When you are starting your private practice or growing it, ranking high in Google is essential. There are five important aspects of ranking higher in Google:
- Determine your keywords
- File with Google My Business
- Write blog posts that are helpful to the keyword searches
- Link internally
- Embed images and video
Determine your keywords
There are a couple ways to determine your keywords. First let’s talk about why this is important. Keywords help people know who you are. If you do counseling for depression, you want people that search “depression counselors” to know that you exist. For example, I just linked that term to my counseling website. But we’ll talk about that in a minute.
Advanced Keyword Research
Here’s a quick video about how to use the Google Keyword Planner. It walks you through exactly how to use it.
Easy Keyword Planning
If you’re looking to rank higher in Google, but don’t have the time, Google Trends is an easy way to discover terms. It takes way less to figure out and it’s just plan easy. Here’s a video all about how to use Google Trends to find keywords.
File with Google My Business
When someone searches for counseling in your town, they’ll first see a map. Sometimes it is on the side of their search. This map is search engine gold! To show up on the map, all you have to do is file with Google My Business! Then they will send you a postcard to confirm that your location is where you say it is. That’s it! Here’s what it looks like.
Write blog posts that matter
When you want to rank higher in Google, make sure that you write great content that applies to your keyword. If you do depression counseling, here are some blog post ideas:
- What are the symptoms of depression
- 5 Things that happen to depression in the fall
- What’s depression in the summer look like?
- What screening tools are there for depression?
- How to help a spouse, parent, child with depression
- An infographic on depression
As you write blog posts quickly, you’ll get better at creating content and seeing ideas everywhere! Here’s a video about how to write blog posts quickly!
Link keywords internally
Google doesn’t care as much as they used to, but linking is still a great way to optimize your website. When you want your SEO to help you rank in Google, find authentic ways to link to other articles you have written. For example, here are other articles I have written you might like. By linking here, I’m also helping my website rank higher in Google:
- Podcast episode about How to Rank Higher in Google
- An interview with marketing and web guru Andy Crestodina about how to rank higher in Google
- An article Keyword Tool: How to Use Google Keyword Planner
- Monthly Income Report about How to Make Money in Private Practice
As you have articles about topics, use anchor text, not the name of the article, to link to the other articles.
Embed videos and images
Google loves Google. They own YouTube, so they want to see their videos in blog posts. Find videos that relate to what you’re talking about and embed them. Use videos as inspiration and then comment on why you like or hate them. In doing this, you will rank higher in Google and provide awesome content. Not sure how to embed a video in WordPress? Here’s a video.
Now go forth and rank high in Google while creating awesome content!!!
Joe Sanok
Joe Sanok, MA, LLP, LPC, NCC is one of the world’s leading private practice consultants. He is the owner of the Traverse City counseling practice, Mental Wellness Counseling. Joe helps counselors to start private practices and grow them.
