Being a Speech Language Pathologist, Lactation consultant or Orofacial Myofunctional Therapist (OMT) is tough. Just becoming any one of these takes years of schooling and a slew of certifications. In working with these professionals, they all have a few things in common:
1. They are all really, REALLY smart.
2. They are SUPER busy because everyone needs their expertise.
3. Because they are super busy, they don't have a lot of time for their website.
Being busy is the easy part. STAYING busy is the hard part. This is why a solid website that is updated routinely with quality content is very important. Good content is what brings visitors in. The secret to SEO is, in this writer's opinion, that there is no secret. The only real way to increase website visits and SEO is a steady stream of new, high quality content your visitors care about. Think about it...you probably search Google a few times a week, right? When you put in a search, and you click on a search result at the top of the page, wouldn't you want to go to a site that has a large volume of the latest, most relevant information? Yes, you do...and Google believes you should too. So that's the bad news: getting website visitors is hard. The good news? VirtuOps Pilot and the Digital Assistant can help. Below are 4 things that SLPs, OMTs and Lactation Consultants can improve their website SEO with minimal effort using VirtuOps:
1. Add Patient Exercises
2. Create a Professional Directory
3. Use VirtuOps Digital Assistant to Curate Content (in under 3 minutes)
4. Add Your Presentations and Professional Material to your site (in under 3 minutes)
Add Patient Exercises
Nothing declares your expertise in your field more than showing people how they can help themselves with what you know. Adding a few sample exercises that can help a a potential patient is a great example of quality content that someone would likely search for on the internet. With VirtuOps Digital Assistant, you can easily add your patient exercises to your site in a few seconds. Here is how it works:
1. Log into the VirtuOps Digital Assistant
2. Go to Patient Exercises
3. Fill in the form, add your text, video or document
4. Save the exercise
5. Select the patient you want to do the exercise
That's it! Once you get your patient to log in, their exercise will be waiting for them. Take a look at these pages from InnovativeMyo:
These exercises can also be made public. A handful of publicly made exercises can really help your search engine results and show the world what you do and how you do it.
Create a Professional Directory
A professional directory tells your patients that you have a total care plan. You not only take care of your patient when they are in your office, but you also care for them when they are NOT in your office. Many SLPs, IBCLCs and OMTs find issues and problems that require a referral to a pediatrician, periodontist, dentist, chiropractor, or other type of therapist. By having a professional directory on your site, you can show your patients that you know how to take care of ALL problems related to speech, feeding, swallowing, breathing etc....even if you yourself do not know how to treat them.
The professional directory will not only benefit your website with nice keywords and content, but it also helps the professionals that sign up to become part of your network. When the professional signs up to your site, their website will automatically get a backlink, which will improve their SEO. Take a look at Chrysalis Orofacial's professional directory, which now has over 100 members:
Once your professional adds their practice to your directory, VirtuOps Pilot can send monthly reminders using YOUR email, letting the professional know how many patients you saw this month and how many of them likely saw their listing. This is a great way to stay top of mind with other professionals who are more likely to send YOU referrals and increase your revenue.
Curate Content
Curating content is essential to any website. For SLPs, OMTs and IBCLCs, you need to let your audience know that you are knowledgeable and current on practices and procedures in your industry. But curating content can be a time consuming process as you are cutting, pasting, uploading, aligning and doing all the things necessary to make your content look right on the page. VirtuOps Digital Assistant takes care of that for you. With a simple and easy form, you can select any article or paper on the internet and with a single button click, add your content. This is not just something that SLPs, OMTs and IBCLCs can use. In fact, any small business website can do this with the VirtuOps Digital Assistant. Here is how we use it on our site:
Step 1: Find an article that your visitors would find useful.
Step 2: Go to your VirtuOps Digital Assistant and fill in a simple form (take a few minutes to think about your insight, this is an important part of providing good curated content).
Step 3: Save the content and check out your new page.
Curating content helps add quality content to your page and is also good for the person that originally wrote the article. Once your page is added, the author will get a back link from your site, helping their SEO as well. For some good rules and etiquette to follow, check out these examples for proper content curation.
Add Your Presentations and Papers to your Site
As an SLP, IBCLC, or OMT, you have to do a lot of reading, writing, research, and studying. Along the way, you are bound to have created some type of scholarly artifact or given a presentation that can help your patients or colleagues. This kind of content is website gold. It is your content AND it is very likely to have information that others will want to see. Instead of the 15-30 minutes per presentation or paper, you can use the VirtuOps Digital Assistant to add your content to your site in a matter of seconds. Take a look at how Chrysalis Orofacial has done this. Here is the Digital Assistant that allows them to add their content:
Now here is what the content looks like on the site:
Then all you need to do is click on a button and your visitors can see your presentation, paper or video.
Thank you for stopping by. If you are an IBCLC, speech language therapist or orofacial myofunctional therapist and want to learn more about how you can take control of your website, drop us a line. We have helped many SLPs, OMTs and IBCLCs revive their website, increase their traffic and save thousands of dollars a year by eliminating expensive web designers. We would love to do the same for you.
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