Advice on SEO for psychologists
In order to do this, you will need to meet all of Googles algorithm requirements, by showing it you are the most relevant page to what people are typing in the search engine.
Search engine optimization essentially is where Google analyses data to decide which website has the best result for each search, over its competitors. In simple terms, to optimise your website basically means to impress Google to show why your website deserves to be at the top of the search engine.
Before we get started on giving you our advice on SEO for psychologists, let us paint an image to give you a brief understanding. Picture you own a hair salon, the success and longevity of your industry depends on word of mouth referrals. So how can you make these referrals better than the competitors in your field?
Firstly, you need to build up a good reputation between your business, your customers and potential customers. This way they are more likely to recommend you in the future. Secondly, provide as much information as you can, be helpful to customers so it’s an easy and smooth process from the beginning to the end. Lastly your salon needs to be to the highest standards it can be, you never know who is going to be paying a visit. One bad trip can create a bad referral to more than just one person.
And this is the exact same for a website, of course on a much more complex scale. SEO consists of three factors. Building a good reputation, giving the search engines what they want and finally ensuring your website is as good as it could possibly be.
Creating a good reputation
A good reputation is decided by Googles algorithm, partly based off of how many links your site has leading to it. In a sense each link acts as a referral to your business. The more links, the more valuable your website must be, in turn increasing your credibility on Google.
However, your business could have a substantial amount of links, but if they do not come from a reputable and relevant site, they will not benefit your SEO. It’s not a case of setting up a bundle of websites and inserting links leading to yours, Google can detect this and potentially penalise you.
Not only does the algorithm look at the authority of the site linking you, but the relevance. Other psychology sites or relevant industries linking to you would bode well for your Google rankings. Attracting trustworthy links will build up your clinic’s reputation.
There are numerous ways to increase the amount of links channelling to your site. Network with other professionals in your sector, create relationships where you can offer links on a like for like basis. Above anything create genuine content that people will want to put on their site. PR can make a huge difference too.
Feeding search engines what they want
It’s no good giving Google generic information that every other competitor is going to have.
Google needs to be spoon fed the information your target audience is going to be searching for. If not, you will just get lost amongst the pages in a long list of other competitors. This can be achieved by adding keywords to your content.
Imagine Dr. Collins has launched a new site for their clinic. And on the first page it reads,
“Hello! Hope you are well. I am Dr. Collins. My aim is to offer a safe place where clients can get advice. No matter how the problem, we can support you.”
In Google’s eyes this piece of text would not rank you highly on the search engine. Nothing in the writing relates to what your potential customers would be searching for. This is where key words need to be included, the key words need to mention what service you provide and geographical locations. Words or phrases that you predict your audience will search.
So, a good SEO piece of text would read “Hello! Hope you are well. I am Dr. Collins and I am here to help you. My aim as a therapist is to offer a safe and compassionate place where clients can get support and advice in Essex. No matter what you are going through we can support you. Please get in contact to find out more on how we can help.”
Make sure your site is the best it can be
Setting yourself apart will give you a massive boost above other leaders in your industry. Go beyond the norm and write genuine and unique content. Advice we can give on SEO for psychologists in essence is that your content needs to be knowledgeable and organic.
Think outside the box and move away from specifically what is on offer at the clinic. Be specific about your field, offer advice, give reviews on books and articles within the industry. Something individual that you can be sure no other site would have the same content. Unique, quality information, will result in a higher chance of being linked on other pages as well as standing out on Google.
Not only does the information need to be one of a kind, but the quality of your site, images, graphics and layout needs to be faultless. The higher quality of your website, the longer consumers will stay on your page.
Portraying to Google you have useful information on the site relevant to what your audience has searched. A key aspect to leading customers to staying on the site longer is the load time. Page speed is important to the user’s experience, not only this but site speed is one of the signals used by the algorithm to rank pages. Pages with longer load time tend to have a higher bounce rate and lower average time on the website.
These are just some of the tips we can offer on SEO for psychologists. There are numerous other tips and tricks into the success of SEO to your website. However here at VerriBerri we do understand that alongside running a business, trying to understand SEO and carry it out can be confusing and time consuming. So let us taking away the stress, for more information on how we can help get in contact with us, just click here.