Why you should invest in addiction treatment SEO

In case you need further convincing, here are the most compelling reasons to invest in treatment center SEO.

SEO for rehabs is more affordable in the long term

As is true in most industries, advertising is expensive.

We often use this analogy when explaining the difference between paid and organic marketing to our clients.

With Google Ads, you pay Google to be your friend. With SEO and other forms of organic marketing, you have earned Google as a friend.

When you pay Google to be your friend, you have to cough up cash every time you want to hang out. When you earn your friendship with Google, meaning you’ve built a relationship based on trust over time, Google will hang out with you for free–no payment required! Sure, it took time and work to build your relationship with Google, but you don’t have to pay Google for every stinkin’ click. Instead, all you’re paying for is maintaining an SEO strategy over time.

This is not to say that advertising might not be a good choice for your business. If you are willing to pay to be Google’s friend and you’re comfortable with a lower profit margin, go for it! Some rehab centers advertise exclusively, and they’re doing just fine.

Do we think that advertising is an ideal long-term strategy? No. We’ll always encourage rehab centers to pursue an organic marketing strategy exclusively or in tandem with advertising.

Gain trust with rehab-seekers immediately

In case we haven’t yammered on about this enough, trust is everything.

So far, we’ve exclusively discussed building trust between your rehab center and Google, but we haven’t mentioned the most important trust touchpoint of all: the trust potential clients have in your rehab center.

There are many ways to build trust with potential clients: reviews, testimonials, referrals from other professionals, etc., but have you thought about the credibility you establish when you rank on Google?

Although we all have our gripes with how Google search is run, there is a societal understanding that if someone is ranking on Google for a keyword, they must be somewhat reputable in that topic or industry.

This is even more true for businesses like rehab centers. Rehab centers and other professionals like psychotherapists, lawyers, and financial advisors are in Google’s category “YMYL,” which stands for “Your Money Your Life.” These industries are ones in which Google users stand to have their health, safety, or finances affected. Google does not want to be on the hook for recommending fraudulent businesses that negatively impact users’ lives, so their ranking criteria for keywords like “best rehab near me” are stringent.

Searchers understand this. If you rank above or in other places where a competitor does not, that means something to rehab-seekers.

Search and drug rehab SEO is constantly changing (in a good way)

Isn’t ranking for “rehab center near me” on Google really competitive? Yes, reader, it is. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t space for you!

Google search is constantly changing, and usually when we hear “change,” we assume it’s a bad thing. And believe us–we’ve had plenty of existential freakouts wondering about the relevance of our work. But time and time again, Google has shown us that it’s willing to adapt to a changing search environment. From featuring TikToks in search results (pending bans, of course) or landing a $60 million deal with Reddit to use Reddit’s post to improve its AI models, Google will do anything to understand and appeal to user behavior.

Why?

Because in 2023, more than three quarters of Google’s revenue came from search (search advertising, to be precise). The more users Google loses to other search engines like TikTok and DuckDuckGo, the more money they stand to lose. Lost revenue is the ultimate motivator.

What you need is a forward thinking drug rehab SEO company that understands and anticipates changes in the search environment, because SEO goes way beyond Google.

All this to say, there are plenty of nooks and crannies where you can get in front of rehab-seeking people on Google. We’ll get into that a bit more when we discuss strategies.