When you have a business website, Search Engine Optimization is one aspect that you must consider a priority. Likewise, medical SEO has the potential to make thousands of people, searching for doctors or information related keywords, aware of your website. Not many people know much about SEO, but those who do know, charge heavily for their service and more often than not, do not produce the desired results.
This happens especially with white collar businesses, who are unable to devote their attention to the optimization of their websites. Such businesses, like hospitals or medical clinics, are run by people who are busy throughout the day and outsource the work to someone else.
However, there are a few things that are to be understood before you hire someone to work on your website, concerning medical SEO. There are a few key differences between the SEO for medical practices and SEO for a general business. Knowing these differences will help you explain your requirements better to the person you hire to work on the SEO for your healthcare website.
After all, you want the people in your general area to be aware of your practice. So there is no better way than to appear in the searches for all the keywords that are related to medicine.
Having Medical SEO Oriented Content On Your Blog Is Essential
This is one of the main sections that most SEO professionals do not properly work on. The reason behind this incompetence is that they do not have the proper knowledge of the field and are typically able to write a general overview of the disease or diagnosis. This general overview is not able to satisfy the people who are looking for specific information, thus resulting in dissatisfaction.
There are two ways that you can handle this issue. The first way is to hire a person that has in-depth knowledge about the specialization of your business. This person could be employed to write the blogs on your website, so that they are rich in the medical terms that make your business sound professional. The other way is to write the blogs yourself. However, the latter will take much of your time and you will not be able to properly focus on your patients, which may lead to a bad review.
Keep The Competition In Mind
One of the key aspects of running a successful business is always to be aware of your competition. You may not have to be aggressive towards their business approach, but you should still have detailed knowledge of their workings and daily operations. When you are dealing with a specific disease, there are only a few keywords most searched for in your area. Hence, you should be well aware of them, as well as of the essential backlinks that you need to obtain to stay a step ahead of your competition.
Understand The Keyword Searches
SEO for healthcare is riddled with the searches of the symptoms and remedies of the various diseases. While there are broad terms like searches for doctors, and organ systems around you, there are refined searches about the specifics of a disease too. People search for all sorts of things related to healthcare. Therefore if you want your business to pop up in those searches, you will have to cater to all the keywords, disregarding the search density and the specificity of the keyword.
Ensure That Your Website Has A Sitemap
A Sitemap is a layout of your website that will tell the Google bot everything about the various sections of your site. This helps the bot identify the information type on your website, delivering it to the people around the world in the form of snippets and knowledge bars. You can include things like the size of your practice (hospital or private clinic), specialty of the disease you focus on, or the reviews of the patients that you have treated in the past. All these things will help the bot identify vital information regarding your website, and present the data to the people in a better manner.
Keep An Eye Out On The Trends
You should always keep yourself updated with the various keywords attracting the attention of the people in your area. Google Trends, Google Alerts, or by subscribing to the various newsletters that are related to your practice can be helpful . The above information will be well-known to a person who is a medical practitioner, but a layman will not focus on such information as closely as you will. Knowing the latest trends in your field will help you convey a better message to the person or company that you will be handing over your website for medical SEO.
Keep An Eye Out For The Medic Google Algorithm Updates
If you go for a professional agency, this may not present itself to be an issue. However, if you hire a newbie to handle your medical SEO, he or she may not be aware of the Medic Updates to the Google Algorithm; a series of updates that affected the Healthcare Industry in 2017. Therefore, if you are on a budget and are wishing to save some money by hiring a fresher, you will have to specify that you want the SEO for your medical practice done in accordance with the Medic Updates.
There may be a chance that your competitor is relying on his medical SEO professional to handle all of the work on the website, and is not aware of the Medic Updates. Instructing your SEO professional to do so will give you an edge over your competition, and your website will begin to be ranked better in the search for the keywords that you want.
It Is Not The Same
All the above factors that have been discussed are not something that would apply to the SEO of a normal business site. SEO for healthcare is quite different as has been demonstrated above. You should have the knowledge of what to expect, even if you decide to spare no budget and hire the best possible SEO company for your digital marketing.