One of the most commonly asked questions among medical providers, whether you are in a small market or large market, is how do I get more clients? You can’t increase your revenue and your profits without more business coming your way. In this post, we are going to discuss search engine optimization, or SEO, to help drive that new business to you.
Of course we all know the traditional forms of marketing to gain new clients. Print ads, radio or tv commericals, billboards, etc. But the cost of those types of media are very expensive, and often times, the ROI does not justify the continuation of such advertisement. So, what else can we do in order to increase our client base? I spoke with a Fargo based company, Digital Famous Media, to get their take on how SEO and digital marketing can help in today’s environment.

If your website is not ranking in the top 5 results of the search engines, you are not getting found. Period
In order to drive new clientele, your website has to be able to “be seen” in the search engines via some good SEO work. More than 60 percent of all new business today is discovered via online searches. So, if you have a cosmetic surgery clinic in Seattle, and someone searches for “plastic surgeon in seattle” where does your website show up? Chances are it’s not in the top 5 results, or even on the first page. In other words, no one is finding your site and visiting it organically. This puts you at a huge disadvantage over your competitors that are showing up high in the search results. They are getting all of the new clientele from SEO searches, and driving new business their way. You are simply losing out and relying on word of mouth, referrals, and expensive advertisement. The whole process of getting your site ranked is called SEO, or search engine optimization. It is a 65 billion dollar business right now and growing. The good news is, a lot of your competitors are probably not yet doing SEO, and if they are, the company they are working with is probably not very good.
How do I find a good SEO company to work with?
We spoke with Digital Famous Media to get their take on what to look for when hiring a good SEO company. You can check out their Facebook page for more tips as well, at https://www.facebook.com/digitalfamousmedia/
First and foremost, look for a company that can prove their results. If they are not ranking their own website for keywords in their local city, then how can you trust them to rank your website for anything? There are a lot of fly by night SEO companies out there who will take your money and run, so make sure they can at least backup their talk.
Second, make sure they are professional. What I mean by that, is do they have a plan in place for your specific company? Any reputable digital marketing agency will do the following before your first meeting:
- In depth research on the competition in your area
- Keyword difficulty (how hard will it be to rank for the keywords you are looking for?)
- Realistic time frame to rank for these keywords(typically between 6 to 18 months depending on competition and KW difficulty)
- A monthly agreement based off of the above factors. Anyone who tells you they have a set “package price” regardless of keywords and competition, is not a good SEO
- A strategic plan on HOW they are going to get you ranked
Social Media Marketing and Management is also key
Having a strong social media setup is a must for ranking in Google today. In fact, googles algorithm takes social media profiles into consideration when ranking websites. Do you have multiple sites setup with your Name, Address, and Phone Number being consistent across each platform? If not, the search engines might get confused on what your business name is, or what your address is. This will make if difficult to show up the maps results when someone searches for the keywords you are looking to rank for. Also, just having the basic 4 or 5 social media properties is not enough. A good SEO company will set you up with at least 50 of these profiles, and will have the ability to send out new videos or posts to every single one of them at the same time, which will save you hours of work manually posting to each site. If your looking for an example of this, check out Social Media Management in Fargo for more information.
The bottom line, is that if your business is going to succeed long term in today’s business climate, you must do SEO, and social media marketing. Without it, you will be left behind by your competition.