5 Ways New Practices Should Be Using Medical SEO

When starting any new business, you need to do everything possible to establish yourself in the marketplace, draw customers away from your competitors, and work towards that magic break-even mark. However, most people already have a doctor, dentist, physiotherapist, chiropractor, or other medical expert. So, how can you make your mark in a sector bereft of competition? Medical SEO is the solution to getting your foot in the door.

In this article, we’ll teach you 5 ways you should use SEO; but first, here are a few reasons why medical-practice search engine optimization is crucial for getting your business off the ground:

• Increases brand awareness amongst potential patients
• Drives organic traffic to your website, giving you the best chance of a conversion
• Establishes you as a viable alternative to other practices
• Saves the budget you planned to spend on advertising
• If done correctly, it can produce results quickly

Anyway, now you know why you should do the things we’re about to discuss. Let's get into the details of SEO for medical practices.

1. Keyword Optimized Content

One of the staple elements of search engine optimization for medical practices is keywords. Keyword optimization consists of researching to discover the search queries your potential patients are using and including them in your content. Sounds simple, right? However, as a new practice, you’ve got a few obstacles in your way. As your website isn’t established and reputable just yet, you’ll have difficulty ranking for the most competitive keywords. Therefore, you need to select key terms wisely to ensure you get the most amount of traffic possible.

Keyword research tools such as Semrush and Ahrefs will give you detailed information, such as average search volume and a difficulty score, telling you how hard it will be to rank in the top spot for any particular search term.

Our top tip for keyword-optimized content is to include them naturally. Don’t squeeze them into sentences or make for difficult reading. Additionally, try to use them within titles, headings, and subheadings.

2. Highly Targeted Landing Pages

As with any marketing or sales approach, the more targeted and specific you are, the better chance you have of securing the conversion, or in your case, the patient. Targeted landing pages that focus on a particular treatment, patient type, or locality are a great way to drive engaged users to your website.

For example, if you’re a dentist in Seattle providing services to child patients, you could create a landing page with target keywords such as “pediatric dentist in Seattle” or “children's dentist in Seattle.” You know that only people looking for that specific service will land on your website. Additionally, you can completely tailor the content here to speak to parents, detailing the services you offer and how you’ll take care of all their child’s dental needs.

3. Page Loading Speed Improvements

Let’s get a little bit technical now. When creating a website, you have to cater to bots and people. The best way to do this is to create a fluid user experience. Society has become accustomed to having access to everything they need immediately, meaning websites need to offer the same. How do they do that? By loading incredibly quickly and not leaving users waiting around. Search engines know how impatient users are, so the quicker your website loads, the better Google thinks it is, meaning you’ll be pushed up the rankings.

This is one of the most important aspects of SEO for medical clinics. If you don’t do what you can to make your site load quickly, not only will users be frustrated, but search engines will punish you with low rankings.

If you’re unsure whether your website hits the mark for loading speeds, try using Google PageSpeed Insights. Usually, the most detrimental errors that need resolving are:

• High-quality images with large files sizes
• Too much third-party code
• No lazy loading or caching mechanism in place

4. Mobile Responsiveness

If you look around on your commute, in a restaurant, or in any public space, you’ll see the vast majority of people buried in their phones. So it won’t come as a surprise that over 50% of users are now searching on mobile. Taking steps to ensure your website functions perfectly across all devices is a must for any business. With such growth in mobile search, responsiveness has become crucial to SEO medical marketing—Google now ranks many websites based on their mobile experience, not a desktop!

To test the mobile responsiveness of your pages, head over to Google Mobile-Friendly Test. This website will tell you exactly how your page is performing and any fixes you need to act on. However, if you follow these tips, you should be on the right track:

• No content running off the side of the page, making a user scroll left and right
• All text is in a font size that is readable for the majority of people
• Clickable elements aren’t too close together, causing users to hit one by mistake

5. Local Medical SEO Listings

Local SEO for medical professionals is the game changer when it comes to attracting website traffic and new patients. If you do a quick search for “doctors near me,” you’ll notice you’re presented with a map, pinpointing the top three recommendations with a “see more” button below. While all of the points we’ve already mentioned contribute to local SEO, there are other more important elements.

Firstly, you need to create a Google Business profile and complete the information accurately. Then, you should encourage existing patients and new patients to leave you a Google Review. While you're doing this, take steps to add your new practice to every relevant online directory you can think of or find—these are known as citations. The aim of these local SEO techniques is to fire your new practices into the top three local ranking positions and put your pin on the map.

Personalized, local, and hyper-specific is the future of SEO.

In Summary

Over 68% of all users click on a website on one of the top three search results. As a new business, establishing yourself in the top positions creates an ora of credibility around your medical practice, making potential new patients aware of you and building trust in your brand.

If you’d like the assistance of our medical industry SEO services team, get in touch today, and we’ll guide you on your journey to the top of the rankings as the most-trusted medical practice in your area.