Although drug rehab centres and facilities carry out outstanding work, specifically assisting and supporting individuals to end their drug addiction, it can often lead to us forgetting that in many cases they are a business. We say that not as a negative against them, but to highlight that they are subject to many of the same needs, obligations, and objectives of other businesses.

For example, if a drug rehab centre has no patients who pay the fees for treatment, then its existence would soon come under threat due to having no income with which to pay its staff or its bills. This leads us to the fact that, just as other businesses like landscapers, accountants, car dealers, roofers, and restaurants, to name but a few, all need to market themselves, so do drug rehab centres to attract enquiries that ultimately become paying patients.

As for how they do so, there is no shortage of options, but one which should take precedence is driving traffic to their website, and to do that they must focus on search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO is how you get a website ranked in high positions on Google whenever a search term is entered. By optimising for keywords equivalent to relevant search terms related to drug rehabilitation, they can appear on page one and thus benefit from increased website traffic.

There are numerous SEO tactics and strategies, and some are more effective than others. For that reason, we thought it would be useful if we highlight five of the top SEO steps that have proven to benefit drug rehab websites and boosted their rankings so much that they should be considered essential.

#1 – Analyse And Optimise All On-Site SEO

Most things that can boost your SEO occur on your website so that is where you should start. You need to assess and where necessary, adjust, improve, or add any of the core optimisations that are required for Google to fully understand what each page of your website is trying to rank for. This includes metadata, website content, and the internal linking structure.

#2 – Conduct A ‘User Experience’ Audit On Your Website

Google is obsessed with user experience (UX), and, because of that, it should come as no surprise that websites that provide excellent UX tend to be the ones that it rewards with better rankings. You can augment your website’s UX by improving content and features on your website such as adding excellent information and advice and improving website navigation.

#3 – Ensure All Elements Of Your Google Business Profile Are In Place

Your drug rehab centre can have a presence on Google for numerous relevant search terms in the form of its Google Business Profile. Ensuring you first claim it, and then adding all the essential elements that Google allows you to have, can make a significant difference to your rankings and the traffic that they produce. Examples of what your Google Business Profile contains include address, phone number, photos, map location, reviews, and business description.

#4 – Bolster Your Citations And Backlinks

As well as getting everything optimised on your drug rehab centre’s website, you also have matters off-site to take care of. Amongst these are getting citations created on as many online directories as possible including local ones. In addition, you should be creating backlinks from relevant websites and, ideally, from well-established high-authority websites due to the powerful boost backlinks from these give you when Google is calculating your rankings.

#5 – Make Boosting Rankings An Ongoing Exercise Rather Than A One-Off Event

A key tactic that can put you ahead of many other drug rehab businesses is to commit to continually trying to improve your SEO and rankings. Bear in mind, rankings are in constant flux and if you sit on your hands your competitors will overtake you due to the SEO they are doing. So, make a point of checking your rankings regularly, and aiming to improve them however possible.