Competition in the addiction treatment field is intense. As a result, alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies are competing for a relatively small number of keywords. Yet, with the right strategies deployed by SEO experts, your detox or drug rehab center can improve your Google rankings, drive traffic and ultimately increase admissions.
While social media certainly plays a significant role in reaching your target audience, it’s the traffic that you get through SERPs (search engine results pages) that really make the difference. And when we say that, we’re basically talking about Google.
Google is by far the preferred search engine on the internet. Bing and Yahoo are responsible for only a small minority of search engine results these days. All of your alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies should, therefore, be designed to satisfy Google’s stringent requirements.
Some drug rehab centers hold onto an interesting fantasy. They think that they can achieve a high ranking if they just say “drug rehab” enough times on their website. Unfortunately, “drug rehab” is one of the mostly fought-for keywords among competitors.
Every center, no matter how big or how small, dreams of a high ranking for “drug rehab.” It’s never going to happen. Fortunately, there are many alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies out there you can implement to drive traffic to your website.
Should You Invest in SEO for Your Drug Rehab?
As traditional marketing approaches (such as direct mail) deliver ever-diminishing returns, digital media is the hot ticket today. The internet is how people show for everything and it’s where they do their research on products and services.
As each day passes, they become more savvy in their Google searches. For people trying to find a detox or drug rehab center, three or more websites may be visited before they decide to pick up the phone. To be one of those three or four websites means your alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies have to work well.
In an attempt to get a better Google ranking, some drug rehab facility resort to unethical SEO strategies. While many of these tactics may have worked perfectly well in the past, Google is wise to them, and they’re doing everything they can to penalize websites that employ such practices.
Pursuing unethical SEO tactics is ultimately self-defeating. Instead of getting more traffic, you could wind up being penalized by Google, which will cause your rankings to decline sharply.
Effective alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies are comprehensive and it takes time to implement them. You certainly won’t see overnight results. If any SEO firm suggests that you will, it’s time to find a new one.
Alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies are relatively unique because the searcher generally has some idea what he or she is looking for. When they search for “drug rehab treatment for opiate addiction,” their intent is fairly clear:
- They know that they have a problem and are looking at prospective detox and drug rehab centers
- They want to be admitted for inpatient or outpatient treatment
- They’re hoping to determine which addiction treatment center best suits their unique needs
Knowing this, how do SEO experts go about finding the web traffic you need to drive your rehab center’s admissions?
An Effective Approach to Alcohol and Drug Rehab SEO Strategies
In the course of designing, building and maintaining hundreds of drug rehab websites, Dreamscape Marketing has always kept to one rule: keep it simple. SEO strategies for drug rehabs simply need to provide value for people who land on your web pages.
It’s easy to become obsessed with keywords and how to use them but the point should always be to provide what prospective patients are looking for. You want to provide an experience that makes people say, “Yeah, this is the drug rehab center I want to go to.”
To accomplish this, your SEO experts also have to be addiction treatment experts. As you know, drug rehab is a very specialized field with many nuisances that aren’t easily understood by outsiders.
After working with hundreds of detox and drug rehab centers, Dreamscape Marketing knows addiction treatment. We know the struggles your patients go through on the road to recovery. Dreamscape also knows the evidence-based treatment modalities you employ. We translate all of that knowledge into effective SEO strategies and page content that motivates prospective patients to take the next step and contact your facility.
An Effective Plan for SEO Success
As a Google partner with more than 15 staff members possessing Google certifications, Dreamscape Marketing has a unique and comprehensive knowledge of alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies, which is something not every SEO firm can claim. To achieve the best possible SEO results for our drug rehab center clients, we do the following:
Conduct Thorough Research
This is a big part of alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies. In this phase, we want to determine what your target demographic is. We arrive at this equation by examining the following:
- Your competition: How many centers do you compete with? Do you a competitive advantage?
- Your facility’s location: For example, are you in or near a vacation destination? That would certainly be a competitive advantage.
- Type of therapies offered: Do you offer a more comprehensive array of evidence-based and adjunct therapies than other neighboring facilities?
- The type of clients you attract: Does your facility cater to business executives more than competitors? Or younger patients? Or seniors? The answer can definitely affect how you reach out to them.
This research helps us to formulate the kind of alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies that are the most likely to be effective. Not every SEO firm takes this phase so seriously. Then again, not every SEO firm has worked with hundreds of rehabs like we have.
Create Engaging, Compelling and Motivating Content
Not everyone can write great online marketing content. In fact, not every great writer can write great online content. It’s a unique art form, requiring both prose and marketing skills. If your content doesn’t grab people, they’ll move on to another website. When that happens, all of your other SEO efforts become useless. Thin content that doesn’t engage and motivate visitors isn’t even worth uploading.
In addition to pure writing skill, online content writers must know how to properly employ SEO titles, slugs, meta descriptions, focus keywords, and links. Excellent content writers can handle these diverse tasks effortlessly.
Share the Content Via Social Media
You can have the greatest content in the world on your website but it may not mean much if you don’t actively promote and share it through effective use of social media.
Social media is the way to share something these days. Sometimes, the things people share on social media are silly and trivial. Other times, they’ll share things that are quite important. When you share content through social media that it of value to your target audience, it will be appreciated. Then, those people will in turn share your information with others.
In the right circumstances, social media can be a powerful way to achieve authority. When you have authority, you are in a very advantageous position. Alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies with a strong social media component can go a long way toward achieving such authority.
SEO is Just Part of the Big Picture
SEO isn’t everything. Neither is content. Both are extremely important but it’s necessary to remember that they’re part of a much larger plan. Alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies can provide the proverbial knock on the door. Once they knock, it’s up to you to turn an inquiry into an admission.
High Google rankings, effective social media, vibrant alumni campaigns and consistent word of mouth add up to a steady stream of qualified leads if you’re doing everything correctly. We’d love to take you there.
Do you have alcohol and drug rehab SEO strategies that drive traffic to your facility’s website? To learn more about how Dreamscape Marketing can increase your web traffic, call us at 888.307.7304 or email today.