In today’s digital marketing landscape, Google is king. With more than 2 billion monthly users, Google search is the primary driving force behind SEO and its many sub-practices. To that end, a local and targeted search is critical to any well-strategized medical marketing strategy. Local search optimizes your business listings so you appear at the top of results for people searching for businesses like yours in your area. Targeted search drives traffic to your website from relevant keywords and phrases relevant to your medical practice or facility. In this blog post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about medical search engine optimisation blackpoolas it pertains to medical practices and facilities. Let’s dive in!
What is SEO and how does it relate to medical marketing?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to your website from organic search results. The more people that visit your website, the more potential patients you have. And the more potential patients you have, the more money you can make. Simply put, SEO is important because it’s the only way to guarantee people find your website. Without it, you could be spending a lot of money on advertising and marketing, but you’re getting very little return on investment because no one is seeing your ads. With it, you can spend less on ads and get more return on investment because your website is being found organically.
Why is Medical SEO important?
Unlike other types of businesses, medical practices have very specific needs when it comes to SEO. Since people are often seeking treatment for serious or life-threatening ailments, your potential patients are going to be highly motivated to find your clinic as quickly as possible. For that reason, medical keywords are even more important than other industries.
After all, you don’t have time to wade through page after page of search engine results to find what you need. You need results at the top, or else you might not find them at all. Such keywords are known as long-tail keywords. A long-tail keyword is a keyword phrase that is three or more words long. These are generally more specific and therefore will have a lower search volume, but a higher conversion rate.
Keywords and keyword research
As we discussed above, medical keywords are not the same as general keywords. This means you can’t simply choose a keyword and expect it to drive traffic. You have to research which keywords are most relevant to your practice, or else you can hire a medical SEO consultant to help you identify and generate relevant keywords, and focus on optimizing your content around those keywords.
Luckily Google has a built-in Keyword Planner tool that you can use to research keywords that are relevant to your practice. Not only can you see how many people search for a given keyword, but you can also get a general sense of how difficult it will be to rank for that keyword. Keep in mind that the Keyword Planner is an estimation tool and doesn’t always reflect the true number of searches. That’s why it’s important to look at multiple keyword research tools and use a combination of volume, difficulty, and cost-to-profit ratios to determine which keywords to focus on.
Content Strategy – Writing for People vs. Google
The primary goal of any quality content is to engage, inform, and persuade your readers. For example, if you want to build a relationship with your readers and create brand loyalty, then your content should be helpful and applicable to their lives. However, Google’s main goal is to provide users with the information they are searching for through accurate and reliable search engine results. This means that even if you wrote the best, most engaging content in the world, Google might not rank it higher if it doesn’t meet the criteria for a high-quality result. And since there are a lot of people searching for medical information on the internet, you need to optimize your content for these people as well as Google. In order to do this, you need to understand the anatomy of a perfect medical article.
Website Optimization
In addition to optimizing your content, you also need to optimize your website. This includes but is not limited to the following:
- Good URL Structure – Your URL structure should be clean and organized so that it’s easy for Google to understand.
- Proper Keyword Usage – Make sure your most important keywords are sprinkled throughout your entire website.
- Strong Internal Links – A link from one page on your site to another is an indicator to Google that those pages are related.
- Mobile-Friendly Design – Device usage and traffic from mobile devices are on the rise. Make sure your website is optimized for mobile so that people can find you easily on their devices.
- Strong Social Media Presence – Your social media accounts are part of your website, too. Make sure to optimize your pages for each platform so you can get more traffic from your followers.
Ads (PPC and Display)
As we’ve already discussed, when it comes to digital marketing, there are many moving pieces that need to be accounted for. One of these pieces is paid search ads, which are also known as PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns. PPC is a great way to generate leads in the short term; however, it’s important to note that these leads often aren’t as high-quality as your organic leads. They’re the folks who clicked on the “Sponsored” tab at the top of the search results and aren’t actively searching for your services. PPC ads can be very useful, but they’re also very expensive. Make sure to research which keywords are worth investing in and implement retargeting campaigns to get the most out of each ad dollar.
Conclusion
The world of digital marketing is ever-changing. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow, so it’s important to stay up to date with the latest trends in search engine optimization. In this article, we’ve discussed the importance of medical SEO and how to optimize your website for better results. If you need help implementing any of these strategies, there’s a medical digital marketing company that has a team of highly experienced marketers in the medical field.
