Wouldn’t it be nice if you could tailor your website’s content and marketing strategy down to the very words your target market is already using? Even better—imagine you could identify the words and phrases used most frequently by those interested in hearing health? This kind of information would enable you to specifically target potential patients by showing them you have precisely the information and services they’re interested in.
Well, you’re in luck: Not only is this information readily available, but using it within your website and your greater marketing strategy can make all the difference in the number of people you’re reaching with your website and your services.
In digital marketing, this approach is called keyword marketing or targeting. It can quickly become a complex and deeply analytical topic among professional digital marketers, but remains an effective strategy even when just the basics are applied.
Keywords, as you may have guessed, are those specific words your target market is using in search engines like Google to learn more about a topic. The most popular phrases used are referred to as “long chain keywords.” As a hearing healthcare professional, you can discover the most popular keywords and long chain keywords people are using when seeking information about hearing loss, treatment, or hearing health in general. All in an hour or less! This is what we like to call a “digital marketing no-brainer.”
Just what will these strategically placed keywords do for you and your practice? The most important benefit of selecting your words carefully, within your content as well as on the backend of your website’s infrastructure, is it being an effective way to boost your ranking in the results page of a search query. In other words, keyword targeting helps tremendously with your website’s search engine optimization (SEO).
As we’ve drilled into your mind with all of our articles, proper SEO is as critical as having a website is. It’s what ensures that your beautiful website will actually be seen by the people it’s designed to serve. Keywords are a relatively easy and effective foundation of any SEO plan.
Using keywords to your advantage is straightforward: you research the most popular keywords and then place them strategically throughout your website content, metadata (information in the background of your webpages), and everywhere else you’re creating content for your business, both online and offline. After all, these are the words that your potential patients are already using—so why not grab their attention by taking those words out of their mouth and expanding upon them with the answers they need?
Step One: Keyword Research
Your approach to researching the best keywords related to your hearing services can be as shallow or deep as you want or have time for. No matter how far you take it though, there are some basic strategies you should prioritize to ensure that you don’t miss the most important keywords and phrases being used.
- Category Headers
Begin your research by visiting some of the leading hearing healthcare websites online, (i.e. www.HealthyHearing.com) and make note of the common navigation items and blog categories. These are naturally going to reflect what your target market is interested in and looking for more information on.
- Google Search Suggestions
Type the main word related to your services (i.e. hearing) into the Google search box and then refrain from pressing Enter. A drop-down list of suggested entries will then reveal commonly searched words and phrases related to the main word you entered. For instance, if you type in “hearing” and wait for the suggestions, you’ll likely see that “hearing aids” is the first suggestion. Make note of these.
- Google Keyword Planner
There are several software options for a thorough review of keywords and the various metrics associated with them, but one of the easiest (and free) tools to use for entry-level detail is Google Keyword Planner. Simply enter the list of keywords you identified from the previous two steps and hit the “Get Ideas” button. You’ll be shown an incredibly useful list of most popular keywords related to your entries, including the average monthly number of searches.
Content Optimization
Now that you’ve successfully identified the most searched keywords and phrases for your specific field, it’s time to place those gems into your content. The trick here is not to overdo it. In fact, content that has been “over-optimized,” as it’s called, by placing too many keywords within it not only looks contrived to the reader, but is even recognized as such by search engines, which penalize content that appears “spam-like.” Unfortunately, this can actually harm your overall SEO strategy and should be avoided.
So the rule here is simple: keywords should be placed wherever they naturally fit in. Luckily for the hearing healthcare field, it’s nearly impossible to write valuable content for prospective patients without mentioning the most popular hearing-related keywords (i.e. hearing aids, hearing loss, etc.). Working in those long tail keywords requires a bit more finesse, but if you focus on keeping your natural tone throughout your content, they will fit in seamlessly as well.
No content should be left un-optimized: website copy, blog posts, metadata (page titles, page descriptions, image titles and ALT text, and so forth), any social media profile descriptions for your business, social media updates, and even offline marketing materials are all excellent options for using those trending keywords for your field.
It’s important to remember that your approach to marketing your services is to not only demonstrate your knowledge and expertise in hearing health, but also to appeal to potential patients with the kind of language they can relate to. There’s no better way to do that than to incorporate the words they are already using.
As a digital marketing firm, we liken keywords to gold. They can be incredibly valuable and, at times, can take some sincere digging to unearth the very best ones. Our approach to content and website optimization involves a multi-layered keyword strategy to ensure the best results possible. If you think your website and overall digital presence could benefit from professional optimization, contact us to learn more about how we can help.