When it comes to digital marketing, it can feel like a bit of a minefield. With tools, platforms and technical knowledge all needed to be successful, it can seem an impossible task to get your online presence up to scratch — let alone planning a campaign. Thankfully, our experts can help. We can give you an insight into our work as a digital marketing agency in Nottingham, as well as some take-home tips you can use for your own website.
So, what is SEO?
In marketing speak, it’s a way of optimising your website to get more organic traffic (the reason it’s often called ‘organic SEO‘). Put more simply, it’s making your website tick all the boxes, so that when someone Googles your practice, clinic or treatment, your website displays at the top of the search engine results page (with the prize top spot known as ‘number one on Google’).
Why should I care about organic SEO?
People in your area are actively searching for the treatments you offer, every single day. Making sure your website is using all the latest SEO tricks means they’re more likely to find you and book those treatments.
How does SEO work?
You’ve probably heard of ‘key words’ or ‘key phrases’. These are the very search terms people might use to find you, like ‘teeth whitening in Lancaster’ or ‘where can I get dermal fillers in Liverpool’. You’ll need to cleverly weave these into your website content — think blogs, treatment pages, even your website’s page names — a bit like leaving a trail of digital breadcrumbs for Google to find.
But here’s where organic SEO gets a little more complicated. Google wants to be a helpful search engine, so there are other factors it takes into account when deciding where to rank you on the results pages. These include:
– Engaging content that’s relevant to your visitors, and keeps them reading and navigating through your website.
– A layout that loads quickly and provides an easy browsing experience, without issues like broken links or huge images.
– Content that’s frequently refreshed and updated, showing your website is active.
– Internal and external links (links between your web pages; links to other websites from yours; or links to your website from elsewhere).
This isn’t an exhaustive list, and there are some aspects that are known only to the Google algorithm. A good rule of thumb, though, is that Google is led by your visitors. And if your visitors don’t dwell on your website, or overlook you in favour of someone else, you’ll slide down the results pages.
What about Google Ads?
Google Ads are like a digital billboard placed at the top of the search results pages. They can help you ‘buy your way’ to a better ranking, as you can bid on key words and phrases used in your ad. In other words, if someone’s searching for ‘HIFU in Doncaster’, then alongside your organic SEO strategy, you might want to snap up some of the popular search terms and use them in a Google Ad. However, the reason we’d recommend organic SEO and Google Ads is because it’s a bit of a balancing act. Buying search terms can immediately catapult you to the top of Google, but it’ll be costly to rely on this strategy in the long-term. Instead, many businesses use Google Ads as a way to test out certain key words before implementing them on their website, or even to compare which words and phrases work best (known as A/B testing).
How do I put a strategy together?
Here are a few top tips you can try.
- Polish up your website. Cover everything from content to image and video quality, physical layout and loading speeds.
- Use a combination of organic SEO and Google Ads, especially for campaigns (for example, running an Invisalign campaign to increase bookings).
- Make sure your whole web footprint has been considered, for example your social media pages and reviews websites. You need a consistent experience for your visitors to build trust.
- Commit to a reasonable timeframe. It’s unlikely you’ll see big results overnight.
- Talk to a specialist. Our digital marketing agency in Nottingham can help.
Contact Cosmetic Digital today
Here in Nottingham, our SEO Specialists help hundreds of businesses in the healthcare, aesthetics and dental industries devise successful digital marketing strategies, every single day. Many of our recommendations we use ourselves on our own website. It’s because we know what works — and what doesn’t. And we can pass that same know-how onto you.
Get in touch with our digital marketing experts today via our contact page or call 01159 140640.
