Using Healthcare SEO Strategies to Grow Your Medical Practice
When looking for a healthcare practitioner, many patients use Google to find the best choice in their location. If your website appears on top of the first page of the organic listings, you’ll receive plenty of clicks from potential patients. But you can’t expect your website to rank number one without implementing healthcare SEO strategies. By using the right techniques, you can put your medical practice in front of your target audience.
- Find the right keywords to target
Keyword research forms a considerable part of your SEO strategy. When finding what keywords to use, start with the medical services you offer and figure out what questions potential patients may be asking. Google’s Keyword Planner serves as a good tool to help you discover relevant keywords for your practice. You can also get ideas from the suggestions that show up when typing on Google’s search box.
Remember that you don’t have to stuff these keywords in your content. Find ways to insert them naturally while still creating quality content that satisfies the needs of your readers.
- Boost your content strategy
After researching what keywords to target, it’s time to optimize your content pages. When creating content, always remember to provide high-quality information. As a healthcare practitioner, your goal is to improve the lives of your patients. You can do this even before they visit your facility by offering informative content, whether it’s comprehensive coverage of a certain topic or a detailed description of your healthcare services.
- Consider adding visual elements
Online users love visual content, so it pays to consider using a variety of visual elements to further optimize your content pages. Creating videos can prove beneficial, especially for people who are visual learners. Webpages with videos tend to get more traffic, lower bounce rates, and greater than average time on page.
Aside from videos, you can also look at high-quality images and infographics. These visual elements can work wonders when executed properly. Just remember to optimize them by including the appropriate alt text.
- Increase website speed and security
Healthcare SEO strategies aren’t limited to keywords, content, and links. You should know that your site’s security, speed, and mobile-friendliness are ranking factors as well. If your website takes several seconds to load, do you think potential visitors have to patience to wait? They won’t hesitate to hit the return button and visit a different website. A slow website hurts your bottom line and your reputation at the same time.
Strive to improve user experience by increasing your website speed and enhancing security as well. Google’s PageSpeed Insights is an excellent tool to help you identify problem areas and how to fix them. You should also add an SSL certificate to encrypt your website and protect your visitors’ data.
Lastly, make sure that your website looks and functions optimally regardless of the device of your visitors. Since the majority of searches are now done on smartphones, you’d want to create a mobile-friendly website to make for a flawless user experience.