The internet offers limitless opportunities to local businesses to reach out to a broader audience. This can be done through different tactics and strategies, the most essential of which is local SEO (search engine optimization) – also known as “local search marketing.”

In this article, we’ll walk you through the concept of local search engine optimization, its basic components, and how it can benefit your TMS clinic’s website.

Let’s get started. 

What is Local SEO (or Local Search Marketing)?

Local SEO refers to an SEO strategy that’s implemented by local businesses to increase their visibility on the internet, improve their local search rankings, and attract potential customers from nearby areas/physical location.

In this digital marketing era, your business needs to create and maintain a fully-optimized online presence to survive.

Creating a local SEO strategy is the first of the many steps towards attaining that online presence.

This entails a lot of things, including, but not limited to creating local citations on the web (creating listings with the name, physical address, phone number, and other relevant information of your business).

The Role of Local SEO in your TMS Clinic’s Marketing Strategy

Here’s how local SEO can help businesses like mental healthcare practitioners and TMS therapy clinics:

• Potentially Rank Higher – local SEO helps businesses rank higher in the search engine results page (SERP). Meaning, when the searchers will enter local keywords (such as, “TMS clinics near me”) on Bing, Google search, or any search engine, your clinic’s website could appear at the top of the related business listing/business directory. 
• Get More Walk–ins – one of the most significant effects of local SEO on a business is improving its trust factor among the audience. If you rank higher for local search terms, you’re likely to get more foot traffic to your physical location.
• Helps Build Reputation – trust and reputation go hand in hand. If your landing pages succeed to impress your audience, they’re highly likely to try your services and leave a positive review on your website. These reviews will help other people find your clinic, and this cumulative effort will improve your clinic’s reputation.

In short, local SEO is a great way to inaugurate your business on the web. 

Furthermore, it’s a great local marketing tactic that will make your business discoverable in the organic results and help you win new patients.  

The Core Components of a Local SEO Strategy

Achieving a great position in the search engine rankings requires expertise and consistency – coupled with ultimate knowledge of local SEO components. 

Here are the core elements of a local SEO strategy that every business owner should know:

1. Compliance with Google’s Guidelines

Google has a comprehensive SEO guide for marketers aiming to achieve local SEO for their businesses. 

Some of the most prioritized aspects are to maintain Google my business (GMB) listing, accurately reflect your business, and avoid publishing prohibited content.

If you fail to comply with Google’s guidelines, it will hurt your rankings and even result in a listing takedown.

What is Google My Business Listing and its Role in Local SEO?

Google My Business (formerly known as Google Local and Google Places) is a platform that’s similar to an online directory. It allows you to create and maintain an online business profile.

GMB listing contains your business information (business name, address, and phone number – or “NAP”) just like other aggregators (Yelp, brightlocal, etc.) and displays it to places with high visibility like google maps, google local pack, google knowledge graph, etc. 

2. Website’s Authority, Quality, and Optimization

Your website is eligible for a high rank in Google’s local search results if you check the following boxes:

• You have attained ample number of backlinks from topically relevant and high-authority websites (via local link building), which, in turn, can improve your site authority.
• Your website has a great user experience. It is well-designed, responsive, entails high-quality content, and is free of malware.
• Apart from the traditional SEO, your website/webpages are also optimized for keywords relevant to your service area. 

Optimizing your local clinic’s website for these three factors will significantly impact your local search rankings.  

3. NAP

The term NAP (name, address, phone number), sometimes referred to as NAP+W (with the W pointing out the website’s URL), is the most basic information you can share about your business on the web. 

Google highly recommends having NAP consistency throughout the internet to avoid misdirecting your customers. 

NAP Breadth

You have to spread your NAP across the internet. In other words, the more citations you create,the better.

You can achieve that by building structured citations on platforms like GMB, Yelp, Moz Local, etc. as well as unstructured citations on blogs, news channels, and social media platforms.

4. Online Reviews

Local consumer review survey shows that 92% of the consumers read online reviews before trusting a local business.

Encourage your patients to leave positive reviews about your clinic on your website and platforms like GMB and Yelp. 

You can add review attribute to your website’s schema markup, enriching your chances to get listed in Google reviews and other review sites.

Online reviews will not only impact your clinic’s local search rankings, but also improve your conversions and earnings in the long-run.

5. Content Strategy

The main agenda behind stepping onto the web is creating brand awareness and brand evangelists.

Therefore, the goal behind your content strategy should be to educate, inform, and engage your target audience. This, in turn, could help you establish authority within your domain.

6. Competitive Edge

Your local competitors will have a competitive edge over you if you don’t go beyond the basics.

If you’re competing with a TMS clinic physically located near yours, you need to do something unique to gain a competitive edge.  

Let’s say you both have websites, but they don’t focus on their GMB listing, quality of the website, or accrue customer testimonial videos for their YouTube channel. 

You can gain a competitive edge by improving your local listing, optimizing your website for mobile search, improving the overall UX of your website, and publishing customer testimonials and informative webinars on your YouTube channel. 

Conclusion

All things considered, local search marketing can help you boost your visibility and recognition among the consumers of a specific geographical area.

Implementing the above-mentioned local SEO tips for your business can certainly help. Depending on the level of competition in your region, it may take some time to see results. The key is to being consistent in your efforts, following the best practices, and remaining patient.