Recovery Month Kicks Off - Increased Donation

First, yes, this is an addiction marketing blog.  We take our dedication to the treatment industry very seriously. 

September is National Recovery Month.  At our agency, it is a month we look forward to as an opportunity to get the word out about addiction, and how recovery changes lives.  All through the month of September, we will be posting stories of recovery to show that recovery is possible.  If you have a story you would like to share, please, email me at Marcus@drugrehab.agency.   

It is this month that reminds me of my best friend, Jason, and the hell he went through battling the addiction that ultimately took his life.  In his memory and in support of those who still strive to recover and survive, The Drug Rehab Agency will double its charitable donation from the normal 10% of revenues during the month of September. These funds will be used to place those without funding or insurance into treatment facilities.  We don't just market to drug rehab agencies;  we take a stand for addicts who so badly want to get clean.

Finally, we would like to share the following video.  This video shows, perfectly, the struggle of addiction.  I was so touched by this dance, that I want to share it with you all.  

I own NOTHING. Copyright goes to Dick Clark Productions and Sara Bareilles. I am not trying to make a profit from this, merely just for entertainment purposes. No copyright infringement intended. COMMENT, RATE, AND SUBSCRIBE!!!

Addiction Marketing 101: SEO - The On-page Basics

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."

Treatment Center Marketing 101: PPC VS. SEO

There is no doubt that more and more marketing companies and investors are entering the drug rehab industry.  You have probably seen these companies crowding your facility out of the top search engine results pages (SERPS).  Just search “Drug Rehab” and a city. You will see the same sites.  Most are lead generation sites that sell their leads off to real treatment facilities.  We have worked with these firms, and we can tell you, they have a very large marketing budget.  So, how do you compete from the get go?

Definitions

Before we dive into how you can use your budget wisely, let's cover what AdWords (Paid Search) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are.

AdWords (Paid Search) – Pay Per Click (PPC) is an instant gratification method of online marketing. With PPC, you pay the search engine for each click you receive.  You bid on a spot within the search results. The more you bid, the higher the position.  Below is an example of the paid results within Google.

The biggest issue that our clients have with AdWords is the cost per click within Google can be very high in this space.  Google estimates the average CPC price at around $40/click.  This makes treatment center keywords one of the highest priced industries within AdWords. 

Search Engine Optimization – SEO is the process of optimizating a website to increase its visibility in the search engines, mainly Google.  Google uses a proprietary algorithm to identify websites, then ranks them from best to worst within its results.  The best site for each keyword searched will rank in the first position within Google.  This placement gets about 30% of all the clicks within Google, and is highly valuable to the owner of the site.

So, now you have the foundation for what we are going to talk about next, which is using these two strategies to drive short and long term results.

PPC is a plug and play option, meaning, you can be on the first page of Google within 30 minutes, if you would like.  The Drug Rehab Agency uses PPC as a bridge to help the client see some return while SEO strategies take effect. 

The Mistakes Drug Rehabs Make in PPC

Most of our clients have used PPC before working with us.  Either they have done it themselves, or have hired another firm to manage it for them.  Now, it is important to note that PPC can be run by the site owner successfully, or there are a lot of quality agencies out there that can manage it.  The issues are:

1) Do you know how to manage AdWords for the lowest CPC?

2) Do those agencies understand the treatment industry?

Here are the mistakes we see people make most often:

1)      No Geo-targeting – If you are lucky enough to gain qualified leads nationwide, congratulations.  National campaigns are not easily done.  The reason?  These national terms are the most expensive, and you are competing with those huge firms we talked about earlier. 

2)      Set it and Forget it – Look, even I bought that infomercial product at 3:00am.  But this is not cooking a pot roast; this is spending large dollars to increase your business’s bottom line.  So, you have to carefully track of what you are spending and when.

3)      Lack of Optimization – This piggybacks off of the “set it and forget it” issue.  Most people who are new to AdWords see traffic coming to the site, but do nothing after that.  Obviously, driving site traffic is key to the success of your site, but if it doesn't convert, you just spent $40 on a meet and greet with no results.  You must monitor which keywords send what type of traffic.  Start broad, and then narrow it down based on their actions on the site. 

EXAMPLE: The term “Drug Rehab” will send a lot of traffic to you, with of course, a large cost. But that traffic bounces and doesn't convert.  Where as a search term like “Alcohol addiction treatment Phoenix” sends less traffic, but your conversion rate is 5%.  Which of these would you want to spend money on? If you answered “Drug Rehab,” please call us, we can help you with your AdWords confusion.

SEO – The Bad and Ugly (Good is Soon)

SEO is the core of our business.  We have been working in SEO since 2006 and have seen the game change.  Unfortunately, we've watched clients make mistakes without us.  Then they call us for help and have to increase their monthly cost because of the cleanup we need to do.  SEO is constantly evolving.  We're the experts, so it's our job to stay abreast of the changes; it's your job to do what you do best: help people.

Here is the short list of the mistakes we see most:

1) On-Page Optimization – As I said before, Google uses an algorithm to rank your site.  This algorithm analyzes how relevant a page is for the given search term.  So, if you don’t have the term on your page, then you most likely won’t rank well.  You should work to use the keywords for each page in the body content, but also the Title Tag, and H1 and H2 tags.

2) Over Optimization – Okay, I just said use the keyword in your page copy and Meta Data.  But, everything in moderation (except leads).  We see more and more companies coming to us with overly optimized page copy that doesn't read well.  It’s obvious that it was written for the search engines, not the user.  This is a violation of Google’s guidelines, and you will actually fall in rankings with this strategy.  Remember, you are writing to your user, not Google.  Keywords must be integrated naturally into the content, which is easily achieved if you have an expert content strategy in place.

3) Patience – When it comes to SEO, you have to understand that it takes time.  This is the biggest mistake people make.  They want to see instant results from SEO.  That is not possible, if done correctly.  You can have quick increases or long term success.  You can’t have both.  So, estimate that you won’t see much for about three months from SEO.  You have to make the edits to the pages, and give Google time to see those changes.  Getting links to your site to show Google you are the best site for keywords take a lot of work and time.  So, when you don’t see first page rankings and huge SEO traffic in analytics in the first two months, don’t stop.  Keep going! You will get there.  We tell all of our clients that it takes three to five months to see a real increase in rankings and traffic.

Playing Well In the Sandbox

Okay, so now you know if you are doing anything that is bad. We have shown you the ugly.  So…what is the good you ask? Well there is a solution to this problem.  Become a client…  

Kidding (well kind of). 

The best way to use these two highly valuable resources is to use them together, and slowly pull away from what is costing you the most: Paid Search.

You have made the decision to use the internet for your treatment facility.  It’s time to fill the beds and build a brand.  So you begin with SEO.  Build out a strategy using keywords, allocating keywords and building pages to address each search term group.  This is step one.

You then want to use those keywords within Google AdWords, focusing on the pages you have built for each page.  Whatever Google suggests as a Cost Per Click, bid 50%.  Again, AdWords is all about optimization and daily management at first. So, track this cost.  Play with it.  Move it up, move it down and see the results.  Then repeat.  Boom!  On to step two.

Now that you have your strategy in place for both SEO and PPC, its time to get started. 

Turn on your PPC campaigns and start your outreach for links.  Again, LOOK AT YOUR PPC AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.  We can’t stress that enough.  Make sure what you are paying for is at least driving quality traffic. If it isn’t, turn that section off. 

Now we wait.  Continue to use AdWords and optimize.  As you see your organic rankings increase for terms, you should see an increase in your ranking within Google.  As you see this happening, you can lower your daily budget within AdWords for those pages.  Slowly do this, you don’t want to cut it out completely and lose leads.  When a page comes to rank in the top three, cut your budget in AdWords in half for that page.  Your hard work has paid off, and SEO is giving you organic, free traffic! If you are good enough to rank in the first position, turn off AdWords for that URL, and see what happens.  If you don’t lose conversions, then you can eliminate that line item in your budget.  If you do drop in conversions, turn it back on at 25% of the original spend. Again, optimization takes time to get right, so play with it a bit and see what happens. 

Take Away

Both PPC and SEO are very important in any online marketing strategy.  Organic traffic accounts for more than 80% of most sites' traffic, so focus as much time as you can there.  Organic is the long term play.  Once you rank highly in Google organic, you can cut down your effort on that page.  Just maintain and move to the next URL. 

This article covers a lot of information, and I didn't explain all in great detail.  This will come later.  Please keep checking us out for more information on SEO, PPC and Content Marketing. 

If you don’t have the time to learn online marketing, or want to do it right the first time, contact us by phone or by filling out the form.  We are more than happy to speak with you about working together to generate leads for your company online.