Boost Your BUSINESS

Jane Wardle looks at how you can generate leads and drive action, by building your online presence through SEO and social media

Traditional forms of advertising still have their place, however, with a massive 97% of consumers heading online to research their requirements, you need to keep up-to-date with your online marketing strategy. To grow the online visibility of your clinic, consider using search engine optimisation (SEO) and social media to give your medical aesthetics business a better online presence.

SEO

SEO increases both the quality and quantity of website traffic, as well as exposure to your brand through organic, which means ‘not paid for’ search engine results. It’s about understanding what people are searching for online, the answers they are looking for, the words they’re using, and the type of results they wish to find.

Let’s have a look at some key points that lead to good SEO:

• Crawl accessibility: this means that when someone searches for an answer to their question, your website is there with an answer

• Keyword optimised: the content is found by having the keywords and phrases that people type into search engines to find what they’re looking for

• Good user experience: a website should be quick to load and easy to navigate with an uncomplicated user experience

SEO increases both the quality and quantity of website traffic, as well as exposure to your brand through organic search engine results

• Shareable content: should have links to be able to share to other content on your website, on social media and via other messaging services

• Good Click Through Rate (CTR): the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement

• Compelling content: the content on your website informs, entertains and answers the user’s questions

SO, HOW DO YOU CREATE GOOD SEO? HERE’S MY ADVICE:

Remember ‘Content is King’ Great content improves your visibility on search engines, driving traffic to your website and encouraging people to your clinic. Engaging content will motivate readers to remain on the site for a longer period of time. Search engines, such as Google and Bing, consider time spent on a website as a significant measure of your site’s value.

Another benefit of producing high-quality content is that other sites will want to share it. When other websites link back to your site, your online footprint grows. These are called ‘inbound links’ and are another powerful measurement search engines use to decide how high up on the search results your website will appear. The more inbound links you’re able to gather from good sources, the more likely you are to appear at the top of a search.

To create good content, you should consider establishing your tone of voice and unique selling points. To do this, think about your target audience and how you speak to them in clinic. Are they of an older generation and prefer more traditional approaches? Or do you target a younger demographic who want to stay up-to-date with all the latest trends? Who your audience are will inform how you speak to them in person, which should be replicated online.

Also consider your ethos or mission and the impact you want these to have on any potential patients – make sure you highlight these on your website and tell visitors what makes you different from other aesthetic practitioners.

Testimonials are another great form of good content. First-hand accounts will help show your desired patients the work you do and the results you have achieved for people just like them. You should consider asking all patients to provide a testimonial just before they leave your clinic while their experience is fresh in their mind!

Use Keywords

Google is the most commonly used search engine. It is often investing more and more in building algorithms that monitor keyword usage, user patterns, and even more user data to better serve its users. There are resources you can use when researching which keywords to go after, such as Moz, Semrush and Hootsuite. In the meantime, some dos and don’t of using keywords are:

DO

• Focus on local keywords: bringing in traffic within your geographical area is much more likely to set the foundations for consultation bookings and long-term relationships

• Create a keyword planner by searching terms and seeing which offer the best targeted traffic for your business

• Create content that answers your target audience’s questions utilising the keywords you have established

DON’T

• Overstuff your content with keywords: repetitive content leads to a poor user experience and search engines will penalise your site

• Duplicate other people’s content

• Panic if you don’t see results immediately – it can take time so stick with it

Switch on Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free service that allows you to identify trends and patterns of how visitors engage with your website. Amongst other things, you can track where your main visitors are based, what pages of your site are most popular and how long they stay on a page; it’s a great tool to monitor how effective your content and keyword SEO efforts have been. There are plenty of introductory guides to using Google Analytics available online, so switch it on and get started!

SOCIAL MEDIA

If you’re not using social media within your digital marketing strategy, you’re missing out. Paid and organic social advertising works alongside your other forms of marketing, bridging the gap that so many businesses leave untouched. It is an effective way to reach a targeted audience who is either already engaged with you, or is a potential customer.

ORGANIC SOCIAL

Facebook and Instagram are two of the most popular social media platforms to target aesthetic patients, though it’s important to consider if one or the other is most suitable for your audience. Through creating organic social media content, you will be able to grow a following and build trust by continually educating and reminding your audience about the work you do and the results you achieve.

Take the tips from above on board when creating your content, and also:

• Think about the platforms your target audience uses: if you don’t have much time it may be better to focus your efforts on one first

• Post regularly: think about how often you can realistically post, set reminders and be consistent so your platforms aren’t neglected and people don’t forget about you

• Create a content plan: decide what topics you will post about and the images you will use in advance so you don’t waste time or rush your content

• Respond to people who comment or ask questions about your products or services in a timely and polite manner to build trust

• Maintain consistency across both your social media and website so people recognise your brand

Never criticise your competitors: a business’s social media page is not the place to attack competition

• Utilise tracking tools on the social platforms themselves or third party sites such as Hootsuite, Moz, Semrush to monitor success of posts and learn what works best – these can also be used to schedule posts in advance

• Make it easy for patients to follow you: include your social links on all clinic signage, your website and other marketing materials

• Ensure that your social media handle is consistent with your business name to make it easier for search engines to group your entire online footprint easily

• Include a Call to Action (CTA) to produce an instant response or encourage an immediate booking Things to avoid:

• Don’t breach advertising policies – check out the Committee of Advertising Practice Code for guidance – there’s lots of advice on the types of promotions you can and can’t run, as well as the rules for talking about prescription-only medicines

• Don’t share personal opinions on business social media pages: keep updates business related and unbiased

• Never criticise your competitors: a business’s social media page is not the place to attack competition and won’t earn you a good reputation

• Don’t overtly sell – while the optimum purpose for a business to have a social media page is to sell, it should not be the first thing you do. Instead, use it to engage the audience to build a relationship and educate them, which should eventually lead to bookings

Paid Social

If you have money to spend, then you may choose to invest in paid social media advertising. Prices will vary depending on how frequently you want to post and the size of the audience you aim to reach, but it can be a really effective tool to target certain demographics accurately. You can test different demographics to see which works best and vary your ads for each.

Paid advertising goes hand in hand with the organic social content you produce across the Facebook and Instagram platforms. When looking at your adverts people will likely click through to your page and check out your organic content. From here they will browse and get an understanding of your business and what you do. This content helps further drive trust and credibility for anyone new who discovers you.

When utilising paid social, it’s important to ensure that any adverts don’t include any imagery or videos that are to be deemed inappropriate by the reviewing algorithm. This targets imagery and videos that include (but are not limited to):

• Excessive nudity

• Suggestive or erotic poses

• Adverts assuming things about other people

• Adverts aimed at giving people a negative perception of themselves in order to get them to buy your product or service

Facebook and Instagram in particular are stricter with their restrictions due to previous issues, so ensure you follow the rules!

MOVING FORWARD

If you want to advance your SEO, then it may benefit you to ask for help. An expert will evaluate the important metrics of your business, do keyword research and create an appropriate SEO marketing strategy to suit your needs. Working with dedicated business experts, they can help develop strategic marketing plans to guide your clinic toward continued growth and success.

JANE WARDLE

Jane Wardle is Head of Content at Pod Digital and an associate for Sourced Associates; a business consultancy that offers support with marketing, PR, social media, project management and more. www.sourcedassociates.co.uk