Naturopaths are not taking advantage of a golden opportunity to improve their online presence by not networking effectively with peers in their field,
as well as related businesses outside their field, such as acupuncturists, massage therapists and supply companies. Its seems that every naturopath has
over 200 connections on LinkedIn, but then very few Likes on their Facebook page, no followers on twitter and even worse limited traffic to their
website.
All of this turns out to make the business pretty much invisible in the digital world. However, if naturopaths took advantage of the
cooperative and educational nature of their field, they would improve all the aforementioned stats and in turn increase their business revenue.
A briefing on digital marketing
Your website and overall web profile, which includes your social media and paid advertising, needs to serve as an important driver of patients to your practice. It shouldn’t be the only one, but it needs to be optimized because it is the one source people will turn to first. In this section, I will discuss only how to improve your Search Engine Ranking, (the placing where your website appears when someone searches relevant terms for your business) and traffic, by applying the cooperative approach.
You want your practice to appear in search results in the first or second position on Google search. Most search users will only click on the first few results when looking for something. An important factor that Google used to determine how high a website ranked was how many websites linked back to it. So if a site had lots of text links pointing to it and they came from quality sites and numbered a lot, that website would rank well for a particular set of search terms.
It also put emphasis on what types of sites contained the links and placing greater value on some over others. For example, .gov, .edu, are the highest value and then News services and major websites represent third and fourth. This practice is however giving way to co citation and social factors.
What is co citation? Instead of having anchor text links pointing directly to your site, Google wants you to be mentioned on sites without direct links. Google Search has become really good at reading text of websites. Which means that being mentioned on someone else’s website within the terms of your particular industry carries a lot of weight. An example would be if you were interviewed for an article and the text on another website read as follows,
“according to Shadi khattab, a boulder Colorado based Digital Marketing consultant “<inserted quote>
I now have a mention on a website, which refers to me in the context of my business. This is the direction Google is going. An excellent video discussing this development from Moz.com.
http://moz.com/blog/prediction-anchor-text-is-dying-and-will-be-replaced-by-cocitation-whiteboard-friday
How to apply this in Real World Digital Marketing
If you’re a naturopath and don’t have a blog, start one, if you have one keep writing. When it comes to internet marketing for Naturopaths, Writing is one of the most important activities you can do to improve your rankings as well as market your business. Now since you’re a naturopath and you have 200 + connections on LinkedIn you have a network of other practitioners who aren’t competing for the same business. And even if they are, if you live in a big enough market you should network with local practitioners, there will be plenty of business to go around.
So you have a blog and your network of roughly ten practitioners outside your city and customer base all have websites, FB and blogs.
1. Use each other in articles as sources. As in Dr. Crider from Orlando states”<text>”
2. Guest write on each other’s blogs
3. Share the cost of a press releases that mentions both your practices
4. Recommend each other to your FB fans
5. Post each other’s blog articles on your FB pages
6. Create an online Meetup and post it online
7. Host online radio shows and post the audio to you tube and sound cloud
8. Share the cost of content development such as articles, infographics , and videos
Each of these practices will improve your search profile and drive you up the rankings. So now is the time to really hunker down and network. Find practitioners in other cities, or as I stated above even in your own cities. Collaborate, develop and share your content.
By developing these co-mentions across the internet when a local user wants to search for your service they will be more apt to find you. As well networking and sharing content is a great way to diversify your social media profile and value.
