Healthcare SEO

width=

When you have the flu and you need to find a new doctor who can take you right away, what do you do? Many people will begin by searching on the computer or their smartphone and the most popular place to start is Google. A simple query like “urgent care near me” or “primary care physician in…” can yield tons of results on Google, but for the most part, people won’t look past the first page.

width=

So, if you’re a healthcare provider, ranking high on Google should be a priority if you want to increase your website traffic and number of new patients. This is why SEO (search engine optimization) is going to be one of your most important tools when it comes to digital marketing. In this post, we will go over some of the best tactics for healthcare SEO, so that you can start moving up the SERP and appeal to more potential patients. It’s important to remember that SEO is a continuous process and will require a long-term commitment to ensure consistent results, but by following these tips, you can get started and then work to build out a long-term SEO strategy for your healthcare facility.

Top 3 Tips for Healthcare SEO

 

  1. Choose Keywords Wisely: Think about how people are searching on Google. In today’s day and age, most internet users don’t type complete thoughts into Google. Instead, they search how they talk, meaning they may ask questions or use location modifiers like “near me”. Be sure to do your research about which keywords your competitors are ranking for and also determine which keywords generate the greatest search volume. There are some excellent tools for conducting keywords research, including Google’s Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Answer the public. Google’s Keyword tool and SEMrush will tell you the search volume and competitive ranking of different keywords. They will also give you keyword suggestions. SEMrush is also great because you can conduct a competitive analysis, comparing your keywords and their rankings to those of your top competitors.

 

  1. Optimize Your Meta-tags: The keywords that you focus on for your specific healthcare facility should be present throughout the content you create for your website and other platforms. In addition, the keywords should be in your title-tags and meta-descriptions. The title-tag and meta-description are what users see when they search on Google. For instance, if I conduct the same search, “urgent care near me,” I can see that each result has a title-tag and meta-description.

width=

When you are creating your titles and descriptions, it is crucial to keep in mind the character limits. Titles should typically 65 characters or fewer. Descriptions should be under 150 characters. However, you want to make sure that your titles and descriptions are long enough to convey the important information. In the example above, the title is exactly long enough o fully display and the description is fairly comprehensive. In the example below, the title gets cut off and the description isn’t unique for search engines. Rather, it is just pulling the first 150 characters from the page.

width=

These might seem like small details, but they really make a different to the user in terms of experience and ease of acquiring the information they need.

 

  1. Create Unique Content: You need to post content regularly to promote your website. There are multiple platforms for promoting content including a blog, ebook, and social media. When you are developing content, you want to make sure that you’re writing about topics that users are actually searching. This means you need to do some research, similar to when you were searching for keywords. You can use SEMrush and Answer the public to get ideas for content, including questions that people ask and trending topics.

 

If you have a blog, you should be posting at least twice per month in order to reap the benefits of the content. In addition, share your posts on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The most important thing is to make sure your content is original. If you copy the same material from another website, you’ll actually hurt your SEO efforts. Therefore, it is important to have a team of content marketing specialists and copywriters to keep the original content flowing.

Get Started with Healthcare SEO

If you’re ready to get started with SEO for your healthcare facility, take the points from the post above and set up a short-term plan. If you want a team of SEO experts to get the long-term plan in place and deliver results consistently, contact Skyrush Marketing for a free consultation. Skyrush Marketing is a digital marketing company serving New York and Long Island.

 

Medical Marketing in 2019

width=

Medical companies and healthcare organizations can thrive using effective digital marketing techniques, just like other businesses. However, succeeding in this field requires a certain expertise. Getting quality leads for your medical practice is going to take work and a well-devised strategy that makes use of a variety of digital marketing tools. However, the most important aspect to succeeding at medical marketing is keeping all efforts patient focused. We’ll discuss that more in another post. But for now, let’s cover the latest trends in medical marketing that all come back to remaining patient focused, and have proven to be successful in 2019.

Top 5 Medical Marketing Trends for 2019

While we know that a variety of digital marketing techniques are trending in the medical field, Skyrush Marketing compiled the information about the majority of these trends and focused on the five trends that cane be applied most widely across the medical field. Read about each of the trends below:

  1. Develop Quality Content – To keep patients and users interested in what your medical company has to say, you need to make sure that you’re saying something important. That means you should have a content marketing team developing ideas and strategies to focus on what your patients want and need. You should focus on long-tail keywords that can answer consumers’ questions. For instance, someone might search “What are the symptoms of diabetes?” If you’re a medical practice that diagnoses or treats diabetes, then you’ll want to have content on your website and on social media that answers this question. Now that voice search is on the rise, it’s more important than ever to focus on questions and conversational phrases. In addition, make sure your content output is consistent. Rather than posting five new content pieces on your site at once, spread them out so that you consistently post one per week. This keeps users confident that you are an authority figure in the medical field.

 

  1. Mobile-Responsive Website – When searching for a medical professional, the majority of people start with a Google search on their smartphone. Since nearly everyone carries their smartphone with them throughout the day, it is more accessible than a desktop computer, and therefore, your efforts should focus on optimizing your site for mobile. The latest Google algorithm takes into account mobile-responsiveness as a top factor in determining a website’s ranking. Don’t fall onto the second or third search page because you didn’t consider mobile-responsiveness during your website development and maintenance. At Skyrush Marketing, we always look at both mobile and desktop load times, layouts, and more, to ensure that if someone is looking at a site from their smartphone, they aren’t missing out on any of the experience they could be having on desktop. In addition, it’s important to abide by ADA regulations when building your mobile-responsive website to ensure that all users, regardless of disability status, have an equal opportunity to experience all that the site has to offer.

 

  1. Omnichannel Communication – It’s not enough to be a multi-channel business anymore. Consumers, especially patients and medical consumers, want omnichannel communication available to them. They want to be able to search for your company on their smartphone, as well as transition between chat, telephone and more, seamlessly. For instance, if a patient found your healthcare organization online and did some research, then started a chat about a billing question, it’s crucial that the patient can also pick up the phone and talk to a person who is aware of where the situation was left off in the chat. This requires a specific omnichannel strategy, meaning that all your communication channels need to be aligned to ensure a cohesive user experience.

 

 

  1. Video Marketing – Videos have been shown to engage consumers more so than text and static images alone. While that doesn’t mean to stop blogging or posting images on social media, it does mean that video should be a part of your medical marketing strategy. This can include short 15-second pre-roll videos or even an entire channel dedicated to your practice. Just like you researched the common search terms for blog posts and website content, do the same for your video marketing. Start by identifying what you want to tell your patients. What message do they need to hear? Which topics resonate most with them? Then, build your storyboard around the appropriate topic. As we said in the beginning of this post, always go back to the patient centered approach when you’re developing the concepts for your videos.

 

  1. Online Reputation Management – When people are looking for a healthcare provider, they care about reputation. What happens when you Google your healthcare organization’s name? What comes up on that search is important, so part of your medical marketing strategy needs to involve reputation management. Most potential clients scour the internet for research before investing in anything. With major search engines displaying a negative reputation about your brand, you can potentially lose 80% of your potentially new clients before they even decide to click on your website. That’s why you need an aggressive team to handle your reputation management It’s important to reach out to patients to get their feedback and ask for reviews from current satisfied patients. If you get a negative review online, rather than just ignoring it or hiding it, try to find out where the person is coming from. Maybe it’s time to revamp your company’s online reputation.

This list is a great overview of trends that can be applied to most medical companies, but to really succeed with medical marketing, you need to look into the specific strategies that accentuate your specific brand’s area of expertise. Find your niche.

 

Skyrush Marketing: A Leader in Medical Marketing

There are tons of trends that come and go in digital marketing. It’s important to know which trends you should look into further, and which ones you should leave behind. At Skyrush Marketing, our digital marketing experts specialize in medical marketing and are always on top of the latest trends. Another core piece of our medical marketing strategy that applies to all of these trends is to carefully segment campaigns such as business development, patient acquisition, patient retention, and recruitment. By knowing how each segment differs in wants needs, and motivation, you can better reach your intended audience and drive results. At Skyrush Marketing, we do extensive research to determine which new techniques are best for each of our clients, using data to back up our decisions.

Contact us today for a free consultation.