As a mental health practice owner, you want to gain more clients and expand your practice. And marketing your clinic can be one of the best ways to reach your target audience. But you have to be specific in your marketing strategy to find clients in your area.
Creating a marketing strategy that includes local SEO will help you gain brand awareness and connect you to the people looking for mental health care in their area. Although you can still use referrals and therapist directory listings, most people look for services online.
A great way to gain clients is to have SEO-optimized content by including keywords in your organic and paid content. Creating a cohesive plan can be difficult since there are many marketing tools and methods that you should be investing in.
But how do you implement a cohesive marketing strategy in multiple locations so you gain clients across all clinics? This can be difficult to keep up on, and you may not even know where to start. So, here’s a guide on how to strategize local SEO for a multi-location mental health practice.
Are you interested in how Beacon Media + Marketing can help your mental health practice? Learn how we’ve helped other mental health clinics transform their businesses!
Why Include Local SEO In Your Marketing Strategy?
Although you may know that it’s important to have SEO keywords that tell people what services you provide, there is more to gaining new clients online. One of the biggest factors you have to remember to include in your marketing strategy is local SEO. This will help you target clients that search for “mental health care in my area” and other similar search terms.
Local SEO involves optimizing your website to rank on the search engine results page for people in your local area searching for your services. While a national-level company or online organization may focus on being on the SERP for more general search terms, a local SEO strategy focuses on location-specific keywords that allow you to grow your business and draw in qualified leads.
When someone searches using Google, the search engine uses information about the searcher, including their location, when collecting relevant results. This means that Google will show results for “near me” searches specific to the user.
To show for this search in an area, Google will need to understand where your mental health practice is located. You can ensure Google gets this information by using keywords that indicate the services or search term and your location. You can use this keyword or variations naturally throughout your website, such as labeling headings as “Mental Health Clinic in San Diego.”
When you add local SEO to your marketing strategy, it ensures that people within the areas of your clinic will be able to find it. This method will help you build brand awareness and help convert a high number of clients.
The Key Elements of a Multi-Location SEO Strategy for Mental Health Practices
Now that we’ve gone over what local SEO is, how does this strategy apply to a mental health practice with multiple locations? If you have a business with practices in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Portland, how can you ensure you come up with keywords like “therapist near me” in all three locations? The following are key elements of local SEO for multi-location practices.
1. Location Website Pages
Make sure each location has its own location page. This can mean having a “locations” section in the main nav and having individual pages for reach location your serve. You can also have different pages for each location with information specific to those clinics.
2. Unique Content
Make sure the content for each location is unique. Don’t write location pages almost identical from page to page but with a different location as the keyword. Google will recognize this duplicate content, and your SEO ranking will suffer as a result.
3. Correct Business Listings
Ensure all your online business listings are filled out correctly and fully. This includes GMB, Yelp, Yahoo!, Bing, Facebook, etc. If you’re trying to rank on the first page of Google, your Google My Business profile must be complete and updated regularly.
4. No Virtual Locations
Don’t include virtual locations you can serve in the GMB. GMB links directly to Google Maps, so you’ll only meet the guidelines if you’re using a physical business address. You can still add the area of your virtual mental health practice, but you can’t use tools like GMB.
5. Follow SEO Best Practices
Your marketing strategy should include following basic SEO best practices like using keywords in the header, title tag, and meta description of your blog. Include an SEO linking strategy and avoid overstuffing keywords. The algorithm won’t list your blog towards the top of search results if you’re keyword stuffing and will list the one that best answers the person’s question.
Are you unsure how to follow the best SEO practices? Let our team at Beacon Media + Marketing worry about that!
6. Read Online Reviews
You should pay attention to online reviews of your mental health practice. Consider having a referral reward program or asking patients to review your practice online. People value peer reviews, so having your clients speak candidly about their experiences can bring people in. You should also respond to negative reviews and consider reporting and removing any dishonest or malevolent reviews.
7. Have a Backlinking Strategy
Having a backlinking strategy will gain you local, high-quality links. A backlink will show that you use other resources for your information, such as a website, web page, or web directory. It’s a reference comparable to a citation and will help your SEO strategy.
8. Long-Form Content Strategy
A long-form content strategy will use locally optimized keywords to rank for key terms in blogs. Writing blogs can be a great marketing tool that helps you gain brand awareness by answering people’s questions regarding mental health. It’s helpful to have this library of information available for potential clients and include the locations of your clinics, so those also show up for people searching for mental health care.
9. Utilize Social Media
While not necessarily SEO-related, you can reach local users by posting on social media. Being active online is a great way to reach a broad audience and provide valuable information such as educational information, your services, etc. It also helps you show a side of yourself that is personable and will gain the trust of potential clients.
10. Consider Google Ads
If you’re struggling to rank for keywords organically, consider running Google ads. Although there are restrictions on what you can put on your advertisements if you’re not LegitScript certified, they are still a great way to gain new clients. Google Ads will help push your website to the top of search results to help convert potential clients.
How Can Beacon Media + Marketing Help?
After those tips, you may be overwhelmed with how many elements can go into a marketing strategy. It’s hard enough to do it for one location, let alone several locations. If you’re unsure how to achieve your marketing goals by yourself, you should consider outsourcing your marketing.
Beacon Media + Marketing can help you achieve your marketing goals to convert clients through our many services. We want to help your mental health practice thrive and for you to focus on what you’re passionate about. Let us help your clinics thrive with an unbeatable marketing service.
Are you ready to see if Beacon Media + Marketing is fit to help your clinic? Schedule a free consultation!