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Social Media and Drug Addiction Treatment – Professionals & Addicts

Since the advent of social media (as we know it today) which began probably back in 1997 with the online web event grandmaster chess player Garry Kasparov vs. IBM’s Deep Blue Super Computer (yes we did have live chat and bulletin boards back in those days) however it has not been until the past 3-4 years has it become a daily “thing” and almost a regular part of our lives. I do think that we are all spending more time online instead of in front of the TV, which is probably a really good thing.
Social media is *free* and it sure seems like the masses of eyeballs are there and it probably should not be ignored. If you are a CEO, executive director or a therapist or person of influence you might want to consider sharing your insights and thoughts and connecting with others, social media does a couple of things for you:

1) It shows you are approachable (people do business with people they know like and trust)
2) It can show you as a thought leader
3) It shows some of the folks you are connected to

We are living in a networked economy. It is really easy to track down people and check them out from a due diligence standpoint, both the good stuff and bad stuff (black PR) can come up. So as people and centers refer clients to us they want to be able to connect to us, social media makes this extremely accessible. The downside is that it is time consuming and typically does not pay huge dividends. If there are some addiction treatment professionals getting admissions using social media they are pretty quiet about it and they should keep quiet too. It is like fishing, if you find a good spot you don’t want to get on the radio and tell all the other boats that “THIS IS THE HOT SPOT COME ON OVER!”

So let’s cover some “fishing holes”

There are two kinds of social media fishing holes for drug addiction treatment:
1) Where the professionals hang out
2) Where the addicts hang out

Five places where I know the professionals hang out are:
1) Twitter
2) Linked In
3) Youtube
4) Blogs
5) Facebook

I particularly like Twitter and have set up a few different Twitter Profiles with one of them Impairment dealing only with posts concerning drug addiction treatment and everything related. As far as Twitter is concerned the more influence you wield is often measured by the number of your “followers.” So if you want to find more followers start by following more people. Check out some of the people I’m following and follow them. If you see others that are interesting check out who they are following and follow them. Spend a couple of hours to do this to get started, you will find that people will follow you back especially if you are following like minded folks in the addiction treatment field. Just make sure that your profile links back to your treatment center site or other professional profile.

Linked In

This is undoubtedly the most powerful of professional networks. Start connecting with others, expand your network. You also want to go to the Linked In Groups and type in addiction treatment and join a couple of the popular Linked In groups. Make sure you allow the group to send you updates on a daily basis. You will see others asking questions. Answer some of the questions if you feel qualified to do so, add value….this is “social media.” Also go over to the Answers section of Linked In and find a couple of categories where you have experience and answer some questions, even if it was in a different field from what you are in now. Give back and add value.

YouTube

I love videos and provide online video syndication services as well as video production. But where this can get really interesting is when the users type into Google and type in Drug Addiction Treatment in LA and there is a little video search result on page one of Google Web results. I believe that if a user has a choice between a video and a text link they will pick a video. If you like the video this one or any other you might want to comment on it because it will give you a link to your profile and to your profile will be a link back to your site. Type drug addiction treatment into YouTube and see what comes up, if you like the video “subscribe” to it. YouTube will send you weekly updates of the videos you subscribe to.

Blogs

So what is so “social” in media about blogs? Blogs are great places to hang out. As a matter of fact I read a couple of hundred blogs weekly. I use Google Reader to do this. If you like a blog post on Drug Addiction Treatment or even a article about Drugs and Alcohol (See the NYT they have a section for this) make sure you leave a comment and in your profile make sure you have a link going back to your site! This will connect you to more people, professionals and sometimes addicts. Sometimes those blog links coming back to your site can help boost your SEO rankings provided the web page is important to Google and there is not a “No Follow” tag in the code.

Facebook

In this recently published article in Adweek, “ViTrue a social media firm has determined that, on average, a fan base (on Facebook) of 1 million translates into at least $3.6 million in equivalent media over a year.” While in addiction treatment we are not likely to see these kinds of numbers there is always value in reaching potential customers or referral partners. Building lists is one of the single most important disciplines that we all can do. We then need to segment the lists by interests and other attributes to best leverage the relationships. Social Media is a great way to help build your list(s).

Where the Drug Addicted Addicts?

I have found three sites and each has something unique to offer the addicts. Once thing I have noticed is that I do not see the addicts publically portraying themselves as addicts on Twitter or MySpace or Facebook and certainly not Linked In.

1. SoberRecovery.com
2. Heroin-Detox.com
3. Treatment-Centers.net

Sober Recovery.com has some of the most active forums in the drug addiction treatment space. The sheer volume in here is impressive and they have forum topics including Books and Movies to Mental Health to Quitting Smoking. You will find hundreds of thousands of posts here, it does not get more “social” than that.

Heroin-Detox.com is a much smaller community however they are extremely focused. In reading a few of their posts in this forum I find them to be better written than most. So here is a great example of heroin and social media and addicts helping each other in their journey.

Treatment-Centers.Net probably has the best social media component of all of the sites I visited. Not only do they have forums and blogs they have real time chat rooms enabled as well as a directory where addicts and families and participate in commenting on their experiences with the particular addiction treatment facilities. You can also upload and “Tag” your videos on this site which is a huge advantage. The value of adding your videos here is that the potential for them to “rank” is very good especially if you tag them correctly. There is a lot of potential here to become a Facebook of social media for addicts.

In the final analysis I still would not put a lot of resources towards social media just yet but I would not ignore it either. Figure out a way to be engaged and stay engaged and it should pay dividends for you in the long run. Probably the best advice I can provide is to repurpose any and all of your content into the social media and blogosphere space it can only help you distribute your message and brand. The next big thing coming down the pike is social media combined with mobile, as a matter of fact it is already here.

If you want more detailed information on Social Media I would download the recent 2010 Social Media Industry Report from the Social Media Examiner. While many of the respondents in the report said that they got more eyeballs using social media I can tell you that many of the search engines love the social media sites too. Search engines like to see incoming links to your site from YouTube videos and other social media sites like blogs, this can add SEO link juice to your site. Typically the more comments on a blog page and on a video tend to add more “link value.” The reverse is true as well. The more incoming links you have going to your YouTube Videos and blog posts tend to rank in the search results pages. Many people are solely focused on ranking their web site(s) but you might also want to look at optimizing your videos and blogs as well.

Jim Peake is an internet marketing consultant with special focus on the behavioral health and addiction treatment industry. He helps treatment centers improve their web presence and in lead generation online as well as offline. He uses advanced SEO and PPC direct response advertising for addiction treatment search engine marketing.

Addiction Treatment Center Marketing Plan Primer

Most likely you are already doing “something.” The problem is that “something” might not be doing enough. Let’s face it, times are tough in 2010. You can do an elaborate marketing plan or you can do something fast and simple that works. Here’s the short list, list out all the ways that you are attracting clients to your treatment center. Hopefully you have 4-6 proven ways to generate leads that turn into referrals or conversions as I like to call them. This is my secret addiction treatment marketing strategy, find out what works the best and do more and do it better. That’s right, if it is working do more of it, refine it, test other methods or in some cases hire more people if it is on ground marketing.

What if what we are doing doesn’t work? Then you have two options, drop it or change it. And do it fast. As Einstein said, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” And as Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” So in my view this marketing game looking for high quality leads requires testing and tracking. Finding out what is working for your business and doing more of it. We don’t have the kind of time Mr. Edison had many years ago.

The internet provides a great platform for testing. PPC is the most optimal and controllable testing method I have found. The more qualified traffic you drive to your site or landing and squeeze pages you will be able to learn what types of clients are attracted to your business. Then you can target more of them. You do not want to have to convince them to get them into the treatment center. If you furnish what they are looking for then it is much easier to just have a “fit” vs. a hard closing sale.

At the end of the day Google wants two things from your web site, content and incoming links. Both are important and there are different schools of thought that will tell you one ranks over the other. What I know is if you do both all the time you will land on top of the Google Search Engine Results Pages, (SERP) obviously there is more to it than that but this will propel you in the right direction. The reason why this is so critical is because when a person is in a moment of decision they search for an answer and you want to be able to get between them and Google and field that call, you have a higher probability of closing the admission.

Here is some “bad news.” (Why is it bad news? Because it takes work). You want to keep adding content and incoming links to your site all the time, forever! You might ask how much new content does Google want? Well, as far as content goes in a perfect world I would shoot for 2 articles per day every day. If that is too cumbersome then shoot for 2 per week. You must keep adding quality content to your site if you want the Google Spider to come back to the site and index the pages. As far as incoming links go in my experience quality is better than quantity. I also think that you want to continually add more links, ask your suppliers, your friends and business colleagues for links.

Having come from the direct response marketing profession I’m a big believer in direct mail. Yup, good old fashioned US Mail. It is easy to test a small market or list and mail out postcards. But mail to them frequently at least 7 times, but make sure they are your target market. Measure the response, drive them to your web site with a special URL so you can track the effectiveness. An example here is if you are a low end treatment center you might want to send postcard to the higher end treatment centers and ask for referrals. Out of sight out of mind, so if you keep sending the reminders it helps a lot. Also, think about sending Holiday Cards to all of your alumni and ask for referrals. You can automate this task with Send Out Cards.

I’ve also spoken with treatment centers that are doing billboards on the main highways in their cities and that opens up the opportunity for a conversation between two people in a car. The thing about outdoor advertising is it can be expensive and you want to do it over a few months to see the real results. Again like any other medium you want to track the outdoor ad with a new URL and a new 800#.

If you have thought about writing a book now is a great time to do that since being a published author does so much for your brand. If you need help writing the book find a ghost author on ELance.com or Guru.com and get the book going. It helps secure speaking engagements and media interviews and press is the cheapest and most creditable way to generate eyeballs. Books are nothing more than lead generators to me and very fancy calling cards but they work.

Do you want to add some great corporate videos to your web site? You can do this for less than $1,000 per video. The thing I love about video is that it communicates so well and we all want to do business with people we know like and trust.

In the addiction treatment and behavioral health field we have several industry trade shows. This is a great place to meet your peers and establish new relationships. What I try and do is “keyword optimize” my name tag. So if I am a “Pet Friendly Treatment Center” I might title myself as “Pet Friendly VP.” Why? Because it is fun and silly and it is a great conversation starter, it is an ice breaker. You could do the same thing with Dual Diagnosis VP, you get the idea. I’ve done it at software shows where the introverts are plentiful and it even works on them!

In summary, the marketing plan will be determined by the company resources and staff available to help and it will be individual to each treatment center. Keep testing, do what works and keep refining it. If it does not work kill it or change it.

Jim Peake is an internet marketing consultant with special focus on the behavioral health and addiction treatment industry. He helps treatment centers improve their web presence and in lead generation online as well as offline. He uses advanced SEO and PPC direct response advertising for addiction treatment search engine marketing. His video marketing agency is at Viral on Video.

Drug Addiction Treatment Center and Therapist Online Marketing Basics

Do you know how many people visited your addiction treatment center web site last month? Do you know how many of them made phone calls because they visited your web site?

How much should we spend on marketing? That depends on a lot of variables. But I would consider if you have a 30 bed treatment center and are charging $15K per month I would plan on spending $30K per month in online marketing alone. Why so much you might ask, because it is cheaper than hiring employees and the internet can do a great job at filtering out the right clients for your business more efficiently.

Having been exposed to the Web since 1995 and then pursuing a career in web design and development I’ve seen a lot of stuff come and go. Being an internet marketing and management consultant in the behavioral healthcare field I help many drug addiction treatment centers with the design and development of their web sites. While some of the web remains the same, much of it is changing, and quickly. There are some core components that you will want in creating a Web site or maintaining your existing site for your drug addiction treatment center or even if you are a sole proprietor in the behavioral healthcare field.

The goals of the site need to be defined by the owner of the business. Some just want to inform and put up information that is relevant to their business and provide their clients with creditability. Others want to create a direct response lead generation type of a site and have site visitors call them after they have had the chance to view the information. So far I haven’t seen anyone sell healthcare services on their site, maybe that day might come, so for now e-commerce is out. Addiction treatment is a two step sales process to close the sale.

For me 98% of my clients want a lead generation site. There are a few things that you will want to do to help you capture more leads or increase site visitors or both. Here is the short incomplete bulleted list in no certain order:

1) Build on a content management system (CMS) so you can “at will” add more documents
2) Use trust icons i.e. NAATP and association icons
3) Put a web form on EVERY page
4) Add a Google Map on your contact page
5) Add an 800# on all pages above and below the fold
6) Add Google Analytics
a. Add goals in analytics
b. Add analytics into your thank you pages after the user fills out the forms
7) Add incoming relevant links to your web site as often as you can
8) Add content to your site as often as you can preferably every day if not at least once per week
9) Add video and tag it correctly
10) Create “landing pages” for your PPC campaigns
11) Create TRUST: Add testimonials
12) Add an XML site map
13) List yourself with the major directories

Drug Addiction Treatment CMS Systems

There are several content management systems available. The point of CMS system is to be able to have your people add content and edit content easily. Examples are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. If you aren’t familiar with them then go to Google and get familiar with them, they will make your life easier. I strongly suggest you go with an open CMS platform for a variety of reasons, cost and SEO being major drivers.

Drug Addiction Treatment Trust Icons

If you belong to an industry association then you want to tell everyone who visits your web site. Theoretically the more trust icons you have it will establish instant trust because you are invested in the Behavioral Health Industry and the industry is invested in you.

Capture Drug Addiction Treatment Leads

Make sure you use a web form to capture the leads. This is critical. The more ways you give a user to reach you the easier it is for them. The main point of using a web form is the ability to capture the keyphrase that they searched on i.e. Drug Addiction Treatment Center for Women

Drug Addiction Treatment Center with Google Maps

Make sure that you add your business to the Google Places. This will allow you to be featured in the local listings for free on Google and also place a Google Map on your site so that it is easier to find you. I recommend Google Maps vs. other Map providers since Google is the most searched engine as well as I find it the most user friendly and it is integrated with Google Earth.

Drug Addiction Treatment Center 800#’s

In almost all cases you will find 800#’s on the drug addiction treatment center web sites. It is important to place them on every page as well as above and below the fold. (Header and Footer). Make sure that you are able to track the 800# calls and get a CDR report. The CDR or the call detail report will tell you who called, from where and for how long. If you want to even go further I would recommend using a java script 800# service where you can even track the keyphrase the user typed in to call your 800#. It is a little more expensive but well worth every penny. It is often used especially in the PPC environments. If you need a 800# provider that can track your calls send me an e-mail and I’ll send you a couple.

Drug Addiction Treatment Centers Must Use Google Analytics

Not having a tracking system in place is like leaving the front and back door of your business open at all times. The more data you are able to track the more likely you get to learn about your clients and the better you will be able to serve them. It takes 10-30 minutes to install Google Analytics on your web site. You will be able to track the number of visitors to your site, where they are coming from, for how long they stayed and what term they searched on to get to your site as well as did they complete the goal (or web form) and give you their contact information.

Google also allows you to share this information with your other team members in marketing and admissions as well as outsiders like your Web consultant and web developer. If you need help with this let me know because it only takes 10-30 minutes to get it going.

A Drug Addiction Treatment Center Without Links is Not Going to Rank

There is a good overview on Behavioral Health Central with an article on the value of incoming links to your site. Google uses the number and quality of trusted incoming links as a benchmark to how they will rank you in their search results. You must keep adding incoming links on a regular basis. Get them from your business partners. Get them from your speaking engagements. Get them from drug rehab and drug treatment industry directories; get them from Business.com and Yahoo.com directories. Get listed with DMOZ.

If you really want to rank for a keyphrase do a search for it in Google. See who is at the top of the search results. Ask them for a link, this will be your best way to rank for it.

If you want to see how many incoming links you have go to Yahoo site explorer and you will be able to see all of the incoming links to your web site. My recommendation is you want at minimum of 2,500 quality incoming links and 10,000 + is ideal. This will give you a competitive advantage for Google search results pages.

Add Drug Addiction Treatment Content All the Time

Google is hungry for original content. My recommendation is to do your keyword research and write articles about information your clients are searching for. For example, they typically search on dual diagnosis a lot more than “co-occurring.” So write the article on dual diagnosis in . In an ideal situation you are writing at least 2 articles per day, and continually adding quality content to your site. The more content you add the more often Google will come back to your site.

I would also write lengthy articles instead of short 250 word articles. The reason is if you are a user and about to make a $5K-50K purchase from a treatment center give them something! Otherwise they will hit the back button and Google will take note. Give more instead of less information, it will always serve you better in this case.

Let Drug Addiction Treatment Videos Do the Selling

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing says, “people do business with people they know, like and trust.” Let them get to know you. The best way to communicate this is through a video or multiple videos. And make sure that you “tag” the video correctly. I would use the keyphrase that you want to rank for plus location. The reason why location is so powerful is because buyers tend to search by location. You also must have a call to action at the end of the video, it is not enough to just to add a URL or a phone number at the end of the video. Give them a reason to call.

Here is a video by Velvet Mangan of Safe Harbor Treatment for Women who is using video in what I believe is the correct way. You will see she also has the video on her web site and she has comments on the video as well.

I can go into more detail on video marketing however just doing the above will get you way ahead of most of your competition.

Create Drug Addiction Treatment Center Landing Pages for Your PPC Campaigns

If you are spending heavily on PPC you must make sure you are doing it correctly. Every day I see treatment centers sending PPC traffic to their home pages. I would not do this in every case. It is confusing to the users. If you are going to send PPC traffic to your site you must create separate landing pages. For example, if you are paying $10.00 for the keyphrase dual diagnosis treatment center in Florida, then send the user to a page with this content in it, not a home pages that has 50 possible clicks out to other information.

Basically it is one thought or keyphrase per web page. If the user types in dual diagnosis treatment center in Florida and they get an ad that says dual diagnosis treatment center in Florida, then send them to a page that says dual diagnosis treatment center in Florida. You will stand a much better chance of converting this site visitor into a lead.

Create TRUST for Your Drug Addiction Treatment Center Website

Publish testimonials wherever possible. Video is preferred, but if you can’t get video, get written and even better get them published on 3rd party web sites: i.e. Treatment-centers.net, AboutDrugRehab.com, YouTube, Yelp etc. You can’t tell your business story as well as your clients can with absolute creditibility. Client testimonials add validation and creditability. We talked about trust icons earlier. In my experience TRUST is everything in terms of getting people to take action with you, be it giving you their information or writing you a check. Lowering the “risk factors” as much as possible creates trust and creates buyers. The more information the consumer has the less fear there is in doing business with you so have your previous clients become a part of your marketing team.

XML Site Map for Your Treatment Center Website

What the heck is an XML Sitemap? “Through the XML protocol, search engines could track the URLs more efficiently, optimizing their search by placing all the information in one page. XML also summarizes how frequently a particular website is updated, and records the last time any changes were made. ” Basically make it easy for Google to know about your stuff on your site. Your technical team should be able to do this with ease.

Internet Directories and Drug Addiction Treatment

Google wants two things: 1) content and 2) links. In a perfect world list your drug treatment center Website with every drug addiction treatment directory possible. If you can’t do that, then list your site with the directories that provide you link value back to your site. These directories are good at optimizing their sites for the search engines. Just be careful that you are not listing your site on a competitors directory, make sure you know who owns the site. The best clicks will come from YOUR Web site not theirs.
A couple of other directories that offer link value are Yahoo, DMOZ and Business.com, get listed with them. The most valuable links you can acquire are the links relevant to your business and in the same industry. Also visit Treatment Centers directory and make sure you have at least a free listing with them.

Social Media and Drug Addiction Treatment Centers

I’ve been doing the social media thing for a few years now. While it seems to be getting a lot of attention at the end of the day it is not going to add a lot to your bottom line, hopefully someone will be able to prove me wrong. That said, it will add to your exposure in the drug addiction treatment industry which is a great place to get some of the highest quality leads. I don’t believe addicts are running to Facebook and Twitter to tweet their last fix or lack of one, however you might have a better pulse of an addict if they watch Jersey Shore on television.

As with any medium my recommendation to clients is to test and measure, test and measure. It what you are doing is working then do it again. If it is not working then either cut it or change it. In my experience with addiction treatment and social media I think it is a great way to connect with peers. It is a great way to keep up with what the industry leaders are doing.
Linked In offers some addiction treatment groups that might be of interest to you and they are not open to everyone. Twitter offers instant gratification in an open environment and you can easily follow others by adding others via their list application.
If you are looking for traffic using social media I would set up some Google alerts like celebrity drug bust, DUI or better yet just go to TMZ once per day and there is bound to be a new celebrity making news for entering rehab, a DUI or domestic disturbance or in some cases dying from a drug over dose. I would then write a blog post about the celebrity with their name in the title in the title of the blog post. I would not say much about them but just reference them and focus on what it is that you do that can help their “alleged” problems.

Celebrity names tend to get searched a lot especially when they get into the news cycle. You can have an opportunity to capitalize on the news cycle search volume by writing about their disorder. You won’t get thousands of visitors to your site but you might just add a few hundred extra visitors this month and you never know which one might be your next client. I would also insert their photo into the article for added interest.

Other than that I would attend conferences and speak as often as you can because this is the best way to use social media in real life.

Drug Addiction Treatment Centers Using Google Local SEO

This is arguably the smartest way to the top of Google and it is free, use the Google Places formerly called Google Local Business Center to add your business profile. It is my understanding that many folks also call this Google Maps. If you have multiple locations you will want to add your addiction treatment center to the free Google Local Business Center in each location. If you have a center on main street and another sober living facility in the next town you want to create two listings, even if they are the same name, you have two locations and two physical buildings of operation, use this to your advantage on Google.

Where this comes in really handy is in some of the larger treatment areas like Delray Beach Florida where dozens of treatment centers are located. Try this, type into Google treatment centers in Delray Beach Florida. You will see multiple local listings in Delray Beach.

   

So too if you type in treatment centers in Marblehead, MA you will see https://www.americainrehab.com come up first. You can either send the user to the Google profile or directly to your web site. Try this in your local town and see who is listed there. You might find no one. So make the move now and get listed!
I recommend that you fill out the Google Local Business Center to 100%. This means you add at least one great video and up to 5 videos per listing, (read again, please add a great video) a web URL, phone, location, multiple images, coupons, keyphrases, a strong description and make sure you tell your clients to give you reviews. This is a great way to pass around positive feedback, however it is also a way to pass around negative feedback, so make sure that you are ok with being transparent. In the long run it should pay off for you.

How to rank for local listings? Make your listing “relevant.” What this means is make the listing with your major keyphrases like Teen Drug Addiction Treatment Center. I would try and go for the keyphrases that really fit your strong suit in business. Just putting in treatment center or drug rehab is not as effective.

Here is an article that does an even better job of explaining what I just told you above. Better Rankings for Google Local Search.

Jim Peake is an internet marketing consultant with special focus on the behavioral health and addiction treatment industry. He helps treatment centers improve their web presence and in lead generation online as well as offline. He uses advanced SEO and PPC direct response advertising for addiction treatment search engine marketing

Why PPC Lead Generation for Drug Addiction Treatment Centers is Pricey

PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising or better known as Google Adwords) can make or break a drug addiction treatment center business. I used to be proficient in Google Adwords but it is changing so fast that I now work with professionals in the industry. On the job training can be very expensive. This article only offers a brief overview of some of the things to consider when deploying an Adwords Campaign.

As we all probably know you can get to page one of Google using their Adwords program, but the only problem is you WILL pay for it especially if you don’t know what you are doing. Here’s why, it could be the most expensive real estate online. This is where the BUYERS are. As Red Adair said, “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur,” this is so true in the Adwords business. I have watched over the past two years many treatment centers spend $10’s of thousands of dollars every month. I can also tell you that they are converting terribly and they are paying super premium dollars for many of these keyword phrases. How do I know? Much of the information is all public for us to see on Spy Fu and Keyword Spy. Do a search on Youtube for Google Adwords Bidding Tutorial for a start to Adwords training on the Google Business Channel.

It makes sense to learn how to do Adwords before you get involved, even if you hire someone to do it for you. You must be able to manage the Adwords professional. The reason is you can find yourself on the other side of a massive credit card bill and no admissions into your drug addiction treatment center. What happens then is the owner gets frustrated with the whole internet thing and loses any confidence that they can convert web traffic into admissions, at the same time seeing their competition pass them in the information super highway.

If you want to start throwing money away today just take a look at the companies pointing their Adwords clicks right to their home pages! (Big No No) Shut off the campaigns immediately and fix it. The boys at Google hate this, but their bank accounts love it. They would rather see the user have a relevant experience and buy something from the ad you ran on Google. Why? Because, if Google finds a solution for their users they are sure to come back to Google again and again because they find what they are looking for. Google does not want people to keep hitting the back button.

So what is a drug treatment center to do in the Adwords Game? Start by learning about landing page optimization. There are plenty of books about it and I have interviewed author Tim Ash of Site Tuners who is one of the industry leaders. Type in to Google Tim Ash interview with Jim Peake and you will see the interview. You will need to start testing many different variables in your Adwords campaigns. For example, the ads can be tested, the geography can be tested, the bids can be adjusted, the time of day and the days can be adjusted, the landing page offers can be split tested, i.e. a green page and a blue page. (Yes color can make a HUGE difference).

If your ad says Dual Diagnosis Treatment Center for Women send the user to a web page that says that. Don’t send them to a Christian Drug Treatment Web/Landing Page. Users do not like surprises, what they will do is hit the back button and go back out to Google and you have been dinged by Google because the user rejected your web page and your quality score will go down. (A Quality Score is calculated every time your keyword matches a search query — that is, every time your keyword has the potential to trigger an ad). They record this and your quality score goes down. Google tracks everything.

The Adwords goal is to make the phone ring with calls of people looking for Drug Addiction Treatment and web forms to fill your inbox. Answer them quickly. Do your best to answer the phone in three rings and hopefully within the hour on the web forms. (Have the calls go straight into your smart phone). The first one to help usually has a much greater likelihood to win the new client, even if you can’t help the client you can refer the client to another center who often will reciprocate.

The name of this whole Adwords game is to capture consumer data either via phone or web form/email. I find that too many addiction treatment centers provide a web page with reams of content and 50-100 links, the user is now overwhelmed and they hit the back button, you just got dinged again by Google. Capture their information BEFORE you let them into your site.

Here’s another simple idea for Adwords. Go local. If your treatment center is located in New Mexico only advertise in New Mexico. Master this market first, then go after other bigger states like Colorado and Texas. Typically I see many treatment centers get most of their business within a days drive from their center.

Why are the keyword bids so expensive in the drug addiction treatment space? Because very few centers are doing it correctly, artificially inflating the prices. We have a saying in the DRTV industry and it is called a MER ratio. Media Efficiency Ratio. Spend $1 and generate $4 in revenue and you have a 4:1 MER or more commonly known as a 4:1 ratio. If you can spend $10,000 per week you want $40,000 in revenue to get to a 4:1 ratio. This ratio might work for steak knives but it might not for many treatment centers.

In a couple of other areas we can add third party software to track the keyword based on the phone call. It costs a bit more but it can be a valuable investment if you are able to determine which of the keyword you are bidding on are converting into admissions over the phone. Many admissions coordinators have a lot to process when speaking to a client, asking them to ask the client for a keyword phrase can be awkward. You can also put demographic overlays into your Adwords campaigns so you can only target zip codes with income over $100K in income. Again, there are a lot of moving parts to a successful Adwords campaign.

Jim Peake Bio- Jim is an internet marketing consultant with special focus on addiction treatment in the behavioral health industry. He helps treatment centers improve their web presence and in lead generation, online as well as offline. He uses advanced SEO and PPC direct response advertising for addiction treatment search engine marketing. He helps sellers meet buyers of treatment centers. Jim is also active in social media marketing.