Healthcare is one of the few industries that remain operational in an age where almost everything can be purchased digitally. But that doesn’t mean healthcare providers don’t have to strengthen their online presence.
In fact, they highly need it now. Modern patients meet with their doctor in person, but the search for the right provider often happens online.
Doctors.com commissioned a survey of more than 1,700 U.S. adults and found out that four out of five (80 percent) respondents have used the internet to do a healthcare-related search in the previous year.
In addition, most respondents will choose one provider with a well-built digital presence that offers accessible, relevant, and compelling medical content.
To ensure greater practice success, you must surpass your competitors’ search engine rankings for relevant keywords, search queries, and core services.
How?
Through an effective medical search engine optimization (SEO) strategy!
Here’s a guide for successful Healthcare SEO services and factors to help you rank high on search engines!
First, What is Medical Search Engine Optimization?
Medical search engine optimization (medical SEO for short) refers to the process of improving your healthcare website’s search engine ranking to reach and convert more patients in need of healthcare services.
SEO for medical practice is, in other words: a healthcare marketing strategy to make your website and pages rank higher in various search engines, for relevant keywords that potential patients are searching for. This will help improve website traffic without spending money on ads.
For instance, let’s say your practice specializes in vascular diseases. When a patient looks for a doctor for varicose veins on Google Search, the search results page will display listings for nearby vascular specialists within milliseconds.
The pages that scored the highest according to the algorithm are at the top of the search pages, while the less relevant pages are at the bottom or subsequent pages. The patient searching for a varicose vein doctor will not see your name unless your medical website is optimized for local search results.
Is Medical SEO Really Important?
SEO is a marketing strategy that helps potential customers find your website by making it easier to search for it.
Through an effective healthcare SEO, the majority of patients who visit your website are acquired organically and not through paid ads, social media, or referrals. Believe it or not, as early as 2003, 80% of internet users had started to search online for health information.
Elements of Medical SEO
Optimizing your website makes it easier for search engine sites to understand your website and for your potential patients to find you.
These are the elements that you need to focus on to achieve good seo services for healthcare :
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO is about improving ranking factors not directly related to your website.
Google considers backlinks, relevant online directory listings, and Google My Business reviews to validate a website’s legitimacy.
If many websites link to your website, you likely have accurate practice directory listings and high volumes of reviews. Your practice will then stand out as a place where patients would want to visit and experience your medical services.
On-site SEO
On-site SEO focuses on improving several aspects of your website, including the keywords used and the quality of content and individual pages.
Keyword research determines which search phrases are being used by patients in your local area when looking for providers similar to yours.
Google and other search engines love authoritative content that explains topics in depth. Don’t be afraid to show your leadership and post new compelling content regularly.
In addition, major search engines concentrate on showing patients local-focused results that include local practice websites. Therefore, it’s significant to add your name, address, and phone number on each page.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO covers all the hidden elements of search engine rankings, such as your website development and optimization.
1. Regularly Audit Your Medical Website
Do a thorough SEO audit of your medical website regularly to help establish a baseline for how your practice website is performing in terms of medical SEO. Doing so will also provide a way to measure the progress of your overall medical marketing efforts.
Website auditing includes:
1. Site health score
2. Site security report
3. Structures for on-page SEO
4. Analysis of page content
5. Analysis of competitors
6. Tracking of broken internal linking
7. Page speed score test
Fast, Secure, Mobile Friendly, and Optimized Website
Speed
Most web users will abandon your site if it takes more than three seconds to load. Google is aware of this and wouldn’t place a slow website at the top because it wants to offer the best resources.
How fast should your website be? Google says two seconds is the threshold, but they aim for under half a second. Although webpage speed isn’t the most important ranking factor, it’s close to security.
Security
According to Global Sign, 85 percent of consumers would abandon a purchase if data was sent over an unsecured connection. The majority of them wouldn’t even browse an unsecured website.
Security is an essential part of any business. If your healthcare business doesn’t have a secure (HTTPS) website, you’ve got bigger problems than SEO.
Mobile-friendliness
According to Google, 77 percent of smartphone owners have used their smartphones to find local health services in the past six months. The majority of them are more likely to revisit and/or share a mobile site if it’s easy to use.
Optimization
The meta title tag of a web page is a major ranking signal. The meta description used to be more important, but Google can now automate meta descriptions based on the content. Both sections must be completed. Here’s a sample meta tag created using WordPress:
Quality Content
SEO for medical practices is all about content. Your website should be filled with relevant and high-quality content to prove to your potential patients and Google that your site is an authority in that particular market.
The more authoritative your website is, the higher you will rank in organic search results.
Authority Link Building
Did you know that links back to your site are one of Google’s ranking factors? Search engines love to see many unique domains linking back to your site to verify your website’s credibility.
Your search engine rankings will be influenced more by the quality of your links, such as your site, directory listings, and even social media profiles.
Optimized Google My Business Profile
Modern patients want health services that are close to home, and searches containing the phrase “near me” have doubled since 2015. Hence, you need an optimized and competitive Google My Business page.
Local patients will need to find you in Google’s local packs. A local pack is a group of 4 to 5 business listings that appear above the organic search results. It’s the only thing that searchers can see on mobile without scrolling down.
Google’s local packs are pulled from several places, but the majority of them are from your Google My Business Page. Ensure that the following information is correct.
Partner With A Trusted Healthcare SEO Marketing Expert
Search engine optimization is an ever-changing field. What works today might not work tomorrow.
Many factors influence search engine rankings (Google has at most 200), but each factor is weighted differently and can (and often does) change over time.
These are the most common factors that affect your SEO ranking:
Website optimization
Google My Business (GMB) optimization
Online doctor reviews
Number of domains that link to your site
Number of links from your website
Keyword research
Quality content
To create a strong, irresistible online presence, partner with a trusted medical marketer who knows all the complexity of creating digital marketing strategies in healthcare.
If you need an expert partner to help you with your Healthcare SEO services, reach out to IndeedSEO.
We work alongside doctors to grow their businesses through our proven medical SEO services. Contact us today to learn more about us!
Do you have any questions about medical SEO? Ask us in the comments section below!
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