When it comes to marketing and attracting new patients, your goals are probably like any other business. You're looking to showcase your expertise, build trust, and convince patients to choose you from all of the other options out there. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) can make a big difference.
SEO is the process of improving your web presence so your website is found and ranked by search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! It's an ongoing effort that involves many different factors, from technical web design elements to link building to content development, and the landscape changes frequently. But one great place to start is optimizing your existing website content so it appeals to the specific patients you’re trying to reach.
Here are six simple steps to get you started from the content marketing and SEO experts at SEO Boost, Informatics' in-house SEO studio.
- Optimize Your Keyword Strategy
- Create Content for the Customer Journey
- Add Relevant Meta Tags
- Create Authoritative Content
- Incorporate Optimized Images
- Include a Specific Call to Action
1. Optimize Your Keyword Strategy
Your first step in optimizing web content is identifying the keywords that make the most strategic sense for your webpages and improving your use of them. After all, keywords are what people are typing into search engines; it's how you get found!
You will want to gather research data on the keywords that make the most sense to your particular healthcare niche, your patients and your business. Tools like Google AdWords Keywork Planner or SEMRush (used here at Informatics) can be used to understand a number of things about your keywords, including:
- Their search volume, or the average number of monthly user searches in a particular geography
- The level of competition, or how hard it will be to rank highly for a particular word or phrase
- The search intent, or what a user intends to accomplish by searching that term.
The most valuable keywords for your SEO strategy will be ones that split the difference between high volume and low competition.
You should also aim to balance short-tail and long-tail keywords within your strategy. Short-tail keywords target a broad topic in just a few words—phrases like “oncology doctor” or “dialysis clinic.” A long-tail keyword may be as long as a sentence, like, “Who is the best cancer doctor near me?”
Long-tail keywords are searched more infrequently, but allow your practice to answer very specific questions, giving you more search relevance. They also give you a better chance of reaching a truly targeted patient. Staying with the example of an oncology practice, perhaps there are doctors on your staff who have developed unique treatment protocols. “Innovative treatments for cancer” could be a valuable long-tail keyword, both for its specificity and its relevance.
Learn More: Download our complete guide to SEO.
2. Create Content for the Customer Journey
Google now handles more than 1 billion healthcare searches every day. But not all searches are done with the same intent. Just like customers at non-medical businesses, potential patients have different levels of interest. These levels of interest can be tracked according to the sales funnel, and content and keywords should be tuned to satisfy patient needs at different stages.
Awareness
These are considered the top of the funnel, the first and largest of the stages where the goal is simply getting a prospect’s attention and planting your brand there for when they need it. The awareness stage is where you engage and educate on broad topics, helping patients begin to narrow down their own needs or research interests.
A potential blog topic could be “The Most Common Types of Cancer,” or “The Cancer Treatment Journey,” for example. Your patients may not even know they’re in the market for your services yet, so avoid discussing your own brand too deeply at this stage.
Consideration
The middle of the funnel is where content lives that speaks to someone who is already aware of their needs. This user is now “considering” a solution to address this problem. This stage of the funnel is going to be best suited to more detailed and in-depth content, such as longer-form blogs and explainer videos.
Video, in particular, is great in this section of the funnel because of its ability to communicate dense or scary medical topics that are still important to understand.
Almost 90% of marketers say video content increases a viewer’s understanding of the product or service. For an example of a healthcare leader doing great work in the middle of the funnel, the Mayo Clinic has a series called "Mayo Clinic Minutes" with over 1,000 videos that give highly focused educational content.
If you’re looking to expand your content into video, a full-service marketing agency like Informatics can use interviews, animation, drone footage and many other tools to create compelling videos, either as a one-off, or as part of a series.
Purchase
This stage of the funnel is also referred to by some as the “conversion” or “decision” stage. By now, a prospect has gathered a significant amount of information, and is ready to take action. This is the narrowest part of the funnel, and the trick is getting them through it—how do you convince someone to take action without having an overly annoying sales pitch?
One method is testimonials—let others make the sales pitch for you! It’s a myth that HIPAA prohibits the capture and sharing of any content that features patients. HIPAA requirements must be taken into account for all testimonials, whether written or video-based, but with clear communication of expectations and intentions, it’s absolutely doable.
HIPAA-compliant case studies also show domain expertise and can be powerful in the purchase stage. These case studies can be showcased on your site, as well as shared directly with potential patients who have already engaged with your practice, by following you on social media or signing up for a newsletter, for example.
3. Add Relevant Meta Tags
Each page on your website needs relevant meta data to help it attract visitors in the sea of search results. Meta data refers to HTML tags that communicate to a search engine what a page is about. The results you see in Google are pulled from the meta data of a site.
Meta Page Title: Use 60 characters or less to give your page a title. This will show up in the tab at the top of a user’s browser and as the link in search results. Keywords should be included here, as long as they feel natural and relevant to the corresponding page content.
Meta Page Description: Use 155 characters or less to describe what this landing page is about. This will show up below the Meta page title in search results. Again, incorporate your keyword here!
Another HTML tag you will want to create is the H1 header tag. There should only be one H1 on each page and it should accurately title the page. If you chose oncology as your keyword, the H1 tag should include “oncology.”
4. Create Authoritative Content
Google is the world’s largest search engine, by far. And while they closely guard the constantly evolving algorithm that leads to search results, the company has been very clear about how they approach YMYL topics. That stands for “Your Money or Your Life,” and Google has determined these subjects must be approached with accuracy, honesty, and reliability.
In order to establish your authority (in the eyes of Google):
Consider Including "About Us" Information
If multiple members of your practice are writing blogs or posting case studies, attribute those physicians specifically in on-page content. List the physicians’ relevant degrees, certifications and awards. Consider adding outbound links to physicians’ alma maters, certifying organizations, and any other organizations to add credibility to the physician and the organization’s web presences.
Establish Authority in Multiple Domains
A great blog, case study, or testimonial doesn’t just have to live on your website. Content should be shared by relevant members of your staff on LinkedIn and personal websites. Backlinks (inbound links) to your content are an important SEO tool, and the more valuable the content, the more likely the content will be shared by people outside the organization’s direct circle of influence.
The repetition of authoritative identifying information across different platforms is also favorable for SEO. The web-crawlers can “read” the consistency as the same details appear in multiple contexts.
Work With and Quote Other Experts
Expanding that circle of influence can sometimes be the result of directly tapping into another expert’s existing circle. Consider collaborating or hosting guest content by the leaders in your specific field – the physicians who are innovating on new techniques or doing groundbreaking research in your area of practice.
And if collaboration isn’t possible, you can also build authority by quoting the most authoritative sources in your content. Make sure to attribute quotes to influential thought leaders, including outbound links when possible.
5. Incorporate Optimized Images
Images are also an important part SEO, particularly images that have been formatted with SEO best-practices in mind. Images help break up the content and add a visual aesthetic to the page, which improves the overall user experience—one of Google's biggest goals.
Include high-quality, web-friendly images that support the content on the page. Quality can mean investing in professional photography services, or drawing on tips like these for "Impactful Imagery to Use on Medical Practice Websites."
Web-friendly images are 72dpi in resolution and not too large. A large file size will slow down your page load time and will actually hurt your SEO.
Once you have added the images, ensure that they have alt tags. An alt tag is another HTML tag that defines the contents of an image for search engines. It’s also a tool that’s vital for making the web experience accessible for users who utilize screen readers. Your alt tag should include keywords when possible.
6. Include a Specific Call to Action
Your final step is to make sure that your page content has a solid call to action (CTA). This CTA will take the reader to the next step. After all, what was the point of all this work if you aren’t converting the user?
Whether your CTA is to fill out a contact form, call the hospital, or send an email, you will want it to be straightforward and easy to complete. Include actionable text and a link to your contact page along with any piece of web content you want to share.
If you need helping to make sure patients can find and engage with your healthcare website, contact us today!
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