Healthcare is one of the most popular niches among search engine specialists. Experts love working on medical sites as the entire market is relatively easy to penetrate. Although there are a few major healthcare blogs that everyone knows and loves, optimizing a dental site or mom-and-pop clinic isn’t a problem for grizzled vets.
If you’re still skeptical about search engine optimization, you should definitely read this blog post. In this ultimate guide, we’ll explain the importance of healthcare SEO services and how they can change your medical practice for the better.
Common Marketing Issues for Healthcare Organizations
Although promoting a healthcare business isn’t as regulated as gambling or adult industry marketing, there are still some restrictions and problems. For example, there are strict rules about re-marketing, which is a common strategy for many companies. Although you can use PPC in Google and other search engines, digital advertising is still somewhat limited.
We also have to consider things about the protection of the patient data as well as misleading phrasing. Some of these rules are so strict that even the smallest infractions can get you in trouble. Considering all these factors, it becomes obvious that you need a real marketing expert to tackle the needs of healthcare businesses.
Using Healthcare SEO to Improve Your Business
The reason why SEO is so popular is because, on many levels, it feels natural. Ranking on top of search engine results pages won’t make readers second-guess themselves, as these spots are usually reserved for reputable, legitimate healthcare websites. So, just by showing on the first page of Google, you significantly increase the odds of selling your services.
Credibility issues within the healthcare industry have been especially noticeable in the last few years since the COVID-19 epidemic. Many citizens feel they were, in one way or another, lied to by their governments. To make matters worse, popular advertisers such as Facebook don’t have that great reputation.
That being said, here are a few main reasons why you should consider medical SEO:
Improved Reputation
We’ve already said a lot about reputation and credibility so let’s not harp too much about it. Generally speaking, the top brands in the search results are usually the biggest companies in their respective industries. So, by association, you can be perceived as one of the best healthcare organizations in your city or state.
Less Red Tape
As you well know, bureaucracy and regulations are the biggest issues for just about any healthcare organization. Many advertisers are reluctant to work with the medical industry, especially if a company’s message sounds remotely controversial.
All of this can be circumvented with medical SEO marketing. While brands still need to be careful what they write, they have much more leeway when creating website articles than when creating social media blogs or paid ads. In fact, even if you made a bold statement within the content, most people won’t be quick to notice it.
Enhances Other Channels
Another indirect perk of healthcare SEO is that it boosts your other marketing efforts. Given that most people visit a website before booking an appointment, they need to be greeted with a user-friendly platform. Issues with page speed, site architecture, or mobile optimization can deter potential patients from choosing your clinic.
SEO takes care of these on-site technical aspects. One of the experts’ main tasks is to ensure that everything runs smoothly and that the user can browse your pages as intended. So, as long as you have an SEO team on board, your healthcare website won’t struggle to convert incoming traffic.
Better Conversions
Given all of that, it only makes sense that healthcare SEO will convert at a higher clip compared to some other marketing strategies. For example, a recent case study indicates that search engine optimization has a 14.6% conversion rate compared to 10% for PPC. Then again, you might argue that paid advertising has better ROI (at least during the initial phases).
Even if some other tactic provides better results during the initial period, the SEO strategy will end up being a winner. The marketing approach is much better in the long run, providing progressively higher returns over time. In fact, many experts consider ranking in search engines as the best way to build a healthy brand.
Modernizing Healthcare Marketing With AI
Long gone are the days when experts would create an SEO strategy with limited data. Nowadays, even low-tier agencies have to implement artificial intelligence tools to stand a chance within search results.
Whether we’re talking about content generation, keyword research, competitive analysis, customer service, or certain medical processes, you need AI software to remain competitive. In the following section, we’ll talk about the unlikely pairing of search engine optimization, medicine, and artificial intelligence.
1. Become An On-Demand Healthcare Service Provider
By 2025, three-quarters of all internet searches will be performed through mobile devices. Billions of potential patients will be researching medical professionals, clinics, and healthcare institutions and booking appointments using mobiles.
Depending solely on your reputation and skill sets, you may attract patients in the immediate neighborhood. In the process, you could be missing out on the broader audience that online freelance medical professionals are tapping.
Search engine-optimized content marketing will convey your message, pinpoint your location, and emphasize your availability. You’ll be highlighting the unique medical skill sets that specific audiences are searching for.
SEO Tip: Ensure that your website loads faster, has avant-garde security features, and is mobile-friendly.
2. Respond to Patient Preferences Using AI
AI is undoubtedly the most radical change sweeping the healthcare sector. AI is the boat that you can’t miss if you want to cross the stormy seas of medical marketing success.
You may be aware that AI, more particularly the Machine Learning algorithm, is used by major search engines to rank professional healthcare services. The flip side of the coin is that you can use AI and create content marketing strategies that make you more relevant to searchers looking for healthcare advice.
The solution lies in using analytics expertise or tasking software like Google Analytics. This helps you identify the latest market trends dominating your niche. You gain a better understanding of patients when you demographically segment audiences by gender, location, browsing history, and medical choices linked to your skill sets.
The AI data-driven insights on market trends and patient preferences will help you target audiences with a greater precission. Your customized messages will spur patient conversion and increase business. A more targeted marketing strategy ensures that you attract the ideal patient, who is more likely to commit to a long-term healthcare relationship.
SEO Tip: Focus on improving medical schema and optimize all title tags and meta descriptions to reflect the keywords specific to your audience.
3. Introduce Virtual Reality
Patients on the lookout for the ideal healthcare service love medical professionals who are up close and personal and are more engaging. The long-suffering patient desperately needs a platform to air his feelings and discuss treatment options and costs with trustworthy healthcare professionals.
Fortunately, there’s a solution that promises to elevate the doctor-patient relationship to a new level, and it is virtual reality marketing. By integrating virtual reality into your content marketing strategy, you’d be emulating the success enjoyed by the world’s top healthcare brands.
SEO-optimized brand imaging personalizes the healthcare service. The medical professional comes closer to the patient, who enjoys the immersive experience and connects with the healthcare service in a profoundly personal way.
A note of caution: The VR-inspired content strategy must be careful in addressing the pain points of the patient and not focus exclusively on brand imaging. Once you know the social medium that your core patients use, you can tailor VR to suit the medium of communication.
SEO Tip: By optimizing images and videos, you significantly improve page load speeds, elevate page ranking, and boost the user experience.
4. Engage Patients With Medical Device SEO
Medical devices have shifted the emphasis from ailment-related counseling to preventive healthcare services. These devices play an essential role in discovering underlying problems that could develop into significant health issues. The market for wearable healthcare devices is estimated to reach $27.49 Billion By 2026.
Medical devices, especially wearable devices such as exercise trackers, heart rate trackers, and blood sugar monitors, are cost-effective ways of collecting health data. Companies marketing these devices, using the right strategies and targeted keywords, can expand their services by engaging doctors and transforming the lives of patients.
SEO Tip: Tap the potential of niche audiences using long-tailed keywords. Instead of targeting a bigger audience through “Heart rate monitor,” try “Heart rate monitor for diabetic seniors.”
5. Leverage Predictive Analytics Models
Healthcare services are universally programmed to respond to ailments and diseases as and when definitive symptoms appear. With the advent of artificial intelligence, we now have tools for predicting the likelihood of diseases becoming significant issues.
We have crossed the distance from reactive healthcare to preventive healthcare. AI-inspired machine learning algorithms could be programmed to monitor traffic in search engines and social media to isolate commonly used medical keywords.
Using predictive analytics (PA) models, it’s possible to discern patterns of keyword usage that warn you of potential epidemics.
SEO Tip: Heighten your visibility in search engines when topics relating to your niche are trending. For example, your PA model may indicate that a health scare is threatening Europe. Using the content tag “European crisis,” you could promote the article “European crisis: Will it affect your travel plans?”
6. Introduce Chatbots and Virtual Assistants
We are in an era where negative patient reviews and unsatisfactory experiences can seriously damage one’s reputation. This is why healthcare providers are adopting conversational software such as chatbots and virtual assistants to stand in for human voices. The software can be programmed to respond to a wide range of queries in a manner that satisfies the patient’s intent.
Unlike humans, chatbots are non-judgmental, quick, efficient, and are ready with their responses 24/7. The applications are diverse. A virtual assistant, helping a medical practitioner by monitoring the patient’s medical condition, may suggest drugs most appropriate to the stage of the disease.
SEO Tip: It’s estimated that more than three-quarters of Google voice searches will be responded to by chatbots. Maximize the use of keywords that populate conversational searches related to your area of medical expertise.
7. Secure Data Privacy Using Blockchain
So, what is Blockchain? The new technology uses cryptography to digitally record and timestamp transactions as blocks of encrypted data connected in a chain that cannot be tampered with.
How is Blockchain relevant to healthcare? Blockchain helps maintain an electronic health record of patient data in a secure, reliable format that can’t be hacked. This has great importance for caregivers, pharmacists, insurance providers, and many other players in the healthcare sector.
How does SEO connect with Blockchain technology? Several healthcare providers are switching to Blockchain-inspired platforms for service delivery because of Blockchain’s reputation as a secure, trusted, and immutable record of data. So, healthcare providers leveraging the best SEO practices will be in a position to attract more customer traffic and increase conversions.
SEO Tip: To integrate Blockchain with existing web pages, use competitive SEO analytics tools to strengthen critical keywords, restructure landing pages, and promote high-ranking content.
Best Healthcare SEO practices in 2024
If you wish to dominate healthcare SEO, it’s crucial that you follow the best practices used by top experts. It’s worth noting that this is an extremely dynamic field, and changes happen every once in a while. So, if you wish to perform healthcare search engine optimization in-house, make sure to read the biggest blogs and follow the latest trends.
Focus On Local SEO
Local search is the best way to attract Google users to your website. It’s worth noting that 42% of all Google searches involve Google Map Pack, which is the technology the company uses to showcase local brands. In most cases, people tap into this system when they’re looking for a handyman, restaurant, specialized shop, or clinic in a specific city.
Occupying top spots in search rankings for lucrative area terms can boost your visits and profits like no other marketing strategy can. Most importantly, all these users who are looking for clinics are actually potential clients. They’re looking for assistance in a city, and the vast majority of them will book an appointment in the following days.
Another positive is that it doesn’t take that much technical work to master local SEO. You start by setting up a Google My Business profile and leaving your details in various directory listings. After that, you can collect user reviews by directly communicating with clinic visitors. The more and better reviews you have, the higher you’ll appear in Google searches.
Keep Information Clean and Simple
When users browse medical content, they usually look for quick but detailed information. This is especially true if they’re feeling under the weather and wish to learn more about their potential condition. Unlike some other industries, medical content shouldn’t be entertaining or pretentious.
The need for quality information is especially noticeable in 2024. With the rise of the EEAT concept and increased focus on user engagement, you can no longer manipulate search engine algorithms by spamming links or using some other wonky strategies. Nowadays, Google ranks sites not based on external factors but instead by analyzing how people react to their content.
That being said, it’s vital that you cater to their need to the utmost of your ability. Google will check how long an average page and website visit lasts, whether people leave your pages soon after reaching them, and how many pages they view per session. So, as long as your content is on point, you can improve all these metrics and dominate rankings.
Improve Mobile Optimization
Unfortunately, most people nowadays don’t have enough time to look after their health. Even when we’re sick, we rarely take days off, resolving medical issues on the go.
The dynamic lifestyle also affects how we collect information. The majority of Google users access the search engine from their phones while they’re in their office or socializing with friends. Similarly, people are more likely to book a doctor’s appointment via mobile devices than they will via their desktop.
Unfortunately, medical sites are often not optimized for mobile search. When people access these unoptimized platforms, they’re greeted by jumbled information and broken menus. We’ve heard of many cases where clinics have lost a lot of money just because website visitors couldn’t properly book appointments.
That being said, mobile optimization should be one of your top priorities. Not only does this help users and conversions, but it also affects Google’s algorithms. The search engine puts emphasis on mobile-friendliness, penalizing sites that don’t open properly on mobile devices.
Simplify Browsing
Given the importance of user experience and straightforward content, it’s paramount that you simplify browsing. Our team at MiroMind can create a great menu and select a graphic design that will be most suitable for your website visitors. We know how to properly advertise your site so it serves both patients and Google alike.
Among other things, you need to pay attention to how fast a person can reach a page on your site. The general rule is that every web page should be reachable in three clicks or less. Convoluted menus and unnecessary content will deter people from browsing and, in fact, might even dissuade them from visiting your site again.
Nevertheless, links are crucial for your blog posts. By using them, you can connect articles that cover similar topics, thus stimulating prolonged reading. Internal links are especially important for marketing and sales funnels, leading users from blog posts to service pages where you can convert them.
Avoid AI Articles
Speaking of the blog, you should probably avoid the use of artificial intelligence tools for your articles. Although this kind of software allows you to produce dozens of web pages in an hour or two, it can also get you in trouble with Google. While the company claims the use of AI generators is allowed, there’s no guarantee you’ll be penalized in the future.
AI writers are especially tricky for medical practitioners, given that you have to explain sensitive topics. Improper language or poor definitions can even get you in trouble with advertisers and regulatory bodies, leading to various sanctions.
However, that doesn’t mean you should completely turn your back on this technology. AI writers still have their purpose, albeit in moderation. For example, you can use them for smaller rewrites or short paragraphs. Even if you use these apps, make sure to read the text afterward and edit all the statements that might come back to bite you.
Invest in promotional activities
Although there are many more things to pay attention to in 2024 than ever, external links still are considered one of the most important ranking factors. By gaining hyperlinks from external sites, you show Google that your content is relevant and will give you a boost accordingly.
Aside from links, you should try to participate in as many events and conferences as possible. Get your name on social media and other platforms to scale the message. This will also lead to an increased number of visitors and inquiries.
But the benefits of PR and outreach don’t stop at SEO. The most important thing about using a proactive approach is the fact you’re increasing reputation and authority. As more and more articles featuring your clinic pop up, web users will notice your activity and engagement. They will perceive you as one of the top medical providers in the area, which will affect your bottom line.
Conclusion
Healthcare SEO is a very specific field activity that should be handled by top professionals. Minor errors can jeopardize your entire company and potentially get you in trouble with search engines and advertisers. However, despite potential difficulties, you can still try to optimize the site in-house without outside assistance.