Boost your health care practice’s SEO

Ever Googled medical practices in your city and wondered why some rank higher than others?

It’s not luck. Clinics that rank better invest in content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) to drive more traffic to their websites.

Here are five ways to show up above your competitors in the search engines:

1. Make use of both paid and organic traffic

With more web traffic comes higher visibility and more booked appointments; but do you know how that traffic finds you? Traffic drivers typically fall into two categories:

• Organic traffic finds your website without the help of paid advertising. It results from an investment in building credibility and trust with search engines, social platforms and other websites. Common traffic drivers include:

· Search engine optimization

· Referrals from other sites

· Social media shares

· Blogging and thought leadership

• Paid traffic finds your website through purchased advertisements and sponsored placements. The results are almost instantaneous. Paid traffic drivers include:

· Pay-per-click ads (e.g. Google Adwords)

· Banner ads on other websites

· Social media ads

· Sponsored/promoted content

A best practice for many organizations may be to use both organic and paid traffic drivers.

2. Optimize your website

Your website is both the public face of your organization and arguably its best salesperson, but you won’t win any new patients if no one can find it. Optimize content for both the search engines and for prospective clients. Keep in mind that Google is now incorporating user experience as a ranking factor.

The best websites have:

• Relevant keywords. This includes content, URL structure, meta-descriptions, title tags, image descriptions and more.
• Responsive designs. Fast load times and a friendly user interface are essential. Your website should be easily navigable and offer clear calls to action on every page that instruct visitors what to do next (e.g., “Book a Free Consultation” or “Learn More.”)
• Mobile optimization. Mobile searches have exceeded desktop searches in volume. This means your website should be responsive across all platforms.

• Local optimization. Local SEO makes it easier for local users to find you. You’ll need to make sure search engines know where you are and what areas you serve.
• Multi-location optimization. If your clinic has multiple branches in different locations, it’s important that each of those is locally optimized. Each location should have its own unique page optimized for driving directions, nearby landmarks, etc.
• NAP Consistency. “NAP” stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. It’s crucial to have these elements correctly coded on your website and consistent across the internet.

3. Focus on content

Quality content is the backbone of a successful website. It’s what draws new visitors in, earns you attention from your community and keeps satisfied patients coming back for more. The only way your website will rank well on search engines is with a foundation of high-value content.

Your content should roughly align to three principles:

1. Content should be driven by research. Take into account what content your audience wants, then use a tool (like Google’s Keyword Planner) to compile and refine a list of keywords that you can build your content around.

2. Content should address your patients’ concerns. FAQs make great material for blog posts and e-books. You can also come up with topic ideas by reviewing the questions people are asking on websites like Quora.

3. Content should fill a gap. If you serve a niche that others don’t, you’ll uncover more backlink opportunities and face less competition for your keyword rankings.

4. Build quality backlinks

There are lots of ways to build links. Once you’ve conquered things like high-quality directories and physician profile websites, you’ll need to work on more resource-intensive tactics to separate yourself from the competition.

Guest blogging and contributing educational content to credible websites are great ways to win some backlinks for your website. You can pitch stories to editors or offer yourself up as an industry expert for quotes and advice.

Make sure that the websites you reach out to are trusted and share topical relevance to your own content. Doing this exposes you to their existing readership, further establishes your credibility and builds trust in your own services by association.

5. Measure what’s working

Don’t base your marketing decisions on gut feelings. Look at the numbers—the right numbers—to understand which marketing channels are working and which ones are dead ends.

Monitor which keywords people use to find your website with Keyword Rank Checking apps. Using tools that track local and non-local terms or those that let you narrow your search down to specific map listings or zip codes will give you a better sense of your local and regional performance.

The only way to withstand the test of time is to make sure that you’re offering the best link-worthy content and make it easy to share.

Shareef Defrawi is president and founder of Bonafide. The original version of this article appeared on his blog.

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