How to Write SEO-Friendly Content

How to Write SEO-Friendly Content

How to Write SEO-Friendly Content

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  2. Search Engine Optimization

Many businesses and organizations are familiar with SEO but unsure of what it does or how it impacts their business online. SEO has a significant impact on your online presence. It is essential to understand how SEO can benefit your organization in the online market.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. The businesses and organizations with the most desirable search engine rankings are those with an understanding of the value of SEO. However, knowledge of the workings behind SEO is not automatic, and many organizations do not start out with a comprehensive grasp of how to best set up their SEO. Often, they turn to companies like MGMT Digital, who understand the value of SEO, to help them create more optimized site pages. 

Search engine optimization or SEO is the collection of methods necessary to optimize your website to gain greater levels of organic (unpaid) traffic from search results on a search engine. Organic results are the “hits” on your site that come from a potential consumer entering specific search terms into the search engine and finding your site through their search efforts. As noted previously, organic traffic does not come from sponsored or paid site advertising that solicits people to visit your page.

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Why is SEO Important?

SEO is important because it helps people find you. You can strengthen and expand your availability on various search engines consumers use to shop for services by improving your SEO. This can help your organization gain visibility and engage with more potential customers. Increasing your SEO content will also improve your chances of connecting with your target audience and pushing organic traffic to your site. The terms and technology behind SEO may seem complex. Still, it is an essential factor in improving how your organization ranks and in getting your organization recognized in your niche market on the web.

SEO also impacts how search engines filter data. Search engines are designed to ensure viewers (users) receive the most effective services. A significant aspect of effective service means providing results from searches that are relevant to what the searcher is looking for and of high quality. Search engines will actively scan different websites to understand the information on the site better. This helps the search engine provide greater relevancy in its results.

Similarly, search engines like Google will scan your site to determine its user-friendliness. It will rank features like navigation and readability. In general, more user-friendly sites tend to rank higher on search engine pages.

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What are the Keys to Writing SEO-Friendly Content

There are many ways to write SEO-friendly content. Some are far easier than others. Below we have included a few tips to improve your site’s SEO.

Monitor your content

The content on your site plays a role in attracting search engines and helping your organization connect with your desired client base. It is important to ensure you have a high level of quality and relevant content on your site, as this impacts how search engines rank your site on search result pages. Also, content that is compelling to view and engaging is is more likely to keep visitors and potential customers on your site once they arrive.

Include important keywords and key phrases

Keywords or key phrases are words or phrases a potential customer could use in a search box when looking for products or services online. It is important to research your potential customer’s keywords and design your content around those keywords and phrases. This will inevitably help improve your SEO rankings.

As important as keywords are, it is important not to overuse them on your pages. Some search engines like Google will filter your pages and “penalize” them if they attempt to use keywords too frequently in your content.

Include on-page SEO elements

On-page SEO elements are those things that happen on your site pages. They are elements of your site design and content that you can control, meaning you could improve them if needed to improve your SEO. Suggested areas to review for improvement include internal links, ALT tags, image names, title tags, meta descriptions, and subheadings.

SEO and how it works to benefit your website, and your organization can seem confusing, especially if you are new to the world of SEO and its advantages. The success and effectiveness of your SEO will be influenced and impacted by several factors, including those you may not have total control over. Ensuring your content is valuable and relevant to your intended audience is essential but may take time and effort to improve. If you are working to improve your site’s SEO standings, let the team at MGMT Digital help. Contact us today for more information about our site design and SEO services for your organization. 

The Importance of Directory Submission in SEO

Directory Submission in SEO

The Importance of Directory Submission in SEO

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People shop online today more than ever. However, they do not go online merely to purchase travel, clothing, or other tangible items. People also use the Internet to find necessary services such as health care. With hundreds of thousands of websites dedicated to various fields of health care, how does a single organization get its name recognized above all others when potential clients enter search criteria into a search engine such as Google? In addition to comprehensive and effective SEO on your physical website, directory submission is also highly beneficial.

What is a Directory Submission in SEO?

While many SEO (search engine optimization) elements of a website occur as part of the site itself or the site’s pages, directory submission is an off-page procedure that helps drive customers to your business in a different way. Directory submission is the process of submitting your website to a specific category of a web directory. For example, if your website is for mental health counseling services, you would submit the site to the medical services category or, more specifically, the mental health services category.

Some directories allow you to list your services for free, whereas others charge a fee. It is also important to remember that each directory has specific rules to list your list in the directory. Because each directory is different and there are several popular options, seeking help from a professional SEO service will help ensure your site meets all of the requirements and can quickly and easily join the directory.

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Why is a Directory Submission in SEO Important?

There are several reasons why directory submission is essential to digital marketing. There are millions of websites online, and the ability of a business to find new customers depends greatly on how effective their SEO is. If your website never reaches the eyes of potential clients (or current clients), it cannot benefit your business. Below are a few reasons why and how directory submission is helpful.

First, directory listing can increase your online exposure and traffic generation. Your website listing will be appropriately registered with more search engine listings if the appropriate keywords are used as part of your directory submission. Consequently, potential customers will be able to actively search for your site or find your site as part of searches using Google or other search engines. Additionally, this will help you gain additional web traffic and increase your online exposure. Again, it is important to ensure that you use effective SEO practices when using directory submission. It may be helpful to reach out for professional help to ensure your site’s content and optimization are the best they can be.

Another benefit to directory submission is increased link popularity. Using directory submission will achieve higher quality backlinks because your website appears reputable to search engines such as Google. Additionally, directory submission also guarantees that your website will appear higher in search engine results because your site and its pages are listed in the appropriate categories.

Understanding search engine optimization or SEO and how it can benefit your organization can seem confusing. This is especially true if you are not familiar with the terms and procedures necessary to enhance search engine rankings. With the help of a professional website management service like MGMT Digital, you can ensure your website, social media feeds, and directory submission information is designed to get your company recognized. Make sure your website is found when potential customers search for services. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you design a new website, upgrade your old one, or improve your search engine results.

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What Is SEO for Mental Health Professionals?

What Is SEO for Mental Health Professionals?

Anyone with a website has likely heard about SEO, but not everyone understands the value SEO contributes to your organization. When it comes to websites and business marketing, two of the biggest questions business owners likely have are what is SEO and how can it help me? How can SEO help potential clients find my business? The SEO professionals at MGMT Digital can help you build your client base by enhancing your online presence using SEO.

What Is SEO?

SEO is short for search engine optimization. The businesses with the best search engine rankings typically understand the importance of SEO optimization from top to bottom, but they didn’t always. In many cases, they turned to professionals like MGMT Digital to create more optimized websites. Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your website to get organic or unpaid traffic from a search engine results page. SEO results are organic results that come from somebody entering search terms into a search field and finding your website because of their search. They do not come from paid or sponsored advertisements on a search engine page. Improving your optimization often requires making specific changes to your website design and content to make your site more attractive to a search engine.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing want to provide the best and most effective services for their users. This means delivering results on search pages that are not only relevant to what the searcher is looking for but of high quality as well. To meet this expectation, search engines will scan different websites to understand the site’s information better. This helps return the most relevant results when someone searches for something specific such as “mental health professionals near me.” Similarly, search engines will also scan sites to determine how user-friendly they are in terms of navigation and readability. The more user-friendly the site is, the higher the rankings will appear on search engine result pages.

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Why SEO for Mental Health Professionals Is Important

Thousands of private mental health offices and larger mental health treatment facilities operate across the United States. How can you, as a mental health professional, ensure potential clients find you? When someone searches for a “mental health professional” on a search engine, your website must show up at the top of the search results. If not, potential clients will likely choose to go elsewhere and may never learn about your practice or organization. 

To accomplish high search engine rankings, your website must have proper SEO. Many who use a search engine like Google to find a care provider will not read past the first page of search results while doing their research. This means if your site is on page two or three, potential clients are likely lost. SEO is vital to your mental health practice as it helps to connect you with potential clients who need your services. 

How MGMT Digital Can Help You With Your SEO for Mental Health Professionals

The days of word-of-mouth advertising are fading. Today most people searching for services turn to online search engines to find and learn about service providers. Your online reputation and presence in Google search results will be of significant influence in your decision-making process. At MGMT Digital, we will work with your practice to ensure your website is specifically designed to draw the attention of your target audience. Our skilled team regularly performs SEO audits to find and remove irrelevant links from your site. We will help your practice build a solid reputation online across pertinent platforms for behavioral health professionals. If you are ready to learn more about how MGMT Digital can help you grow your practice, contact us today to learn more. 

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What Are the Components of Technical SEO?

Components of Technical SEO

What Are the Components of
Technical SEO?

Every day millions of people look to internet search engines to find information. They may be researching scientific articles, investigating a new physician, shopping for a home, or looking for a new pair of shoes. Regardless of their reason, internet search engines are used to seek information or purchase products from sources worldwide. If you are a business owner, you are familiar with the benefits of a successful presence on well-known search engines. The ability of a website (of any kind) to stand out among the millions of competitors depends a great deal on SEO.

What Is Technical SEO?

Search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo give preference in search data to websites displaying certain technical elements. Technical SEO is the process of improving the technical aspects of your website to increase the ranking of its pages in search engines. A user’s efforts (website manager or designer) to ensure their website is compatible with specific search engine guidelines designed to increase their visibility.

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Your Sitemap

Web crawlers used XML sitemaps to help identify web pages to be indexed as part of search engine results. However, a messy or confusing sitemap makes it more difficult for these crawlers to reach all your pages. Therefore, it is important to check your page to ensure they are formatted correctly in your sitemap.

Metadata

Metadata is also a vital structural element that impacts how web crawlers interpret eager web page data. By using metadata, you can help crawlers quickly determine the title and content of a page and what description should be displayed in the late. In addition, advanced metadata functions provide control over whether a given page is indexed or whether the crawler should follow links on a page to display alternate content.

Security Features

Although not all search engines view secure HTTPS protocol, some do. Therefore, if your website does not take advantage of secure protocols, it could reduce your ranking on search engine results, especially with Google. Google has explicitly confirmed that security is one of the few considerations most certainly part of their algorithm. Therefore, choosing to forego HTTPS protocols can lead to detrimental search ranking results.

Site Speed and Responsiveness

When the consumer visits your page, the time it takes for your page to load is a critical consideration. Many consumers will often leave a site never to return if the page fails to load or doesn’t load quickly. Therefore, some search engine algorithms weigh website speed as an essential consideration in ranking websites. Using technical SEO to eliminate unnecessary page elements and some high-resolution images can help optimize your loading speed. Also, a responsive design that adapts to different devices is vital in today’s heavy mobile environment. To maximize page conversions, a mobile-friendly design is essential to boost your rankings.

Why SEO Is Important For Business Growth

SEO is essential for businesses because it keeps search results on the Internet fair. It is a method for reducing the ability to manipulate search results so that the sites appearing for each search are there because they deserve to be. A website that appeals to visitors typically correlates with high search engine rankings.

Internet users and your future customers look to search engines to determine where they should go to research information and find products. Achieving a top spot in search engine rankings on popular sites such as Google and Bing singles to searchers that your site is a credible source for what they’re looking for. The higher rank in results pages, the more clicks and therefore traffic your site will generate. Without SEO, Internet users would have to look much harder to find valuable sites providing the information they want or need. No matter what your business, SEO is essential for online business visibility and growth if you have a website. To learn more about how we can help you at MGMT Digital, contact us today!

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How to Optimize Your ‘Google My Business’

How to Optimize Your ‘Google My Business’

How to Optimize Your
‘Google My Business’

The internet is constantly evolving, and with this, the rules for the way search engines are powered is also consistently changing. The world’s largest search engine, and likely the first landing page people visit when they want to search for businesses, or anything else for that matter, is Google. Google is a search engine that comes up with its own algorithm for how things are found on the internet, and as a business it is important to adhere to the algorithm so more people can find you and spend money at your business. 

What Is Google My Business?

Google My Business is technically a business profile that appears in search when someone is looking up the name of a business in the area. Businesses have ownership over their Google My Business profile, and they can make updates to their hours of operation, add photos, post a description about their business, and more. Businesses that utilize this tool and maintain an updated business profile on Google tend to show up higher on search when people are searching for a business nearby. For example – if you are new to an area and you are searching for a place to eat tacos for lunch, you may enter this search into Google: “Tacos near me.” This will take you to the closest Taco shop near you that has an updated Google My Business profile. 

Businesses are also able to provide customers with more opportunities to reach out to them via their Google My Business profile. Customers can call, message, or leave reviews for businesses if the business page is set up for that type of interaction.

Taking advantage of the Google My Business page is imperative for local businesses who wish to maintain and grow their customer base online. 

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What Is SEO Optimization?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and if this concept is being defined in simple terms, SEO is the process of improving a website to increase visibility for relevant searches online. Therefore, the more visible a page is online, the more likely people will find it and interact with your profile. The more interactions, the higher opportunity for people to spend money with your business. 

SEO has become an extremely important aspect of owning and operating a business because this is the new way that people find local businesses. Word of mouth still exists, however, most of it is also online. Business reviews are made by people who have already transacted with a business, and reviews live online on a business’s profile. Reviews are the modern-day word of mouth, and they have the power to make or break a business. For this reason, businesses must maintain a Google My Business profile and pay attention to Google SEO optimization. 

How MGMT Digital Can Help Your Treatment Center Become More Visible On the Internet

MGMT Digital is a boutique digital marketing agency that offers businesses the opportunity to grow and establish their brand online. At MGMT Digital, we understand how important it is for businesses to establish a brand strategy that involves digital marketing and brand design. 

Our focus on digital marketing includes maintaining optimal SEO optimization, local SEO, social media marketing, and more. We focus on providing long-term marketing solutions along with effective brand strategies that produce immediate results. Our duty is to cover every angle of digital marketing that is needed for a business to not only be found but to thrive online. 

MGMT also provides expert branding and messaging for your treatment center to engage users, convert traffic, and expand your reach. Today, it is essential for businesses to maintain their visibility online to grow and convert digital traffic into real customers. We build the groundwork for your business to become more visible online, and we trust you to do the rest. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your business grow!

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14 Fool-Proof Ways Improve CTR for SEO

imrpove ctr seo

14 Fool-Proof Ways to Improve CTR
Organically in 2020

After implementing SEO best practices, you have managed to get your pages ranking on the first couple pages of the search engine results page for your target keywords. Congratulations!

…but your traffic is not increasing much.

Frustrating, isn’t it? How could your pages be performing so well in the SERP and still not bring in the organic users that you worked so hard for?

The issue here is probably click-through-rate. Users are not motivated to click on your page. Don’t worry, we can fix that. 

What is CTR Optimization?

CTR optimization is the act of optimizing your appearance in the SERP to increase clicks, and therefore your organic traffic. CTR (in SEO) stands for click-through rate. This is the rate of clicks versus impressions. AKA, how many users are clicking on your hyperlink compared to how many times your link is seen in the SERP. 

There are many different factors that encourage and motivate users to click on your web page above the others. Let’s go through them and how to optimize for their improvement.

How to Improve CTR for SEO

Our team has tried and tested many different methods of improving click-through-rate organically. The following are the most successful techniques to increase CTR.

1. Utilize Google Search Console

To start, you need to identify which pages are lacking in the CTR category. To do this, make sure you have Google search Console set up for your website. This tool allows you to see the amount of impressions, clicks, and the Google search click-through-rate that each page on your site gets. 

Filter your pages by amounts of clicks, and then check to see which pages are receiving a high amount of impressions, but a low CTR.

improving seo CTR on google search console

2. Featured Snippets

The best way to skyrocket your traffic and CTR is getting a featured snippet spot within the SERP. Featured snippets are tools that Google implemented to provide users with quick, easy answers. They come in many forms and there are multiple ways you can attempt to target them.

click through rate optimization: a google search results page

1. Create genuinely quality content. Google is trying to pick the page that provides the user with the most accurate and informative content.

2. Ask and answer questions that users will have. You can predict this by looking at the already-existing FAQ featured snippets and answering these in your content.

featured snippet by google used to improve ctr organically

3. Create numbered lists to answer the keyword’s question.

4. Look at current featured snippets or other pages ranking in that SERP. Where is there a gap in their answer to users’ questions? How can you better those questions?

5. Use images and videos in your content. We will discuss this more later.

3. Schema

Structured data, or schema, is another top tier method to improve CTR in SEO and boost the credibility of your page in the SERP. Google search implemented this tool to enable special search result features and enhancements. 

Schema not only helps your site become more recognizable in the site, but Google considers it a ranking factor.

Structured data comes in many forms, from FAQ to recipes to job posting. Below is a picture of the FAQ schema, one of the most common.

schema, a way to improve your organic click through rate

The first step to implementing schema is deciding which type you want to target. Once you’ve done that, you now need to ensure that your content is applicable to this type of schema, and that it is quality enough for Google to pick up.

This means something different for each kind of schema. For example, in FAQ Schema, you need to ensure that your page asks questions and then directly answers them within your content.

You also need to make sure that your answers to each question are quality answers, just like for featured snippets.

Next, use a schema generator in order to create the schema code and post on your page using Google Tag Manager, WordPress, or placing it directly in your site’s code.

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4. Videos/Youtube

Video SEO is the process of ranking your videos within Google’s SERP and using videos to increase organic traffic to your site. There are multiple ways that you can use your brand’s videos to optimize CTR. 

First, you can use schema.This schema will allow Google to easily find your video and index it. Implementing a video schema can make Google display a ‘rich snippet’, a thumbnail of your video and title and description. This puts you above the competition in the SERP.

a google search results page to show how to improve CTR

The second way you can utilize videos to increase your CTR is creating and optimizing a Youtube channel. Google is providing a lot of discoverability to Youtube content through its interactive “video carousels”. Getting your video on these carousels can help drive a lot of traffic to your videos, and increase interest in your service.

and description of your page within the search engine results page. Both the meta title and the meta description should include the keyword, as well as a call-to-action. The call-to-action is important because it invites the user to click on the link, and gives them that extra push.

In our case, Google is choosing to not display our meta description. This happens often, and there is not really another choice other than changing your meta description, and optimizing it differently.

5. Images

12.5% of SERPs show image pack results. Image packs are clusters of images (drawn from Google images). If this type of Google search tool ranks above your site, your CTR is going to decrease greatly.

In order to get your image to rank highly, it is important to utilize alt text. This is the text that visually impaired users hear read to them to describe the image. Use your target keywords in all of your alt texts, while still making the alt text accurate.

The image will also rank well if the page that image is on has a relevant title, URL, image caption, and surrounding text.

6. Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are a line of text in the SERP above your link that allows the user (and Google) to see your site structure without even entering your site.

breadcrummbs in a search engine results page

Breadcrumbs make it easier for the user to determine if (a) you are the type of site that they are looking for and (b) there is possibly another page on your site that they are interested in. It can also make their search process quicker (by being able to understand your site structure right off the bat).

There are multiple ways you can add breadcrumbs, including using schema and using Yoast SEO, a tool for WordPress.

7. CTAs in Your Metadata

Your meta description and meta title may be worded well, but even if the user likes your content, they still might not feel compelled to take action. CTAs, or call-to-actions, inspire the user to do something in the moment. 

CTAs can be as simple as “learn more”. They also can be practical orders, like “start improving your ROI” or can tug on emotional heartstrings like “get help for your loved one today”

For example, our homepage currently ranks #2 for “boutique digital marketing agency”. While our CTR will be naturally high due to its position, there is an ad and a featured snippet box above our page that can dramatically decrease the amount of clicks.

To stay competitive and achieve a higher CTR, we pose a question and an opportunity for the user to take action to find the answer to that question. As you can see, the sites in position #3 and #4 do not include CTAs in their meta description, setting us apart.

CTAs in the metadata to imrpove click through rate

8. Check the Search Intent

When choosing a target keyword for any type of web page, it is very important to look at the SERP first to evaluate what kind of pages are ranking.

For example, if you are trying to make your therapy service page rank for ‘how to stop overthinking’, you will find that the SERP contains purely educational blogs. This puts your service page at a massive disadvantage in both ranking and CTR. 

search engine results page examples

For one, Google recognizes the search intent of each SERP and will not rank your page if it does not match the intent of the other results. This, of course, will decrease your CTR. 

Double check the search intent of the SERP for your target keyword and make sure that your metadata and the content of your page matches up.

9. Metadata Length

Google has a recommended character count for both meta titles and meta descriptions. The maximum number of characters for meta titles is 50 and the maximum for meta descriptions is 160.

While you can go slightly over and still rank well, I recommend for CTR purposes that you try to keep our metadata short and sweet. Having your complete description of your page displayed in the SERP without being cut off makes your page look cleaner, more credible, and more informational. 

10. Google My Business

If you are a local business, Google My Business is one of the most important tools to use when looking at click-through-rate.

GMB dominates local SERPs and can make it difficult for even the top ranking results to get much traffic. 

Once step one, setting up your Google My Business account, is over, it is time to optimize your profile. The factors that will help your GMB profile rise in the SERPs are:

  1. Reviews, reviews, reviews
  2. Optimizing your business description and services to target the correct keywords.
  3. Build out your profile as much as you can.

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11. Include a Hook in Metadata

Let’s flash back to your high school English class when your teacher told you to include a hook in your first paragraph. A hook to rope the reader in like a fish and encourage them to continue reading.

We already discussed having CTAs in your metadata. However, CTAs are not the only part of metadata that can encourage a user to click on your link to read more. 

Include a piece of information that will catch the user’s attention and gets to the root of why they googled this query. To fill a need or ask a question that will speak to them.

If a user searches “dual diagnosis for teens” and sees your page in the SERP, they will be much more drawn to clicking if you appeal to their intent. For example, a meta description that says “Do you worry your teen has an undiagnosed mental illness that is leading them to dangerous and risky behaviors? We can help. Get in touch.” uses pathos to reach the user and incentives them to click.

12. Update Page to Have More Recent Publishing Date

When users are looking to choose a result in the SERP, they often look at the date that page was published. This is a CTR factor in some SERPS more than others.

If you are trying to rank an educational blog, the user is definitely going to look for the most recent blog, because that information is the most up-to-date.

Is your blog older? Compare it to the highest ranking results in your desired keyword’s search engine results page. 

If it is older than all of the results, do not fear, it is simply time to update your blog and utilize existing content optimization. Add in some more recent information, or edit any out-dated information. Your updated blog will now have a better chance at having a higher CTR.

13. Utilize Yoast SEO’s Preview (If On WordPress)

Yoast SEO is an extremely useful tool that allows you to easily implement metadata onto your pages, while showing you a preview of what it will look like on both mobile and desktop SERPs. 

metadata preview for ctr optimizations

This useful tool allows you to make sure that your meta title and description are good lengths and don’t cut off any information you want the user to see.

14. Check the Mobile SERP

The search engine results page on mobile and desktop can be completely different, especially when looking at local SEO vs national SEO. You may rank #2 for your target keyword on mobile, but #12 on desktop.

If you check Google search Console and are concerned that a high ranking page still has a low CTR, research where your users are coming from and which SERP you are ranking in. 

For example, your Google Analytics may show that users are mostly landing on your site from mobile devices. However, the page you are concerned about ranks on the first page in the desktop SERP.

Some keywords, like drug rehab related ones, are much more searched from mobile phones than desktop computers. This means that even if your page is ranking well on desktop, relevant users are not seeing your page in their SERP (mobile).

This means that your page does not necessarily have a CTR issue, but instead is just not ranking highly enough in the device (mobile or desktop) SERP that your users typically use.

MGMT Digital Can Help You Improve Organic CTR

Click-through-rate on Google search is a very important metric to pay attention to when measuring your website’s success. Without this metric, there is very little traffic, and therefore very few conversions. 


Figuring out what is causing your CTR to dip and increasing your clicks is a time-consuming process. At MGMT Digital, a behavioral health marketing agency, we know you need to focus on your crucial work; saving people’s lives. We are here to help take care of your marketing needs, from drug rehab seo to social media marketing for Healthcare, and beyond.

Local SEO vs National: Difference and Benefits

local seo vs national

Local SEO vs National:
Difference and Benefits

Most people are aware that search engine optimization makes your website and company more discoverable to potential admits. In order for this to work, your site has to target the exact audience you want. For some industries and companies, this audience can be anywhere and everywhere. However, for most of the behavioral health industry, the target audience is in a smaller area, whether that be a state, county, or city. So, what is the difference between Local SEO strategy and national or international SEO strategy?

What Is the Difference Between Local SEO and National SEO?

Search engine optimization has many different methods and approaches. While the overall goal across these approaches is the same (increase traffic and conversions), these separate strategies allow each industry and business to hone in on the exact users who will need their product.

Targeting different locations can be split into three categories: local, national, and international SEO. The approach to each of these categories is different not only in terms of on-page optimization, but also link-building and content.

Local SEO, of course, targets a much more specific area than the other two categories. If you are a doctor’s office in Los Angeles, you do not want your site to end up in the search engine results page of New York. Your bounce rate will be high and your conversions will be very low. 

National SEO allows companies to target search engine results pages across the country. If your business is remote or has multiple locations within your country, but does not service consumers abroad, this strategy is for you.

These two categories do have overlapping strategies and the same foundation. They both need link-building, content, keyword-targeting, technical, and CRO within their strategies. For example Technical SEO will be the same between Local SEO and National SEO sites. Site speed, duplicate content, broken backlinks, and more matter to both approaches.

However, the specifics of which keywords to target on core pages, which content topics to write about, and which directories to get listed on, for instance, are very different between the two strategies.

Why Is Local SEO Important?

It does sound appealing to be able to be discoverable to everyone in the country, just in case users are willing to travel. You can target both local and national SEO. However, we are here to explain why local SEO is more important within this business.

Local SEO allows businesses that do not work remotely or in multiple locations to be discoverable to people specifically in their area. Without Local SEO marketers would have to target the general public online, and the chance of conversions, admits, and clients would be much lower.

Local SEO is also very helpful to the user. Google has allowed for users to simply enter the service or the product they want, and the search engine results page will usually present options to acquire this desired item physically close to the user. 

Google My Business and Yelp have created platforms that allow users to immediately view ratings and images of these services/items, ensuring that their search is easy and efficient. For the service providers, marketers, and business owners, this means that it is crucial to take advantage of these platforms. 

National SEO can still be targeted within blogs or resource pages. Content pieces addressing broader topics within health and addiction can rank on search engine results pages across the nation, and even across the world. However, Local SEO is the key to turning traffic into quality leads, quality leads into admits, and admits into recovered, happy people.

Tips For Local SEO Strategy For Healthcare

Let’s break down a few tips for your Local SEO strategy into three categories:

  • External SEO & links
  • On-page local keyword-targeting
  • Local content topics

External Local SEO and Link-Building

As mentioned above, Google My Business and Yelp are critical to your local SEO strategy. They are the top results that pop up when users search for addiction treatment, after ads and the hotline number.

local seo vs national

While paid advertising for drug rehabs is an important strategy in order to dominate the SERPs, many users will rely on these Google My Business featured snippets because they have reviews, addresses, and other information right off the bat.

So, how do you get your center featured in these results? The first step is to create a Google My Business profile and then optimizing it to be as user friendly as possible. This means adding images, information about your mission and services, and more.

Next, and most importantly, obtaining reviews for Google My Business and Yelp is absolutely crucial. This will not only help increase your ranking within these platforms, but it will encourage users to trust your business more and greatly increase the amount of traffic your website receives and calls you get. 

In addition, if a bad review is left, it is important to be active on these profiles and respond so as to appear involved and explain the reason that the user had a bad experience for other potential admits.

On-Page Keyword Targeting For Local Areas

In order to utilize this next strategy, you need to narrow down a couple specific areas you want to target. These can be towns, cities, counties, or whole states. 

Then, keyword research will take place in order to find out which of these keywords has the highest volume, but also is the least competitive. 

Targeting different locations within your area on different pages allows you to hone in on a very specific location, and a slightly broader one that encompasses that one. So, for example, you could choose to target Seattle on some pages, and King’s County on others. Just ensure that you are not keyword cannibalizing (targeting the same keyword on multiple pages), as that could hurt rankings.

In addition, it is always the best policy to go for the lowest hanging fruit first, so try to target the keyword with the lowest difficulty more, as you will see the fastest results from this.

Blog Topics for Local Content Marketing

Last but certainly not least, content. Content marketing within Healthcare is crucial. It is also very important to ensure that this content targets local issues, as well as national ones.

For example, if your state or city has just changed a law or a policy about healthcare or the addiction treatment industry, write a blog around this. 

Discuss what resources your local area has, and why users can be benefited by going to treatment in this area. This not only creates the opportunity for your site to rank for more keywords within your target area, but it may help convince users to contact you.

How MGMT Digital Can Help Develop Your Local SEO or National SEO Strategy

Running a healthcare facility and/or working at one is a lot of work, and we would like to take some of that off your plate so you can focus on your patients. MGMT Digital is a boutique digital marketing agency that is specialized in behavioral health marketing. Our team has a large amount of experience in SEO and in marketing within this industry in general. Contact us today to see how we can help take your Local SEO to the next level!