Although the year just started, we are already seeing shifts in SEO healthcare trends. Being able to keep up with these trends is vastly important to stay relevant. SEO, or search engine optimization, is essentially the process of improving your website in order to rank better on search engines. This can be done through organic search or paid advertisements and the benefits of SEO are immeasurable.
But why is SEO so important? The importance of SEO lies in how it can benefit you and your brand. It can lead to brand growth, brand exposure, and increased leads being turned into patients. At NewGen, we understand the benefits of SEO as well as the current SEO trends and can help your brand’s growth. Feel free to reach out to us for all your marketing needs.
What is SEO
The goal of SEO is to provide current patients and new patients with a set of high-quality content that is relevant while also providing the best user experience possible. You want your brand to populate well when your target audience searches for the services you offer. This is what SEO aims to accomplish. People conduct billions of searches every day, but to take advantage of this online traffic, your brand needs to rank well in searches associated with your brand through the use of target keywords.
Target keywords are different for every brand. For example, if your brand offers dental services then your target keywords will be based on dental terms. However, when it comes to healthcare in general terms such as “doctor” or “symptoms” will be present across brands. Using these terms in your content is one way to optimize SEO.
In addition, there is also the importance of balancing evergreen words and trending words. Words that aren’t necessarily trending but still hold importance to your brand are evergreen words. While trending words are popular at the moment, there is no guarantee these words will remain trending so balancing the two will greatly improve your SEO optimization.
Why is SEO Important
When it comes to patients finding their doctors online, the best strategy is to have an optimized website with all the necessary components to have an effective SEO strategy. Google only tends to give attention to the first few organic results. Those listings get about 68% of total clicks.
An optimized website will generate organic traffic. When someone comes across your website this way it will be due to high ranking. More traffic leads to an increase in new leads and brand awareness. If your brand has yet to incorporate SEO into your marketing strategy you could be missing out on an opportunity to grow your brand and practice.
What Are The Top SEO Trends in 2023?
It is true the year has just begun but it is in your brand’s best interest to stay on top of the newest trends as they may define the year moving forward. 2023 is going to be all about displaying expertise and value in healthcare content while continuing to provide high-performing websites for users. Although these have always been of utmost importance in terms of SEO, search engines are becoming more effective at evaluating these signals and determining what content is actually meeting these standards.
The following are a few 2023 SEO trends you should be aware of when planning your marketing strategy.
The New “E” in EEAT
Google has a popular search engine acronym that serves as almost a basis for how the search engine tends to gravitate in terms of search results. It is known as EAT which stands for Expertise, Authority, Trust but Experience was recently added by Google making the acronym EEAT.
The reason why experience matters is due to Google now being able to distinguish a brand’s content from what they specialize in. For example, if your brand exclusively offers back surgery but you decide to put out content that would be relevant to a neurosurgeon then that content will not rank well because your brand has no experience in neurosurgery.
This means that more sites should examine their content creators as well as the topics they are covering.
Audience-Targeted Content
There is a distinction between audience-targeted content and traffic-targeted content and search engines are now able to distinguish between the two. Audience-targeted content is as the name suggests content created for a specific audience while traffic-targeted content is content to generate traffic.
The reason there has been a shift in audience-targeted content is that if a brand that mainly focuses on surgical procedures begins producing content on car models, Google will be alerted and the content won’t rank well. Going into 2023, brands who put little consideration into search traffic research rather than maintaining a target audience are unlikely to see any successful ranking.
Increased Emphasis on Author Authority
Google’s newfound emphasis on experience is due to the search engine wanting content created by real people with authentic audiences in mind. It is the type of content they strive for which will ultimately lead to more effective research.
You should ensure that the people creating your content are experts. Then, elevate their experience in the following ways:
- Author Bios. Include author bios to better and more fully communicate your content creator’s knowledge and areas of expertise
- Create Author Pages. Here you link out to all of the articles on your website that are written by the author
- Link Your Creators’ Social Media Accounts. This lets Google can more easily understand through social signals that they are real people and real experts.
Content That is Satisfying and Helpful
Search engines are now placing more emphasis on user satisfaction in conjunction with quality content. They want to be sure that when a user researches specific information, they can not only find what they are looking for but be satisfied with the results. However, satisfaction is not necessarily something that can be measured.
What Google wants from content is for it to be:
- Created for humans, not search engines.
- Appropriate for the target audience.
- Relevant to the primary topic or subject area of the website.
- Created by authoritative, experienced creators.
- Displays a depth of knowledge about the topic.
Creating helpful content is easier said than done. So how can you make your content more helpful?
Quality over quantity should be the top priority when it comes to content creation for an SEO strategy. If the content your brand is producing does not display helpfulness and expertise on the topic it is unlikely to produce top-ranking results in 2023.
Keyword research that considers more than just search volume is another element necessary for quality, helpful content. Consider the following:
- What types of content are ranking for specific searches?
- How long is the content?
- What questions does it answer?
- What links are included on the page?
- Who is the creator?
- What is their experience?
- What other subtopics or related questions does it explore?
Don’t just focus solely on potential organic traffic. Keyword research and content research can also provide vital insight into what your audience wants and what they find helpful.
What NewGen Can Do For You
NewGen Marketing is a premier healthcare marketing agency dedicated to helping healthcare brands expand and achieve their marketing goals. We are a dedicated team capable of handling any and all healthcare marketing needs. Ranging from web design to SEO to quality content, NewGen has you covered. We are able to provide you with a comprehensive marketing strategy that is realistic and attainable while also maintaining the vision you have for your brand.
Contact us today if you have any questions about NewGen or other general marketing questions. We are more than happy to help you with all your healthcare marketing needs.