With a large majority of web users looking online for information on medical treatments and procedures, a good healthcare website design has become a significant consideration. This is to ensure that healthcare businesses show up in natural search results. It is the best way to beat competition and stand out to prospective patients, and for this you need a good SEO campaign. Search engines are the primary gateways to success for any online business. A successful search engine optimization campaign requires a solid foundation to endure challenges from competitors and changes in search engine algorithms. A carefully managed SEO campaign will help medical practices or businesses to gain new customers, boost brand awareness and establish a robust online presence. The best way to ensure a solid SEO campaign is to hire reliable medical SEO services.
Whether outsourcing, or performing SEO in-house, there are some important factors one should consider:
- Be familiar with the basics: The world of SEO is complex, so knowing the basics is essential. You must have a clear understanding about how search engines work and how SEO can improve site rankings with time. Search engine ranking is based on relevance, site significance to a query, and the site’s perceived trustworthiness. The combination of optimization tactics can improve website relevance and site authority can be built up with link building.
- Analyze your present healthcare website: Consider what your website platform is like, whether it is based on a modern or an outdated platform. It is important to have a modern platform that is fast, secure, and easier to optimize. Also, consider whether the present website design needs to be changed. Typically, designs that are not user-friendly or poorly designed may have to be changed. Changing to a new platform is easy because you can just change it to a new theme and customize it as you want. Before starting a campaign, it is also important to identify how you are getting visitors to your website. You must know what sources people are coming from, and this information can be obtained from Google Analytics.
- Carry out an SEO audit: Any SEO campaign should start with an SEO audit. A site audit will help to locate areas that need improvement in terms of on-page SEO and can also help determine to strengths and weaknesses of your off-page SEO.
- Social media engagement: Once you have made the necessary changes to your site as suggested by the SEO audit, work on social media to drive traffic and ensure that you are moving in the right direction. If people are promoting your content on social media, it means that you are on the right path. If they are not promoting your content, it is necessary to overhaul the content you are sharing on social media.
- Local SEO: Most businesses have a website to promote their products and services. It is important to be found in local search results, primarily via Google Maps. Google My Business listings will provide more exposure for your website through the local market.
- Keyword research: Keywords form the basis of any SEO campaign, and so keyword strategy is very important. Google keyword planner tool, queries from Google Webmaster tools, competitor keywords research, Google auto-complete are all tools and ways to do keyword research.
- Content strategy: Content is still king in 2018, and you need to execute a content strategy correctly to ensure high ranking of search engines. With a good content strategy, it is easier to promote your website on social media and gain more targeted traffic. You should therefore have a blog or other content resource and publish content on a frequent, consistent basis. This content should be promoted via your social media channels to reach a bigger audience.
- A strong mobile website: It is predicted that mobile search will soon outgrow desktop search.
- Users are not as patient as they are on desktop. So, simplify mobile checkout. Minimize the number of fields in a form and provide better user experience using visual calendar and enable guests check out as well as one-click checkout for returning customers.
- Implement a call button on all pages.
- Ask your customers who are mobile browsing and ask whether they would like to start up a shopping cart that can be sent to them later in an email. This helps the user to resume any time in the future from where they left off and from any other device.
Mobile screen doesn’t have much space as desktop. So, keep it simple and single focus is the key to boost sales.
- Consider whether you have enough time to spend for an effective SEO campaign: SEO is not a short-term activity; it requires long-term dedication and active participation to gain optimal results. The responsibility of a medical business owner doesn’t end with hiring a healthcare digital marketing
- They should be willing to spend time on SEO campaign, and invest whatever effort is needed.
- Provide a wide range of information to the SEO team because it helps the SEO team understand everything about the business, target market, primary focus and overall goals.
- To begin the campaign, one should provide phone verifications for local listings and login credentials for current accounts such as Google Analytics or social media.
- It is important to monitor the campaign continuously and keep an eye on the progress made, and also take steps to work with the SEO team for positive results.
- Also, be active on social media platforms and participate in discussions and forums and post valuable content on your website.
Remember that the medical business owners or medical practitioners will have the responsibility for at least 20% of the work, while the SEO team will take care of the remaining. It is important to spend time to respond to emails, and stay engaged online.
- Sufficient budget to meet the SEO campaign needs: Typically, SEO campaigns are affordable, but business owners must be willing to and have sufficient money to invest in whatever is needed to see positive results. The investment needed depends on various factors such as your online authority at present, the number of geographic locations you wish to target, the competition level of your market and also the strategies your competitors are using. A package that covers all these factors could be expensive but is sure to yield impressive results with time.
- Staying focused: Though an SEO campaign can focus on multiple products and services, it is important to be focused on something specific especially at the beginning of the campaign. Google shows results based on users’ keyword phrases, results that are closely related to the specific topic or phrase. If you are targeting many products and services, the SEO efforts may go in vain because Google may not consider you an authority in any particular service/product. Determine what is most important for the business and create a strategy that focuses on those specific objectives. Once when the primary focus is establish edit becomes easier to successfully build an online presence and one can start focusing on other segments.
- Invest in SEO that focuses on bringing you business leads through web search: All businesses may not require SEO efforts to be successful because they may flourish via referrals or word of mouth. Take for instance, businesses such as plumbing and carpentry; or those recognized brands that have already tasted success via other marketing methods such as TV ads and billboard. In such cases, you don’t need to unnecessarily invest in SEO.
To conclude, before starting an SEO campaign make sure that you need this kind of promotion. The type of marketing you need depends on your particular industry and target market. There is no doubt that SEO is a great option for businesses that seek more leads and clients online. Running an effective on- and off- page SEO campaign requires expert online marketing knowledge. A company providing digital marketing for healthcare organizations can help implement successful SEO campaigns for medical businesses whether physician practices, hospitals, pharmacies, medical software companies, or medical device manufacturers. SEO requires long-term commitment on the business owner’s part and you must be an active participant in the campaign. You need to be patient enough because the results may not be immediate, and require some time to actually be visible.
