Medical companies want their name at the top of a search engine’s results page.
Why is that? Because people use search engines to find information about local businesses, including healthcare providers!
Using healthcare SEO practices can help a company go from unpopular to the top provider in town.
If you’re interested in learning how SEO can help you in your marketing strategies, keep reading to see how it could change the way you do business.
Healthcare SEO Tips
In the medical field, there is always a lot of competition. Using SEO, or search engine optimization, practices to help you rise above the rest will help you in your business. Check out these 9 tips to help improve your SEO rankings.
1. Choose the Right Keywords
One of the biggest things to remember when starting out in SEO is that the keywords really do matter. You don’t want to guess around with this because without good keywords, your whole process will fall through.
Make a list that is comprehensive and compiles all of the terms you think people would search for relating to your business. You can even test this online to see how many monthly searches certain terms have from users.
80% of internet users have searched for something related to health online at some point and this percentage is likely going to continue growing. You need to have keywords that make sense for people to find your business information and content.
Try to find keywords that get between 200 and 10,000 searches locally each month. After this, you can naturally use these terms throughout your content.
2. Create Content That is Unique and Original
Content that is unlike anyone else’s content is going to set you apart. A lot of healthcare organizations have the same information as their competitors do on their websites, but this may be boring and easy to overlook for the average consumer.
Educate your audience with good content and highlight all of your expertise. This helps you to gain rankings in the search engine and will help you attract a wider group of people.
Don’t shy away from publishing case studies, interviews, videos, photos, infographics, medical journals, or anything else that you think will add to the conversation about your type of business in healthcare.
Think about the types of questions you are typically asked and discover a way to turn it into content. You know this information is being sought after, so why not take the time to make it accessible?
3. Take Advantage of Local Search Marketing
Many local searches are done on smartphones because most people have smartphones! You want to take advantage of this as a marketing opportunity.
Make sure that your healthcare website is SEO friendly for mobile users. Potential patients can find you online with their phones, but if they can’t easily use the website, they will go to a competitor’s website instead.
Another thing to remember is that your contact information should be easily accessible online. Double check that search engines have that information, such as phone number, address, and company name, as soon as possible.
4. Utilize Social Media Accounts
In today’s world, social media is a big deal. People use social media to stay in touch with friends, but also to stay in touch with businesses they like.
Social media helps you drive traffic to your website from an audience that you may not able to reach otherwise. For a healthcare company, there are a lot of things that you can talk about on social media that likely will be of interest to others.
Search engines consider a lot of different factors when they are reviewing your website. Social media is part of that consideration! Impactful social media helps show that you are credible, communicative, and collaborative.
When updating social media, make sure that the content is the focus. It is better to have twenty great posts than a hundred terrible posts.
5. Make a Site Map for Visitors
A site map may seem silly and not a lot of site visitors will likely use it, but it is still important. The reason for this is that search engines will appreciate it.
A search engine sees a site map as a literal map, which helps them figure out what your page is all about, how to navigate the page, and where to find the content.
It is a good idea to use those keywords that we talked about previously in your headings here (as well as everywhere else they naturally arise!) because they increase your rankings.
6. Understand Conversion Rate Optimization
A healthcare website can figure out how many times visitors do certain things on the website. This is called the conversion rate.
For instance, you can find out how many times your website visitors are refilling their prescriptions or filling out a specific form.
Conversion rate optimization helps you make this amount higher, which means more people are actually using your page. This helps you get more patients and that helps you get more money in the long run.
7. Allow Guests to Post on Your Website
Other medical professionals can guest post on your website or blog. This means that they come onto the blog and write something, in their own words, that you can post for them.
Let them share a link to your website with their social media profiles or on their website for an extra SEO boost.
If you are able to get more interaction with other websites, your website is going to rise in the rankings faster. It is showing the search engine that other websites like your website, so that must mean it is pretty good.
8. Guest Blog on Someone Else’s Website
Another option is for you to post on another medical practitioner’s website!
You can guest post to talk about your own practice, something interesting in the medical field, or anything else that is related to what you want to get across to the audience. It helps engage a connection.
Sharing on other professional pages helps you to build credibility and a better reputation in the online field.
9. Optimize for Mobile Users
As stated previously, a lot of people use their smartphones to search for things online. This includes local businesses or even medical information in general.
Optimization for mobile phones is crucial. You need to make sure your website works on mobile phones, but also that your images, videos, and content are optimized.
This helps things load faster and look cleaner for the consumer.
Your mobile site may need to look a little different than your general website for this to work and that’s fine. As long as it works and gets across all of your wonderful content, that’s what matters most.
Update Your Marketing Strategy
Some of these healthcare SEO strategies may not seem like they would make a big difference, but they can make some major changes. When you put a lot of small steps together, they can create something much larger!
If you’re looking for some more information on SEO practices, check out our blog post to see if there is something else that may be a benefit to your healthcare business.
