Why Medical SEO Matters and How to Start Applying it to Your Practice

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Over 80% of internet users have searched for a health-related topic at one point or another. In fact, Google gets 70,000 health-related searches per minute. 

With all of these inquiries, you need your website to stand out. Every minute, you have the potential for thousands of searchers to come across your business during their searches. However, your page can also get lost among the thousands of medical results that pop up. 

Why is Medical SEO Important? 

To attract more visitors (and, as a result, more potential patients), you need to make sure that your website lands higher in the search result rankings. To do that, you need SEO. 

Companies in all industries are turning to SEO to boost traffic to their sites and increase conversion rates (turning viewers into buyers). Rather than paying to target potential patients with advertising, you can use SEO to bring the patients to you. 

Search engines prioritize pages that seem most helpful to searchers. The software analyzes keywords, click rates, how much time people spend on the webpage, and more to determine which pages are the most helpful for any given search. Those pages are then ranked highest. 

Using medical SEO on your website will increase your visibility and attract more patients to your business. 

4 Tips for Getting Started on SEO for Medical Marketing 

When implementing SEO for your medical website, these are four of the most important things you need to keep in mind: 

1. Address a Specific Problem or Need 

Everyone who initiates a Google search is looking for a solution to a specific problem. Whether there is a piece of information they need or a service that could help them with an issue, your website could be the place they go to find it. 

Providing quality content that internet users find helpful is the first step to having good medical SEO. 

Based on your area of expertise and the types of services you provide, identify what problems and needs your potential patients may have, and create content that addresses it well. 

People who find helpful information on your website are more likely to click on other pages and use your services. 

Offer Helpful Information 

Provide internet users with information that can help them solve a problem. Create blogs that talk about topics on which you are an expert (for example, how to treat a specific health condition), or on issues

related to your service (such as medical insurance questions). Offer your services in a way that clearly acknowledges the issues that potential patients are dealing with and shows how you can help them. 

Use Strong Keywords

Think about what kinds of questions your patients might have or words that they might search if looking for your specific services. Identify (using a program such as Google Keyword Planner) and include a few of these in your web pages to help readers and search engines understand what each specific page is about. But, if you overuse keywords, your content will become awkward and unreadable. 

Create content that is trustworthy and beneficial for readers to establish a greater authority for your website. 

Bonus: Consider accessibility for users with different disabilities or assistive technologies. For example, you can improve usability for patients with visual impairments by using proper formatting for all of your text and including descriptions for images. This allows their screen readers to properly read and navigate your page. 

2. Make the Page User Friendly 

When exploring SEO for your medical website, remember that user experience trumps everything else. If people do not stay on your page, your ranking will drop. 

In addition to providing useful information or services, your website should be easy for visitors to read and use. 

Your page is more likely to rank well if: 

  • • The content is well written: no spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or awkward phrases
  • • The format makes for easy reading: use lots of space and break up text into headed sections
  • • Your website is simple to navigate: you have an easy-to-use menu, clear contact buttons, etc. On the other hand, searchers may become easily frustrated and leave your page if:
    • ◦  The page loads too slowly 
    • ◦  There are a lot of pop-ups
    • ◦  The website is poorly designed (visually cluttered, difficult to navigate, etc.) 3. Optimize All Features for Machine Reading 

Make sure that search engines understand what your web pages are all about. While search engines can often read and interpret the information on their own, there are a few ways that you can help them. 

First, use the proper headings and list formats for content so that the search engines read and interpret the text more easily (like with the screen readers). 

Secondly, include meta data. Meta title tags and descriptions are included in the text that internet users see on a search results page. Using meta data guarantees that searchers readily see what your page is about instead of trusting the search engine to generate the information automatically. 

You can also include medical schema to help search engines get a better idea of the content on your web page.

4. Focus on Local Search Results 

Since your medical practice will most likely be serving patients within a certain geographical area, focus your SEO efforts on local search results. 

Consider optimizing certain pages with local keywords (i.e., “family doctor in New York City”). Narrow your search results to better target internet users who are looking for your specific service in your area. 

Completing the Google My Business page is also important. This feature allows your practice to show up in “near me” searches. By filling out all of your business information in Google My Business, you increase your chance of appearing in a Local Map Pack. 

Start Using SEO for Your Medical Website 

In a sea of web searches, medical SEO can help you stand out and get the right people to your website. 

Using the four tips above, you can start to apply SEO to your site and begin to draw more traffic to your business. 

But these tips are just the beginning. If you want to take full advantage of the benefits of SEO, you should consider hiring an internet marketing director.

Ready to take your website to the next level with expert SEO? Contact Visual Rankings for a free needs evaluation and proposal.

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Joshua Cabe Johnson

Joshua Cabe Johnson has been an SEO since 2008. He has personally helped over 1000 clients with online visibility and brand strategy for SEO growth.

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Visual rankings has been helping small business owners online since 2002.

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