The Importance of Search Engine Optimization for Medical Practices

Effective SEO requires a dedicated specialist team – as this area of endeavour is astonishingly complex. Working with a search engine optimisation agency or a search engine optimisation company can help streamline this process significantly. There are different individuals involved in keyword research, copywriting for SEO content, integration with the vast array of Google Properties, On Page and Off Page content implementors etc. Our SEO team co-ordinates with the express intent of improving the “natural search result” ranking of your website, which is especially crucial in industries like healthcare. The goal is to improve the amount of relevant traffic to your website – so that you have the opportunity to convert your website visitors into paying patients, or referring doctors.

Some factors that are assessed by the SEO team include…

On Page Optimisation

On Page text content

This involves ensuring that we have pages on the topic of the term that we are targeting. The term should be appropriately incorporated into the text. There are a bunch of factors that control how this should be implemented. For example, choosing the best combination of HTML elements for the keyword term (such as heading versus paragraph text, Link text etc). Also, how many times the term appears throughout the text, and the density / how far away it is from other instances of that term. SEO copywriting needs to abide by these factors and still remain readable and comprehensible for people. This can be a difficult juggling act – as we are optimising for Google’s algorithm, but also need to ensure it works well for your site visitors, particularly in specialised fields like SEO for healthcare professionals.

On Page image content

For SEO target pages it can be beneficial to add appropriate high-quality images to the page. Google appreciates content that is comprehensive and high-quality.

Titles and Descriptions

This includes incorporation of keywords and how they might interact with the Page Title and Page Description.

Our SEO team will ensure this is working for SEO target pages.

Learn about Title Tags…

Learn about Descriptions…

Ensuring content quality

Factors include making sure you site incorporates only unique content. Google considers text that originated on another website (or even another page on your own site) when determining what is “Duplicate Content”. Google will typically penalise a site that incorporates duplicate content.

Learn about duplicate content…

Learn more about on-page ranking factors…

Off Page Optimisation

References to reputable 3rd Party websites

Our SEO team will undertake an ongoing program of ensuring your website is added to reputable directories. Incoming links to your website from a range of appropriate directories can assist greatly.

Utilise Google services

This is a good idea to do wherever it is practical. A good example is YouTube for videos. Hosting your videos on YouTube will help expose them to a wide variety of people that are using search and also gain some preferential treatment from Google (they own YouTube).

Adding Google Business entries for all of your physical locations (e.g.: offices where you consult) is also recommended. This can be highly beneficial as part of your social media and healthcare marketing strategy.

There are a variety of benefits to this, including featured search items and Google Maps that have a custom pin with your name.

DIY SEO

There are some things you can do to your website to help improve your SEO results. This is advisable either in conjunction with an SEO campaign, or without a campaign. Online Medical encourages our clients to spend some time and effort on these tasks.

Add new content on a regular basis. A News section is a good place to do this, but any unique, well-written site content that is relevant to your website is helpful. Online Medical offers a service to assist our clients.

Learn about News Copywriting Package…

Ensure custom Page Title and Page Description text. This is easy to edit via the CMS and will help convince your users to click on any link that does appear in a search result. Think of it as the executive summary of a page. This can help a page to rank well and also to improve click-through rates. Ideally, you should ensure all site pages include this custom text. Incorporation of keywords relating to that page may be useful, but should not be your overriding consideration when writing the text. Make sure the content is engaging and attractive to someone visiting the website. Ensure you restrain the text to an appropriate number of words.

Obtain links from well-regarded websites. For example, any websites such as directories, associations, hospitals etc where your name appears should also include a reference to your website URL. Over time this will tend to elevate your site within search results – particularly searches for your name. Links from portals for Realtime Online Booking Systems such as Health Engine or MyHealth1st can be helpful in this regard – though these types of sites are typically a paid service.