How SEO Will Lower your Online Marketing Costs

The internet has truly changed the way treatment centers market their businesses.  However, it has also added additional cost to your marketing budget.  

Through the use of Paid Search, lead generation companies are taking over the market with huge budgets. More likely than not, you have seen your cost per click increase in your AdWords account because of this. Your Cost Per Lead (CPL) has gone up, and your annual budget for the paid search space MUST increase to remain competitive.  

I can already hear you saying, "Great, thanks Marcus, now I am all depressed about the state of my online marketing." But don't fret, this post will teach you what you need to know about SEO for your rehab facility, specifically keyword selection for content and on-page factors for your drug treatment facility. 

Why SEO? Simply put, its long term cost of ownership is the lowest, especially in the treatment business.  With a month stay in your facility running $10,000-$40,000/month, a conversion is well worth the investment. Over time, you will be able to eliminate your Paid search budget and allow SEO to do the work.

For example, we work with a treatment facility that has organic traffic drive about 360 site visitors a month.  The cost for a single click in AdWords is around $40 for these keywords.

360 Visits/day X $40 (average CPC in AdWords)= $14,000 Per Day

You read that correctly.  If our client were to drive their daily traffic via AdWords, they would spend over $14,000/day! That is insane! By implementing proper SEO techniques, excellent content creation and a lot of hard work, we deliver high traffic numbers, without the incredibly high cost. That is why SEO matters, and how it can help you.

The benefit of organic search rankings is that they are not a pay per click, like Adwords.  So, if you can rank in the top 5 of Google for specific search terms, you will receive traffic, like I talked about above, which you don't pay for.  Here is the first part of the strategy that The Drug Rehab Agency uses to help our clients rank for top keywords in 3-6 months. 

Phase 1 - Keyword Research and Site Audit

Just like any marketing initiative, you need to have quality, data-driven strategies in place.

This involves understanding the keywords your future residents are searching each month. We use the Google Keyword Planner to understand these terms and the monthly search volume for each.  For example, let’s say you are targeting the Arizona market.  You would want to target each city on separate pages.  You would have:

• Drug rehab/treatment Tucson
• Drug rehab/treatment Flagstaff
• Drug rehab/treatment Phoenix
• Drug rehab/treatment Tempe

So on and so on. This will set you up to have a specific page targeting residents of that specific city.  When you do this, you will also see this page start to rank in Google for the given keywords. 

Final phase of Keyword research is understanding your demographic. What keywords do they search when they or a loved one thinks there is a problem?  The Drug Rehab Agency works directly off the AIDA model.  Attention, Interest, Decision and Action.  Build your keyword groups around these types of search terms.  A great tool for this would be the Google Keyword Planner, found in Google Adwords.  This tool will give you ideas of keywords and will provide you with the average monthly search volume.  Obviously, the higher the search volume, the more valuable the keyword will be to your site.   

So you have done some keyword research.  You know the top keywords you would like to rank for in each section of the AIDA model.  Now, check if you are ranking for those terms.  If so, which URL is ranking and at which position? 

More often than not, The Drug Rehab Agency writes 10-20 pages of addiction based content each month for our clients. Not because they have weak or thin content, but because their previous SEO company was cheap and tried to rank a single page for every keyword possible.  A quality site audit will address these areas of weakness and turn them into opportunities. Ask yourself this question.  Does this page focus on the keywords I want it to rank for? If not, then it's time to write some quality content, and build a new page.  

Step 2 - On-Page Optimization

So,  you have your keywords, and the associated URLS for these keywords.  What now?

This is where SEO gets technical.  With over 300 factors in SEO, I would have to write a dissertation to identify all the areas, and even then, no one knows ALL the factors.  However, we do know the big ones that can be made for increased visibly in the search engines. 

1. Title Tag - The title tag of your page is what shows up in your browser.  If you hover over the tab in your browser, the Title Tag will show.  Or you can hit "CTRL U" and see the source code.  From here, press "CTRL F" and search "Title".  That is your title tag. The title tag tells Google what the page is about, and is where you want to enter your top keywords.  Here are some rules for titles:
   1. No more than 68 Character, including spaces. 
   2. Your most valuable keyword should be first. 
   3. Split keywords with a "|".  Not an "L", but hit shift and the backslash button.  
   4. End your title tag with your website or business name. 
      1. Example: "Drug Rehab Phoenix | www.xxxxx.com"
   5. Do NOT stuff every keyword in the Title tag; this will hurt you. 
2. Header Tags "H1-H3" - These should be used to identify the section of your page.  Unlike your top keywords in the Title Tag, this should be used for your secondary or tertiary term.  
   1. Example: Drug Treatment Phoenix or Alcohol Treatment Phoenix
3. On-Page Content - This is the content you write for your website visitor.  This should be targeted around what you said your page is about in the Title Tag and Header Tag.  You do NOT want to use your keywords more than 3 times in the copy.  Remember, this copy is for your visitor, but is a factor used by Google.  So, write to your audience.  
   1. Example of a page Titled "Alcohol Treatment"
      1. "ABC company has been working with people seeking treatment for their alcoholism for more than 15 years.  At ABC company we take your rehabilitation seriously by offering different therapy options for your inpatient alcohol treatment. "

Each one of these steps should be used for every page on your site.  This includes pages built out for the Attention and Interest sections of your keyword research.  Here is a free one, "Am I an Alcoholic?"  The term gets massive search volume each month and can position your facility as a resource. 

This ends this edition of Addiction Marketing 101.  Use these simple steps to set up your site for success online.  SEO for addiction treatment facilities is a lot of work; heck, we built a business around it.  So, if you take a look, and feel your time could be spent better elsewhere, please give us a call or fill out the form below.  We will do a quick review of your current site, and let you know how we can help.

Until the next Addiction Marketing 101, continue to help those in need. We will continue to "Help Those, who Help Others."