How to decode 20 common digital marketing terms for clinics and practices
You’ve been to school, know your field inside and out and now. And now you need to learn a whole other language to marketing your business?
You might have a conversation about marketing for your practice and hoped that they wouldn’t notice your inside voice saying “I have no clue what they’re talking about and no idea what these terms mean.” Well, then this is the blog post for you.
This glossary of 20 of the most common digital marketing terms with therapists and support service providers in mind.
Search & Visibility
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
An ongoing process to make your website as crawler-friendly and user-friendly to continually improve your organic ranking in the results, without paying for ads. So when someone searches “dyslexia support near me” your clinic appears and with time, climb in the rankings.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
The pages of results shown after a search query is entered by a user on a search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) When a potential family searches for support, everything that appears on the page: the listings, the map, the ads – are all included in the SERP.
Organic Ranking
Where your clinic falls in the regular search results does not include paid advertisements. The goal is to continual raise your ranking by working on your SEO so you don’t spend money on paid ads.
Page Rank
This is the algorithm that Google and other search engines use to determine which order results are displayed.
There are several factors that influence the results
Pay-per-click (PPC)
A branch of advertising on search engines and social media networks whereby your ads are shown to users, but you are only charged for those ‘click-throughs’ on the ad to view your website, etc. If your ad is shown to 200 people, and 10 people click on the ad, you are only charged for those 10 clicks.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
The paid format of showing up on a search page. Searches that include specific terms could be shown your ad prefaced with bold type of “Ad” and appear at the very top or sometimes bottom of each results page.
It can work quickly to get you visibility but as soon as you stop paying for them, unlike SEO.
Google Business Profile
A clear way to connect your clinic to Google so you show up on Google Maps, ask for reviews, and guide people to your website.
Website Performance
User Experience (UX)
The overall experience that a person has with your website, apps, etc. This includes the speed of your website, how easy it is to find the information they need. Can they find your contact information without getting frustrated in hunting for it? Does it work the same on a desktop as it does a phone?
Good UX equals longer visits on your site and bad UX means people will bounce to another site (see next term).
Bounce Rate
The rate by which people visit your site and leave within 3 seconds without taking any action or viewing other pages on your site. Just like golf, lower is better.
Conversion Rate (CR)
The rate at which users take a desired action on your site. For your practice that could include actions like downloading e-books, signing up for your newsletter or filling out a contact form. It does not mean booking an appointment, it means they took the action you were hoping they would.
Click Thru Rate (CTR)
The percentage of people who see your clinic’s ad or link to your website and actually click on it. For an ad shown 100 times and 5 people clicked on it, then your CTR is 5%. This information is useful to see if your messaging is connecting with potential clients.
Call to Action (CTA)
A clear instruction in your marketing (website copy, email marketing, and social media posts) indicating what you want users to do. Examples would be “Book a free call”, “Download the e-book”, or “Get in touch”. Without this, people read your content and then…just leave. Every page on your website, every social media post, every email you send out should have one.
Alt Text
AltText is a short description added to every image on your website and within your emails. The use of this is two-fold.
- It tells Google what your image is about and helps it know when to deliver it in a search result. This helps contribute to your websites SEO.
- Individuals who use screen readers or similar technology depend on AltText description to read aloud what the images are within the material they are reading. This is best practice for accessibility within your clinic.
Email Marketing
Soft Bounce
After an email campaign is sent out, emails that have a “soft bounce” mean that they were unable to be delivered for one of a couple of reasons: the recipient’s inbox was full, their server was down, or the message was too large for their inbox.
These can often resolve themselves when they are included on a retry send of the email.
Hard Bounce
These are the records from your email list that fails permanently to deliver. Likely reasons are the address has a typo or no longer exists. It’s important to remove these records from your list as continual hard bounces can hurt your overall email deliverability.
Open Rate
This is the percentage of people on your list who open the emails you send out to your list. As of May 2026, the average open rate for clinics/health-care providers is 35%-45%.
Business & Strategy
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Unique to each clinic. Indicators set to determine the success and goals of your practice.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
The total value of a client relationship over time, not just their first booking. For a practice where families often return across different stages of a child’s development, or refer others to you, CLTV can be significantly higher than that initial session fee suggests.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
The ratio of revenue your business earns for each dollar it spends on advertising. If your clinic spends $200 on Google ads and it leads to $1000 in new client bookings, your ROAS is 5:1. This number is useful once your running paid ad campaigns.
Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is the pinnacle. Anything you publish on your website or blog that remains useful and accurate long after it’s created. A blog post for a neurodiversity-focused practice explaining what sensory processing disorder looks like in autistic children is evergreen. This information can be searched next year, five years from now. Compared to a post about an event or seasonal promotion the lifespan is significantly longer. Compile a library of evergreen content that continues to work for you long after you’ve written it.
Marketing doesn’t have to feel like learning another language. With these terms in your toolbox, you’re better equipped to make decisions about your marketing — whether you’re reviewing a proposal, checking in on your website performance or just trying to understand what someone means when they talk about your bounce rate.
If you’d prefer to hand all of this off entirely and just focus on your clients, that’s exactly what I’m here for If you’re not sure where your practice currently stands online, book a free 30-minute chat and we’ll figure it out together.
Looking for more plain-language marketing guidance? Start with this post on what families actually search for when looking for support services — it’s a good next step.”