SEO Basics Archives - Page 15 of 15 - Simplified SEO Consulting

Meta Descriptions: 6 Tips to Write the Perfect One for Your Website

My last post was all about how meta descriptions can help a therapist’s private practice website, but if you’re like most people, you’re left wondering what to do with the information. So, today we’re going to focus on the how. Here are 5 general tips that I give private practice owners trying to work on their website’s SEO.

6 Tips for Writing the Perfect Meta Description

Use the right keywords in your meta description.

The first step to improving any page’s ranking on search engines is to identify a few keywords per page that you want to rank well for. These are phrases that when someone types them into Google, your webpage will (with some work) be one of the first to show up. Because meta descriptions are supposed to explain what the page is about, search engines will give them a lot of weight when deciding how to rank your page. Including a keyword in your meta description is like pointing a big arrow toward your website saying “If someone is looking for this thing, PICK ME to be at the top of the page!”

You can incorporate keywords in other places including headings, text, page title, etc. Therefore, not every phrase you want to rank for needs to be included in the meta description. However, I recommend including the top 2-3 keywords that you want that specific page to rank for. Usually, the title of your page will include a keyword and then you’re able to fit a couple of others into the text of your meta description.

Mention the Location of Your Practice

Again, Google assumes that the meta description describes the page. So, if your target audience is in a specific location it can be helpful to mention that location in the meta description. Our team often uses a location both in the SEO Title/Header and again in the body of the SEO description.

Tips for how to write a meta description for a counseling website while including your location

Adding location indicators like notable locations or local landmarks around your practice can be a great way to help Google and site visitors understand where you’re located. While it can be a bit more difficult to describe where your practice is and its surroundings, it is worth it in the long run.

Aim for 155 Characters.

Google will generally only show about 155 characters in search results. Some of your meta description won’t be seen (… will be shown in its place) if you write more than 155 characters. As a general rule of thumb, I try to write meta descriptions that are as close as possible to 155 characters without going over. To be honest, most of mine are right between 150-155 characters.

I highly recommend the Yoast Plugin for Word Press to make sure meta descriptions are the optimal length. When you are writing a meta description in Yoast, you’ll see a little bar filling up right below where you are typing and it will let you know if your meta description is too short, an ideal length, or too long. A Squarespace website (which calls these your “page description” in the SEO tab) counts down from 400 so you aim for getting as close to 245-250 as possible. If you use another platform, try writing your meta description in Word and using the “word count” feature to monitor your length.

**Write a meta description that makes sense.**

Remember, you are not only writing a little summary for Google. You are also writing a description to convince real live humans they want to look at your page. One mistake I see is people trying so hard to cram a meta description full of keywords that it no longer makes any sense. Not only will Google sometimes catch onto this, but your ideal client isn’t going to be enticed to click on the site if it does show up in their search results.

Communicate your value to potential clients or website visitors.

Maybe this means asking a question that your ideal client will resonate with and want to click on your site to find the answer to. Another technique is to treat the meta description as a small summary of the page. I’ve also said things like, “information about symptoms of PTSD” as part of my meta description for a service page or “tools and tips for getting to sleep faster” as part of a blog post meta description. Both of these are examples of ways I’m trying to communicate to potential clients the value of viewing my web page. Potential website visitors can see what they may gain from visiting that page.

Consider a Call to Action.

I don’t always include a Call to Action in a meta description, but if there’s space I will. Something like “Learn more” or “Call now” at the very end of a meta description just to encourage people to take action. This isn’t essential and most of the time I don’t have room for it.

The two main times I’ll add a very short call to action in a meta description include:

I’ve used several keywords already in the meta description and there’s space
I see a page is showing up on the first page of search results but not getting many clicks. In this case, I’ll add it to try to increase the “click-through rate” (the rate of people who click on the website versus those that just see your site listed in the search results) for that page.

Examples of Meta Descriptions for Mental Health Websites

Below are several examples of meta descriptions similar to what we write for our clients. Please do not use these exact examples on your own site but instead, see them as inspiration for how you can use a similar style to write meta descriptions on your own pages. The “heading” is what would be listed on the site as the “SEO title” and the wording below would be in the meta description setting.

Examples of Home Page Meta Descriptions for Therapists:

Healing Movement Therapy: Individual Counseling in Chicago, IL

Our Chicago, IL therapists provide effective treatment for anxiety, trauma/PTSD, sexual assault, teens, grief, stress, depression & more. Call today!

Rooted Counseling Center – Christian Counseling in Seattle, Washington 98107 & 98108

Our caring therapists offer counseling for children, teens, families & adults for anxiety, trauma/PTSD, depression & more in a Christian setting.

Healing Life Therapy – Roswell, GA 30075

Looking for counseling services in the Atlanta area? We offer counseling for children & adults experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma & more. Call today!

Better Minds Psychiatry – St. Louis, MO 63108

Considering medication for depression, anxiety, PTSD or other mental health concerns? Our psychiatrist & nurse practitioner can help. Call us in St. Louis, MO 63108

Examples of Service Page Meta Descriptions for Mental Health Professionals:

LGBTQIA Affirming Counseling – Clear Minds Therapy – Chicago, IL

Looking for a counselor as an LGBTQIA person? Do you struggle with gender dysphoria, depression, anxiety or relationships? We offer LGBTQ+ inclusive therapy

Marriage Counseling & Couples Therapy – Relationship Success Counseling – Missouri

Does your relationship need help? Our counselors offer Gottman & EFT marriage counseling, premarital counseling & couples therapy in Kansas City & St. Louis.

St. Pete Counseling – Individual & Family Therapy in St. Petersburg, FL

Our St. Petersburg, FL therapists specialize in couples, pre-marital & marriage counseling for marital conflict, premarital counseling & communication issues.

Depression Counseling & Treatment in Los Angeles 90012

Suzanne Burnes offers counseling for individuals struggling with symptoms of Depression using CBT & mindfulness. Begin Depression Therapy & improve your mood in LA!

Panic Attack & Anxiety Disorder Treatment Through Counseling – Salt Lake City, UT

You don’t have to live with anxiety symptoms & panic attacks. Through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) & exposure therapy for anxiety you can regain control.

Teen Counseling – Healthy Families Therapy – Katy, TX 77493

Do you have a struggling teen? Our therapists help teens with depression, anxiety, school problems & more. Begin teen counseling in the Houston, TX area!

Examples of Blog Post Meta Descriptions:

Alcohol & Trauma: Everything You Need to Know – St. Louis, MO 63108

There is a strong link between trauma and drug/ alcohol addiction. A therapist explores that link & discuss trauma treatment options to support recovery.

9 Covid Friendly Winter Self Care Activities in Central Michigan

Covid + Winter in Michigan can equal stress. A Central Michigan therapist shares 9 Covid friendly ways you can practice self care in our area this winter!

Get Help Learning SEO

If this seems overwhelming, Simplified SEO Consulting would love to help make the process easier for you! As an SEO Consultant, I can help you apply these tips and other SEO techniques to get your mental health website (counseling, psychiatry or other related business) to the first page of Google through our SEO Training packages or online SEO courses. Or, if you’d rather outsource your search engine optimization, our “Done for You” monthly SEO packages allow you to sit back and focus on your business while our team of SEO specialists optimizes your page for you! Simplified SEO Consulting would be excited to help you on your SEO journey. To get started with our service, follow these simple steps:

Schedule a consult with our Client Success Specialist or Consult Team.
Learn more about our team of SEO Specialists.
Begin your SEO Journey!

*Updated April 29th, 2023*

May 22, 2019/0 Comments/by Jessica

SEO Basics

Is Your Website Ready for SEO?

.3 Tips to Get Your Counseling Website SEO Ready

You’ve been reading my e-mails, maybe listening to some podcasts or even searching for some articles online about SEO. Perhaps you’re even thinking about looking into the cost of paid SEO services. You may be asking yourself:

Is my site READY for me to work on SEO?
What are the first steps?
Will I get my money’s worth if I pay someone to help me with SEO?

If so, awesome! These are great questions to be asking! The truth is that there are a couple of things I highly recommend doing BEFORE starting SEO Services. If you do these three things (plus I’ll include one bonus) you’ll be the most out of any investment you make into your SEO.

Tasks to complete BEFORE paying for SEO Services

Of course, I’d love to work with you on SEO anytime. But the truth is that if you haven’t done these three things, I’m likely going to recommend that you either pay someone else to do them (like a website designer for #1 or my copywriting services for #2-3) before we hit the SEO too hard. Why? Because I don’t want to sell you a service that’s ineffective. So…please…before you pay me a single dollar (or anyone else) for SEO services, consider doing these things that will in and of themselves help improve your search engine rankings:

1. Have a website design you LOVE.

Getting people to your website is only the first step. Eventually we need your website to work for

An airplane to show how SEO Consulting can help elevate a psychotherapy practice. private practice SEO packages.

With my SEO training sessions, I act as your co-pilot while you learn to do your own SEO work to get your counseling website off the ground….but you need a source “aircraft” (website) first!

you and convert clients into paying clients. If you’re not in love with the design of your website, stop right now and go tackle this problem! If you’re a huge DIY person, you might try to do it yourself. But I’ve found that this truly is an area where it’s worth investing and having someone with a really good eye for design help you out.

My go to recommendation here, especially if this is the first time you’ve invested in a website designer, is Brighter Vision. My three big reasons for recommending them are:

They’re affordable. It’s only $59/month and cheaper if you sign up during a sale or pay for a year at a time. Considering that most people pay thousands of dollars for a good website designer, I think it’s a pretty good deal. And their sites look nicer than other “cheap” therapist websites I’ve seen.
They use WordPress & Yoast. I have learned all kinds of other platforms, but I’m a WordPress girl at heart and Yoast makes it so much easier to work on your SEO.
We have a good working relationship. BV staff and I work as a team. When my clients have other website designers my clients sometimes end up being the “go between,” but with BV customers, you’ll find that they will be happy to give me temporary administrative access to help you and that we’ll send one another e-mails as needed to talk about issues always CCing you to keep you “in the loop” without burdening you with yet another task.

I understand that not everyone wants to go with Brighter Vision or even WordPress. If you’d like other suggestions, feel free to send me an e-mail. I have seen sites built by a variety of designers and know another WordPress designer and a couple Squarespace designers I’d recommend as well.

2. Create separate pages for each service

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see psychotherapy practice owners make on their websites. They often have an “Individual Counseling” page and maybe a “Group Counseling” or “Couples Counseling” page. The harsh truth is that it’s much harder to rank for (and people may be less likely to search for) “Individual Counseling” than it is “Depression Counseling.” So, a HUGE thing you can do to improve your SEO and get your site ready for any SEO services is to create an individual page for each specialty your clinic offers.

Even if you are a Couples Counseling clinic you can offer different services such as premarital counseling, marriage counseling & help for navigating a divorce. Even if you see a wide variety of people, you can do this. Depression and Anxiety are very common things people search for. So even if you see yourself as a “generalist,” you could create a depression counseling, anxiety treatment and counseling for other issues pages.

Why is it helpful? Oh man, I could talk for ages on this one. But suffice it to say that it tells Google that it’s really important to know that this specialty is important to your practice. It gives Google lots of good information to work with. And it also communicates to clients that you are really, really good at this type of counseling work. In fact, you’re so good at this that you wrote a whole page on this!

Bonus Tip: Add Location Pages!

If you have more than one practice location, make sure you also add a specific page with unique content for each location. OR if you are an online counseling practice, you’ll want to add a landing page with unique content for each demographic area you want to target.

3. Each page needs 500 words!

Ok, so maybe not every single page. Your contact us page or the page with your site directions might not. But as many pages as possible need 500 words. This gives Google enough words that it can get a good feel for what your website is about. It also makes the page long enough that you can add subheadings and photos to your page without it looking funny.

Which pages should be 500 words? As many as possible. Blog posts, home page, each service page and each therapist’s “about” page. Maybe even your FAQ page.

Seriously guys, this is a big one. Don’t skimp on it.

Is your website SEO ready?!?

If you take all of my suggestions above seriously and implement them fully, I will be more likely to get your website ranking with only one of my cheaper plans such as my Basic 6 month Done for You SEO package. 🙂

The Simplified SEO Consulting team provides SEO Consulting services for therapists and other small business owners. Ones that are interested in optimizing their websites for search engines. Whether you are looking for monthly seo packages where we provide work on your website for you (keyword research, adding alt text to photos, meta descriptions, headings/subheadings, etc.) or you are the DIY type and want to purchase SEO Training services, we can help. If you’re ready to get started, book a free 30 minute SEO consultationover Zoom video chat. We’ll discuss your business and which SEO services would help you reach your goals!

April 12, 2019/3 Comments/by Jessica

Backlinks, SEO Basics

Backlinks: Get Popular on Google

Backlinks

Today we’re talking about backlinks – a really powerful tool for improving your SEO.

A backlink is a link from another site TO your site. Basically, someone else is saying that your site has valuable information their reader might be interested in on a particular topic. For instance, if a local fitness instructor is talking about healthy eating and links to a local paleo meal prep business (we have one in my hometown so this comes to mind for me!), the fitness instructor is giving the paleo chef a backlink.

Why are backlinks important?

Backlinks are important because they give your site authority in the eyes of a search engine. In some ways, Search Engines are a lot like an election.

Imagine for a minute that you are running for state representative. You win by being the person that gets the most votes. It’s basically a big popularity contest.

Similarly, getting the highest ranking on Google is a bit of a popularity contest. Backlinks are “votes” for your website. The basic idea is that if someone is linking their viewers to your website it is because they believe your website has something valuable to offer people. Therefore, these “votes” matter.

When running for office, to get the most votes and win the election, you have to put together a campaign. Some of the techniques you might use in your campaign might include directly asking for votes, getting an endorsement from an organization that aligns with you on key political issues and explaining to people how it’s in their best interest to vote for you.

In order to get backlinks and get the best ranking on search engines, you use similar techniques. Many backlinks will be ones you’ll directly ask for such as e-mailing a local directory and asking to be added. Other backlinks work similar to endorsements. For instance, the LGBTQ group at your local university may “endorse” you as an LGBTQ friendly counseling clinic by linking back to your website. Lastly, many backlinks will happen after you’ve provided value for someone. For instance, you may get a backlink to your site by writing a guest blog post (such as this one).

How many backlinks do I need for my site?

I heard on a podcast last year that a great goal for mental health therapists is to try to get 100 backlinks to your website, because if you have 100 backlinks you’ll have more than almost any other therapist in your area. My experience now that I’ve seen a few therapist’s data is that very few therapists intentionally build backlinks. Often if they do it’s in the form of getting on a bunch of directories. The bottom line is that 100 backlink goal is a pretty good one. However, aiming for 100 may sound overwhelming at first (it did for me). Maybe set a smaller goal….like that you’ll reach out to 3 sites a week for six weeks (directory sites, Help a Reporter Out sites, places you’d like to guest blog, etc) to get a jump start.

Earning backlinks for your private practice website: Simplified SEO Consulting.

Earn Google’s trust by demonstrating that other reputable sources trust you as you build backlinks.
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

How can I earn backlinks for my website?

By now maybe you’re asking yourself, how do I get these backlinks you speak of? Here are FOUR places you can look for backlinks that I will talk about more in depth this week.

Look for local directories
Act as a source for reporters
Offer to do guest blog posts for other websites
Check your competitors backlinks

Directory Sites

The fist and often easiest place to look for backlinks is in directory listings. Sometimes there are online therapist directories that will give you a backlink, but I encourage you to think beyond these. For instance, consider asking to be added to lists of therapists recommended by your local school district, university lists, HULA frog, local health and wellness places, etc. Think of your ideal client and what organizations they might go to for recommendations, then look and see if those organizations have a “resources” section on their website. I say these are “easy” backlinks because if you are offering a relevant service typically all you have to do is fill out a form or send an e-mail asking to be added to that list.

Act as a Source for Reporters

Another GREAT way to get backlinks quickly is to act as a source for reporters. You can get to know local reporters. Or, a quick way to get featured by reporters is to go through Help a Reporter Out (HARO). They link experts in various niches with reporters. After you sign up, HARO sends you e-mails three times a day a bunch of stories reporters are looking for sources to provide quotes on. You respond with a few quotes they can use and then they decide if they’ll include you in their story. I’ll do a whole other blog post on this sometime soon…

Write a blog post for another website

Guest Blogging is another great way to get a backlink! All backlinks are not created equal so it’s especially helpful if you can guest blog for a well established, reputable blog that has a high “trust score.” It’s for this reason that I love swapping guest blogging with people where we each write a guest blog post for the other person and in the “About the guest blogger” at the bottom we like back to our own sites!

Side note…in an effort to help my SEO Consulting clients get backlinks, I offer a small discount if you write a guest blog post for my own private practice website. I fully optimize the post so it gets seen as often as possible and then request indexing on the post so Google recognizes your new backlink!

Check out competitors’ backlinks

The fourth option for increasing your backlinks is to check out your competitors’ backlinks! If someone is linking to your competitors, there is a chance your website would be relevant for their site to link to as well. This is a great way to find new directories, new places that might be interested in a guest blog posts, etc. You can use free backlink checker websites to find some of the sites that link to your biggest competitors’ websites. Just do a search for “free backlink checker” and then type in your competitor’s website domain address. Only a handful of the websites linking to your competitors will show up on most free versions, but this can be a great place to start.

Are all backlinks created equal?

It’s important to note that all backlinks are not created equal. A backlink from a website that Google views as being more trustworthy or more of an authority on a topic will help improve your SEO more than a backlink from a brand new website your mom put up yesterday. Websites for universities, government websites and non-profit organizations often have higher “trust scores” or site rank authority and therefore provide a much bigger boost for your SEO. One tool you may want to use is this site rank authority tool.

Ready to get serious about SEO for your Private Practice Site?

Simplified SEO Consulting is pleased to offer you a variety of SEO services designed to meet your needs as a small business owner. If you’re too busy and don’t have time to optimize your website, we offer the popular Done for You SEO Services. With this package, our team of SEO specialists will optimize your website for you. If you are the do-it-yourself type, we can help you too. We have online SEO courses or a 12 week SEO intensive program where you’ll have everything you need to learn to optimize your own website.

January 29, 2019/2 Comments/by Jessica