Just like customers in any other industry, patients are also relying on search engines to choose healthcare providers and services. If your medical practice isn’t optimized for local search, you could be missing out on your potential patients. A local SEO strategy helps your healthcare practice to be easily found by patients who can then get faster access to the required medical care. Reliable local search optimization services can provide customized local SEO services to ensure that your site is visible to the right audience.
According to WebFX, Google sees an astonishing 100 billion healthcare-related searches annually, translating to 70,000 health-related queries per minute every day. Since 2015, “near me” searches for healthcare services have doubled, reflecting a growing trend of people seeking convenient care options. Additionally, 75% of patients now rely on online searches to find doctors, dentists, medical care, and other healthcare providers. In the U.S., 58% of adults use the Internet to research health or medical information, emphasizing the significant role of digital platforms in connecting patients with healthcare services. All of these statistics show the significance of having effective healthcare marketing services.
Why Local SEO Matters for Medical Practices
The number of people searching for health-related information online continues to grow at a staggering rate. In fact, a study conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that about 80 percent of internet users (93 million Americans) have searched for a health-related topic online. This figure includes people searching for information about a particular physician or medical practice.
Local SEO has a geographical component. With local SEO, search engines rank and favor websites that have relevant and trusted locations. SEO for physicians or healthcare practices need to be structured around the specific business location. For instance, Google’s algorithm for FIND
For instance, people who happen to make a search using the expression “Smartlipo in Manhattan” are more likely to consider the first page of the search results –
7 Local SEO Tips
An effective local search strategy plays a key role in helping patients evaluate alternatives and make an informed decision on where to receive the best care.
Here listed are local SEO tips to increase Google traffic –
- Update your Google listing – Creating or updating your Google Business Profile (GBP) listing is one of the best practices to strengthen your medical SEO campaign. GBP is a free tool for managing your online presence across Google and includes Google Search, Google reviews and Google Maps. GBP includes important information like your business’ address, phone number, and hours of operation when someone searches for your practice on Google.
However, setting one GBP page is simple and can be easily accessed. However, before you create a new one, make sure to search for your medical brand name and check whether any duplicate listing already exists. If you notice multiple listings for your medical practice, take time to remove and consolidate them into one clear profile. When setting up the GBP listing, make sure to follow a few things to boost local SEO –
- Show your hours of operation.
- List your business under 5 relevant categories.
- Include main focus keywords and city in your business description.
- Include exterior and interior images of your clinic.
- Fill out your main services.
- Ensure your name, address, and phone number match your contact info on the website.
Updating the contact information related to your medical website will help patients to contact you easily. Inconsistency in these details can confuse prospective patients and also have a negative impact on the ranking. It is essential to ensure that the NAP details on GBP are accurate on all other online business listings.
- Generate positive patient reviews – A constant flow of positive patient reviews is an essential element in establishing the quality and trustworthiness of any medical practice. In fact, review quality and speed help to improve Google’s overall ranking algorithms. Reports from Bright Local’s (2017 Local Consumer Review Survey) suggest that 85 percent of customers believe online reviews as much as personal recommendations. In fact, most patients use online reviews while looking out for a new physician. Reviews are often the first impression potential patients have about your practice, so they can directly impact patient numbers. Encourage patients to share their valuable experiences on your online service review profile. This can be done via a follow-up call or email after an appointment. In addition, you can place links and call-to-action on your website and encourage visitors to review your practice. Some of the most popular review sites for medical professionals are Health grades, Yellow pages, Yelp, Yahoo Local and Google+ Local.
- Separate location pages for each office – If your medical practice has multiple offices at different locations, then it is important that each office has its own distinct location page. This will ensure flow of web traffic from each specific area. Make sure that the contact details are given correctly on a separate page.
- Build Citations – A citation is an online mention of your clinic or website. These mentions often include your business name, address and phone number (NAP). It is important to make sure your NAP is consistent across all your online directory listings. Citations matter because they directly impact local search. For instance, when someone searches for a physician online, Google will display local results first. In addition, your website will be more visible to thousands of potential patients that use online directories. General directories like Yelp, Yellow pages, Bing Places and Superpages are specialized directories for medical practices.
- Optimize pages for local keywords – Finding the right local keywords is the most important part of any SEO strategy. Focusing on local keywords is more useful for medical practitioners. The local keyword comprises medical search term and name of the place. Start your keyword research with tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, and LSI Graph to get some idea about your keywords and user behavior. Use these tools to search for keywords with relatively high monthly search volumes, keyword variations with synonyms and related phrases, and relevant long-tail keywords to include in the page’s content. If possible, regularly create new content, inserting keywords that refer to your particular practice, its location, and your services. For instance, publish local news stories, how-to articles, location guides and behind-the-scenes stories.
- Optimize voice search – Voice search has grown rapidly in these years with the advent of several new platforms like Google Home, Amazon Echo/Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri/iPhone and more. In local SEO, it is important to optimize for how people ask questions when they speak into devices, as opposed to how they type out their searches. When compared to doing regular searches, people may use long-tail keywords when doing voice searches. Hence, it is important to adjust healthcare SEO content to fit correctly into the conversational tone of someone speaking. It is important to consider the user intent when optimizing for voice, as these searches are most often performed when the user needs a specific piece of information. For instance, if a potential patient asks – which is the top, reputable pain management center in Brooklyn, NYC – they are expecting a quick and useful answer. On the other hand, if another potential patient uses voice search to ask what are the working hours of a specific healthcare center – this information should also be readily available.
- Create a social media presence – Many medical practices now depend on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram to reach out to potential patients. Medical professionals can tie their business to local events and the community in order to make themselves the appealing local choice. Make sure to update your social media pages regularly with accurate NAP details. You can ask patients to review your services on social media platforms and different healthcare mobile apps. Having a presence on social media will enhance local visibility and make it easier for patients to locate you.
Medical SEO services have become indispensable in today’s digital healthcare landscape. As people will always be searching for local healthcare practitioners to find what they need, you will need to localize content to your target audience while keeping an eye on competitors. A local focus allows you to concentrate on indexing well in the area where it matters the most. By focusing on healthcare local search optimization services, you can ensure that your practice is appearing in front of the locals who are most likely to become your patients.
