Creating a sustainable hearing health practice is not easy. More than relying on regular customers, you need a steady flow of new leads every month in order to be sure you can be successful. No practice would say no to more customers coming through their doors, and that’s exactly what is more likely to happen if your website ranks higher up in search results.
We can improve this with a strong Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. This is a method used to help your website rank higher in search engine results. However, most local hearing practices do not have a coherent SEO strategy, and it is affecting their ability to attract new customers. What might you want to do to improve your SEO practice?
Here are the key areas some practices do not account for, and what can be done to improve:
Not setting up your practice on Google My Business
Google My Business is something that local hearing practice owners should take very seriously. It’s free, easy to manage, and can have a big effect. Surprisingly, a lot of local business still haven’t set theirs up properly. Remember, it’s one of the first things people see about your practice, even before they have clicked on your website. If you don’t have an entry on Google My Business, you can’t rank locally.
Once you have one set up, you should encourage your customers to write a review.
They are an extremely important local search ranking factor in 2019 according to SEO experts. Plus, customers are more likely to want to visit your site if a lot of your customers can vouch for you. Don’t wait before people have visited your site before you offer them a testimonial!
You should also respond to reviews left for you on review sites like Yelp and Google Places. This improves your online presence and gives you the opportunity to respond directly to both positive and negative feedback, making you appear more aware of your customers’ needs.
Not researching the right keywords
Keywords help customers find what they are looking for. So, you must imagine yourself as one of your potential customers who has decided to do something about their hearing loss and think about what you would enter into a search engine to get what you need.
The important thing for your practice is to rank high locally. This involves using keywords a little more sophisticated than “hearing aids.” Remember, you are targeting local customers, so your keywords should be similarly customized. If your practice is in Seattle, Washington, then one of your keywords will be ‘hearing aids Seattle’. It sounds like a small change, but it’s amazing how much difference it will make to your local search rankings.
You should also consider ‘long-tail’ keywords. These are terms that are more specific and which fewer people use, but attract more of the right customer who is more likely to book a consultation with you. For example, a person who searches for ‘where to test hearing in Seattle’ is much more likely to want to book a consultation with you than someone who searches for ‘audiologist Seattle’.
Not optimizing your website’s content
When building content on your site, try to include quality content that uses your keywords naturally. But don’t stuff your keywords in every possible part of your site. Google’s search engine algorithm will see through it.
It’s important to optimize these parts of your site:
- Titles
- Meta descriptions
- Body content
Not optimizing your website for mobile devices
A recent study has further confirmed that mobile devices have overtaken laptops as the preferred mode for browsing the internet. 58% of site visits were from mobile devices in 2018.
Also consider that around 75% of all mobile searches that show the user searching locally led to the user getting into their car and visiting the store within 24 hours, according to a study from Acquisio.
These two sets of statistics show that it is therefore important to optimize your website to make it easy to consume on mobile devices, as this is the version of your website your potential customers are likely to be using. Customers are also more likely to visit you once they find your website on a mobile device.
Nick Fitzgerald is the President and Owner of AuDSEO. With 13 years of digital marketing experience, Nick is a highly data-driven marketer, with expertise in search engine optimization, digital analytics and forensics, social media, digital advertising, and web development. He has been involved in the construction and optimization of nearly 1,000 web presences, including some of the largest Fortune 500 companies.
