Why We Don't Blog for Our Clients for 18 Months
There's a pattern I've noticed across every component of building a successful group practice, and it's counterintuitive enough that most practice owners never act on it: the marketing strategies that are hardest to execute are almost always the most valuable ones.
When something is genuinely difficult to do, fewer practices do it well. And when fewer practices do it well, the ones that do have an advantage that compounds over time and can't easily be replicated. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in SEO. Today, I want to discuss how that looks in the type of content most practices are creating versus the type they should be.
The content worth ranking for is the content hardest to rank for
Most SEO agencies recommend blogging, and a few years ago, I did too. Blog content is straightforward to produce, informational keywords are less competitive, and the traffic numbers look good on a dashboard. The problem is that dashboard performance and business performance are two very different things.
Every Google search sits somewhere on a spectrum of intent. On one end: "Do I have trauma?" On the other: "EMDR therapist in Denver." The first search is made by someone gathering information and potentially months or years away from hiring anyone. The second is made by someone who already knows what they need and is actively looking for someone who can provide it. These are fundamentally different audiences, and the content that attracts them produces fundamentally different results.
Informational keywords—the ones blogs typically target—bring in researchers. Transactional keywords—the ones tied to service and specialty pages—bring in buyers. My team won't create blog content for a new client until they've been with us for 18 months or more, because we spend that time building and ranking the pages that are much more likely to convert. We worked with one practice that had spent two years blogging with another agency and barely signed a new client from it. Within a year of shifting to a transactional content strategy, they were generating 150 qualified inquiries a month.
Remember that traffic is a vanity metric. Ten thousand monthly visitors means very little if those visitors aren't in your service area, aren't ready to hire, and aren't searching for what you specifically offer. The number that truly matters is inquiries, and inquiries come from people who were already close to a decision when they found you.
What a real content prioritization strategy looks like
If blogging is deprioritized, the question becomes what gets built instead?
Service and specialty pages come first. These are the pages that target the specific services you offer, populations you help, modalities you utilize, and specialties you focus on, like couples counseling, kids, EMDR, and depression. Each one should be built around a transactional keyword with clear geographic intent. These are the searches made by people who have already identified their problem and are now looking for someone to solve it.
Location pages matter too, potentially for practices serving a large metro area since large metros areas can be broken down by location more granularly. A practice in Manhattan, for example, might benefit from separate pages targeting specific areas in Manhattan, because someone searching "therapist in midtown" is telling you exactly where they want to receive care.
The reason most practices don't prioritize this content is the same reason most agencies don't recommend it: it's hard. Each of these pages requires a deep understanding of how Google evaluates content in competitive markets, and the patience to wait for results that take longer to materialize than blog traffic does. But the results, when they come, are superior. A service page that ranks for a high-intent keyword generates inquiries from people who were already looking for you. Blog traffic generates visitors who may or may not ever become clients.
Why the hardest content to create is the most valuable
Ranking for "couples counseling in Los Angeles" is significantly harder than ranking for "what is couples counseling." But the person searching the first phrase is ready to hire. That difficulty isn't incidental, though. It's the source of the value. Google rewards practices with genuine authority, differentiated content, and a reputation built over time. The high-competition keywords are competitive precisely because everyone who ranks for them is getting clients from them.
And wouldn’t you want that in your own searches? I know I want Google to rank businesses with a good reputation when I search.
This principle holds across every component of building a practice. Getting reviews on your Google Business profile is difficult for therapists given the ethical constraints around soliciting client testimonials, which is exactly why a strong review profile is such a competitive advantage. Earning media placements in respected publications requires a sustained PR strategy most agencies won't execute, which is exactly why the practices that have them stand out. The strategies worth doing are almost always the ones most practices don’t have the patience to pursue.
The blogging recommendation persists because it's a comfortable one for marketing agencies. It's easy to produce, easy to deliver, and easy to present as progress. But comfort and effectiveness are not the same thing, and in a competitive market, the practices that confuse the two tend to stay stuck.
To be clear: I used to offer this advice. But the market has changed dramatically over the last few years, so I’ve personally retracted that advice.
Build service pages. Build location pages. Build as many as you can, and build them well (this means that they are helpful and unique). Each one is an asset that can generate inquiries for years once it ranks, and every visitor who finds you through one of those pages is already looking for exactly what you offer. When you've truly exhausted the transactional pages you could possibly create, then start blogging to round out your funnel and keep your site fresh.
Place Digital helps group practices scale through SEO, PR, and our proven three-part system: Lead Generation, Automation & Delegation, and Online & Local Reputation. If you're ready to start building assets that actually grow your practice, learn more about the Group Practice Growth Accelerator.
