Healthcare SEO Basics for Medical Practice

Like with any­thing, when peo­ple are look­ing for a health­care prac­ti­tion­er that fits their needs best, most will turn to Google to find the near­est capa­ble expert.

Because of this, health­care SEO is imper­a­tive to have your web­site appear high on the search results so that patients have a high­er chance of click­ing on your site and, ulti­mate­ly, sched­ul­ing an appoint­ment with you.

How­ev­er, to get to the top of the search results, prac­tices should delve into the world of med­ical mar­ket­ing. Snatch­ing a top spot on Google isn’t easy. Prac­tices will often ben­e­fit from part­ner­ing with an expe­ri­enced health­care SEO agency to get the most out of their online efforts.

In this blog arti­cle, we will focus on the basics of med­ical SEO, the impor­tance of a good health­care SEO strat­e­gy, and the foun­da­tions of good med­ical marketing.

The Importance of Medical SEO

Sim­ply put, if your site isn’t on the top of the search results, then some­body else’s is. This can lead to los­ing poten­tial new patients. 

And while SEO for med­ical prac­tices can be a bit dif­fi­cult, these organ­ic queries can go a long way in help­ing you estab­lish your prac­tice in the dig­i­tal sphere as a reli­able and trust­wor­thy health­care institution.

Also, many health­care experts think that pay-per-click is a good approach that will gen­er­ate leads, but it’s only a short-term plan. If you want long-term results, then med­ical SEO is sim­ply a must.

That being said, with the right type of strat­e­gy, main­ly focus­ing on health­care con­tent, prac­tices can get the online vis­i­bil­i­ty they deserve.

Consistent Quality Control

Good med­ical SEO is for the long haul. On one side, your web­site must adhere to the best opti­miza­tion prac­tices and lat­est tech­no­log­i­cal trends pre­ferred by Google. Also, your site should be acces­si­ble and fast-loading.

On the oth­er hand, your con­tent must be qual­i­ty. As a mat­ter of fact, when it comes to health­care SEO and con­tent qual­i­ty, there are two con­cepts you should know about: YMYL and E‑A-T.

The E‑A-T con­cepts mean exper­tise, author­i­ta­tive­ness, and trust­wor­thi­ness. This idea was estab­lished to aid inde­pen­dent raters in scor­ing Google search results. 

Even though it’s not a direct fac­tor for rank­ing, it does help a lot to approach health­care SEO the right way content-wise. 

As the infor­ma­tion you pro­vide on your con­tent could impact the health of the read­er (poten­tial patient) direct­ly, every piece of info should be top-notch, come from cred­i­ble sources, and should be reli­able. In terms of med­ical SEO, adher­ing to these rules is a must if a prac­tice seeks to rank higher.

The YMYL con­cept stands for “Your Mon­ey or Your Life. Tying into the E‑A-T idea, the infor­ma­tion your poten­tial patient reads on your web­site can lead to severe prob­lems and loss­es if your con­tent is inaccurate.

The Necessities of SEO for Medical Practices

Apart from the two prin­ci­ples men­tioned above, there are a cou­ple of things you can do to improve your health­care SEO and your online pres­ence. Loca­tion-based con­tent, long-tail key­words, and a few oth­er approach­es may help you a great deal with out­rank­ing your com­peti­tors and evok­ing trust in your site visitors.

1. Using the Right Med­ical Keywords

This isn’t just a must for health­care SEO strat­e­gy – every indus­try play­er should focus on tar­get­ing the right key­words for their niche.

For starters, you should focus on the med­ical ser­vices you offer because that’s what your poten­tial clients will be look­ing for. Med­ical SEO key­word research can be com­plex, but with the right kind of help, you will be able to cre­ate a sol­id key­word list that will be the bread and but­ter of your content.

Still, “stuff­ing” key­words into your con­tent should be avoid­ed, as search engines are smart enough to iden­ti­fy these spam­my tac­tics and will lead to penalizations.

Plac­ing rel­e­vant, long-tail key­words in your con­tent in a nat­ur­al and read­able way is a much bet­ter health­care SEO strat­e­gy that will yield bet­ter results.

2. Make Sure That Your Visu­al Ele­ments are Optimized

More specif­i­cal­ly, med­ical SEO can ben­e­fit a lot from the video, as it’s one of the most pop­u­lar ways vis­i­tors engage with web­sites and con­sume content.

Adding video to your web­site can improve your organ­ic traf­fic and help with improv­ing the amount of time vis­i­tors spend on your site, which again is an essen­tial indi­ca­tor of val­ue for search engines. 

As such, make sure to include high-qual­i­ty and rel­e­vant videos with your con­tent wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. These videos could be vir­tu­al facil­i­ty tours and infor­ma­tive expla­na­tions about your services/procedures.

Apart from video,  info­graph­ics and images (with opti­mized alt text with key­words) can also go a long way in improv­ing your med­ical SEO. Basi­cal­ly, the more inter­ac­tive ele­ments you have on your plat­form, the bet­ter your chances are of draw­ing in more visitors. 

3. Sev­er­al Con­tent Pages

As men­tioned before, your con­tent pages should be filled with accu­rate and impec­ca­ble med­ical infor­ma­tion with the right key­words. When it comes to con­tent and SEO for med­ical prac­tices, you want to make sure that the infor­ma­tion you have on your site can help your read­ers improve their health or live better.

Con­tent is def­i­nite­ly king in the med­ical indus­try, so you should ensure that your ser­vice descrip­tions are detailed and your blog posts answer your tar­get audience’s rel­e­vant questions.

Make sure to take advan­tage of the pow­er of med­ical con­tent. Still, you should be care­ful as Google has much high­er stan­dards for med­ical web­sites than the rest. 

As said before, the infor­ma­tion can direct­ly impact the reader’s finances, hap­pi­ness, and health. Inac­cu­rate con­tent may even lead to dan­ger­ous med­ical con­se­quences and severe outcomes. 

Focus­ing on opti­mized, accu­rate, and read­able long-form con­tent, you will be sig­nal­ing to Google that you are an author­i­ty in your area of exper­tise, and it will reward you with a bet­ter rank. 

4. Opti­mize the Tech­ni­cal Aspects

A good health­care SEO strat­e­gy will also incor­po­rate such impor­tant fac­tors as web­site speed, mobile respon­sive­ness, and security.

With­out going into details, your web­site shouldn’t take any longer than three sec­onds to load. A lot of poten­tial clients will sim­ply leave the web­site if this hap­pens, even before they’d be able to see your ser­vices and expertise.

Opti­miz­ing site speed can sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve user expe­ri­ence and decrease bounce rates.

Mobile-friend­li­ness is anoth­er cru­cial fac­tor for health­care SEO. As the lion’s share of search­es is via mobile, you sim­ply can’t afford to have a web­site that’s not opti­mized for mobile devices with a respon­sive design.

Last­ly, health­care SEO isn’t com­plete with­out web­site secu­ri­ty. With SSL encryp­tion, you can ensure that your patient and vis­i­tor data is safe from data breaches. 

5. Off-Site SEO

Con­tent, visu­als, and a good user expe­ri­ence are all crit­i­cal for med­ical SEO. How­ev­er, the links that point to your site and your social media chan­nels are also piv­otal for bet­ter search rankings.

For starters, your social con­tent can help patients choose your par­tic­u­lar prac­tice and/or treat­ment options. Social reviews can also help estab­lish your cred­i­bil­i­ty and trust­wor­thi­ness in the eyes of your poten­tial patients. 

Make sure to opti­mize your social chan­nels with the right con­tent and busi­ness info so they can engage with you easily.

When it comes to links and link build­ing, make sure to acquire rel­e­vant sources from oth­er rep­utable and cred­i­ble web­sites. This will help estab­lish your author­i­ty in your area of expertise.

6. Focus on Local SEO

For the best med­ical SEO results, make sure to update and opti­mize your Google My Busi­ness page so patients in your area won’t have a hard time find­ing you. 

Show­ing up in Google’s local pack means being among those four to five busi­ness­es that show up above the organ­ic results. 

Google gath­ers this info from your GMB page, so make sure to include the following:

• Pri­ma­ry phone number
• Busi­ness description
• Busi­ness categories
• Ser­vice area and address
• Google reviews

Climbing the Rankings with The Right Kind of Help

While there’s noth­ing guar­an­teed in the world of mar­ket­ing, these approach­es should help you cre­ate a reli­able SEO strat­e­gy that will help your prac­tice improve its online presence. 

The results from these steps will take time to be notice­able and will also take quite some effort. Hir­ing a rep­utable health­care SEO con­sul­tant can help you cre­ate a healthy strat­e­gy. Addi­tion­al­ly, by accept­ing their expert ser­vices, you can ful­ly focus on your patients while your online pres­ence improves.