What in the World Is SEO, and Why Does It Matter for my Private Practice?
You’ve started a business. Registered with the state, have your LLC, and tax identification number. You secured an office (or not, if you're a virtual practice). You are set up with your documentation, billing, and scheduling software. Heck, you even started creating a website.
It’s time to start getting clients. Where do you even begin?
Word of mouth
Referrals
Psychology Today profile
Doctors' offices
Insurance panels
Other marketing strategies
There are many options for client acquisition and many different opinions on which method is the best.
Here’s my take.
In today’s world, everything is online. You may understand that your business needs an online presence, but which platform is the best? Do you create an Instagram or TikTok? (BTW, not necessary, in my opinion). Should you be posting reels weekly to gain a social media following?
I believe that using your website as an organic means to drive traffic to your business and bring in new clients is one of the simplest and most effective tools. Create your website using a few key strategies, and let time do its work and see results. Seems simple enough, right?! Right. Here’s where SEO comes in.
Search engine optimization is the process of creating your online presence in a way that optimizes your chances that search engines, like Google, will crawl, index, and rank your website.
Crawl, index, rank? Say Whaa?
Crawling refers to the process that search engines use to find new information on the internet. They use bots called spiders to follow links from webpage to webpage to index the sites they find. For example, if your website has a backlink to another website or another page on your website (like your blog), spiders will crawl through these links to determine the quality of your website.
Indexing refers to the process of storing the information found during the crawl on the search engine’s database. Remember those little Rolodex indexes that people used to have on their desks… the same concept just on a much larger scale. Indexing is arguably the most important aspect of this process. If your website is not indexed, it will not come up on Google.
Pro Tip: Search “site:yoururl” in Google to see if your pages come up. If they do not, chances are your site is not indexed. Set up a Google Search Console account to get your pages indexed.
And finally, Ranking. Ranking is the process where Google lists out, in order, the best content for the keywords searched. As a consumer, you probably recognize the importance of being on one of the first few pages of a search. How likely will you keep sorting through the information on pages 10-15 of your Google search results? Not likely. That is because you understand, maybe not exactly how, but you know that Google has researched for you to determine the most relevant and helpful material related to your search.
Got it? OK. Now that you understand what SEO is, let’s take a quick dive into some things that make a difference in getting the SEO results that you want.
Disclaimer: No one really, really knows how Google works - These are my best suggestions based on my personal experience and research.
Quality of Content
Google ranks sites based on the usefulness and relevance of the content on the page. Google crawls and then ranks pages from most helpful to least useful. This is why good copywriting is KEY. Expert copywriting will include detailed research on the subject area, discuss key struggles that the reader is facing, and display, in an empathetic yet persuasive manner how your services and practice can facilitate growth and change. (Check out my post on why you should hire a mental health copywriter here)
Including helpful, relevant copywriting on ALL pages of your website ensures that:
Visitors will find what they are looking for when they come to your page.
Google will translate this usefulness into a higher search engine ranking.
Keywords
Google arranges its data into categories based on keywords. Good copywriting will include at least some basic keyword research. This search will yield results such as what are the most searched terms in a given subject, or how competitive is this search term (aka how hard will it be to rank on the first page). These results should guide the writing on your website. Targeting specific keywords and strategically placing them on your website will increase the chances of ranking for that search query.
Helpful Keyword Tools:
Keywords Everywhere: a free chrome plugin
Mobile Friendliness
According to my Google Analytics account, over 50% of my website visitors are from mobile devices. Google knows and understands that many (the majority) of people searching the web are on mobile devices. This is why having your website optimized for mobile use is critical. Most website platforms such as Squarespace and Wix have easy-to-use ways to adjust settings and design for mobile devices as well as computers and tablets.
If your website is not optimized for mobile, your chances of ranking on the first few pages of Google are pretty low. Google Search Console even has a section that will give you data on how usable each of your pages is on mobile devices.
Headings
Google uses the headings on your pages to determine the type of content on your website. Breaking down the content on your site into smaller sections makes it easier to read and navigate as a consumer.
H1: Heading 1
This should be the main title of your website (*make sure each page has one and only one H1)
H2: Heading 2
This should be the subtitle(s) of your website
H3, H4... and so on
These should be various categories in your website content
Google Docs header formats translate directly into most website platforms which are very useful for copying and pasting content into your website.
Alt-Text and Accessibility
Alt-text (alternative text) is the HTML code that tells visitors and search engines what the images on the webpage are. For each image on your website, there should be a place for you to insert alt-text to describe the image. This is important for back-end SEO and the accessibility of your website. Visitors who are visually impaired may use a speaking function on their device to access your page - using your main copy and alt-text.
Easy, right? That’s a lot to think about. So, here, I’ve highlighted a few of the important aspects of SEO. There are quite a few others to consider such as backlinks, URL slugs, title tags, and meta-descriptions.
Interested in learning more about SEO and how to optimize your website? Check out my services and schedule a consult. I offer SEO auditing and recommendations with each of my services.
XOXO,
Ashley
