Time to read: 12 minutes
When Patients Search for Your Healthcare Offerings, Are They Finding Your Practice or Your Competitors?
Any medical practice operates in a highly competitive landscape. Today, potential patients are utilizing Google, AI search, and the local pack to review healthcare options. The first organic listing on Google has an average click-through rate of 27.6%, so ranking your business at the top can significantly increase phone calls, form submissions, and overall revenue.
As an SEO agency that serves medical brands, we’ve had hands-on experience helping healthcare providers to show up on the first page of Google’s search results pages. So we want to help give you some secret insights on how you can do it yourself:
But First, Let’s Go Over the Basics of Healthcare SEO Strategies
In simple terms, search engine optimization is the process of improving your website in various ways to increase the overall visibility of your website to Google and other search engines. The practice of SEO for doctors and healthcare providers will help attract visitors to your website, leading to an increase in site traffic with the potential of turning these visitors into patients or customers.
Though doctors operate in many different niches, such as psychologists, oncologists, and more, the goal of doctors’ SEO strategies is to get their practice more recognized online. When your office’s website has more of an online presence, this visibility will attract patients who are looking for answers to their inquiries. In many cases, these are prospective new patients who will come to your practice if you give them a good initial experience online.
Key Terms You’ll Need to Know for Your Medical-Focused SEO Strategy
Understanding what certain terms mean can help you better comprehend some of the strategies we will implement for your business. Check out these definitions to broaden your knowledge of SEO:
- On-page, Off-page, and Technical SEO – These are three different variants of search engine optimization that encompass numerous strategies and tactics. On-page deals with adjustments made directly to your website pages. Off-page is everything done off-site to increase rankings. And lastly, technical adjustments were made to your website’s code to improve its strength and visibility.
- Local Optimization – If your business deals with just local customers, such as a doctor’s office, then you would benefit from local SEO practices. Local optimization involves additional SEO practices that have a specific locational focus instead of a national one.
- Metadata – Have you ever wondered what dictates which title and description are displayed on search engines for your website pages? This is due to metadata, which is a technical aspect of your website. Metadata can be uniquely optimized to include keywords and enticing language.
- Goal Tracking – In Google Analytics 4, you have the ability to prioritize key events based on certain parameters. This is typically called goal tracking, and it’s a way to tally form submissions, phone calls, and more to see our success in your campaign.
How Different Healthcare Providers Will Need to Alter Their SEO Approach
Healthcare is such a large umbrella. So we know that your niche of healthcare may be different from someone else who has come to this post for advice. Let’s break down how SEO may change depending on what you provide, with three different examples:
Example 1: A Brand Selling Healthcare Products with an Ecommerce Site
- This would be a business-to-consumer (B2C) SEO approach.
- The best approach, whether you have a specialized product or just a variety of products appealing to a customer, is to use national SEO practices (which won’t focus on an area).
- You’ll want to make sure that you use best practices to map keywords to product pages and product category pages on your website.
Example 2: A Company Offering Outsourced Teleradiology Services
- This would be a business-to-business type of SEO approach.
- The approach here would depend on whether the company was targeting a specific region or not. If not, then a national approach would be key.
- You want to create pages for each of the services you offer and make them keyword-friendly.
- It may also be good to write blog content centered around long-tail keyword searches that people may be seeking. This could also be writing blog posts about the frequent questions your customers ask you in the sales process.
Example 3: A Local Family Medicine Practice Targeting a Specific City
- This would be a business-to-consumer SEO approach
- You’ll want to make sure that you create local search engine profiles on Google and Bing
- Add content that talks about the specific services you provide
- Create pages that highlight your staff
- Come up with a plan to ask for Google reviews from your patients (perhaps as an email follow-up after a visit)
Going Deeper Into Local SEO for Medical Practices
Since most healthcare practices are like the third example above, we wanted to go a little more into your strategy focus. Focusing on a specific location can help increase your local rankings and capture the right target audience. A major element that impacts your local healthcare SEO is your Google Business Profile.
Creating a Google Business Profile is an easy and free way to help manage your online presence. When people search for medical facilities near them, you must be one of the businesses that not only show up as a result but also provide valuable information such as a phone number, office hours, and more. This will provide credibility to your practice and ensure people are receiving the correct information.
For local brands, it is especially important to utilize a Google Business Profile so you can improve your ranking in the city you’re located in. With a profile created, you will be a part of the local pack on Google. This is when Google provides a list of healthcare businesses’ profiles on a map so users can easily look and compare facilities. Map listings stand out more than listings from a traditional search, and they can help you gain more patients.
When completing your Google Business Profile, here are some key factors to keep in mind to help you rank high in Google’s local pack:
- Provide the necessary information – This includes the address, office hours, a phone number, social media profiles, and pictures, which are all highly important for healthcare facilities to be noticed by people searching on the web.
- Offer a list of your services – Google gives you the opportunity to list the specific services provided at your facility. For example, a local therapist might list different services such as behavioral support, communication help, and more.
- Include several categories – Google gives you the option to list different categories for your practice. This contributes to overall local rankings and helps convey to web users what kind of facility you are. This webpage has a list of all available categories and is updated monthly.
- Collect reviews – 94% of people use online reviews to evaluate a healthcare provider. Reviews are a huge factor when people are determining which facility they want to visit, and Google values them as a ranking factor.
- Understand how location affects rankings – Your Google business profile uses your exact location for rankings. A lot of local businesses that are 5 miles from a city aren’t able to rank within the city. This is important to keep in mind when understanding the local pack on Google.
Pro-Tip for Practices with Multiple Locations in One Metro Area: One of the best parts of search engine optimization is that it is extremely specialized and locally driven. You will need to tailor your site copy and keywords you’re targeting to specific areas, which helps each of your locations rank better locally. This means every profile you set up for your locations will need to go to a specific landing page for that location, and it must include specifics of that practice, such as hours, staff, insurance, photos, and more.
Three On-Page SEO Tactics Healthcare Businesses Need to Utilize
Now, let’s get into some of the actual work you’ll need to do on your website to improve your SEO.
1. Utilize Keywords, But Don’t Go Overboard
Using keywords for SEO is just one of the ways Google can recognize what the goal of your webpage is. Depending on what your office or hospital specializes in can determine what keywords you are going to sprinkle within your content.
For example, if you are a specialized hospital center for seniors, you could consider adding keywords such as “geriatric care near Nashville,” “medical care for seniors in Tennessee,” or other general terms to attract people looking for care for their parents or loved ones.
2. Provide Insightful, Helpful Content
When was the last time you really examined your website from a patient’s point of view? Take a step back and put yourself in their shoes, and really read your website’s copy on the homepage, services pages, contact page, etc. See if the information you’re sharing is helpful and clear, relaying key info prospective patients would want to know.
An easy way to do this is by utilizing your blog. Having a blog on your site has been a longstanding SEO approach that can open the door to potential patients. Not to mention, blogs can also help you get more backlinks to your site. You could write posts such as “5 Early Signs of an Oncoming Cold,” or do a write-up on anything you have been researching. Utilizing your knowledge and expertise can really pay off on the marketing side, as helpful content is deemed extremely valuable in Google’s newest ranking system.
Keep in mind that we often find that many doctors’ websites are very bare when it comes to copy. Having strong copy can not only help your SEO efforts, but it can also encourage patients to reach out for an appointment.
However, since you’re covering medical advice, you’ll need to ensure that it is evaluated by a medical professional on your staff and it is noted in your content. This is critical in the eyes of Google.
3. Improve Your Accessibility and User Experience
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 1 in 4 adults in the United States has some type of disability, proving that making your website as accessible as possible is crucial for your business and enhancing your user experience. Accessibility guarantees that all users and patients, including those with disabilities, can effectively navigate and interact with your site. Here are several tips you can implement to make your website more accessible:
- Implement clear navigation and menu structure – Use consistent headings, menus, and a logical layout to help users navigate your website easily, including those with cognitive impairments.
- Provide alternative text for visual content – Add descriptive alternative text to images and graphs, and include transcripts for audio content. Additionally, you can also add captions to videos on your website to ensure that all users can access any visual or auditory information.
- Ensure forms are accessible – Design or alter your forms to make sure they have clear instructions, labels, titles, and clear error messages. This will help make them easily usable by all individuals, especially for individuals who are using screen readers or keyboard navigation.
- Enhance color contrast and text readability – Use high-contrast color schemes and legible fonts to improve readability for users with visual impairments, ensuring that any vital healthcare information is easy to read and understand.
- Create interactive elements – Be sure that all interactive features, such as links, dropdown menus, and buttons, are easily accessible and provide visual indicators to aid users clearly.
Two Impactful Off-Page SEO Strategies to Boost Brand Trustworthiness
Moving into things you can do offsite (aside from your Google Business Profile), here are two ways you can tackle off-page SEO through link building:
1. Get Linked on Industry Focused Lists and Directories
When potential patients are looking for new providers or a doctor in a specific field, they will likely want to compare and contrast a variety of professionals before making a choice. One of the easiest ways they can do that is by looking at sources that list multiple professionals at once:
As you can see in the above example, some sites offer lists for users to browse. Being listed on these sites, with links pointing to your own website, can not only help you to be found more often but can also improve your site’s backlink profile. Creating backlinks to your website is a key aspect of improving your website’s overall SEO equity.
2. Becoming a Credible Source for Journalists
Did you know that journalists are always looking for quotes from reliable medical professionals to use in their writing? Not only that, but you can have their requests sent straight to your inbox so you don’t have to do the heavy lifting.
Thanks to resources like Featured, Qwoted, and many others, you can get more mentions (and links) in articles from great outlets across the web that can help improve your online presence! Here is an example: when you search “medical” on Qwoted, there are some really great sources looking for professional advice.
