Recently, online platforms have dominated health care, such as telehealth and telemedicine, online prescriptions, zoom meet therapy sessions and so much more. Healthcare needs are always changing, but this particular uptick has shifted the healthcare marketing landscape.
In short, it means that you probably have to rethink your entire SEO marketing strategy to stay relevant and keep up with the change. One of the most important, and often overlooked, aspects of healthcare marketing is how your brand populates online, typically known as search engine optimization (SEO).
An SEO marketing campaign for healthcare that focuses specifically on these potential patients can help your brand rank higher on search engine results pages for healthcare-related keywords. In today’s fast-paced, digital world, healthcare SEO is rapidly becoming a necessity because of the growing popularity of medical searches and references.
It’onsider how you can use SEO marketing to make your brand stand out. NewGen understands the importance of SEO and we can help with all your SEO needs! Here are several ways you should be using SEO for your brand.
1. What Type of Medical Information Does Your Audience Care About?
Healthcare content doesn’t organically have the same traffic volume that recreational subject matter typically draws in, however, audiences looking for healthcare content are oftentimes seeking educational information.
Because a healthcare audience is seeking information, the intention behind their search is more goal-orientated. This means that written content should be more direct.
Keep content short and simple. It is easy to get lost in the dense information of healthcare. However, it’s essential to keep the information accurate while maintaining the audience engaged.
It’s also important to consistently produce content related to your brand as this makes it more likely for your audience to come across your content if there is more of it available online. For example, if you are promoting your dental practice, your blog articles must contain specific searchable terms that relate to dentistry. Create content as if you were a patient that is a part of your practice.
Make sure your content addresses your audience’s problems and piques their interest. For healthcare in particular local SEO search terms are extremely effective such as “Orthopedic Surgeon near me” or “Closest pediatrics”.
2. Healthcare Key Phases
At the core of healthcare marketing, lies key phrases that will help your articles rank and populate for search queries to show up for potential audience members. A key phrase is a short, simple descriptor that people type into search engines such as Google or DuckDuckGo to find answers to a particular question or discover information on a topic.
If you want people to find your website, your blog, or your articles based on a particular topic, the content that you create should center around key phases that are searchable based on the topic of your healthcare practice.
Create a list of relevant words that are commonplace terms for your practice. This may include the specific healthcare industry, the types of conditions, procedures, treatments, and therapies involved with your healthcare industry, and the body parts impacted by the industry. On this list include your business name, doctors’ names, and any other relevant selling points for your brand. This list is a great starting point as a foundation for SEO keyword research.
Use these words within your blog posts to rank on search queries and draw in traffic to your page. Just keep in mind, that if you overuse keywords or phrases this will be flagged as keyword stuffing.
3. Small Doses of Information
The visual element of an article has more impact on a reader than you may think. Using shorter sentences and smaller paragraph lengths is easier on the reader, especially on cellular.
This also helps readers retain the point of each paragraph and follow along from paragraph to paragraph with better ease. Ideally, paragraphs should be around three to four sentences, with easy-to-read diction that keeps the attention of the reader.
Healthcare articles are often discussing complex symptoms, and conditions, and use dense medical terms. Hence, it’s best to approach the reader where they are with bite-sized sentences, easy-to-engage content, and straightforward explanations.
Having smaller, more digestible chunks of information presented to the reader also makes it more likely to keep them engaged. They are also more likely to actually read the content in its entirety.
4. External Links
Linking your articles to reputable external sources will be a helpful way to develop trustworthy material that is based on sites of authority and not just information that cannot be backed up.
Consider government-approved sites such as the CDC or HHS. Both these examples can help make your brand more trustworthy as your sources are considered government-backed.
When it comes to your healthcare brand, it’s important to carefully vet the businesses and websites your external links connect to, that way you are associating with the right organizations and expressing the right message to potential leads.
5. Internal Links
Promote your own website pages by linking relevant pages to your blog article to encourage engagement. Internal links can be used to encourage further action at the end of each article, as well.
Internal links show your audience that all the information they need is on your website. This will minimize those who click off your website but also shows you are an organized and well-thought-out brand.
It can be frustrating for patients who go through your website if they can’t find the information they need. This can have negative impacts on your brand and reduce how satisfied patients are with your content.
If your current website or blog does not already have an SEO strategy for your healthcare marketing plan, you may be doing a disservice to your page rankings. You can be missing out on hundreds of potential leads, and visitors to your website due to a lack of SEO strategy and planning.
The Next Step
SEO is crucial for your brand populating online but having quality content as well as an updated website is just as important. As mentioned almost every aspect of healthcare has moved online which means that your entire practice should also be accessible online.
Implementing, or updating, online services, such as telehealth and telemedicine, online prescriptions, chat functions, and zoom meet therapy sessions, to your practice are good starting points. Each of these can help make your brand flourish in the digital market.
Offering services such as these show your patients that you are willing to keep up with the changing times and shows how flexible your brand is.
NewGen Can Help
If you are looking for help, NewGen Marketing can revamp your content. NewGen marketing is a modern healthcare marketing agency for medical brands . If you are interested in becoming a new client of NewGen marketing feel free to leave us a message.