The importance of SEO keywords & my strange link to the Grateful Dead

When I was 19, I moved to Eugene, Oregon.

I’d just finished my sophomore year as an opera student (and my potential career as an opera singer) at a small liberal arts college in Kentucky, and I was ready to travel. A very cool creative writing instructor whose classes I’d snuck into volunteered to help me choose a transfer university; when he saw the University of Oregon on the list of schools, he pointed right to it and said, “Go there.”

So I did.

I loaded up my red Dodge Stratus and drove across the country to Eugene.

But before I left, I worked my summer job.

I’d been hired as an RA at the Governor’s School for the Arts, a to-this-day prestigious live-in summer program for any artistic freak in the Commonwealth lucky enough to get chosen. I was a GSA opera alum, and I scored a job after high school, an opportunity I was not going to miss.

Quick side story: I BARELY escaped the mud of Bonnaroo that year to make it to my job on the correct day. In a strange twist of fate, The Dead played the main stage the final night, and I got to see them right before I eased out of our muddy camp on plywood boards I strategically placed between my car and the main road. But I digress.

I arrived at my position, hopped up on plans and adventure and going west, and pretty soon realized I knew NO ONE in Eugene. And I had nowhere to live.

Shit.

Now, flashback to 20ish years ago…

The internet was barely a thing. There was no going online to find the perfect spot to settle in Oregon or searching on Craigslist for a used bike.

But I was determined, and I showed up to GSA telling anyone who would listen about my trip and even announcing my exciting move at our opening staff meeting.

I remember standing up, introducing myself, and laying out the full schpeel: I’m moving to Eugene, Oregon, I’m going to the U of O, and I have nowhere to live! I know nobody. But I can’t wait. 

My fellow staff members, themselves artistic freaks, clapped and congratulated me, but one woman looked straight at me and said: I know exactly where you’ll go when you get to Eugene. Come talk to me after the meeting.

Well, hell yes. I hadn’t expected it, but I was thrilled.

I did go talk to her. Her name was Normandi Ellis, a beautiful poet and lover of all things Ancient Egypt who just happened to be going to Eugene at the same time I was arriving. And she had a place for me to stay—her friend’s house, Nicki Scully.

I took her up on her offer, and pretty soon the day came when I left Kentucky for the first time and drove toward the mountains. I arrived at Nicki’s house three days later.

The rest of the story is certainly strange; I stayed with Nicki while I found a permanent spot, hung with Normandi and the rest of the people who, unbeknownst to me before arrival, were there attending an Ancient Egyptian spiritual retreat, and became the proverbial fly on the wall while my new friends traded stories about their rockin’ younger days (usually during late night hot tub sessions)—Nicki had been married to Rock Scully, the manager of the Grateful Dead. There were some seriously rockin’ younger days.

It happens that even after I left Nicki’s and moved into a house near campus (a wild vegan co-op full of tree-sitters and anarchists…a story for another time), I’d still visit Nicki and her fantastic husband.

She helped me in many ways while I lived in Eugene, and I would have never found her without Normandi’s help and without my loudmouthed, VERY SPECIFIC proclamation at that initial staff meeting.

This is where we come to SEO keywords.

Search engine optimization is a very specific way of marketing. And the foundation of SEO-friendly content is keywords. VERY SPECIFIC keywords.

Keywords are the words your potential patients type into Google to perform a search. If they need help with hot flashes, they may type in a phrase like “hot flashes diet.” If they need help with hair loss, they might search for “hair loss acupuncture.”

You use keywords every time you Google, too. You might search for “farm-to-table restaurant Austin Texas” or “Indigo Girls concert Louisville Kentucky.”

Keywords are the words we use to perform a Google search.

So, if you want your website to be found by new patients on Google, it has to contain the SEO keywords that person is searching for on Google.

Imagine if I had introduced myself at the first staff meeting of my summer job and said, “Hi, I’m traveling next year to a new school. I’m a little scared because I don’t have a place to live, but I’m excited anyway!”

Normandi would have never known I needed a place to live in Eugene. She would have never invited me to stay with her and Nicki. And I would have missed out on a lot of radical stories (like when Janis Joplin sang “Ball and Chain” at Nicki’s wedding. Yeah, my mind was blown, too.)

The point is: You have to get specific with the SEO keywords on your website. VERY specific.

You have to incorporate the words your potential patients use to search for solutions to their health problems and answers to their questions—the specific words those specific patients (sometimes called your ideal client avatar) are using.

This means you have to understand exactly who they are and what they’re looking for when they go online.

If you don’t write your website explicitly for them, using the language they use, they’ll never know you’re out there with the solution.

And they won’t hire you.

So, the next time you’re writing a blog or an article or tweaking the copy on your homepage, remember my 19-year-old appeal for a place to crash in Eugene. Get THAT specific. And make it easy for your patients to find (and hire!) you.

Need help finding the perfect SEO keywords for your site?

Keyword sourcing is an art, and I’m happy to help.

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