Create A Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Private Practice (in 4 Simple Steps)

Intro

Congratulations! You finally decided to go out on your own and start a private practice. You logged countless hours of hard work to get to this point, and you’re overjoyed at the thought of running your own business and making your own hours. 

Taking that leap is an awesome achievement, but it, of course, comes with many challenges. Perhaps the most significant one is how to find clients now that you’re on your own.

You might have a few referrals from your previous work, but you quickly realize that getting a steady stream of clients to pay the bills is not as easy as you thought. 

And you start to question whether starting a private practice was the right decision. You worry that you’re now helping fewer people--not more as you had hoped.

These are completely normal reactions to starting your own business. And the good news is that there is a solution. 

If digital marketing was an interesting option before, COVID-19 made it a necessity for all businesses. The simple truth is any business that wishes to succeed in 2022 must have a sound online presence.

In this post, I’ll share how you can get started on the road to success in the digital marketing landscape.

Step 1: Register on Google my Business

The first thing you should do, if you haven’t already, is set yourself up on Google My Business. Why? Because nearly half (46%) of all Google searches are local, meaning that people are searching for solutions in their local area.

And the first results they see are the ones registered with Google.  

Taking this simple step gives you a much higher chance of reaching potential clients. The setup process is quick and painless. You can find detailed instructions on how to set yourself up with Google here.

Step 2: Use Sound SEO Practices

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of getting your website to show up higher on Google search results (or any search engine).

Think for a second about a time you typed something into Google. Let’s say you’re a guy who lives in New York City in desperate need of a haircut (although we should note that mullets and other long hairstyles are making a serious resurgence lately…) But that’s besides the point.

You need a haircut. So you type into Google “best haircut in New York City.” I’m willing to bet that if you completed this search, you only looked at Page 1 of the results to find your next barber. 

And you’re not alone. 75% of Internet users never scroll past the first page of search results. So it’s critical that you and your business geton the first page of Google for your specific keywords.

How do you get there? Well the truth is that SEO is complicated and Google’s algorithms are constantly changing. So you can’t only have one strategy.

BUT there are many things you can do off the bat that experts agree improve your chances of ranking highly.

Here are 5 examples of best practices (don’t worry, we’ll go through each one):

• Use unique title tags for each page

• Write metadescriptions

• Include Header tags & Keyword Phrases

• Link internally

• Produce a lot of GREAT content

Here are a couple of components of a solid SEO strategy. Below, I’ll explain in more detail.

Okay, let’s dissect. 

First, unique title tags. This is one of the most important SEO factors. The title tags tell search engines what each page is about, and you should do your best to make the tag for each page unique. 

The best strategy here is to use the following formula for each page: “Primary Keyword--Secondary Keyword / Brand Name”.

For example, let’s say you were trying to show up higher on Google for the following: “Boston Mental Health Therapist.” We’d call this your keyword because this is what you want people to search for in order to find you. So you’d want to create a title tag with that phrase followed by your business/practice name. 

As a side note, if you’re a counselor who specializes further you might change your keyword strategy a bit. Let’s say your expertise is in anxiety.

In that case, you’d probably want your title tag to be something like “Boston Therapist For Anxiety.” The good news for those who specialize is that these keywords (called long-tail keywords) are less competitive. They’re more specific, so fewer businesses are competing for those spots on Page 1. 

Again, you want the title tag for each page to be unique and you should aim for no more than 55 characters per tag. 

SECOND, write meta descriptions. 

Meta? Metaverse? Nope, that’s a topic for another day.

Meta descriptions are the little blurbs of text that you see under each Google search result.

Go type something into Google and you’ll see what I’m talking about. 

Things to consider when writing metadescriptions for each page of your website:

• Include keywords that you want people to search for in Google to find you (ex: chiropractor in Los Angeles)

• Write intriguing descriptions so people will want to click and learn more

• Aim for 150-160 characters

THIRD, include header tags and keyword phrases.

Google automatically crawls your page in search of heading tags (H1, H2, H3, and H4). You can think of these as headlines for your website, and you should include keywords in as many as possible. 

To give you an example, let’s look at my company—O’Digital.

If I were trying to rank highly for keywords like “digital marketing,” “copywriting solutions,” and “health industry” I would probably include a heading on my website along the lines of:

“Here at O’Digital, I provide copywriting solutions for professionals in the health industry. I have lots of experience working with gym owners, therapists, counselors, chiropractors, and more!”

Come to think of it, I should do exactly that. I’ll be right back…

You want to figure out which keywords matter most to you and include them in your headings as much as possible. 

FOURTH, internal links.

Internal linking refers to the practice of linking to other pages on the same website. The goal here is to keep users engaged on your site for as long as possible by clicking through all the pages. 

This will tell Google that your site is informative and engaging since there’s a high “dwell rate” which really just means that visitors don’t take one look at your website and run away as if Freddy Kreuger entered the chat.

For example, you might have a home page welcoming people to your website. Somewhere in the middle of the page you could say something like: “Click here to learn more about our team” with a link to your “About” page. And so on. 

Get creative with this and have some fun. Think of your website page connections as one big maze where the goal is to never escape. Yes, your website should feel a lot like Neverland. 

And that brings us to our fifth example of good SEO practices: Produce a lot of great content.

This one is so important that it gets its own step. Onward.

Step 3: Produce a lot of great content

Earlier we discussed the fact that search engines change their algorithms all the time, making it impossible to know exactly what causes certain pages to rank higher than others. 

BUT, if you remember one thing from this post, please let it be the following: 

An ironclad rule of SEO is that search engines reward websites that create a great user experience AND produce a ton of high-value content 

There are a couple of important stats to back this up:

• 52% of buyers view 3-5 pieces of content before they even consider opting into a service

• Businesses with blogs get 67% more leads

• You have 8 seconds or less to capture a prospect’s attention

Let’s look at each stat in more detail.

The first one tells us that it’s hard to get potential clients to trust your business. The best way to earn trust is by producing a lot of high-value content. If you do that, they’ll start to know, like, and trust you enough to book a call, opt-in to a newsletter, or whatever you want them to do next.

And the truth is that while your private practice service is life-changing, failing to produce a ton of great content on your website will send potential clients to your competitors.

No matter how great you are at helping others. 

It’s not fair, I know, but you must play the game of digital marketing in order to really live out your mission and help as many people as possible. 

To the second stat, the most effective way to do this is by creating blog posts that address your clients’ pain points head-on and offer the start of a solution. 

The more you post and the more value you provide, the better. 

And the last point is that prospects’ attention spans are SO SHORT now. There’s simply too much content on the web. The best way around this is to make content easy to read. 

How? Let me explain:

• Use bullet points for skimming (like me here, WOO HOO!)

• Keep paragraphs shorts (3 sentences or less)

• Avoid technical/medical jargon

• Write at a 7th grade level to make for the easiest possible reading experience

Step 4: Establish a social media presence

You’re almost there with your digital marketing strategy. The fourth thing you’ll want to do is get yourself set up on social media channels like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and maybe even TikTok.

The reason? There’s a never-ending amount of content on the Web and the best way to compete is to produce a TON of high-value content across many different platforms.

There are countless stats to illustrate the importance of omnichannel (apparently that’s a word…) marketing, but I’ll show you just 3. 

• Marketers using three or more channels in any one campaign earned a 287% higher purchase rate than those using a single-channel campaign. (Omnisend, 2020)

• Purchase frequency is 250% higher on omnichannel vs. single channel and the average order value is 13% more per order on omnichannel vs. single channel. (Omnisend, 2020)

• Customer retention rates are 90% higher for omnichannel vs. single channel. (Omnisend, 2020)

The implications are clear. Choosing not to engage on social media means that you are effectively choosing to fail.

There are a dizzying and endless number of social channels to choose from. While omnichannel marketing is the future, I’d recommend mastering JUST ONE platform at the beginning.

I’d recommend starting with Instagram, and I’ve included below a few examples of the types of content you can create:

• Before & After photos

• Behind the scenes

• Testimonials

• Motivational Quotes

• Brand Story

• Interviews

• Open-Ended Questions

Producing this type of content on social channels helps you build a community with your followers.

This will help you a ton down the road when you ask them to opt-in your service.

They already know you and trust you because you provide a ton of value on your website and social channels, so they’re infinitely more likely to become a client/customer. Win-win!

Conclusion

Alrighty, that’s going to do it for us here today. Drop a comment below to say which SEO strategy you find most exciting. 

I also want to point out that we just scratched the surface here.

I know that digital marketing can be confusing and even intimidating.

 If you’d like to see how my team and I can help you, feel free to book a 20-minute consult here.

No commitment and no pressure. We’ll just see where you’re at and I’ll offer a few suggestions to start.

Ciao for now!