John SammonAuthor:John Sammon
Updated on 6/12/2023

If you’re looking to get your medical practice to the top of the Google searches, healthcare SEO is the strategy for you! When your target market is searching for the nearest healthcare facility, your business needs to be in the top 3 local pack in order to get more customers coming through your doors.

By implementing SEO for healthcare strategies, you are setting yourself up for success to receive more phone calls, form submissions, ultimately leading to an increase in overall sales and revenue.

SEO for Healthcare Providers Can Be Pivotal in Boosting Sales

Are you ready to get started? Sixth City Marketing here to provide you with the ultimate guide to getting started with healthcare SEO. Keep reading for tips and strategies that will help you get started.

What is Healthcare SEO?

SEO, also known as, search engine optimization is the same for every industry, but let’s simply start with what it means. Search engine optimization is the process of improving your website in various ways to increase the overall visibility of a website to Google and other search engines.

The practice of SEO will help attract visitors to your website leading to an increase in site traffic with the potential turn those visitors into patients or customers.

How Does It Apply To Your Healthcare Business

There are so many specializations within the healthcare industry and there isn’t a cookie cutter type of formula to use for your business. Here are a sampling of types of healthcare businesses and how SEO could apply to them (at a high level).

Ecommerce Website Selling Healthcare Products

  • This would be a business to consumer 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 to product category pages on your website

Company Offering Outsourced Teleradiology Services

  • This would be a business-to-business type of SEO approach
  • The approach here would depend on if the company was targeting a specific region or not. If not, then a national approach would be key
  • You want to definitely create pages for each of the services you offer and make it keyword friendly.
  • It also may 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 frequent questions your customers ask you in the sales process

A 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 the Doctors on your staff
  • Come up with a plan to ask for Google reviews from your patients (perhaps as an email follow up after a visit)

4 Healthcare SEO Methods You Can Do Right Now

To get a leg up on your competition before you partner with an SEO agency, try and knock out the following tactics for boosting your current marketing:

  1. Enhance Your CTAs – Calls to action are a design for conversion practice that we recommend for all of our SEO clients, as it can help drive users to convert. Making your phone number stand out can especially help. You want to have some sort of call to action on every page to make it easy for potential customers to reach out.
  2. Add More Copy to Key Pages – We often see with new clients that they have neglected to incorporate a solid amount of copy on their product or services pages, the pages more important to their business. We recommend having at least 500+ words of copy that is optimized with the terms you wish to rank for. It is also important to note that the copy should be unique to each page and should utilize keywords for the specific product/service the page refers to.
  3. Check Your Website Speed – Did you know that how fast your website loads can not only affect where Google ranks you, but also can make potential customers turn away from your website if they get impatient or think it’s broken? Use this tool by Google to see how your site grades.
  4. Create, Claim, or Verify GBP Listings – If you already have control of your Google Business Profile, then you are a step ahead. If you don’t, search for your business on Google Maps and click on the button to claim the profile. If you can’t find your business, you can create a listing.

Learn More SEO for Healthcare Knowledge

Understanding what certain terms mean can better help you 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 is adjustments 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 would, then you would benefit from local SEO practices. Local optimization involves additional SEO practices that have a specific locational focus, instead of national.
  • Metadata – Have you ever wondered what dictates which title and description displays 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, you have the ability to set goals based on certain parameters. We use this goal tracking to tally form submissions, phone calls, chatbots, and more in order to see our success in your campaign.

How We Help Your Practice with Medical SEO Services

With increased competition, contending with spammers on Google Maps, and various other factors, performing healthcare SEO marketing is harder than ever, but this is where we step in. Here are some of the custom healthcare SEO services we can provide to medical practices:

  • Local Listing Optimization – When you search “hospital near me” or whatever category your practice falls under, where do you show up on Google Maps? Making sure your Google Business Profile is claimed and optimized is a crucial part of getting more customers in your area.
  • Spam Fighting – While being on Google Maps is incredibly important, another major aspect of local healthcare SEO involves cleaning up fake listings and removing spammers who may be taking away potential patients.
  • Content Optimization – The content you have on your website is not only important to hook customers, but also should be written with Google in mind as well. From strategically placed keywords to page layout to copy choices, there are a variety of things our writing team considers when giving your website content a makeover.
  • Link Building – As a tactic to strengthen the authority of your website over your competitors, we conduct thorough competitor analysis and pair it with creative strategies to build more backlinks to your website, which are valued by Google.
  • Technical Adjustments – From making sure all your photos have alt and title tags to writing eye-catching metadata for all of your pages, there are numerous things we can do behind the scenes of your website to improve your online presence.
  • Proper Data Tracking – If you don’t already have Google Analytics installed on your website with proper goal tracking in place, we can configure it to ensure that we can both see the success of your campaign in terms of form submissions, phone calls, traffic, and more.
  • Competitor Research – One of the most important parts of implementing effective SEO for your company is having a good understanding of what other businesses in your industry are doing that make them rank above you. From keywords to backlinks to even page length, we assess a variety of factors to see where we can fill in the gaps on your website.
“The team at Sixth City is second to none!! Starting with the owner John and all his teammates I’ve worked with I have nothing but glowing things to say! I felt that they cared about MY business growth as their #1 priority even if it wasn’t always best for their bottom line. They are passionate about and great at what they do. If you’re looking for a team to help with your business, don’t look any further. This is the team that will feel like an extension of your own business!” – Dr. Paul Mikhli, Beachwood Dental

Why You Should Invest in Healthcare SEO

According to a research study conducted in 2017, investing in online marketing services can truly pay off because search engines were patients’ primary way of searching for medical providers.

Not to mention, here are the percentage of healthcare consumers that ran an online search before scheduling an appointment for a given field, according to LSA Insights:

  • Physicians – 71%
  • Surgery – 71%
  • Hospitals – 69%
  • Clinics – 67%
  • Physical Therapists – 84%
  • Chiropractors – 61%
  • Optometrists – 74%
  • Dentists – 71%
“John Sammon at Sixth City Marketing is the “go to guy” for SEO and PPC! John’s always been available when I have had healthcare marketing questions and he provides good insight on areas I may not have considered. I don’t ever fill out these, but John Sammon is just that good!” – Michael Buser, Teleradiology Consultants, LLC

Sixth City Marketing Is Different from Other Healthcare SEO Agencies

Our medical and healthcare SEO experts stand out in many ways. Here are a few to keep in mind:

  1. Our work is all custom
    We approach every business with a tailored plan of action, and our strategists, writers, and designers never use cookie-cutter approaches.
  2. We are a close-knit team
    Our in-house staff works effectively together to provide the utmost quality in all of the work that we do.
  3. We don’t just do SEO
    If you ever want to expand to paid marketing, or give your website a facelift, we can offer additional packages to cover these needs.
  4. Our knowledge is always growing
    Google is regularly changing their algorithm, and new trends and techniques emerge all the time. You can trust that our team stays on top of these changes to provide the best services possible.
  5. Data is always top of mind
    Since we know you want to see an ROI in our services, we send you monthly reports highlighting the results of our efforts.
  6. Our goal is to supplement your sales pipeline
    Our main goal is to help your business get more leads that your sales team or staff can then convert into new patients or customers.
  7. We serve businesses all over the nation
    Our main office is located in Cleveland, but with our other locations in Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, we can help you no matter where you are.

Frequently Asked Healthcare SEO Questions

What keywords should I be targeting?

Identifying the right keywords are an extremely crucial part for SEO to be successful. Your keywords are going to correlate with the search queries of your potential customers. They can be a combination of words and phrases related to your products or services. Some examples include, “healthcare services near me” or “doctors office in [your city]”.

At what point in business should I start doing SEO?

The sooner you start implementing healthcare SEO strategies, the better. Whether you’ve been in business for 25+ years or are just getting started, the time is now. While SEO can take time to show results, you will start to see an influx of phone calls and form submissions, so you’ll want to make sure your business is prepared to handle increased volume.

Can I implement SEO if I have multiple locations?

The short answer is absolutely. One of the beauties of search engine optimization is that it is extremely specialized and locally driven. You can cater your site copy and keywords your targeting to specific areas which help each of your locations rank better locally.

How do I know if my competitors are doing SEO?

Performing an in-depth analysis of your competitors is a fantastic way to help craft your SEO strategy. Even just a simple search on Google to see where your competitors are ranking can help you get some additional ideas of what you can be doing better. Here at Sixth City, we utilize a tool that allows us to conduct in-depth competitor analysis.

Come See What Healthcare SEO Marketing Can Do for You

Implementing an effective and successful SEO for healthcare strategy is crucial to kickstarting your business’s growth rate. If you’re ready to increase you online presence, contact us today for further info on how we can get you more patients through SEO services. We look forward to speaking with you!

“We called on Sixth City as well as a number of other company’s to make a proposal for a new look, and a better run WordPress website for the Lake County Health District. They were low pressure, more problem solving, and step up where we needed, but also let us do things that we needed. In the end our new look is a very functional well branded site, and they were professional, knowledgeable, and precise with their help in our website build. We went through all of our own content, and up our game as well. So we are pretty pleased with the result.” – Lake County Health District

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