Last Updated on May 10, 2024 by Admin
Due to the high competition, it is quite challenging for many healthcare facilities to obtain new patients nowadays. Now, patients have hundreds of choices for doctors and hospitals! This has brought healthcare facilities to a competitive digital experience for patients, so they are visible to their competitors.
Do you know that there are almost 100 billion searches for healthcare each year? The first important move must be to focus on SEO, as most patients use online searches to find a doctor or niche-specific doctor. To start with, tackling Healthcare SEO may not be easy if it’s your first time. Thankfully, we have considered some essential SEO tips that should help you out a lot.
What Is Healthcare SEO?
Healthcare SEO, also known as medical SEO, is the process of helping a healthcare provider optimize its online presence to be more visible in SERPs. This is done by using many methods and strategies to ensure that your site is the first to be seen when a potential patient searches for your services.
Targeting highly searched keywords and providing high-quality content will grow your website’s organic traffic and help you position your site as an authoritative source in your niche.
10 Best Healthcare SEO Strategies
The essence of SEO for online medical practice lies in implementing a successful SEO strategy. SEO helps potential customers come up with your company whenever they search for your services. Here are some of the best healthcare SEO strategies you can use to boost your online presence and attract more patients:
Create Helpful Content Based on Keywords
One of the most important and complex strategies in healthcare SEO is making content that your patients or visitors would find relevant. Here comes the task, and you should find the proper keywords. Keywords are search terms people use to find medical services on the Internet. Here’s how you can find and use keywords in your content:
- Tools like Google Keyword Planner touch with Keywords related to your services work you very well.
- Find words that have a proper search volume and competition ratio.
- Include those keywords in your blog posts, articles, and web pages as much as possible.
- Remember not to overuse keywords since this will damage your SEO. Work out what is valuable for your readers and offer that to them.
For instance, if you are a dentist in Chicago, you can focus on keywords like:
“Chicago dentist,”
“teeth whitening in Chicago,”
“the best dentist in Chicago”
Use these seed keywords whenever you write a blog post or answer queries. For example, “How to choose the best dentist in Chicago” or “The benefits of professional teeth whitening.”
Use Social Media & a Google Business Profile for Reviews
Social media and online reviews offer the most important advantages for healthcare SEO. 71% of people look for online reviews before choosing a doctor. Empower your patients to post more reviews on your Google Business Profile and other platforms like Yelp or Healthgrades. Reviews showcase confidence in the patient for future seekers and help improve local search rankings.
To get more reviews:
- Create feedback channels that patients can easily use by providing links or instructions.
- After each session, contact the patient and request them to give feedback on their experience.
- Address high and low reviews by thanking customers for their time and openness.
Besides reviews, stay active on social media as well. Talk about your articles and what they cover, as well as useful tips and news about your practice. Interact with followers and create a community around your brand.
Optimize Your Site’s HTML Tags
Your website’s HTML tags tell search engines what the page is for. Creating optimized meta tags, titles, meta descriptions, and headers incorporating the targeted keyword will help you get clicks because search results are quite competitive.
Here’s how to optimize your HTML tags:
- Give vivid, enticing titles for each page that must be your main keyword.
- Shorten titles under 60 characters so they do not get cut in a search feed.
- Use meta descriptions to describe the page’s content and concisely motivate clicks. Add search engine optimization (SEO) keywords without overdoing it. Try to limit the character count to 160 characters.
- Use subject header tags (H1, H2s, etc.) to organize content and indicate important segments.
For example,
SEO Title: “10 Tips for Managing Diabetes | Dr. Smith’s Health Blog”.
Meta Description: “Learn 10 expert tips for managing diabetes from Dr. John Smith, a leading endocrinologist. Improve your blood sugar control and overall health.”
Interlink Your Webpages
Internal linking of related pages within your website enables search engines to understand your site’s structure and transmit link equity (ranking power) between the pages. When creating content, look for other websites or pages you can connect to your content.
For instance, if you have a page about knee pain and another about knee replacement surgery, link the pages together using appropriate anchor text.
For example, you might write something like: “If non-surgery treatments aren’t able to relieve the knee pain, knee replacement surgery may be the better option.”
Build Listings for Local SEO
Local SEO matters a lot for healthcare providers since most patients usually search for medical services that are close to them. The search for “NEAR ME” has doubled since 2015, like skin doctor near me or physician near me. Start by creating and maintaining consistent listings on popular online directories, such as:
- Google My Business
- Yelp
- Healthgrades
- Vitals
- RateMDs
- Other Healthcare sites
Your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) should be accurate and consistent across all listings. Incoherent NAP information could confuse search engines and bring down your rankings. For more options, see our blog on the best local business listing directories.
In addition to general directories, try to find your area’s healthcare directories or health issues. These specialized directories act as a connection between you and a more focused group of visitors.
Build Backlinks
The link titled backlink is the same as a stamp of approval by other sites. Reputable websites linking to your content are a sign for search engines that your website is trustworthy and carries great value. Doing so can strengthen your search engine positioning and lead to increased visits to your site.
To build backlinks for your healthcare website:
- Build interesting and social-media-friendly content so other websites will link to it.
- Try to connect with healthcare providers, industry publications, or local organizations and ask to write a guest post for them as an expert.
- Get involved in online forums and discussions related to your specialty, and link to your site at places where it is referred to.
- Analyze your competitors’ backlinks to discover a way to leverage them for your site.
Ensure that you can generate valuable backlinks from high-quality and relevant medical websites. The quantity of links is not the major determinant of backlinks. Rather, the quality plays a major role.
Add Schema for Healthcare Business Details
Schema markup is a type of code that assists browsers in reading your site more efficiently. Enriching your healthcare business details with schema markup will enable search engines to obtain more data about your practice, such as location, hours, and services.
Some key types of schema markup for healthcare websites include:
Local Business schema for your practice’s name, address, phone number and business operations time.
Medical Specialty schema so that our areas of expertise are shown, like “Cardiologist” or “Dermatologist”.
Medical Clinic schema describes your health facility, services, and location in detail.
Using schema markup, you can make search engines show more useful and enjoyable results for your practice, generating a higher click-through rate and targeted traffic.
Monitor your SEO Progress
Track and record your success to check if your healthcare SEO exercises are effective. Use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor key metrics like:
- Organic traffic: What do people who use search engines find when they look for your website?
- Keyword rankings: Which place is your website in the rank of keywords you have been targeted to?
- Click-through rate (CTR): Does what share of people see your website and decide to enter it?
- Bounce rate: What percentage of your page live visitors stay on your site after looking at one page only?
Monitor these measures and look for any trend or modification. A sudden decline in organic viewership could be the result of the search engine’s algorithm update or a technical hitch on the site.
Use this information to develop an SEO plan and make appropriate changes accordingly. Keep enhancing your website and content according to the progress so that you can stay at the top of the competition and see a rise in the number of patients in the long run.
Focus in on EEAT requirements for Healthcare SEO
For health care sites, EEAT model (“Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness”) is very significant. The major search engines such as Google esteem the EEAT factor for sites relating to health and financial issues.
To improve your site’s EEAT:
- Showcase your credentials, education, and experience on your About page and provider bios.
- Publish well-researched, accurate content that demonstrates your expertise.
- Include patient testimonials and reviews to build trust.
- Make it easy for patients to contact you and verify your practice’s information.
You could use EEAT as part of your healthcare SEO plan and become a reputable source, reaching wider audiences and becoming a place where the patients you need will come.
Check Site’s speed and Mobile Usability
Today, mobile-first-world website speed matters and a mobile-friendly website is imperative for both user experience and SEO. Google considers the speed of sites or their mobile responsiveness as vital to ranking. To improve your site’s speed and mobile usability:
- The website must have a responsive design that works fine on any device.
- Use image and video optimization techniques to decrease file sizes and improve loading time.
- Use the plugins and scripts that won’t load slowly, as it will affect your site.
- Provide browser caching and use CDN to deliver content rapidly.
Conclusion
With this SEO for healthcare strategies, you can strengthen your online presence and attract more patients to increase your practice. Remember that SEO is an ever-changing process that needs continuous effort and modifications.
At AlgoSaga digital marketing agency, we comprehend the challenges and advantages that healthcare professionals encounter in digital marketing. Our experienced team of SEO experts will support you throughout your journey to help you achieve your goals and get ahead of the competition websites. Contact us today to learn how our support can take you to the next level in healthcare SEO.