Keywords for Health and Wellness
How to find, pick, and use the right keywords on your website.
Not sure what keywords for health and wellness you should be using for your business? This post will tell you everything you need to know about researching and using the right keywords to attract your next paying clients to your site.
Understanding your wellness keywords is one important building block of doing SEO. But how do you know what your ideal people are searching for? How can you make sure that your content includes these crucial words?
This blog post will give you a couple of easy ways you can capture keywords and start using them in your website copy.
What is covered in this keywords for health and wellness guide:
(feel free to click to skip to each section)
I’ve tried to include as many examples as possible in this blog post to help you really apply what you learn to your own business needs.
Want to learn all the components of Search Marketing (not just keywords) that will help you rank? Check out this Foundational SEO Checklists, specifically designed for Therapists + Counselors but can be applied to any Health and Wellness business.
Ready to learn about keywords for your health and wellness business? Let’s get started!
What are SEO keywords exactly?
Said plainly, keywords are words or phrases that people like you are searching to find content on the internet.
Keywords aren’t just relevant to Google and SEO, but also to any digital platform since they help us search and find what we are looking for on that platform. In social media, keywords can also be called hashtags.
As a business owner, understanding the keywords your ideal client is searching for can help us identify the questions, content, and objections that they have about our services, products, and courses.
Let’s go through some examples:
You are looking for a local therapist to help with your son’s behavioural issues. You might search “nyc child behavioral therapist”
All these are relevant keywords:
Or maybe you’ve been wanting to explore breathing exercises for anxiety, so you search “breath meditation for anxiety”.
Types of Keyword Searches
Note that there are different types of keyword searches: some are informational (“how do I fix a leaking faucet”) while others are more transactional (“cheap usb cord”). If you want me to do another blog post talking about the different types of keywords out there, leave me a comment at the bottom of this post.
So, that is what a keyword is and now we are going to talk about finding and picking good keywords that will grow your site traffic and business revenue. I will also briefly cover how to use your keywords effectively on your website.
3 Quality Places to Find Keywords
Now that you understand what keywords are, let’s talk about some easy (and high-quality places) you can find good keywords for your business.
1) Ask your ideal client
This one might sound obvious and like “Really, Cinthia? Is that allowed?” and I want to say yes! And actually starting a conversation with your client about their worries and needs is something I recommend doing on a more ongoing basis. This not only generates a meaningful connection that can lead to trust, but you also may end up booking in some clients because they start asking about your services.
Here are some easy ways to ask your client about what they are needing:
Survey (SurveyMonkey or TypeForm are great)
Email (use your business email or your email provider to ask them what the search for)
Piece of paper in your waiting room (this can also be a small card or clipboard that you can easily hand out while people are waiting to be served).
Even getting a couple of replies from these type of enquiries can be very insightful.
You can choose to add a little incentive to an email like this (maybe a small discount to their next visit or a free consultation in return.)
This first step of just asking your audience what they are looking for can be powerful on its own.
2) Google Search
One of the best (and easiest) place to search keywords is directly at the source: Google! That’s right!
Opening the browser and typing keywords on your service type, including location specific keywords (if that applies to your business) or a unique health issue you help with, can bring up popular keywords.
You can especially look at Google Suggest keywords as you start to type in the words at the top and then at the bottom, once you have entered your search, similar keywords combinations come up.
The best way to approach these keywords is to draw up a list of keyword phrases that you are interested in writing about AND that are related to your services. Once you have a couple, you can then choose one to get started in.
How do you know these keywords are good for your site? All the keywords that Google suggests in this area are popular searches that are getting traffic.
If you want to take it one step farther, you can take a look at the results for one of the keyword phrases and see what other sites come up. Try and target phrases that don’t have very large commercial sites on them (like Mind Body Green, Goop, WebMD). Why? These sites are hard to compete against, especially if your site is just starting out.
3) Use Quora.com
Quora is a powerful community of questions and answers. There are millions of questions and you can find them organized in your specific expertise.
The best way to approach Quora is to first search for your area of work. For example, if you are a therapist, you can search “Therapy”, “Psychologist”, and “Mental Health”. Then browse through the questions.
Similar to the Google search, collect the questions that intrigue you and who you can genuinely speak towards.
The coolest part about Quora is that you can also enter into conversation with that person and later share additional blog content you’ve written about the topic. This is a great way to attract new clients and help many people.
How to pick the right keywords
Now that you have an initial brainstorm of keyword ideas, now let’s talk about how to actually pick the right ones for your audience and business.
Before you get too obsessed with your list, I want you to take a moment to visualize who your ideal client is. What are her/his needs? How do you think they are feeling when they are searching for those words? Take a moment to close your eyes and feel that in your body.
Some of you might wonder what this has to do with SEO but I truly believe to get the best results with SEO, there must a physical and emotional connection between the keywords you pick and the person you are trying to help. These connections don’t have to be super deep but feeling that deep longing or excitement to really change someone’s life when they find your content can make a huge difference with how you select the right keywords for you.
We can’t solve all the world’s problems, but if we find the right problems that really move us, then wow! imagine how many changes we could make.
Now let’s review some more practical factors for picking the right keywords.
1) Review what you are selling now and in the future
When it comes to SEO, I believe that it should connect the dots for you in terms of more quality traffic to your site and sales, whether that be private clients, course sales, or product sales.
That is why it’s important to think about how your keywords are connected to your offers, courses, and products in the next 90 days and 12 months.
Since SEO is a long game, the more you can target keywords that will keep bringing you quality traffic over time, the better results you’ll get.
For example, let’ say you are a nutritionist and in the next 6 months you are launching a course that is specifically for women with IBS, you are you want to make sure your keywords are connected to how you specifically help women, whether it be through a course or a private experience.
A keyword like “IBS in women” is a bit broad and not specific enough for this launch of your course, although you could have a main services page that uses that keyword.
Better keywords for this specific launch would be:
How to improve my IBS
Healthy recipes for IBS
Can I completely heal my IBS?
Again, putting yourself in your customer’s shoes is one of the best ways to think about what they might be searching.
Need more guidance on identifying who is searching for you? Here are some blog posts/podcast episodes to help:
Another example: you sell organic food/products brands online and you are launching a new line of organic supplements for women with hormonal imbalances.
Again, get super specific about the keywords that will support you in the next 6 - 12 months of launching.
Some specific transactional keywords you can target:
natural supplements for hormones
vitamins to balance hormones
When you get specific about keywords and your marketing, services, products, and courses, you’ll feel more motivated to write and generate content for your blog.
And just to clarify, there doesn’t always have to be a direct connection between what you are selling and keywords, but connecting keywords to sales is often a great way to also get clarity in your data (whether it be Search Console or Google Analytics) and calculate the ROI (Return On Investment) for each keyword and landing page.
Once again, when you see the actual results you are getting from your SEO, it will motivate you to keep going.
How does this keyword connect to the rest of your content and marketing?
SEO doesn’t work as well when it’s in a vacuum. Taking the time to sync up all your marketing platforms so that they are working in unison can be powerful.
For example, you are a mindset coach and you recently found a keyword you’d like to target around “imposter syndrome in women” and suggest some journal prompts to overcome.
So you write this amazingly juice blog post speaking to your own experience, your client’s experience and some easy journaling prompts that can help someone shift their mindset out of imposter syndrome.
Maybe you finish writing this and are proud of yourself, and share it once with your social media but forget about it after.
I recommend a different approach when it comes to your marketing; align all your platforms to work in unison so that everything is guiding traffic and your clients in the same direction.
Before publishing your blog post consider:
Creating some hype in your social media: ask people what they think of imposter syndrome, do they struggle with it?
Let them know that you’ll be sharing some imposter syndrome tips soon and that your email list will get once bonus tip (and a link to sign up)
Record a short video about the topic or if you have a podcast, do an episode. You can share a small portion of the information and then point them to the blog post.
After you publish the blog post:
Send the email to your email list
Promote on all your social channels
Publish your podcast episode or video
Email specific coworkers and partners in your network who you’d think would find it helpful (or have clients who’d find it helpful).
Email specific clients who have talked to you about their imposter syndrome
Include in any evergreen funnels that share content on an ongoing basis
The more you can share your content in unison with the rest of your marketing, the more success you’ll have with the SEO side of things.
Need more inspiration on connecting your marketing and your SEO? Here are some blog posts/podcast episodes:
Bonus step: connecting it back to the previous tip, think about how this blog post is connected to what you are promoting or selling right now. Ideally, your blog post should be helping you bring in more sales.
Use an experimentation mindset
Many times when a client comes to me with a question about trying something new on their site or a tool, I tell them “Let’s run an experiment.”
I believe that if someone is telling you they know it all when it comes to online marketing, you need to run away from them because no one knows everything. And the more you can embrace an experimentation mindset, the easier it will be for you to stay flexible and open to all the options available for you.
Now, just because you have an experimentation mindset doesn’t mean things have to be unstable or inconsistent. It means you run controlled experiments on your site and after a few months, you review results and make an informed decision.
For example, let’s say you found a new pop-up tool that promotes your opt-ins. It looks interesting but you aren’t really sure if it’s right for you.
Instead of putting all this pressure to make the right decision, run an experiment: test it out for a 1-2 months and see if it is giving you results or better results than before. Once you’ve set it up, set weekly reminders in your calendar to look at your opt-in rate and write it down. Take a look at your overall site traffic. If a sale comes it, try and track down if it came from an opt-in.
Sometimes there are no right and wrong answers for making decisions with your site; it is all about finding the RIGHT option for YOU.
Long Tail vs. Short Tail Keywords
Ok - let’s get slightly technical for a second. Let’s talk about Long Tail vs. Short Tail keywords.
This is something my clients and audience have asked me about and I want to give you some pointers when it comes to picking the right length keywords for your blog and website.
What are Long Tail and Short Tail keywords?
Let’s first talk about what Long Tail and Short Tail keywords. They refer to the length of keyword(s) for SEO.
Short Tail : 1 - 2 words
Long Tail : 3+ words
Why is this important? Because as a general rule of thumb, shor tail keywords have more traffic but are more competitive, while long tail keywords have less traffic and sometimes have less competition.
Here are some more characteristics of each of these keywords:
Short Tail
High traffic
High competition
Broad/unfocused themes
Lower conversion rate
Examples of Short Tail Keywords:
health care
anxiety
love songs
See how these are extremely broad and sometimes hard to know the exact intent of the person searching. That is why the conversion rate is lower on these, although if you are running ads on your website, they can be profitable.
Long Tail
Low traffic
Low competition
Specific questions/themes
High conversion rate
Example of Long Tail Keywords:
types of depression
flea treatment for cats
how to make buttermilk
See how these are much more specific and it’s easier to understand what the searcher is looking for. This also makes it easier to give them the right content and why it has a higher conversion rate.
So you might be wondering what type of keywords you should be targeting in your own business?
It depends (I know I know ..the dreaded SEO answer). But I’d say in general it is good to target both, depending on what you are selling and who your audience is.
For many clients I recommend using short tail keywords for main site pages, like your Home Page, About Page, and Services Page. You can also use them for any other landing page that you are selling something.
For example, if you are a hormone coach and you have a course, you may target the short tail keyword “hormone course” on your sales page.
Then, for your long tail keywords, use them on blog posts or pages with much more content.
Using the same hormone coach business, you could use the keyword “how to balance hormones” as a in-depth guide that you build out over time with lots of tips and useful information.
To summarize, when it comes to picking the right keywords, here are some questions to pose to yourself:
What are you selling and how are your keywords connected?
How does the rest of your marketing promotions and support your keywords and content?
What experiments are you trying out in the next few months?
Are you targeting a long tail or short tail keyword?
Ok - so I have some keywords. Now what?
Next steps are to create some content on the keyword topics you chose. This can be some brand new content or adding to a previous blog post you have. Let’s quickly cover how you can use your keywords.
Ready to go beyond your keywords and explore all the other components of getting ranked in Google? We have an SEO Checklist that will help you with exactly that.
Keywords vs. Grammar
This is something that comes up for many of my clients and students when they are picking and using keywords.
When you pick a certain keyword phrase, you may notice that the grammar isn’t right or the keyword itself is missing punctuation.
Some examples:
- what is wellness: this keyword phrase is a question but it’s missing the question mark at the end
- how to help migraines - although this keyword is clear, maybe the grammar isn’t 100% great. The correct phrase would be “how to help WITH migraines”
So for many people, they are left wondering: how exactly should I use this keyword? Especially for clients and students that pride themselves in being grammatically correct, this can feel tough.
My general rule of thumb is we should try to get as close as possible to the pure form of the keyword since that is what the large majority of people are searching (if you are picking a high ranking keyword for example).
Here are some additional things to keep in mind when reviewing your keywords and how to use them:
Google is smart. Just because you don’t add punctuation or some words in the middle, they will figure out what your blog post is about.
Branding is part of this question too. Is your brand known for perfect grammar or is it more laid back and informal so that missing a preposition here and there won’t impact everything. Also, what does your audience value most? Do they care not care at all grammar or are they morally offended by even a missing period?
What you show in the search results doesn’t have to exactly match what is on your actual page. You can tweak what information shows in the search results by using Yoast (on WordPress) and your SEO settings (on Squarespace). So you can use the pure form of the keyword there to submit the Title and Meta Description, and then on your actual website page, you can use the more grammatically correct keyword phrase.
Whatever you decided, remember that keywords aren’t the only ranking factor so getting too obsessed about them isn’t going to help your SEO.
Here are some other resources to learn about the other aspects of doing SEO:
How to use your keywords (easy steps)
Now that you’ve picked your keywords, you might be wondering what you need to do with them.
Using your keywords strategically on the page is as much an art as it is a science and I have a whole course that talks about this in-depth but here I’ll lay it out super simply.
You can use keywords in these areas of your website:
1. URL
2. Title
3. Meta Description
4. Headings
5. Body of Content
6. Images
Here is an IGTV that I did on this topic.
Remember: keyword stuffing is not recommended and Google has actually mentioned that they will punish sites that use keywords in a way that looks spammy or forced.
More keyword resources for your enlightenment:
That’s it! I hope this blog post helped you feel better about your keywords. Now it’s time to take action. Use the comment below to tell me which of these three ideas you will try TODAY and find some keywords. Get some accountability and support <3
Want to go beyond your keywords and uncover the other factors that will help you get ranked in Google? Check out our SEO Checklist, specifically designed for Therapists, Counselors and other Health and Wellness business.
Download below and get started.
In this conversation, Cinthia Pacheco and Jen Vasquez discuss various aspects of SEO, focusing on site migration, canonical issues, content management, and keyword optimization.