Implementing SEO Strategies for Small Business Health Care Companies

INCREASING ONLINE LEADS AND BUSINESSAN ACTIONABLE GUIDE TO START GETTING LEADS ONLINE

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• Why IM (internet marketing is important)

• Understanding basic SEO

• 5 Actionable Ways to Increase your online footprint and find the right contacts

• Understand the tools needed to successfully implement a plan

TAKING OVER MINUTE WOMEN

1-844-BEST-CARE

MARKETING PLAN

• Hired a Home Care Business Coach

• 25 hours a week of on the road marketing

• Networking Events

• Making Contacts

• This plan was implemented for over 2 years

THE PROBLEM

• No direct correlation between marketing & new business

• Industry contract turnover high

• Spending big $$$ with little ROI

• Trying To Develop Relationships with Decision Makers is HARD and Competitive!

Why fight when I can lead?

DECIDED TO TRY SOMETHING NEW

• I stopped all outbound calls and street marketing

• I worked on links, website, and blog

• I implemented the strategies I learned from experts and what I read

• And grew my company from $1,000,000 in sales to $1,300,000 dollars

in sales in 2015

QUALIFICATIONS – WHO THE HECK AM I?

• In 2011 I knew nothing about

SEO

• How I learned

• Read blogs and blogs and more

blogs

• Moz.com

• Search Engine Journal

• Inbound.org

• And many more!

WHO I WORKED WITH

• Eric “Links Moses” Ward – Worked with Amazon at

it’s infancy of a website in 1997

• Has worked in SEO since 1994

• Brian Dean of Backlink.com – SEO That Works Sites

BEFORE WE GET INTO IT. . . .

• First, don’t take notes – but write your questions down.

• At the end of the speech I will have an easy to write down link to all this

information.

• Doing this kind of work is a grind! There is nothing easy about it. It will take you

hours. Do not expect this to be easy. This is the same thing as traditional

“relationship building” facility marketing, except it is online.

• It takes time, but be persistent. Tortes vs the Hare situation.

INTERNET MARKETING

WHY INTERNET MARKETING?

• SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as

direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate.

• 61% of global Internet users research products online.

• 79% of companies that have a blog report a positive ROI for

inbound marketing in 2013

• Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to

enjoy positive ROI.

• 46% of people read blogs more than once a day

SRC: http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics

MORE REASONS…

• Content marketing in 2015 generates 3 times as many leads as

traditional outbound marketing, but costs 62% less.

• When asked where marketers would be increasing spending in

2015, the top five responses were: SEO (57%), Social Media (54%),

Email (48%), PPC (43%), and Social Communities (40%)

• Internet advertising will make up 25% of the entire ad market in

2015.

This is happening in every segment of business including senior care services!

WHY FOCUS ONLINE AND LINKS?

• Currently Provides “the best ROI”

• Backlinks are still the #1 ranking factor for Google

• How do I know? Because Google Told Us This in March 23, 2016

“It’s content and links pointing to your site”

~Andrey Lipattsev, the Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google (Ireland)

WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)?

• It is the process of affecting the visibility or ranking of a website or a

web page in a search engine's unpaid results—often referred to as

"natural," "organic," or "earned" results.

• Simple version: The more links you have pointed to your site and

the better (and longer) the content you have, generally you will

have higher rankings on google…ideally being in the first 4-5 search

results.

• That is what we will focus on today!

UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS

• SEO stands for Search Engine

Optimization.

• Recently “inbound marketing”

has become the “wheel”, with

SEO as one of the spokes that

makes up this wheel.

BACKLINKS

• A backlink: an incoming

hyperlink from one

webpage to another

website

• In the example to the right,

both The Atlantic and

iTunes have backlinks on

this webpage

EXPLAINING BACKLINKS

Each Backlink is a Thumbs-up to Google.

The more thumbs-up you have, the better!

BACKLINKS EXPLAINED

•Not all backlinks are weighted the same

•Bigger websites hold more “authority”

when Google looks at the millions of links

online

BACKLINKS EXPLAINED

•Sites like CNN, HuffPost, NBCnews,

Yahoo, etc. have higher authority

•Government & Education sites have

huge authority

BACKLINKS EXPLAINED

• Relevancy matters – the site or the site’s content

• Autotrader, or CNET.com though authoritative sites, aren’t

as big of a deal as being on Yahoo Health, because Yahoo

Health is relevant to your niche.

• If a car mechanic’s website said, go to Minute Women for

home care would that make sense to you?

IN THE END YOU WANT. . .

•Relevant Websites

• Local Websites

•Not Every Link is a Perfect Link, but we prefer

quality sites over spam and quantity.

LOCAL AND AUTHORITATIVE LINKS

• Local Links

• City/Town – County- State – or Region

• Relevant Links

• Home Care, Hospice, DME, Caregiving, health care, dementia and senior

related sites

• Authorities Links

• Yahoo Health, Huff Over 50, AARP, & Hundreds of Others

HOW TO CHECK BACKLINKS

• AHREFS.COM

BACKLINK EXAMPLES

Huffingtonpost.com

Domain Rating: 80URL Rating: 20

Is it local? No

Is it relevant? Absolutely!

Amazing link!

BACKLINK EXAMPLES

Site: AARP


Is it local? Yes


Amazing link!

BACKLINK EXAMPLES

• Friends of the Arlington COA

• Domain Rating: 33

• URL Rating: 16

• Is it local? Yes

• Is it relevant? Yes

• Good Link!

HOW YOUR EFFORTS CAN SNOWBALL

ADDITIONAL EXAMPLE

• Thesimpledollar.com

• Domain Rating: 63 • URL Rating: 20

Is it relevant? NoIs it local? NoIs it a reputable site? Yes!

ANOTHER LINK

Site: Reviews.com


Local: No

Relevant: No

Good Link? Sure!

IT GETS ME TWO PHONE CALLS…

Small Business Owner Who Read The Reviews and

Wanted To Know If It Was Real

He Lets Payment Depot Know About Me!

PAYMENT DEPOT’S WANTS ME!

PAYMENT DEPOT DOES AN EXPOSE ON ME!

Site: Paymentdepot.com


Relevant Site: Yes, not the site but the content is!

Local: No

Good Link: Yes!

CONTENT CREATION & OUTREACH

HOW TO CREATE CONTENT

• Ultimate Guides

• Ebooks

• How-To Manuals

• Take all the questions you have ever been asked

and organize and compile them into something

amazing!

HOW TO GET BACKLINKS FROM CONTENT

• Google tells us content is king

• Content that ranks in the top 5 results is often over 2,000 words

long

• Writing content that your readers find of value is important

• Outreach. Email people letting them know about your content

OUTREACH

• Lots of emailing is needed. Do not expect more than a 5-10% ROI.

• Find possible sites through google searches “keyword” + “links” or “resources”

• Education and Government site provide the most authority – hardest links to get

LOCAL SEO, NAP & CITATIONS

CITATIONS/NAP

Citations are

defined as

mentions of your

business name

and address on

other webpages—

even if there is no

link to your

website.

CITATION EXAMPLE

YP.com

CITATIONS

• Has a free Top 50 Local Business Directors

• Go through each directory and enter your contact information

• http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/10322/The-Ultimate-List-50-Local-Business-Directories.aspx

FIND YOUR CITATIONS

• Whitespark will give you a list of where your citations are or

should be for $20/month (many times all you need is one

month).

• Additionally, you can PAY whitespark (depending on the

amount of citations) between $200-600 to find and enter

citations for you.

HOW TO GET BACKLINKS

HOW TO GET BACKLINKS

•Backlink Profile Replication

•Great Google Searches

•Guest Posting

•Sponsorships

TOOLS YOU’RE GOING TO NEED

• Backlink checker (I use Ahrefs) $99/month

• Link Prospector by Citation Labs (PAYG $5/per

credit)

• Excel Work Sheet/Google Sheets (Free)

• Email Tool (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook etc.)

WHAT IS A BACKLINK CHECKER?

BACKLINK PROFILES REPLICATION

• Find A Competitor or Related Company’s Website

•Enter Into Backlink Checker

•Manually check each link to try and reproduce it

•Takes time but you will find opportunities!

BACKLINK EXAMPLES

Site: AARP


Is it local? Yes


Amazing link!

GUEST POSTING

DISCLAMER

• DO NOT copy and past articles you find on the internet, or

try and have the same article posted on multiple sites.

They will check to ensure it’s authentic.

• It’s not worth your reputation!

GUEST POSTING

• Millions of blogs are written each day. Not

everyone wants to do it themselves.

• Find blog owners who update regularly and

contact them.

• How Do I Find These Blog Owners?

GUEST POSTING TOOL

• Use LinkProspector by Citation Labs

LINK PROSPECTOR

• Receive an Excel sheet of names, url’s, and information

regarding guest posts

• Click through each link and see who fits your criteria

• Then go back to the original option and pick a new

keywords!

DONATION AND SPONSORSHIPS

DONATIONS & SPONSORSHIPS

• Find local non-profits that have “supporter pages” with links to a

supporters site

• Sports Leagues

• Performing Arts

• Farmer’s Markets

• Find reginal or national companies that are RELATED to your niche

that need donations

• Find local drives, walks, 5ks, fundraisers that you can sponsor

• Are You Paying For Links? (Big Google No-No)

HOW TO FIND DONATION/SUPPORTER PAGES?

• Start with obvious places in you niche (health care field). Google

them, find PR reps, or a webpage dedicated to events.

• Backlink replicating

• Citation Labs

• Google search

• “donation list” + “contributors” + “location”

• “contributors page”

• “supporter page”

OUTREACH

OUTREACH

• You are going to be emailing a lot of people!

• Expect to be ignored or outright rejected.

• Write short, to the point emails, but make it about them.

• How do you find their emails?

THINGS MIGHT GET A TAD BIT CREEPY

FINDING CONTACTS EMAILS

• 90% of emails are one of two variations

Example: John Smith works for healthcare.com

More than likely it is:

[email protected]

[email protected]

(sometimes it is) [email protected] – rare.

FINDING A CONTRACT’S EMAIL

• Mailtester.co

m

• Wrong email

will show red

MAIL TESTER

LINKEDIN – WEALTH OF CONTACT INFORMATION

Type in the company name

Use the search criteria on the left side to filter down to

the contact you are looking for

Use that information and go to mail tester to check

emails

LINKEDIN CONT.

GETTING INVOLVED IN INTERVIEWS

HARO

• Help A Reporter Out

• Great For Interviews

• Great For Links

HARO

• Is a publicity site that connects journalists and experts

• You will get an email that lists all the topics journalists are

looking for information on

• Often, if your content is used, you will get a link as well!

HARO

• This is separated into categories

for easy searching

• Each topic (most of the time) has

the website that the article is for

• You can check to see if these sites

match your niche and have high

DA

• Very passive link building

WRAPPING IT UP

WHERE TO START?

IF I WERE YOU . . .

• Start out with HARO - Easy and simple to use

• Whitespark - Spend the money/time on citations. It’s relatively cheap, or pay someone else to do it!

• Work On Getting Guest Posts Through Citation Labs – Cheap, but labor intensive

• Backlink Replication – Most expensive option and labor intensive

WHAT I WANT TO STRESS

• You are not Partners HealthCare with billions of dollars

• You are not a team of full-time inbound marketers

• Take small steps and be persistence and consistent. You will get there!!

LINK TO SEE THIS PRESENTATION

Health & Medicine

Implementing SEO Strategies for Small Business Health Care Companies