SEO for Hospitals and Healthcare

I have a question for you, Have you ever Googled Yourself?

To the point, when patients from your town search on the Internet for the services that you also provide, does your website ranks on Google?

Unfortunately, if you are like most Doctors who don’t have their own website then your patients would probably have a hard time to find you online even if they search from your name.

Since, it is kind of behavior of searchers, they never go beyond the “top 10” search results. If your Hospital website does not come on top 10 searches of Google, it means you are missing your 80% of patients who search online.

How to Use SEO for Hospitals

If you don’t know How to do SEO for a Hospital Website, then read out this article. I have spent my 14 years in SEO. So I think it would be a great pleasure to discuss some amazing tips of SEO with you.

What does an SEO mean to you?

According to me, SEO or search engine optimization is the process by which your website is improved to enable search engines like Google and Bing to rank your site within search results. An SEO campaign is made up of a number of steps and best practices to ensure that your site is being shown to the right audience, and hospital SEO can quickly become very specific, depending on your specialties and needs.

SEO also keeps your site up with any changes that search engines make to how they display information to users. Without SEO, your site’s visibility could fluctuate greatly and prevent you from reaching potential patients as your competitors move ahead of you on the search results pages.

This is one reason why it’s necessary that an SEO campaign for hospitals and healthcare needs to be ongoing rather than a one-off implementation, in order to adjust according to frequent updates by search engines.

Steps for How to do SEO for a Hospital Website

Site performance can affect relevance.

To get patients in the door, they need to be able to access the information they searched for quickly. The longer your site takes to load, the more likely the searcher will bounce back to other search results. Google translates this behavior as dissatisfaction, which is a #1 ranking factor.

To remain relevant, you’ll need a well performing site.

While there are hundreds of factors that affect the speed of your site, some are more common than others:

• Un-optimized images
• Content served without HTTP compression
• Too many CSS image requests
• No caching information
• Excessive plugin use
• Not using a CDN for static files
• A slow web host

For a quick assessment on your organization’s website, check out Google’s Page Speed Insights tool.

Publish content… lots of content.

We mean readable, usable, and interesting content that will help your patients. Examples of digital health content marketing strategies include (but are not limited to) the following:

1. Post regularly on your blog
2. Build a page dedicated to educational resources
3. Hold webinars, podcasts
4. Post YouTube videos

A solid content strategy can be extremely helpful when it comes to SEO. Make sure that all of your new content flows with best practices information architecture to compliment your SEO strategy.

Be social.

If you’re publishing useful content, then SHARE it via social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Also, did you know that as of 2014, YouTube became the second largest search engine? When you choose platforms that align with your target audience, you increase the likelihood of them encountering your brand. Think about all of the link-back potential!

Can you add a Twitter feed to your website? Can you easily embed YouTube videos?

Don’t forget the added benefit of integrating your social channels on your site!

Embeddable videos and social feeds are a great call-to-action that can encourage site visitors to become even more engaged with your organization.

Optimize your use of keywords.

Of course keywords are at the foundation of SEO, but make sure to use the appropriate keywords in the most natural places on your website.

Keep in mind that people do not always search for the exact terms that you would use as a healthcare professional. For example, you might think to search for an “orthopedic specialist,” but a patient might simply search for the term “foot doctor.”

Isn’t that the whole point of SEO? Make sure your website is a modern tool that will help you engage and acquire new patients. To stand apart from your competition for patient engagement, your web property should be modern, easy to navigate, and super useful.

So what technologies do you have right now that could be integrated with your website?

If your site hasn’t gone through a refresh in the last 3 years, it’s time to evaluate what you might be missing in functionality:

• Is it easy to make appointments online?
• Can you add directions to your facilities?
• What about emergency room wait-times?
• How is your content organized currently?

Make sure your website is appealing, has interesting features, relevant content, and make it incredibly easy for patients to get in contact with your organization.

To consult more about how to do SEO for a Hospital website. Feel free to contact me.