David Straight, Author at E-rehab

Increase Visibility and Perform Market Research via Physical Therapy Social Media Marketing

It appears to be more useful on a personal level but physical therapy social media marketing can help greatly in increasing the visibility of your business. By promoting interaction with your patients, it can also help you to perform market research.

The Aura of Authenticity About Facebook “Likes”

Since Facebook is largely an informal space, people feel free to comment on it, either positively or negatively. And a positive Facebook comment counts for a lot more than an advertisement, because those who read it know that there was no coercion involved. If someone “likes” a post, it’s generally because they genuinely like it, and not because they were paid to say so. So there’s an aura of genuineness and authenticity about physical therapy references you might get via Facebook or Twitter.

Celebrity Endorsements vs. Reviews from Friends

The skeptics among us might point out that celebrities are often paid to endorse products or services online. This is true but most of us are more likely to be swayed by what our Facebook friends tell us rather than what a celebrity might say. This is because there are many similarities between us and our friends. We perceive them as being at the same or only a slightly different level of attractiveness, economic class and intellectual understanding. We pay more attention to their “likes” because they’re like us!

Coming up with a Social Media Marketing Plan

If you’re unconvinced about the role of social media marketing companies, keep in mind that you can come up with a social media marketing plan, as suggested by this Hootsuite article. Depending on your business objectives, your social media marketing plan may include an evaluation of what your current social media accounts are doing for you, the creation of new accounts, the development of accounts you already have and the addition of new, relevant content. Checking out what your competitors are up to can also help you to figure out where your business is going and how social media can help you to get there.

Interacting with Prospects via Social Media

Social media helps you to stay in touch with your audience. It’s an interactive space from which you can learn what your patient prospects are looking for. For example, if you put up an update regarding a new type of physical therapy you’re offering, it’s possible that you’ll get a number of positive or negative comments with regard to it. Depending on what your patients are saying, you can decide whether you want to make any changes to your service.

Staying Alert to Figure Out The Tipping Point

If you stay alert on social media, you can also figure out which way the wind is blowing, before it actually gets there. In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell talks about Hush Puppies, a type of shoe that had slowly been declining in popularity. The makers of Hush Puppies had almost decided to stop producing them when there was a sudden upswing in their sales. Although the middle-aged, conservative demographic had stopped wearing them, they had suddenly become popular with hipsters.

Using Social Media for Market Research of “Niche” Services

What happened with Hush Puppies came as a surprise to many people. But this is the kind of change that soon becomes noticeable via comments or likes on social media. Although a number of people might feel the same way about a certain product or service, there might be undiscovered market segments/audiences that feel differently. If it’s possible for your niche service to start appealing to a new demographic, social media is a great way to find this out first. In this sense, social media is not just a marketing platform to increase sales; it’s also a great place to perform a bit of market research and change direction if need be.

Experiment with the marketing of niche services – sports performance, vestibular rehab, women’s health, tmj treatment, and more. Run an ad, point the viewers to a page on your website about that niche service, give them something of value (this is called a lead magnet or a trust trigger product) in exchange for their name and email address, and see what happens.

3 Statistics to Know For Successful Physical Therapy Online Marketing To Baby Boomers

physical therapy online marketing

When it comes to physical therapy online marketing, reaching the right audience is the most important component to a successful strategy. For physical therapy offices and businesses, it makes perfect sense for your physical therapy online marketing strategy to target baby boomers. As baby boomers age, they face mobility-related accidents, chronic illnesses, and other health obstacles which require short or long-term physical therapy care. So how can you go about making sure that your services are reaching this demographic locally? Here are three key facts to know–thanks to Hubspot‘s informative article on the Baby Boomer generation–that will help you improve your online marketing strategy.

Fact: 82% of baby boomers are on at least 1 social networking site.

In addition, 15% of baby boomers are on Facebook and spend at least 11 hours on the site per week. This is important to note, especially when you work on your social media marketing.

To reach baby boomers on site like Facebook, make sure that you regularly update your social media sites with news and information related to physical therapy tips and reminders to help reach current and potential clients. For example, you can post infographics about the best stretches or routines to build strength after hip surgery, or develop a series of blog posts with photos that explain various equipment, medical terms, or conditions that baby boomers commonly face. Or, start a conversation asking people informally how they’re feeling after physical therapy. It can be helpful for patients to see others respond positively after 3 months of therapy, or provide insight into what helps. Providing helpful links, starting conversations, and more are all ways to help engage with baby boomer customers, who will see you posts when you are active and engaged on the same networks.

In addition, don’t forget that site like Facebook offer ratings and reviews, which can help baby boomers find trustworthy physical therapists. Developing your social media pages will help you maintain authenticity among this demographic.

Fact: 33% of all tablets are owned by people 50 years and over.

This is important information for understanding how important mobile-responsive and mobile-friendly your online marketing should, especially for baby boomers. According to the Venture Capital Review, baby boomers also own 23% of alliPads and 30% of all Kindle Fires, which can help you understand where they are looking at and reading information.

How does this fact help you adjust your strategy? For one, it reaffirms that your blog posts, tweets, Facebook updates, emails, and newsletters should be brief and graphically pleasing. These formats are best for mobile audiences who are skimming through information quickly. Having attention-grabbing newsletters that are concise and to-the-point has immediate

Fact: Only 5-10% of marketing is targeted to baby boomers, even though they lead as the largest group spending in all types of product and service categories.

This is also reflective in physical therapist marketing strategies: though baby boomers are more likely to need physical therapy, marketing exactly to their group is not always a priority. If you want to step ahead of competitors, you can develop a strategy that will improve your presence.

What would make your online presence more appealing and accessible? From your website appearance to your content, you can do many things that will encourage engagement from baby boomers. For example, photos on your website should reflect the demographics you serve, whether it’s older men and women, or younger athletes. Baby boomers are more inclined to use your services when you use photographs reflecting themselves. In addition, the overall website should also be clean-cut and professional, without any gimmicky colors and graphics that can distracting and unappealing. You might also want to add larger text than standard 12-point font for readability, and easy navigation with larger buttons or tabs to change pages, especially on a tablet.

Overall, these five facts will help you understand baby boomers, and allow you to develop an online marketing strategy that really targets their attention. For more facts, read the compiled list at Hubspot, and contact us to help you serve your demographics.

2 Easy Ways to Improve Your Physical Therapy Online Marketing Content

physical therapy online marketing

“Content is king” is a common, hard truth that marketing strategists rally behind when talking about physical therapy online marketing. Any good website builds quality content in order to improve its ranking and support its marketing strategy at an optimal level. But what actually makes content “king,” and how can you improve it? For one, it’s not about the quantity of content: even if you blog every day for a year, it won’t draw in visitors and patients if it doesn’t have the right content. With that said, we bring you these two easy-to-integrate tips for making sure your content is king:

1. Get into (Info)Graphics

People love visuals, whether it’s an infographic or a candid photo. Your physical therapy online marketing content becomes more valuable when there’s an attached graphic that draws people in. In addition, infographics in all their forms—photo lists, data visualizations, timelines, photo-filled posts and articles—make people more inclined to read through, share or become convinced by the content. As we have seen in our own physical therapy work and the science behind it, visuals and visualizing treatment can be an important component to healing and rehabilitation. Why not apply the importance of visuals to your physical therapy online marketing content?

If your blog or website doesn’t currently have many photos or graphics, it’s time to add them. To start with, add professional photos of your staff in action on your “About” or “Staff” pages. [pullquote1 align=”right” textColor=”#000000″]Your physical therapy office has a wealth of information that’s easy to transform into images or graphics; it’s just a matter of finding the right content and properly distributing it[/pullquote1] You can also create your own flow charts about common treatments performed at your clinic and publish them, or provide data charts to help patients visualize their healing process. You should realize that your physical therapy office has a wealth of information that’s easy to transform into images or graphics; it’s just a matter of finding the right content and properly distributing it. There are many different online tools that can help you create infographics, but hiring someone to add creative, unique and personal content will also go a long way in improving your website.

When posting any sort of image, remember to provide descriptive metadata. This helps search engines properly “read” the image and allows it to pop up in searches.

2. Do Link Building the Right Way

You can think of link building in two ways: inbound and outbound. Link building in general can involve a long list of tactics, but at its most basic level, you should link relevant parts of your content back to other pages on your site. This is how to utilize inbound marketing, and some examples of how this works include the following:

Did you mention another office or location of your physical therapy practice? Link that phrase back to the location page on your website.
Did you refer to a post you made about a specific injury from last month? Link it so your readers can find it easily.
Did you mention your monthly physical therapy newsletter as a resource for special offers and tips? Link the sign up form for the newsletters in that sentence.

This type of inbound link building helps prioritize your message and site, and keeps people from navigating away from it. By providing the relevant links on the same page or blog post, you’ll improve the traffic of your website.

When it comes to outbound linking, you’ll want to make it easy to share and spread your content to others. Make sure that you’re automatically sharing your content on your social media profiles, or making it easy for people to share on various platforms directly from your website. For those with a budget, tools like Bitly are great for sharing shorter links that are optimized for social media and mobile users, and they also allow you see the analytics for each of those pages.

It’s also important to remember that there is a limit to link building: going overboard and providing a link to every phrase can actually penalize your site. This is especially true for websites that pay to generate links, as many analytics tools—like Google—will see it as spam and flag your website as a result. Therefore, it’s best to make sure that each of your links are relevant to the phrase used and distributed in a natural way.

We Can Offer Additional Physical Therapy Online Marketing Tips

[squeeze_box4]By focusing on these two strategies, you will easily boost the quality of your physical therapy online marketing content and present a much higher-quality and professional-looking website. If you still feel you could use some assistance with improving your online marketing, contact us today. We can offer additional tips or establish a specific strategy that addresses all important aspects of your website.[/squeeze_box4]

New Year’s Resolutions For Your Physical Therapy Blogging

physical therapy blogging

The new year should be seen as a great new beginning for just about anything that needs a fresh start, and this can be especially true if your physical therapy blogging could use some revitalization. Whether you already blog and need to boost its quality and quantity, or if need to start a new blog, we recommend these four resolutions to get you on a better track with an influx of new patients in the new year:

Resolution #1: Blog Regularly with a Plan

This is a simple resolution, but one of the most important components to keeping your physical therapy blogging successful. Regularly posting your blogs is what drives better results and engagement, and it also builds your overall reach and reputation in the world of physical therapy.

[pullquote2 align=”right”]To start the year off right, create a physical therapy blogging plan and an editorial calendar, which will establish an idea of how often you will blog in a given period of time[/pullquote2]To start the year off right, create a physical therapy blogging plan and an editorial calendar, which will establish an idea of how often you will blog in a given period of time. Whether it’s twice a week or twice a month, you’ll want to commit to your set blogging plan and stick to it as closely as possible. Make sure that you hold yourself and your team accountable for posting new blog content according to the calendar as the year progresses.

Resolution #2: Think Locally First

Local search engine optimization (SEO) keywords are typically the most important types of keywords your physical therapy clinic can use. Whether you have one location or 10, your prospective patients are searching for physical therapy clinics first by location in order to find therapists that are closest to them. This is usually followed by speciality, so it’s always important to include your specialities and services prominently as well.

Your physical therapy blogging can therefore become an important tool to help improve your local SEO when you write content that pertains to each of your locations. Your blog titles should include the location name that you are optimizing, and the content should be relevant to that particular office. Don’t haphazardly place location keywords in your blog posts, but instead, focus on topics that relate to the area. Stay up-to-date on local news and data, and try to come up with topics that respond to or promote local happenings.

[blockquote align=”center”]By making local SEO a key strategy for the year, you will see vast a improvement in your website’s traffic and leads.[/blockquote]

Resolution #3: Add More Variety

Diversity is one of the major keys to blog posts. If you continue to use the same photos, topics or formats in every post, your blog can become boring and monotonous. When there’s too much of the same thing every time you post, not only do you lose an audience, but you also lose interest and speed in the physical therapy blogging process itself. [pullquote3 align=”left”]When there’s too much of the same thing every time you post, not only do you lose an audience, but you also lose interest and speed in the physical therapy blogging process itself[/pullquote3] When there’s too much of the same thing every time you post, not only do you lose an audience, but you also lose interest and speed in the physical therapy blogging process itself. In healthcare professions like physical therapy, there’s so much more action going on, and your blogs need to reflect this in their content.

The first step to diversifying your physical therapy blogging is to create a few possibilities of different formats for your blogs and use each of them in a successive manner with each post. For example, if your blog normally reads with just one photo and text every time, this may seem repetitive to your average viewer. Change it up by providing charts of statistics, infographics, new types of photos in and outside the office, videos and other types of content.

Resolution #4: Share and Distribute Beyond ‘Post’

Many people make the mistake of thinking that simply pressing the “post” button after writing a blog is the end of the story. In reality, this is just the first step, and you need to put in the work to distribute that post in various ways afterwards.

Most importantly, you’ll need to share your blog content on your social media networks like Facebook and Pinterest right after it’s published. The best way to do this is to summarize the key takeaways and post them in a summary with the link to the blog. You can schedule them to post at different times and on your different social media platforms.

You can also share your blog posts through other tools, such as an email newsletter. Whether it’s a blog roundup posted every month or a special email for an important topic, finding a way to spread your post in other formats is another great way to draw attention to your blog.

Better Physical Therapy Blogging Equals More New Patients

By making these new year’s resolutions, you can boost the quality of your blogs and significantly increase your chances of visitors being impressed and engaged by them. As a result, impressed and engaged visitors who are looking for a physical therapist are more likely to become new patients at your practice.

[info_box]For more tips and tricks for your physical therapy blogging, contact us at E-Rehab today. We can look into your blogging practices and identify areas that can use improvements, and elevate the status of one of the most important tools of your practice.[/info_box]

Use Uplifting, Effective Images and Content for Physical Therapy Website Development

physical therapy website development

Physical therapy website development can be a delicate affair. You want your website to come across as positive and you want to create the idea of healing, but you don’t want to give to much attention to physical pain. This is why you have to walk a fine line between acknowledging the issues that lead people into physical therapy and encouraging them to get well. You can use content and images to create the kind of website that will attract patients and encourage them to utilize your services. Below are a few tips to help you improve your physical therapy website development:

Images

In general, images are very important to a website because they can make an indelible first impression on your visitors. Once a viewer has developed a certain first impression, it will become difficult to change, and this is why you need to make sure that you’re use the right images throughout your entire site. Here are a few examples that you can use to guide your decisions when it comes deciding on images to use:

Images of Physical Therapists: It’s always a good idea to take photos of the physical therapists and other staff members and upload them to your website. These can make a great impression and give a personalized window to your practice, especially if the therapists look professional and friendly in the photos.
Images of Patients and Therapists Together: When it comes to selecting these photos, try to use shots of people who have difficulty moving, but make it look like they’re enjoying the process of physical therapy and not in much pain. As long as your photos contain pictures of smiling people and people who look like they’re being healed, you’ll be more likely to attract new patients.
Images of Real People: You also need to make sure that your photos don’t look artificial. Sometimes, instead of using real physical therapists and real patients, people use models from stock photos instead because they look more attractive. Unfortunately, photos like this are likely to come across as artificial and posed, and very few people will be able to identify with them. So do your best to use images of real people instead.
Diversity in Images: Another thing you could do is make sure that you involve a certain degree of diversity in your images. All different types of individuals require physical therapy, and this means people of all races, ages and social statuses. You should therefore make sure to use images of as many different types of people as possible, so that everyone who comes to the website will be able to identify with the images they see.

Content

The first thing that people will see when they come to your website is your images, but once they’ve glanced through a few of these, they’re also going to read your content—hopefully. So it’s important to make sure you use content that’s both uplifting and informative when making decisions in your physical therapy website development.

Avoid Jargon

In order to appeal to all of your visitors, you need to make sure that your content is written simply. When it comes to medical fields like physical therapy, there’s a temptation to use lots of jargon, which ordinary people generally don’t understand. Of course in some cases, it might be necessary to use jargon, but you should try to avoid it as much as possible. In cases where you feel you must use it, it’s imperative that you try to explain what each means in simple English so that viewers don’t get confused by it.

Write in an Encouraging Way

Try to give your content an uplifting and encouraging tone so that prospective patients get the idea that they’re going to benefit by coming to your practice. You can use statistics, post positive feedback from previous patients and walk new patients through the process of having their first physical therapy sessions on your website. Try to simplify everything as much as possible so that they don’t feel overwhelmed by what they’re setting out to do. Physical therapy can sometimes be a painful and frustrating process, but you want to give your patients the assurance that you’ll be there to help them every step of the way.

We’re Experts at Physical Therapy Website Development

[highlight2 textColor=”#000000″]Still having trouble deciding what to post on your website? Well, that’s where we come in. At E-Rehab, we’re experts at all aspects of physical therapy website development, and we can help you develop a strategy that will have your website looking and performing better than ever. Contact us today to find out what we can do for you and your practice.[/highlight2]

5 More Physical Therapy Online Marketing Terms Explained in Simple English

physical therapy online marketing

So, you’ve decide to start focusing on marketing your physical therapy practice online. You know you need to set up a website, a blog and social media pages. You now understand what search engine optimization (SEO) refers to and why it’s necessary to include keywords throughout your website, but there may still be some physical therapy online marketing terms that you don’t understand.

For instance, you may have heard the term web content, but don’t know exactly what that means. The same may be true for inline or outbound marketing, terms you know are important but don’t completely “get.” While you may not think that you need to know all these terms, it never hurts to have a basic comprehension of the ins and outs of physical therapy online marketing in order to better promote your practice. This is a field that’s likely to only grow in the future, so the more you understand it now, the better you’re going to be prepared for what’s ahead.

5 More Physical Therapy Online Marketing Terms Explained

With that said, we present you with 5 more physical therapy online marketing terms explained in simple English:

1. Web Content

Web content refers to all the components that make up a website. This includes the written words on the website, as well as all the images and videos, if any are present. Written content is most important and most likely to help you get found by patients, since search engines like Google and Bing only search through words and can’t do so with images. Good written content with lots of effective keywords is therefore all that’s necessary to initially attract visitors to your site. Once they get there, though, you should keep them engaged with good images, video, layout, and other attractive elements.

2. Content Marketing

The aim of content marketing is to draw more traffic to your website. As mentioned above, this is largely done by using good written content with a number of keywords embedded in it, preferably in a natural way. But you should also consider using good images for content marketing. Using images with people in them, striking images with lots of contrast and images that are strictly relevant to your subject matter can all help to keep your reader’s attention and keep them coming back to your website.

3. Listicle

What are you reading right now? You got it. This very blog is called a listicle, or a numbered list. In this case, the list reviews physical therapy online marketing terms, but listicles can be used for just about anything. For example, “5 Great Physical Therapists from History” or “7 Types of Cutting Edge Physical Therapy that Might Be Able to Help You” can both be used as attractive titles for listicles. The advantage of listicles is that people can skip over the things they already know and read only those that they are unfamiliar with.

4. Outbound Marketing

Traditional marketing is all outbound. It reaches out to the consumer and tries to sell a certain product or service. Consider the advertisements you see in magazines, on billboards and on TV. Did you ask for these advertisements to be shown to you? Of course not. In fact, you were given no choice in the matter, and yet at times they do catch your eye and you end up buying some of those products. In the online world, you may also see similar advertisements on websites fairly often, and sometimes you may receive emails that try to sell you certain products. These are all examples of outbound marketing.

5. Inbound Marketing

These days, people prefer to practice inbound marketing rather than outbound marketing. In inbound marketing, you’re not forcing the patient to look at your advertisements, but instead, you just wait until they reach out to you. How can you accomplish this? It could happen via word of mouth, on social media or in some other way. There are many ways in which a patient could hear about your physical therapy services, and any of these can cause them to look your practice up online. When they do this, you need to have a website, blog and social media pages ready to give them all the information they need. This state of readiness to serve a patient and provide them with information is referred to as inbound marketing.

[titled_box title=”We’re Here to Help Your Physical Therapy Online Marketing” bgColor=”#000000″ textColor=”#000000″]This blog is just the beginning, and improving your physical therapy online marketing campaign takes regular, focused effort. If it seems like too large a task for you to handle on your own, allow E-Rehab to step in and offer our assistance. Contact us today to ask about our services and how we can revamp your practice’s online marketing.[/titled_box]

5 Physical Therapy Online Marketing Terms Explained in Simple English

physical therapy online marketing

Most people realize that online marketing is the future, but in many cases, they may not be entirely sure how to actually use it to their advantage. This can be particularly true for physical therapists, as the whole physical therapy online marketing world can seem a bit confusing. Going to a digital marketing expert may help by giving you lots of ideas, but it may also complicate matters and make you feel overwhelmed with all the options they present to you.

5 Physical Therapy Online Marketing Terms Explained

To help simplify things, here are few explanations of 5 physical therapy online marketing terms that will help you to understand what will help increase your business.

1. Website

Of course everyone knows what a website is, so the term doesn’t need much of an explanation. A website is the main vehicle through which you’re going to start your digital marketing efforts. It’s used to tell patients who you are, what types of physical therapy services you provide, what your weekly hours are, your phone number, location and how they can make an appointment, as well as any other essential details.

2. Blog

Most people also know what a blog is but they may not understand what purpose they serve. Some practice owners may struggle with figuring out an effective approach to take on blogging, and they may question whether or not they should actually have a blog in the first place. The truth is that you have to find something new and interesting to write about every week. Doing this will enable you to use a number of keywords and be found in many searches, which improves your visibility and gets your name out there. In addition, it convinces patients that you know what you’re doing and what’s happening in your field.

3. Keywords

Though the term “keywords” is tossed around often, many people still may not understand why they are important. It is true that keywords don’t hold the same power as they once did in the past, but search engines still look through all the words on your website for keywords that people might have searched for. For example, “physical therapy,” “physical therapist” and “physiotherapy” are some of the primary keywords used in the physical therapy field. So you should try to use keywords like these on a regular basis throughout your website in order to be found by more patients looking for treatment.

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is another term that a number of individuals struggle with. Even people who work in the SEO field might not be able to define exactly what it means. In basic terms, a search engine is a system like Google or Bing that looks through a large number of websites to find the ones that are most relevant to a person’s search. SEO refers to the creation of websites in such a way that they’ll show up among the first few results when people search for certain keywords. This can be accomplished by using keywords, introducing keyword variety, providing quality content or using lists and bullet points, to name a few possible approaches.

5. Call to Action

Keep in mind that you can spend lots of time setting up your website and providing information to your patients, but it’s not going to do you much good unless you also ask them to participate in the process. This is called a “call to action.” It refers to the point where you say, “contact us for more information.” You can say this in nearly every section of your website, whether it’s your “about us” page, your “services” page or even your blog. Essentially, you should make sure that each page of your website contains this call to action and links back to your “contact us” page, so that patients can easily get in touch with you.

We Can Improve Your Physical Therapy Online Marketing

[squeeze_box5]This is just a brief overview of some of the most commonly used physical therapy online marketing terms, but you may need some helping actually putting them into action. Contact us at E-Rehab for more information on any of these terms or for specific guidance with improving your website and online strategy.[/squeeze_box5]

I’m Kind of Fed Up with Something

Today I’m pouring my heart out a bit and asking for you to share your thoughts, but first here’s why . . .

Now, before you start to wonder what I’m selling today, don’t. I’m not selling anything but an idea.

I had a long conversation with a small practice owner the other day and I came away pretty upset.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love practice owners and I certainly love helping them, but what made me upset was this guy was throwing in the towel.

And, it didn’t have to be this way.

In fact, he had a great clinic, but he could never muster the time, energy, resources and confidence to generate consistent referrals effectively and so, eventually he simply ran out of steam while serving his patients.

He worked ridiculous hours and told me every time he felt like he was making headway something would fall apart and he would be forced to shrink back and try to simply make ends meet.

At some point taking a job became more appealing than building a practice.

To me, this is a crime – yes, I’m tired of hearing and reading stories like this and I’m not going to take it anymore.

This PT loved what he did, was so good at it, and I am certain saved a large number of patients from needless imaging, drugs, injections, and surgery.

So, what went wrong?

I don’t really know for sure, but I can tell you from experience that it’s likely he had no game plan, no vision, no systems – and perhaps, more importantly, no one to challenge his thinking and hold him accountable.

I think it’s borderline unfair what some small practice owners endure in the name of growing a business and I simply want to do more about it.

We’ve built a marketing system and successfully installed it in a large number of practices, but I know there’s more we can do and we are going to do it.

Owning a practice should be the most gratifying and freeing choice a PT can make and I’m on a mission to crack the code to make it so, but I need your help.

Let’s put an end to failed practices.

If you feel like you’re not making the progress you should, if you feel like something is missing in your business, if you feel like working for someone else is starting to sound pretty good, if you feel like you have no idea what to do next to grow your practice – I want to hear from you.

I want to hear what

Your greatest constraint in business is?
Your greatest threat and fear?
Your greatest challenge?
Your greatest need?
Your greatest joy?

I want to know

What you would do if you knew how to consistently generate new referrals?
What you would do if you had the confidence to successfully market your practice?
How would you business improve if you knew both what to do next and could actually get it done?
What value would these ultimately bring to your practice and your life?

And finally . . .

I want to know what you’re going to do to make 2016 your greatest year in physical therapy private practice?

Take 15 minutes right now and share your thoughts via reply. I promise you’ll be glad you did.

Happy Holidays,

David Straight, DPT
Certified Duct Tape Marketing Consultant
Co-owner
E-rehab.com
(760) 585-9097

PS: 2016 is going to be a great year. We have some new services and training that you will be hearing about. We are going to significantly increase our marketing support and try our best to make sure you are taking advantage of all of the tools we provide you.

Why Physical Therapy Reputation Management Matters

physical therapy reputation management

Business owners have always known that excellent customer service is an integral part of running a successful business. Physical therapy is no exception, as satisfied patients spread the word of their positive experience and are largely responsible for helping a practice grow. Disgruntled patients, on the other hand, likely won’t return to your practice and may even tell other people that they weren’t pleased with their treatment. This underlines the importance of physical therapy reputation management, which must be a major focus of your strategy if you want your practice to continue thriving.

Patients May Critique Both Patient Care and Customer Service

These days, with just about everything being on the Internet, your online reputation is priceless. The [pullquote2 textColor=”#000000″]Managing what’s being said about your physical therapy practice may be the most essential marketing you can do[/pullquote2] reputation you develop is largely based on what’s been said about your practice on review sites, and there is currently an abundance of these types of sites that patients can use to speak their minds. This is why managing what’s being said about your physical therapy practice may be the most essential marketing you can do.

If you break it down, there are actually two processes of your practice that your patients can review on social media. The most common area they may comment on is their actual patient care, which is the hands-on treatment that he or she receives from a physical therapist. But they may also take note of and review your customer service and the way they are treated by your receptionist, billing department and other support staff. When you take stock of your online reputation, look at each of the comments and categorize them into customer service-related comments and patient care-related comments, so you can address their feedback with the appropriate members of your practice.

Addressing Pain in Physical Therapy Reputation Management

There are some aspects of physical therapy reputation management that can be a little tricky. Physical therapy sometimes involves pain for the patient. [pullquote2 align=”right” textColor=”#000000″]If you are receiving online feedback from patients expressing frustration about this aspect of their treatment, you may want to try to be a little more compassionate and offer clearer explanations to your patients. [/pullquote2]It often involves pushing patients slightly past their levels of comfort to help them improve their strength and regain critical physical skills to improve their quality of life after an injury or painful condition. If you are receiving online feedback from patients expressing frustration about this aspect of their treatment, you may want to try to be a little more compassionate and offer clearer explanations to your patients. This will allow you to maintain the same treatment regimen with your patients, but broadens their understanding and minimizes their complaints. In many cases, complaints about physical therapy “hurting” or being “too aggressive” are really a failure in communication and not a failure in therapy.

Responding to comments as they are posted online and making sure you have a much higher percentage of positive ratings than negative ratings are crucial first steps. However, how can you focus on providing the excellent customer service your patients need if you’re spending all your time on your physical therapy reputation marketing? Can you develop internal processes to improve patient care if you are constantly monitoring your reviews online? It can be a bit of an endless cycle that leaves you spread too thin to grow your practice effectively, and you may need some additional help with these efforts.

[colored_box bgColor=”#000000″ textColor=”#de2022″]We would love to help you out by doing what we do best, so that you can continue providing the best customer service and patient care possible to all of your patients, which will help ensure they post glowing reviews about your practice online. Please contact us to find out how we can help your practice thrive in the age of social media. In addition to helping you with physical therapy reputation marketing, we can optimize your mobile website, send out newsletters for your practice, and handle all your marketing needs both on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as search engine based marketing on sites like Google, Bing and Yahoo.[/colored_box]

Complete Beginner’s Guide to Physical Therapy Search Marketing

As a private practice owner, physical therapy search marketing is a channel that you cannot afford to neglect. Search engines account for an enormous percentage of all online traffic. They are constantly directing traffic to one website or another and the search giants of today have held strong percentages of market share since their origin. Google, Bing and Yahoo are unlikely to disappear for a while so long as the Internet relies on search engines to be navigated.

This also applies when it comes to potential patients looking for information on physical therapy or searching for a nearby practice online. In just about all cases, they’re using a search engine to accomplish this task. This is why businesses like yours need to capitalize on physical therapy search marketing and use it to your full advantage, as it remains the dominant source of traffic for all businesses, including physical therapy facilities. Below, we offer some relevant keywords and search marketing opportunities that your practice can start taking advantage of right away.

Use the Google Keyword Planner

Google’s Keyword Planner can help you find relevant physical therapy search marketing keywords. Once found, you can begin targeting them with your search marketing campaigns.

To begin driving traffic to your website immediately, you can use Google AdWords, also known as a PPC ad campaign. PPC stands for “pay-per-click” and it implies that every time your ad is clicked, there is a fee. Although it’s a modest one, these fees can add up to quickly consume a several hundreds dollar search marketing budget. Many businesses in other niches spend thousands to tens-of-thousands of dollars per month on PPC campaigns.

PPC ads are featured at the top of Google and the Keyword Planner is a very important tool for PPC campaigns. When creating your ads you enter targeted keywords that your ads will be displayed for. To get you started, below is a collection of some of the most effective keywords that you should be using on your website. By simply adding the city name in which your facility is located somewhere in the phrase, you’ll have a complete list of targeted keyword phrases to begin creating profitable PPC ads with:

physical therapy
neck physical therapy
back physical therapy
arm physical therapy
leg physical therapy
foot physical therapy
knee physical therapy
hip physical therapy
shoulder physical therapy
physical therapy programs
physical therapy association
physical therapy clinics
sports physical therapy
physical therapy clinic
pediatric physical therapy
outpatient physical therapy
doctor of physical therapy
physical therapy services
advanced physical therapy
orthopedic physical therapy
physical therapy offices
performance physical therapy
physical therapy rehabilitation
professional physical therapy
physical therapy program
physical therapy treatments
geriatric physical therapy
physical therapy centers
physical therapy center
dynamic physical therapy
hand physical therapy
physical therapy locations

Google’s Keyword Planner provides a competition rating and suggested bid amount for each keyword that you intend to target. These metrics are very important. The higher the suggested bid and competition rating, the more that keyword will cost to target with your PPC campaign. Costs can add up quickly when targeting keywords that are highly competitive.

Search Engine Optimization

Just as you can pay to be at the top of search engines, you can also rank there naturally. Using the same keywords that you are targeting through PPC with Google Adwords, you can begin to optimize your website to naturally overtake your competitors and be a top contender for Google’s top 10 search results for a given keyword.

[pullquote1 align=”right” textColor=”#000000″]Search engine optimization (SEO) is relatively straightforward and revolves around one simple concept: content is king[/pullquote1] Search engine optimization (SEO) is relatively straightforward and revolves around one simple concept: content is king. Google has been telling webmasters this for years and while some listen, many have not.

What this means is that the content of your website dictates your results through SEO. When you produce valuable content that your audience and readers will benefit from, you will see more promising results. One way to do this is to utilize your website’s blog and integrate targeted keywords into insightful and knowledgeable blog posts. You can write content such as “how-to” guides, tutorials for physical therapy, suggestions, and home-based treatments for patients, to name a few. Always keep in mind that quality content is better than high quantities of content and that your readers are much more likely to share an article that is worth reading.

To optimize your content for search engines, insert your targeted keywords into the following as possible:

Page Title
Meta Description
Meta Keywords
Tags
Categories
H1 Heading
H2 Heading
H3 Heading
Image ALT Text
URL Structure
Body of the Content

By following this basic structure, your content will be well optimized and ready for sharing. The more your content is shared, the more it will link back to your site, which will increase its search engine rankings. Remember to keep the content readable and not overuse the keywords. Your audience wants an article that flows well and doesn’t sound robotic.

Contact Us for Additional Physical Therapy Search Marketing Tips

[squeeze_box]If you still feel like you can use some help with your physical therapy search marketing, contact us at E-Rehab today. We can work together to establish a strategy that’s feasible for you, and soon enough, you’ll see as your website starts ascending in the search rankings.[/squeeze_box]

Reputation Marketing for Physical Therapists: 3 Top Tips

reputation marketing for physical therapists

In the field of medicine, your reputation is everything. Getting just one bad online review can have negatively impact your business in major ways. The worst part is, you may never know the business that you actually lost, since no one is going to tell you about it. This highlights why reputation marketing for physical therapists should be an essential component of your online strategy.

You need to be proactive when it comes to managing your reputation in the online space. If you’re not, competitors and the inevitable disgruntled patient will otherwise control the entire narrative of your practice online. With that, we bring you these three top tips for reputation marketing for physical therapists.

Use Negative Keywords When Marketing Online

Having a good keyword strategy is a necessity. However, this keyword strategy must include a way to limit your exposure to people who do not need your services. This saves your practice a great deal of money and ensures your patient base trusts you more through the door.

The negative keyword keeps your ads from showing up in places you would rather not be. If you start out with a happier patient base, you risk less problems down the road. However, no medical practice truthfully has the time to keep up with the ever-changing world of keywords. One of the best investments of resources in medicine is outsourcing at least the initial research of the proper keywords to target.

Aggregate All Citations

It’s difficult to have a complete grasp of what people are saying about you online. With a seemingly-endless number of review sites—Yelp, Google and Foursquare, to name a few—it’s possible for people to talk about your practice without you ever knowing it, since you may not even know that the page exists. In addition, there are many niche-oriented deep web pages that dedicate themselves to reviewing medical practices that you may not know about.

Fortunately, with the right software or the right partner, you don’t have to know about every comment that people make about you. You can focus on your current patients while the algorithm scours the Internet automatically for all citations or mentions of your practice across the entire Internet. This information comes to you delivered neatly for analysis.

[pullquote1 align=”right” textColor=”#000000″]Once you know who is saying what, you can fix immediate problems[/pullquote1] Once you know who is saying what, you can fix immediate problems. When you trace back comments to their source, you also figure out where people comment on you most frequently across the Internet. With this information, you can make a real decision about whether to monitor that space more frequently. This allows you to better control the narrative about your practice.

The number one advantage to aggregating citations is pointing out trends. It’s much easier to see problems in your practice when you have information from multiple sources in one place.

Build Positive Links Consistently

The major search engines pay attention to pages with dynamic content. They also associate pages with similar citations to each other. In short, if the underlying message associated with your practice is negative, Google will raise the profile of all websites with negative information about you. If the consensus is that your practice provides good service and effective treatment, Google will raise those sites.

Aside from providing good service, you also tip the odds in your favor through consistent link building. Crowdsourcing articles related to your practice or putting up a few video marketing examples is a great way to advertise your practice directly and build links for the search engines.

We Can Help with Reputation Marketing for Physical Therapists

[info_box]Please feel free to contact us with any question about your presence on the Internet. We pride ourselves in offering a wide variety of services that encompass the entire spectrum of what you need to succeed online. We guide your company in search engine marketing, email newsletters, websites and responsive websites, video marketing, social media marketing and reputation marketing.[/info_box]

Make Your Physical Therapy Website Local SEO Friendly

The phrase “location, location, location” doesn’t only apply to real estate. When you design your physical therapy website, focusing on your location with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind is an absolute must, whether you have one location or multiple offices spread across the state.

The thing is, you can’t just have your physical address posted on your website and call it a day. There are multiple strategies that you should use to help you promote and improve your local SEO. By utilizing all of these practices, you’ll improve your reach across the Internet and among local searchers that are in need of your physical therapy services. Read on to find out how to make your physical therapy website more “SEO-friendly.”

Make Your Location a Prominent SEO Keyword

Your address or location should not be listed only in the header or footer of your website. Instead, you should focus on integrating it into your SEO strategy by putting it in key elements of your website. For instance, title headings for your webpages can be SEO-optimized instead of just giving them generic titles. Here’s an example: instead of using “Our Office” for your location page, optimize it with your location to “Our Brooklyn Office.” Other elements you can optimize include headings, titles, tags, image tags and other HTML and metadata descriptions. The more you use the name of your location throughout your website, the more optimized it will become.

Make Separate Local Pages for Each Location

If you have multiple offices, it’s important to provide separate pages that are dedicated specifically to these locations instead of just publishing content for multiple locations on the same page.[pullquote4 bgColor=”#ea8400″ textColor=”#000000″]Having multiple local pages not only helps people find the right location for their needs, but also improves your searchability across different places.[/pullquote4] Having multiple local pages not only helps people find the right location for their needs, but also improves your searchability across different places.

On each separate page, also be sure to include location-specific descriptions and content, instead of copying and pasting the same generic description or your mission statement. A good practice is to include local events you’ve sponsored in that area or describe the location in relation to special features or physical landmarks to make the description rich with local SEO.

The same should be done with other location listings: have separate pages on Google+, Yelp, Yellow Pages and other sites for each of your locations, too.

Attempt Address Accuracy Across All Map Listings

Search engines prefer consistency, especially when it comes to contact information like telephone numbers and addresses. To reach the most people, make sure that your practice is listed with the same contact information in every listing. For example, if your physical therapy office is located on “43 Main Street,” decide whether or not you will spell out “Street” or abbreviate it to “St.,” and stick to this designation throughout all uses of your address. The same goes for your practice name. The more consistent your name, number and address are, the more likely your website will be cited correctly and found.

Collect Reviews

Reviews are also an important part of building your practice’s local reputation. Besides adding testimonials to your website, you should also try to gather reviews for your local listings, such as your Google+ local page.

One of the best ways to get a Google+ review from your patients is to kindly request that they add a review before leaving your office. Set up a laptop or tablet that they can log into, and give them a few guidelines to help them write a short review. Not only does this give you a better spotlight in Google rankings, but they can also be helpful for you and your office. A great tool to use is Whitespark’s Review Generator, which will print out instructions for computer or smartphone use based on your office’s information.

Improving Your Local SEO Can Better Establish Your Physical Therapy Website

[highlight1 bgColor=”#000000″ textColor=”#3391ff”]Overall, improving the local SEO of your physical therapy website can make a big difference in your online efforts and significantly draw in new visitors that may become patients. By establishing your local SEO presence, your potential patients will be able to find you and your current patients can lend their own experience and recommendations to your practice. To get more help with your physical therapy website, contact us at E-Rehab today, and we can show you how to elevate your SEO to the next level.[/highlight1]