Regardless of the size of your practice, you may find it difficult to rank for some of the most used (read: competitive) terms in your industry. Though ranking high for these terms and phrases may be crucial to your success both online and off, your efforts to do so may prove fruitless. Instead of wasting further time and energy targeting highly competitive keywords, consider instead barnacle SEO.
The basics of barnacle SEO
What is barnacle SEO? As its name implies, barnacle SEO is an SEO strategy that involves attaching one’s name to a larger website for the purposes of benefiting from said larger site’s rankings and reputation. Will Scott coined the term in 2008 to compare the practice to the natural phenomenon in which a barnacle attaches itself to a big rock, ship, or whale for the purposes of gathering nutrients on the go.
The benefits of barnacle SEO
The greatest benefit of implementing a barnacle SEO strategy is that it can help you rank for some of your industry’s most competitive and out-of-reach keywords and phrases. As a small practice, not only is it unrealistic to try to rank for high-volume words and phrases, but attempting to do so could prove to be a huge drain on your resources. If you even rank at all for, say, the term “chiropractor,” “dentist” or “doctor,” (and that is a big if), your bounce rate may skyrocket while your conversion rate tanks. Why? Because people who are typing in very generic phrases such as these are unlikely to be searching for the services you offer.
Barnacle SEO allows you to rank for these high-volume key terms without taking your attention away from more effective efforts. It also comes with several secondary benefits:
- Quickly attracts investors and media attention in the startup stages
- Boosts your presence in local searches
- Gives you an opportunity to breathe new life into unused assets, such as videos, infographics, and podcasts
- Allows you to invest in personal branding
- Helps push negative media and attention to the bottom of the search results and improve your image at the same time
- Lets you offer customer service across multiple channels
Though social signals do not play a direct role in your rankings, using social platforms for barnacle SEO purposes can also help improve these signals and provide new engagement metrics.
Types of sites to “attach” yourself to
Per best practices, the best way to implement barnacle SEO is by taking advantage of popular directories and social media platforms. While you should research which platforms your audience is on the most, some of the most common websites that healthcare professionals use for SEO purposes include Yelp, Healthgrades, GoogleMyBusiness, Bing, SuperPages, Yahoo Local, Facebook, and Four Square.
Get help building your barnacle SEO strategy
As the leaders in new patient acquisitions, our team at Doctor Genius is familiar with the top strategies for attracting and acquiring new patients. We have devised and implemented hundreds of barnacle SEO strategies for customers in the past and are excited at the opportunity to help you do the same. Take steps to expand your reach today — call us to schedule your consultation today.
Doctor Genius, located at 16800 Aston Street, Suite 270, Irvine, CA 92606, provides a range of services for practice success. We seek to meet our clients’ needs by providing a variety of marketing, SEO, practice optimization tools, and coaching to transform the healthcare experience. Though we work to provide the most accurate information, the content found on this website is solely intended for entertainment purposes. Therefore, we cannot guarantee that the information provided is entirely correct. You may not use the information on this site to cure, prevent, or diagnose a perceived medical issue. If you have healthcare-related needs, please speak directly to a healthcare professional. Never self-perform medical treatments discussed on this website. All images displayed are also for entertainment purposes only, and personal experiences may differ. Please note that the business tactics mentioned on this site might not be applicable to your industry or practice.
