know that the bigger picture is that all online marketing actions (SEO, social media, pay-per-click, etc.) should focus on a few things:

  • Getting new first time customers/clients
  • Enhancing profitability for the business
  • Expansion of awareness/exposure if your “brand” is an issue
    • Although this always is taught first, getting new clients and becoming profitable should be any business’ goal, especially if the business one day wishes to sell the business to another party

A local business often faces a series of challenges when it wishes to grow and expand.  One of the biggest challenges is to enter a new geographic where it has no physical presence, even though the business knows that it can fulfill customer demand for the desired product/service.

There are over 20 online methods which can be considered by any local business owner wishing to grow and expand into a new geographic area.  Not all are “search” related, and these methods MAY be beneficial to your business.

You are welcome to review them and then filter them to which are most appropriate by:

  • What your prospective clients would deem as acceptable and appropriate for your business category
  • Then filter further the methods by what best represents the image you want to convey for your business (or that of your client)

Over the upcoming series of posts, you will become familiar with the basics of the 20+ methods.
Today’s post will cover the first method:

Traditional Local SEO

Please note that some of these principles may refer to something called “Parasite SEO” or “Next Best SEO“.  That is where you rank another web property other than your main website for the desired keyword.  Such a “parasite” property could be:

  • One of your YouTube videos or your company’s YouTube channel
  • Your company’s LinkedIn business page
  • Your location’s listing on Yelp
  • Your local chamber of commerce directory page (if you have a page dedicated just to your business)
  • Your specific page on the local BBB site
  • Etc.

Traditional SEO And Its Core Principles

Even though this post is about reaching new geographic areas, a brief history on traditional SEO needs to be discussed.  If you do not understand these, then you risk being “left in the dark” and have significantly-lowered chances of ranking in the search engines for the towns in which you wish to expand.

You also risk spending WAY too much money by making basic mistakes!

Traditional search engine optimization is based on several principles.  Those principles drive the need to consider the strategy as a viable marketing option because it can help make the phone ring, get new walk-in customers, or get new e-mail subscribers/social media followers.

Those principles are:

  • Your website is ranking at/near the top of the organic (free) search engine results for keyword phrases (user queries) which have some sort of demand AND possible “buyer intent”
  • The fact that the search engines are ranking you at/near the top is a tacit “endorsement” that your business (or that of your client) should be deemed more trustworthy than other options
  • If someone took the time to enter such a query (keyword phrase) into the search engine AND clicked the link to some page on your website (home page or other page) then there is a PRESUMED increase in likelihood that the person may take further action and contact you, show up at your location, purchase something from your website or join some sort of list that you control

Do people today make buying decisions from online properties OTHER than the search engines?  Yes they do.  There can be business review sites, social media sites, classified ads and other properties which can generate new business; and to say otherwise would be wrong.

Does a number one organic (free) ranking, however, still help you increase the odds of increasing profitability?  Most certainly!  This is because you are providing what people are seeking (e.g. a solution to their problems).

Why It Is More Difficult To Achieve The Same Outcome (A # 1 Ranking) Than In Previous Years

Ranking your business’ website (or your client’s website) however is significantly more challenging than it was even just 3-4 years ago.  The actual hard costs to anyone doing the marketing likely are much higher than they were from the 2009-2011 era.

Many of the reasons for this cost increase stem from the various Google Panda/Penguin (and other) search engine algorithm updates.  Here are just a handful of reasons why the costs went up and the difficulty to earn a # 1 ranking became much more challenging:

  • For a third-party consultant/agency to help a client reach a number 1 ranking in the search engines back in 2009-2011, most of what was needed was acquiring a volume of links which had the optimized keywords in the actual text of the link (aka “anchor text”).  It didn’t matter where those links appeared so long as you had a volume of sites pointing directly to your website.  On-page optimization, for some time, appeared to have dropped in importance.
    The consultants/agencies didn’t have to spend too much “hands on” time on a client’s website.  All they had to do was invest in “bulk link building” software and cheap overseas virtual assistants to pump out high volumes of links.
  • Google made its change in 2012 with the beginning of the Panda/Penguin and other updates.  These required the SEO professional (company employee or consultant/agency) to begin to evaluate where to start acquiring links from authoritative websites.  This required more “finesse” than just bulk-volume link building.  As in most industries, with the need for finesse comes premium pricing.
  • Some of the Google updates then forced the SEO professional to also prevent the “too good to be true” scenario from happening.  Many companies had links which were almost “too perfect” and were properly-optimized everywhere.  Google updated its algorithm to “slap” (drop the rankings for) websites which didn’t have a “link profile” which was more natural-looking.  Hence, the need for “de-optimized” links became more important.  Again, more finesse was now required.
  • The same thing later happened with the on-page optimization.  If a company’s website pages were “too perfect” and had too much properly-optimized content then it didn’t look “natural”.  The SEO professional now had to invest more time on the actual website’s on-page SEO factors.
  • A website’s structure and usefulness also started to become important for the rankings.  Google started looking at how long a visitor stayed on a website, how many pages the average visitor visited on the website, how “mobile-friendly” the site was, does it have Schema/Rich Text markup, and basics like a sitemap and privacy policy visible somewhere on every page.  Again, this required more time and hands-on attention.
  • The SEO professionals who then built their own TRULY private blog networks also got “slapped” recently because some of the way they structured the sites that they used to help clients.  Many of these outside websites were structured in ways which left blatant “footprints”.  Once the search engine algorithm picked up on these footprints, it was able to negate any benefit that these privately-constructed sites were bringing to help a client’s website rankings.
  • Finally, Google is starting to evaluate the quality of the content on OTHER pages which link to your page, not just the text of the link (“anchor text”).  The need for quality articles, videos, images and other media – on authoritative websites – linking back to your desired web page has started to skyrocket.  Again, with the need for quality – instead of bulk volume – comes higher costs due to the need for finesse and more precision.

 

A Helpful Acronym To Remember When It Comes To Online Marketing

All of the above, and much more, force a quality SEO professional (in-house or third-party) to understand better how to make a company’s website meet three basic measurements.  The acronym you are welcome to use can be “A.R.T.”, “T.A.R.” or “R.A.T.”  Those three measurements, at a “birds eye view”, are:

  • Authoritative:  Is the website attempting to rank # 1 authoritative for that particular keyword phrase (query)?  If someone from Google manually reviewed the # 1 ranking (instead of the robot/algorithm doing the “reviewing”), would that person deem the current # 1 site to be authoritative on the subject?
  • Relevant:    Is the website attempting to rank # 1 offering relevant, timely (or “timeless”!!) information that truly can benefit the website visitor?
  • Trustworthy:  Is the site, overall, trustworthy?  Is it free from spam, mobile-friendly, have practices in place to protect visitor identity, have full disclosures, and other security/reassurance measures in place?

Why Does Google Need All Of This?

The reason why Google – and any other major company in the internet search/social media industry – need to have so many hurdles and filters now to earn a # 1 ranking?  The primary reason is that they are publicly traded companies (see here)!

They need to generate revenues AND beat quarterly analyst estimates just like any other publicly traded company.  They assume that the harder they make it for the average business to earn a # 1 organic (free) ranking, the more likely that business is to resort to spending money on the paid advertising platform (e.g. Google AdWords).

That is the primary way that the search engine makes its money.  Remember that making a search is free to you, so they have to monetize each page somehow!

Pay-per-click advertising is a very viable strategy, and it will be discussed in a future post for local businesses.  Companies, however, which were used to getting traffic from the search engines – but had search rankings drop – typically “stampede” into pay-per-click in an attempt to make their phones ring. With any new marketing strategy, however, they are going to make mistakes and likely overspend.

Guess who benefits at that point?  That’s right, the search engine or social media platform!
That makes reaching their quarterly earnings estimates a lot easier!

The search engine companies have to make institutional investors (mutual funds, hedge funds, etc.) want to invest in internet companies as an industry overall.  They also compete for dominance within the industry itself.  Each search engine company (and social media company) wants mutual funds to consider its company to be the leader (from an investment standpoint) within the internet company sector.

All of this means is that they need to gain institutional investor market share on two levels.  To do so, they need to make their OWN platforms the most “Authoritative, Relevant, and Trustworthy” that they can.  By doing so, each attempts to convince the average searcher to use their platform exclusively over all of the other options… and hopefully click those paid ads on each page!

“Thanks For The History Lesson…. But What Does That Have To Do With The Website I Want To Rank?”

Great question!

Even though all you care about is using the search engines to help you expand your business into a new geographic area, please consider re-reading the above history.  The reasons why I recommend this are:

  • By understanding what is really going on, you likely won’t be subject to someone selling you a “black box”
  • You may be able to reduce your costs to expand into the new area
  • You will know what to post on your website (or other web properties you control) in order to get someone from the new geographic area to take action
  • You MAY be able to expand and get results faster than you expect
  • You can use pay-per-click budgets more artfully and get better data to then use for longer-term  SEO strategies
  • There is less risk (no guarantees of course!) that your website will incur some sort of penalty from the search engines

If nothing else, you also may be able to refute easily the false promises of the multitude of SEO solicitation calls and e-mails you get each week!  Use the above history to shut them down.  Hopefully, you will be removed from the contact lists of the substandard online marketing companies just looking to trap you in some kind of unhelpful, long-term contract.

Expanding Your Geographic Reach

With all of this history, here are some simple ways to make it possible for your website to gain exposure in a new geographic market.  For this, you will want to achieve as much Authority/Relevance/Trust as possible regarding the new geographic area:

  • If appropriate, add a new page to your website specific to that new market.  Consider this to be a “landing page” and add lots of beneficial, unique and helpful content about the specific new area.
  • Should a page on a local authority website for that area (e.g. that town’s city government page, the convention and visitors bureau website, or school district website) provide confirmation about your service then have an “outbound” (external) link to that content on your new region-specific page.  This way the search engines see that you are linking to something relevant and authoritative in order to make your page helpful to any page visitor.
  • Since you want someone in that new market to do business with you, consider some sort of incentive (if you are legally permitted) to have them contact you.   If nothing else, make it easy to have that person contact you.
  • However you can, get links from authoritative sites in that new geographic area to link to your new page.  If you have to make a small donation to a charitable organization in that area, and have them link to your new page, then do so.  Otherwise contact a quality local SEO professional who knows how to get local links.
  • Make sure that the new page is in your website’s sitemap.  This makes it easier for any search engine to index/crawl the new page properly and quickly.
  • If appropriate, syndicate an online press release with a link to the new geographic-specific page.  Use a quality press release distribution service and attempt to have something truly “newsworthy” to share so that the press release readers derive actual value.  That “value” can vary, but make sure it is worth someone’s time to read the release!
  • Hire a good SEO professional to help you gain further trust online in the new geographic market.  The SEO professional does NOT have to be local, but it should be someone who understands the principles of gaining trust in any local market around the United States.

Wrapping This Up

Thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day to read this post.  I hope that you now understand a bigger picture of search engines, from the perspective of the search engine company.
Remember that by doing so, you likely can:

  • Make your website (or parasite page) more authoritative, trustworthy, and relevant in the search engines and get your phone ringing more
  • Cut your overall marketing and advertising costs because you will be much more precise with your budget
  • Have higher odds of longer-term rankings because every time something is published on your behalf it is quality and looks natural.  This likely would cut your costs because you wouldn’t need to “stampede” into pay-per-click advertising and make high-cost mistakes in the process
  • If the quality is good you even may have people voluntarily share it with their friends and colleagues.  This cuts your costs to acquire a new customer/client

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about how a deeper understanding of this big picture can help your business grow by, hopefully, making the phone ring with new customers or clients!

Filed Under: lead generation, local marketing, search engine marketing, SEO, small towns
August 20, 2013 by

Reaching The Entire DFW Market

Some business owners throughout the Dallas Fort Worth region truly can serve the entire DFW market and even additional markets.  Unlike smaller services which can serve a realistic radius of 5-10 miles (or an even smaller radius), these businesses have a different vision such as:

  • there is enough profit margin in the transaction to justify the time and expense to travel to a small town across the DFW Metroplex and conduct business
  • the business is so unique, or perceived to be so specialized, that prospective customers across the region want the product, service or other benefits associated with the particular business
  • the business can ship products and/or already has representatives near to the smaller towns in DFW

One question is which types of businesses can justify marketing to a wider radius than just the regular small 5-10 mile radius which is common with many local businesses?  Another question is how to reach the smaller towns without having to become a member of each local chamber of commerce or placing ads in every newspaper or print publication across the region?

Types Of Businesses Which Qualify

Here is just a short list of the types of businesses which can pursue larger-radius marketing at the DFW level or even state-wide:

  • Corporate relocation services
  • Specialty legal and financial services
  • Industrial products
  • Higher end home improvement services (e.g. interior design, remodeling, etc.)
  • Custom home builders
  • Surveyors
  • Higher end home repair services (sewer line installation, etc.)
  • Etc.

How To Reach All Of DFW And Beyond

The first thing you need to know is that there are over 200 towns and cities which comprise the DFW region.  This is not just Dallas, Collin, Denton or Tarrant Counties either.  The neighboring counties also are included as there can be highly-qualified prospects in the small towns throughout every DFW county.

To narrow down the options of how to reach these people, and do so in a budget-sensitive manner you have a few options:

  • TV ads — obviously you must be hyper-vigilant about your budget and any tracking you can generate here
  • Same with radio ads
  • Classified ads are a great way to get exposure.  Be sure to optimize your ads to include the towns and cities which you serve; and be sure to play nice by the terms of service and posting rules for the various online classified ads you intend to use
  • Direct mail targeting specific neighborhoods in specific zip codes.  A good mailing list broker, who can highly target your prospects across the region, would be a very wise investment here
  • Paid press release distribution can be beneficial, especially if you mention specific towns in your content
  • Pay Per Click (AdWords) is a smart way to start.  You can target each specific town, but you want to send the traffic to optimized (town-specific) landing pages on your website.  Also, be sure that there is some sort of benefit easily visible to the prospective customer and a “call to action” (e.g. “call today” or “download this coupon”)
    • Note that there are other pay-per-click services besides Google AdWords, Yahoo’s advertising, and Bing’s advertising services.  Please contact us for these alternative options where your competition may not be advertising
  • For business-to-business (B2B) advertising in the Dallas Fort Worth region you may consider targeted advertising within LinkedIn
  • You can do demographic-based targeted advertising, especially town by town, in Facebook.  Just note that:
    • depending on the devices your prospects use, you may not get complete exposure on Facebook to those using mobile devices
    • you likely will have a higher conversion rate if you send the traffic to a page you control within Facebook.  Most Facebook users don’t like to be led automatically off of Facebook at first, so consider sending the traffic to Facebook page you control regularly which has consistently-updated benefit-laden content (coupons, discounts, helpful tips, entertaining videos, etc.)
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  This is one of the trickier, but possibly soundest ways to get hyper-targeted prospects.  You can have created for you a multi-niche website (or a blog which resides alongside your website) which has town-specific optimized pages.  Ideally, the content on each of the 200+ towns is unique including article content, images, any embedded videos, etc.  Just so long as the combination of text/images/videos is unique you should be good, especially for phrases people type in which may have relatively low competition in the search engines.

The latter option (the blog/website with town-optimized pages) gives you additional benefit.  For example, here is a website which has town-optimized pages for varying business niches.  Here is one for a series of highly-related niches.  And here is a site with optimized pages for just one niche.

The benefits here are:

  • That you can control specific content for each town or city in which you want to market.  For example, if you want to give coupons in one town but not another you can do so
  • You have optimized pages to which you can send your pay per click (PPC) traffic such as traffic Google AdWords.  This increases the odds of gaining a higher “quality score” for your ads (assuming everything else is done right) and possibly saving money by reducing your per-click costs
  • The optimized page could rank well in the search engines for the times when the phrase is entered alongside the specific town (e.g. “your business Plano TX”)
  • You even go “deeper” than the specific towns.  For example, if you want to offer incentives to people in specific HOA’s or parts of a town then you can do so.

If you would help on any of these topics then you are welcome to contact us with your specific needs.  Thank you for your time and consideration to share this post.

Filed Under: AdWords, internet marketing, lead generation, local marketing, online marketing, pay per click, search engine marketing, SEO, small towns Tagged With: , , , , ,