Research indicates that 72% of the American public uses some form of social media and many visit platforms on a daily basis. Having a presence on social media affords your center more opportunities to connect with people in a place they are frequently visiting.

Social media allows for a two-way dialogue like the one that takes place in this authentic exchange from Awakening Recovery Center’sFacebook account.

You don’t have to amass hundreds of thousands of followers to have a successful social media profile. Instead, focus on building meaningful connections with those that do interact with your profiles.

Those who see Melissa’s comment get a glimpse into the impact the center has made on her life and might be prompted to seek guidance for themselves or for a loved one in hopes of getting a similar result.

In addition to connecting with others, drug rehab facilities can use social profiles to spread useful information. According to Pew Research data, 46% of Americans know someone who is addicted to drugs or has been in the past.

Nonprofit drug rehab organization Narconon utilizes Twitter to dispel misinformation and provide insights on dealing with addicted family members and friends.

Not only is the organization providing value through social media, but it is also leveraging its authority to position itself as an expert in the drug rehab sector.

Of course, you can’t simply cross your fingers and hope someone will stumble onto your facility’s profile. One straightforward way to increase your visibility is to utilize hashtags.

Finding the right hashtags requires a little digging. The goal is to find hashtags popular enough that people are actually searching for but not so popular that your post will be buried almost immediately.

For instance, #addiction has over 5 million posts. That is way too much competition and not enough specificity to target certain individuals. On the opposite side, #addictiontreatmentnearme only has 3 posts which signal that virtually no one is searching for that hashtag.

The #drugrehab hashtag is a great middle ground.

We briefly touched on the important role content creation plays in attracting people to your website. The targeted approach it offers may be why 72% of online marketers describe content marketing as their most effective SEO tactic.

When it comes to developing a content plan, you don’t have to start from scratch. Let’s take some lessons from other blogs in the drug rehab sector to grasp what good content looks like.

Annapolis based treatment center MATClinics has a patient-focused blog that addresses common questions. This post targets the keyword “pain pill addiction” and goes into detail about options for treatment.

Another useful strategy is to target local searchers in blog posts. Your facility has a certain physical location so you may as well reach out to people nearby. Ashwood Recovery takes this route in the article entitled “5 Most Common Mental Health Disorders in Boise, Idaho”.

After investing time and effort into producing quality content, make sure that it is visible in a clear and digestible format. For many, reading on the internet entails skimming an article and getting the main points. Add large headings, clear images, and ample spacing in order to break up blocks of text.

After investing time and effort into producing quality content, make sure that it is visible in a clear and digestible format. For many, reading on the internet entails skimming an article and getting the main points. Add large headings, clear images, and ample spacing in order to break up blocks of text.

The next item on the list of rehab marketing ideas is a lesser-known but beneficial tactic. Getting your facility listed in treatment directories has a multitude of positive effects.

First, it widens the net of potential patients you can reach. When it comes to selecting a place for treatment, there are a lot of choices on the market. For many people, a well-organized directory offers a way to sort through options. In fact, one addiction treatment directory gets over 50,000 visits per day.

Listings also bring SEO benefits. Search engines scan the internet for mentions of your brand in order to verify your business. More brand mentions and links to your website (with consistent information across sources) bolsters your trustworthiness as far as search engines are concerned.

Take this listing for MATClinics, a Suboxone treatment center in Maryland, for example.

The information about the clinic in this listing matches that of the website and search engines view MATClinics as a trustworthy site. It also earns MATClinics a backlink, which brings us to the final benefit.

When a website links to your website, you earn a backlink. This is almost like a referral from another website and it signals to search engines that your page is worth mentioning. As an increasing number of websites mention your site, your authority grows. This leads to, yup you guessed it, higher rankings in search results.

Every time someone searches for a location in their area or adds the term “near me” to a search, the results that appear are a product of local SEO.

Local SEO is a branch of search engine optimization that helps businesses gain visibility in search results. There are two ways to appear in search results with local SEO. One is through the SERPs and the other is through Google Maps.

Setting up a Google My Business (GMB) profile is crucial in order to jumpstart local SEO success. It’s here that you will input relevant information about your rehab center including hours of operation, available services, address, and more.

To see local SEO at work, look at what happens when we search “drug treatment centers Houston” in Google Maps.

There are a lot of differences between the facilities from pricing to services and more. But all these centers have a common trait in common—their Google My Business profiles are complete and up-to-date.

There are also photos and reviews in many of the profiles, adding to the complete picture of the center.