Getting new patients for healthcare groups is tougher now. People can pick from many healthcare providers, so hospitals and clinics must give patients a top-notch digital experience. The first thing to do for a digital experience that pulls in patients is to put money into SEO. Most patients use search engines to find a new healthcare provider.
What is healthcare SEO?
SEO stands for making your website better for Google. It helps more people find your site when they look for services online. Being visible on searches is crucial for healthcare providers because most patients prefer finding information online.
Google says online searches bring three times more visitors to hospital websites than other sources. To get new patients, your website must be optimized to appear at the top when people search. So, investing in SEO is vital for any medical practice, clinic, or hospital.
Why Do Doctors Need Healthcare SEO Services?
A study found that 8 in 10 adults in the US search for healthcare info online each year. To give your patients a great online experience, use healthcare SEO. You can hire an in-house team or outsource to specialized Healthcare SEO Services. This helps your website show up first when they search, bringing in more patients.
Be visible in local searches
With healthcare SEO, your site can appear in local searches. When people look for services in their area, like “physical therapist in Nashville,” being optimized helps you show up. This means more local patients can find your services.
Stand out from the competition
Healthcare is competitive. If your competition appears first in a search, you might miss out on new patients. Investing in SEO sets you apart. Combine it with a top-notch website and online services for a digital experience that patients will love.
Follow These Best Healthcare SEO Strategies
There are many strategies that can help to improve the overall healthcare facilities’ performance and make them more reimbursement, but a few more prominent are as follows:
Focus on Good Content
One of the most important things for a good SEO strategy is having really good content. If you want your website to appear when people search, you need content that search engines like. Search engines think it’s important since people visit your site for its content. So, make sure your content is thorough, good, and accurate.
You can also use content to get more people to visit your site. If you make a blog on your healthcare site with useful stuff for patients, you can show up in more searches (if you don’t have content about a topic, you won’t show up in those searches!).
If you’re unsure what to write about, check what your competition is writing—then do it better. Write more detailed stuff or talk about it from a different angle than your competition.
You can also use a tool to determine which words people search for the most. Focus on writing about medical words that people search for a lot. This will help you get more people to visit your site.
Make sure search engines can check and list your website.
Now that you’ve got good, special, and detailed content relevant to your healthcare group, it’s important to ensure search engines can understand it.
Keep it simple: When search engines go through your site, they save and organize what they find. Once your page is listed, it means a search engine knows what it’s about and can show it when someone looks for something (basically, search engines are making their own library they can use when a user searches for something).
Boost Your Website’s Credibility
To enhance your healthcare SEO strategy, build up your website’s authority. One effective method is through ‘backlinks,’ which occur when another website links to yours.
However, not all backlinks are the same. Aim for links from high-quality, authoritative sites that are not spammy or untrustworthy.
Contact the site owner if your hospital or clinic gets recognized on another website for interesting research, positive outcomes, or community work. Politely ask if they could include a link to your site when they mention you.
Increase your organization’s visibility with reliable third parties. Request that they link to your site when using your content, mentioning your organization, or interviewing a staff member.
Pay Attention To E-A-T Requirements For Healthcare SEO
Zoom in on EAT requirements for healthcare SEO. In 2018, Google changed how it ranks medical websites with an update called EAT. Google wants medical sites to meet higher standards, and these standards are called EAT (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness).
If you’re a healthcare organization, people must see that you’re reliable with accurate information.
Here are some things to keep in mind when working on your site’s EAT:
- Build solid About Us and Contact Us pages with lots of information.
- Include author info for all your detailed content, with bios about their expertise or credentials.
- Make it simple for patients to get in touch with your organization.
- Add a privacy policy, terms and conditions, etc.
- Include an easily visible address and phone number on your site.
Conclusion
A good health website helps you talk with patients and get more patients you want. But it’s not helpful if people can’t find it. To be the first result in a search, you need a good healthcare marketing SEO company, a strong website, a smart healthcare SEO plan, and a skilled SEO team.