Written by Keywords can be an intimidating subject for many private practice owners looking to market their practice.
After all, it impacts just about every area of your marketing efforts. The videos you create, blogs and social media posts you write, hashtags you use, newsletters you write and even your website are all impacted by the choice of keywords you use. If you engage in Google AdWords campaigns, your choice of keywords is even more critical.
But, why are they so important? What do they do?
Keywords Impact SEO
Your search engine optimization is the lifeblood of your marketing efforts. The higher you crawl in Google, the better. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you. If they can find you, they can call you, right?
You’ll want to make sure that your website has keywords that are relevant to your business and the services you offer. They need to be visible on your pages and in your back tables for Google to pick them up.
This is relevant to more than just your website, however. You’ll want to ensure that your blogs, videos and social media posts are also keyword rich. Especially if you’re providing links in these areas that point back to your website.
It’s even a good idea to ensure that your hashtags include keywords.
Keywords in Email Marketing
Your newsletters are another great opportunity to use keywords. Particularly in the subject line of the email you use to send them out.
When you’re engaged in email marketing, the subject line, or title of your email will pretty much determine whether or not people will open it and read further. This is referred to as your Bounce Ratio. Your Bounce Ration measures how many people delete or move on, before reading your content.
The keywords you use in this area also impact your SPAM ratio. While it’s true that there are other factors that also impact if your subject line is considered SPAM, keywords are also an important part.
Keywords Require Strategy
To be really effective in your keyword strategy, it helps to think like one of your own clients.
If you choose keywords that are too general, you run the risk of over saturation in the market and you won’t be seen as often as you might like.
Example: Choosing the word “Bakery” might be too general of a keyword in your marketing efforts if you specialize in wedding cakes.
The people who are on social media, and the internet in general, and looking for wedding cakes aren’t typing in “Bakery” to find someone to make their wedding cake. They’re typing in the word “Wedding Cakes”.
The same is true for the services you offer in private practice. Let’s look at another example.
Example: Choosing the word “Consultant” might be too general of a keyword in your marketing efforts if you specialize in Leadership Development.
The folks who are looking at your posts on social media or searching for you on the internet are not typing in the word “Consultant” to find you. They are looking for the specific kind of consultant in the industry they need to ensure they find the exact skill set that they are looking for.
While it may seem that this only applies to the work that you do on your website, remember that ALL of your marketing efforts need to be keyword rich.
Each piece of marketing that you put out, goes a long way to describe, who you are, what you do and how you impact your clients.
Keyword Tools You Can Use
There are a number of keyword tools out there that can help ensure that you’re putting your best foot forward. Here are just a few to help get you started.
Keyword Tool is a great site alternative to Google Keyword Planner to help you find keywords for your videos, blogs, website, titles, social media, hashtags and more. Best of all, they have a FREE version.
Google Keyword Planner while many use this tool to create their AdWords campaigns, it’s also a great indicator of the saturation level of the market and what is working and what is not. It also helps to generate keyword ideas.
SEO Pressor – This is a fantastic tool for those sending out newsletters (email marketing) and those who write blogs and title videos. This tool will help you to generate titles for your topics using your chosen keywords!
There are lots of really great tools out there that will help you to make the most out of the keywords you choose for your marketing efforts. I’d love to hear about what is working for you in the comments below.