SEO, or search engine optimization, has been the basis or the foundation of all digital marketing strategies in recent years. More and more digital marketing experts are prioritizing SEO because they realize the importance of it in the healthcare industry.
SEO tactics are the tools and techniques that digital marketing experts use to get their content to rank higher on search engines like Google. The end goal of any SEO strategy is to enhance the healthcare professional or patient’s experience. It’s all about the user in the end. Google wants to make sure that they uphold a certain level of quality that keeps their users happy and engaged.
SEO is especially important for the healthcare industry. In fact, Google reports that a mind-boggling 1 billion searches EACH DAY are healthcare-related. This is why, if you are a healthcare professional or trying to get the attention of a healthcare professional, it’s important you become acquainted with SEO, and how to best use it to your advantage. This article will help do just that, by giving you everything you need to know about Healthcare and SEO.
Rank High on the Search Engine Results Page
Applying SEO’s true and tried tactics to your webpage or platform will help get that webpage to the top of Google’s search engine results page. As a healthcare professional or health organization, your goal is that illustrious number one spot on Google’s SERPs (search engine results page). According to Google, 5% of all Google searches are health-related. Search also drives 3x more towards healthcare providers versus non-search.
In order to get to the top, however, it is easier said than done. A good place to start is to focus your efforts on ranking high for the important keywords. Keywords are the words that your target audience types in when they search for an inquiry. Let’s say you are a healthcare company selling services to healthcare professionals online. Your target keywords will most likely be “physician professional services” or “services for doctor’s offices”. Targeting the right, specific keywords is crucial and is what will ultimately lead to you ascending that results page ladder.
Be The Number One Source for Healthcare
It’s not all about the technicalities with Google and SEO. In fact, for the most part, it’s about the content and the quality. Google values a website that is authoritative. In order to become an authoritative website, you need to have other websites promote and host your content. An excellent way to do that with Link Building. Link building is the exchange of links between one or two websites. The purpose of link building is to draw more traffic to your website, from another website.
Google sees websites that are linked to other healthcare websites as important and valuable. That’s why, as a website owner in the healthcare industry, your aim should be to get other healthcare website owners to link to your website from theirs. These links can be placed in press releases, blogs, articles, and even on their social media.
Google also wants to ensure that medical and healthcare websites can be trusted by the users that go there. There is a special term for this called YMYL which stands for “Your Money or Your Life”. Medical and healthcare websites have a different level of guidelines to ensure that users get the most accurate and precise information regarding their health.
Focus on Mobile Access
When people exert their attention to growing online, they often neglect the number one digital tool people rely on today, and that’s the mobile device.
Tablets, smartphones, laptops, are all essential to a digital strategy. Making sure your content is accessible on several devices is important. As a healthcare company, you want your content to be accessible to your patients or your customers from all outlets. This becomes even more important when you realize that 56% of users are using their mobile phones to access services and websites.
Optimize Local SEO
If you have a doctor’s office or store location, optimizing your site to perform well on location-based searches is key to enhancing your overall search engine performance. Internet users often search for the closest available thing to them. That’s why local SEO plays a huge role.
To optimize your local search engine visibility, consider taking the following steps. Register your business online with Google. By registering, Google will be able to allocate a location to your business, along with a phone number and any other relevant information. Also, consider registering your business with relevant healthcare directories.
The Bottom Line
The world of search engines and the internet is so vast that you really can’t pinpoint it in one or two steps. On top of that, Google is constantly changing its SEO standards and practices, to keep up with an ever-changing user experience. Just recently, Google rolled another new core update. That’s why if you truly want to continue to perform at high performance on search engines, you will need to be constantly updated on the latest information and changes. This is where the services of a digital marketing expert come into play because they are always up to speed with the latest in SEO and Google.
