Do you want your medical practice to rank higher in Google? Our healthcare SEO guide highlights the strategies that you can introduce in order to start improving your search visibility.
6 ways to improve your healthcare SEO
- Use the right keywords on your website
- Write SEO-friendly content
- Optimise your images
- Improve your local SEO
- Get backlinks to your website
- Make sure your website is technically sound
Choose the right SEO keywords for your website
Your website should appear in Google for the keywords and phrases that your patients are searching for. These could include:
- The conditions that you treat
- The procedures that you carry out
- The symptoms someone who sees you may have
Here’s our recommendations for choosing the right SEO keywords for your website:
- Make a list of all the keywords that you want to target. If you’re uncertain, carry out competitor research and look at the SEO keywords that other healthcare providers are focusing on. This can help you to determine the right keywords for your website.
- Use a tool like the Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush and Ubersuggest to find the search volume of your keywords. A keyword’s search volume shows how many people are searching for that particular word or phrase every month.
- All the tools mentioned above can also help you to discover other keywords that you may have missed, which you can add to your list.
- Determine the competitiveness of the keywords that you have chosen through these tools too. It is important to note that terms with a high search volume and high level of competitiveness can be more difficult to rank for.
Once you have all your keywords, along with their search volume and competitiveness, divide the list up strategically. Think about the following questions as you do:
- Which keywords can be grouped together?
- Which keyword groups can be attributed to pages already on your website?
- Which keyword groups will require new website pages or blogs?
This is a process called keyword mapping. It will help you determine the content that you need to add and optimise on your website so that your pages rank for the keywords that patients are searching for in Google.
Write SEO-friendly content
The content on your website should be written for your patients and optimised for Google. Here’s our tips for producing SEO-friendly healthcare copy:
Remember your keywords
Before you start writing copy, think about the keywords that you want to focus on. What sort of information or advice are people looking for when they search for these keywords in Google? Write copy that addresses this search intent to increase the chances of a page ranking highly.
Write for humans
Once you know what to focus on, write for the patients visiting your website. When you write naturally on a topic, the keywords and their variations should appear naturally. Attempting to write for Google can lead to copy seeming spammy and unnatural.
Never duplicate content
Never copy and paste text from elsewhere. When a page contains ‘duplicate content’, this can have a negative impact on your healthcare SEO.
Show your expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-A-T)
Google only wants to include factual, quality information in its healthcare-related search results. Therefore, always use E-A-T as a framework when producing content for your website.
Use an easy-to-read structure
A clean structure will easily guide both readers and search engines through your content. Break up your copy with short and punchy headers and use clear paragraphs with short sentences. Also, include lists and bullet points, visuals and clear CTAs.
Optimise your headers, meta titles and meta descriptions
The header and meta title can help both people and Google to determine what a page is about. Your meta titles and descriptions are also the first things that people will see in Google, so they should be unique and include your target keyword.
Include links to other pages
Linking to content on your website can help both your website visitors and Google to find your other pages. It can also help Google to determine the hierarchy of your content. When a page has a lot of links pointing into it, Google is more likely to class it as a high-value page.
Optimise your website images
There are ways to optimise your images for SEO. Google says: “By adding more context around images, results can become much more useful, which can lead to higher quality traffic to your site.”
Here are a number of methods that you can use to improve your SEO through the imagery on your website:
- Compress your images – this can increase the speed of your website, which is a factor that Google pays close attention to.
- Rewrite your image file names – your images shouldn’t be named ‘image 6’ or ‘IMG_3876’. Instead, think about the keywords that your patients are searching for and try to include them here. But remember, don’t be spammy.
- Add in image captions – add in relevant captions as Google extracts information from them to understand more about what an image is showing.
- Pay attention to the alt text on images – within the alt text, write a specific and succinct summary about the image that includes relevant keywords and phrases.
Local healthcare SEO
When a patient’s search query has local intent, Google will work to show them healthcare practices that are close by.
There are ways that you can become more visible in location based searches as well as in local search results, which typically appear above organic search results. Here’s an example of location search results:
1. Update your Google My Business listing
Firstly, if you haven’t claimed your Google My Business listing, please do. It’s free and easy to set up. Completing your Google My Business listing will give you a better chance of being seen by people looking for your services within your local area. If you have multiple clinics or practices, create a profile for each location.
Google uses the information in Google My Business listings to serve people searching for healthcare with practices and professionals that are close by. For example, if someone searches for a ‘dermatologist near me’, Google will use information from Google My Business listings to place local practices within its local search results.
2. Create location pages on your website
Take the time to create individual website pages for each of your locations. Fill these pages with important information about the practice, including the conditions that are treated there and the procedures that are carried out.
Having these pages can help you to become visible in location-specific healthcare searches, as they enable Google to easily recognise where you are located.
We would also recommend that you include links to these specific location pages within the Google My Business listing that you set up for each of your locations.
3. Add local citations
A local citation is any mention of you or your practice along with your address and contact details online. Google wants to see that you have local citations. This will enable them to trust that you are well regarded in your local area, giving you the opportunity to rank well in local search results.
Places to build local citations include Facebook, Bing, The Independent and The Mirror. Here’s a comprehensive list of websites to look into.
When including local citations within your healthcare SEO plan, be careful. The information that you include should be accurate and the websites you place citations on should be of good quality. Not adhering to this requirement can ultimately lead to local citations having a negative impact on your search visibility.
Get backlinks to your website
A backlink is a link from another website to your website. Securing a good volume of links from high quality and relevant websites can indicate to Google that your website is an authority and deserves to rank well in the search results.
Here are some ways to secure backlinks to your website:
- Press releases – let journalists and websites know about anything new and noteworthy. Are you launching an innovative new treatment, have you recently won an award or have you reached a big milestone? Do you have a unique comment on a new study or piece of research?
- Expert comments – many journalists writing health related topics need healthcare professionals to supply them with quotes and comments for their articles. Make a list of healthcare journalists who have written on your speciality and let them know you’re available for comments.
This type of coverage gives you a chance to get your name mentioned and as a result, secure links back to your website. To increase the chances of a journalist including a link in their articles, make sure you include the link in your press releases and in any correspondence you have with them.
User experience is important for SEO
Improving the user experience of your website is something that you should do for your patients as well as for your medical SEO strategy. You website should:
- Be quick
- Be secure
- Be optimised for mobile
- Have a clear navigational structure
Google only wants to serve its searchers with high quality websites. By making sure that your own website is technically sound, you increase the likelihood of Google ranking your pages well in its search results.
3 ways Doctify can support your healthcare SEO strategy
At Doctify, we help our healthcare partners to improve their online presence, both on and off Google. Here’s a few ways we can help you to become more visible in search results:
1. Position Doctify reviews in your Google Business Profile
We can help you to collect a consistent flow of up-to-date reviews from your patients. These can then be included in your Google Business Profile, which can be found on the right hand side of Google when people search your brand. Adding reviews to your Google Business Profile can help to highlight your expertise and credibility to people researching you and your practice. This trust and transparency can then in turn result in a higher click-through rate.
2. Set up a search-optimised Doctify profile
All our partners have professional Doctify profiles that appear in Google search results. Once people click onto your Doctify profile, they are able to read your patient reviews and peer recommendations along with your locations, opening times and contact details. They can also get in touch with you at the click of a button.
3. Make your star rating visible in Google
We can set up your Doctify star rating so that it appears in Google. This eye-catching addition can make your Doctify page stand out in search results and encourage people to click through to find out more about you.
At Doctify, we are dedicated to helping our partners strengthen their online presence. If you would like to know how we can support your healthcare SEO strategy, please visit our Provider Centre to find out more.
