The 5 Most Important Steps for Increasing Traffic to your Therapy Website
You created a website for your therapy clinic and are ready to accept clients, but nothing happens. You know a website is vital to your marketing, so why is it not bringing in new leads? Why is it not helping you build your clinic? You’re struggling with what to do next.
A common misconception with websites is that “If you build, they will come.” Sadly this is not Field of Dreams. Although it can be helpful to think of your website as your home plate for where you drive all your marketing efforts, you still need to move potential clients to it.
One of the most significant ways to drive traffic to your website is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This technique is the process of improving your website’s visibility on search engines such as Google. Below are 5 steps to get you started ranking higher with Google and shown on the first page of the search engine results.
1. Content Creation
This is the foundation and most important element to driving traffic. You need to make your site unique and stand out. You need to become a subject matter expert by creating high-quality, relevant, and engaging content for your audience.
a. Publish regular blog posts
b. create informative infographics
c. Post interesting videos that people will want to share and link to.
d. Provide guides
e. Offer e-books
2. Keyword Research
Within your content, you want to have relevant keywords that help search engines understand what your website is about. The goal is to find keywords that are low-competition, meaning keywords with search queries that have fewer companies and websites overtly competing for high organic rankings with SEO. You can use free tools like Google Keyword Planner or paid tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Ubersuggest. The paid tools offer a free limited version, usually 10 keywords a day.
3. Backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your site, and they can greatly improve your search engine rankings. When searchers visit another similar site and notice that your site is mentioned, they are most likely going to click on it– this is a backlink. This is like getting a referral from a leading expert and giving you a stamp of approval. Seek opportunities to earn backlinks from reputable sources in your industry.
4. On-Page Optimization
To help search engines better understand what your site is about and to help your site rank higher, you’ll need to optimize your site’s on-page elements, such as title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and internal linking. You don’t need to know HTML or CSS to do this; you can use plugin tools such as Yoast and Rank Math. They both offer a free limited version and a paid version.
5. Page Loading Speed
This is considered a part of Technical Optimization. There are multiple pieces to Technical Optimization– submitting your sitemap to Google, making your website mobile-friendly, and finding and fixing duplicate content issues. Loading speed is one of the easiest and most important technical pieces to fix; if a page takes 5 seconds to load, the probability that a visitor leaves the site increases by 90%. A few quick ways to increase speed are to:
a. choose a performance-optimized hosting solution
b. compress and optimize images
c. cache your web pages
Other Ways to Increase Site Traffic
The five steps mentioned use Search Engine Optimization to directly affect your website to rank higher in the search engine results, and help increase traffic. The following are methods of indirectly increasing traffic to your website.
Use social media
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are great places to connect with potential clients and promote your therapy services.
Encourage word-of-mouth referrals
Word-of-mouth referrals are a powerful way to attract new clients. Encourage your current clients to refer their friends and family to your website.
Participate in online forums and groups: Join online forums and groups related to therapy or mental health and participate in discussions. Share helpful tips and advice and include a link to your website in your signature.
Participate in online forums and groups
Join online forums and groups related to therapy or mental health and participate in discussions. Share helpful tips and advice, and include a link to your website in your signature.
Partner with other professionals
Partnering with other professionals, such as physicians or other therapists, can help increase your visibility and referrals.
Advertise online
Consider advertising your therapy services on search engines, social media, or other websites that are relevant to your target audience. You can hire a Search Engine Marketer to manage your ads.
Remember that building traffic takes time and effort. Consistently applying these strategies can help increase traffic to your therapy site over time. By following these steps, you will start to see improvements and eventually gain more clients.
