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Keyword research is very important for marketing your physical therapy website or blog online. A lot of PT’s get websites or blogs developed and do not consider how people will find their website online.  Unfortunately what ends up happening is you have a nice looking website that no one can find. So it sits abandoned in cyberspace waiting for someone to visit.

When you optimize your website or blog with keywords you have researched you make it easier for online visitors to find you through the search engines.

Let’s take a deeper look at this topic and explore it further.

What is a keyword?

A keyword is a phrase or word that readers are most likely to use when looking for a certain product or service. For example: “Atlanta pediatric physical therapy” is a keyword because it is a popular phrase that people use when they are looking for a pediatric physical therapist in Atlanta.

Keyword research is finding out words or phrases that your potential reader will use when they are searching for something on the web. These keywords or phrases are also located on website or blog content.

Keyword research is especially important if you are in a niche of physical therapy where a lot of jargon is used. People who work within an industry tend to use a lot of jargon and fill their content with that. But, people who are looking for your products or services are most likely not familiar with the industry jargon and must be using their own phrases for searching a product or service. You have to make sure your content is using keywords or phrases that will relate to the people who will be using your product or service.

For example: “Atlanta Pediatric Physical Therapy” might be the right phrase when it comes to the location and service of your pediatric physical therapy private practice but how do you know that your potential visitors are also using the same term to find you? Isn’t it more likely that parents of children needing physical therapy maybe using search terms like: “physical therapy for kids” or “physical therapy for children”? The only way to know is by doing proper keyword research for your target audience.

You are much better off doing keyword research and finding out what phrases your readers are looking for instead of guessing what they use, or even worse fill up your content with jargon. Doing keyword research helps to laser target your visitors directly to your website.



Why you should use keyword research for your website or blog?

Keyword research simply helps you speak the language of your patients, clients  and customers so you are able to connect with them better.  These people are trying to seek you out and the only way they can find you is if you have optimized your website or blog with the keywords they type into Google, Yahoo, or MSN.

When you do keyword research on “Atlanta pediatric physical therapy”, you will find that people are also looking for “physical therapy for kids” , “occupational therapy for kids”, “physical therapy for kids with developmental disabilities” and etc. So now you have more topics that your potential reader or visitor are looking for. This gives you the opportunity to create more content on your website or blog to draw them in.

If you don’t do this kind of research it is very difficult to know what you should write about and how your content should be framed in order to get potential patients to find your website. Connecting visitors to your website or physical therapy blog is the biggest benefit of doing keyword research and it increases the chances of having a visitor turn into a patient, client, or customer.

There is another powerful benefit of keyword research which I almost forgot to mention. That is knowing specific search terms which are more likely to bring laser targeted visitors and have your website or blog rank high in the search engine result pages. This is usually because there is no competition for these keyword terms.

Let me explain. Knowing that people are looking for “Atlanta pediatric physical therapy” is great because it is a widely used search term and a lot of people are looking for it locally in Atlanta. But because it is a popular keyword, a lot of websites are already optimized for it and you might find it difficult to rank at the top of search engine result pages for such keywords. Instead, if you know specific keywords which don’t have a lot of competition it would be easier for you to get on the top of search engine results. Examples would be “ Atlanta Orthopedic Pediatric Physical Therapy”, “Atlanta Pediatric Physical Therapy Sports Injuries”, “Atlanta Pediatric Physical Therapy Splinting And Casting”. This is also useful because if a patient is looking for something specifically and your web page is optimized for that specific keyword term, it will satisfy that web visitor doing the search and will result in a better experience for them.

These are the top reasons for you to seriously consider keyword research as an integral part of your online physical therapy marketing campaign. Think of it as serving your potential patients, clients, or customers by speaking their language.

Hopefully this post was of benefit to you. Please leave your comments below or share this post with a colleague on FaceBook or Twiiter.Similar Posts:

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