When someone needs a medical help, they prefer to take advice from their friends before they consult any doctor.

But if they didn’t find a good reference what they do?

Answer is very easy, they turn to the Google. More than ⅔ of patients search online before consulting a doctor. If you are not ranking in search engine, then you are missing a lot of patients.

Need Proof?

See this study from Google.

Ranking for Healthcare search terms is not a one day game, it is a multi stage procedure that include strategic planning of content, user behaviour analysis and SEO strategies. It requires time, strategy and commitment.

There are some strategies you can follow to rank higher for healthcare search terms.

Create a Website for Your Healthcare Service:

Creating a website is your first step towards your online customers. Buy a Catchy and brandable domain name.

Do research before buying a domain name. If you can put your focus keyword creatively in your domain name that will be beneficial for SEO point of view.

Your website should be optimized for mobile devices too.  As, more than 40% patients schedule appointment on mobile devices.

Keyword Research:

Do your keyword research smartly. Focus for top medical search terms in your city for your website. Focussing on local keyword is more fruitful for medical practitioners.

The local keyword comprises medical search term and name of the place. Finding the right local keywords is most important part of any SEO procedure.

Google Keyword Planner is one of the best free tool available for keyword planning. Dive deep into your Google analytics tool to get some idea about your keyword and user behaviour.

Health Related Infographics:

Create informative and eye catching infographics. These infographics may be about diseases and their symptoms. You can take your infographic one step ahead by mentioning precaution in your infographics.

You can hire a freelancer graphic designer to create amazing infographics for you. This may be a little costly for you. But, it helps you to keep engaging your audience and also helps in your off-page optimization efforts.

Promote your infographic on different Social Media platforms. Also, submit it to some infographics submission site. This will attract links towards your website.

Integrate Video:

Videos are most important to make a relatable and Google friendly brand. Include video in your content marketing strategy.

You don’t need a huge budget and big production company to create videos for you. Often you can create these videos with normal camera or smartphone and with an assistant.

Create a great video with effective content. Your video content should be informative and useful. Share some symptoms of viral diseases and precautions to be taken. As, there are more chances of getting viral.

Share these video on Youtube and Vimeo. As you know, Youtube is 2nd largest search engine. Optimize your video on Youtube, there are chances that it can also rank in Google search results.

Write catchy and relevant Title and also add relevant Meta Tags in Youtube. Also share these videos on your official blog.

Medical discussion forums:

Create a list of discussion forums related to patients and diseases. Participate in these discussion forums. Discussion forums may be great source for links pointing to your website.

Provide helpful tips to the patients and reply their question with valuable suggestions. Drop your link in the discussion forums where ever appropriate.

Don’t spam these forums with your links in every discussion. Try to help people with genuine advice. They will come back to you naturally.

Medical Directories:

Find out the top directories for medical practitioners and doctors. Submit your website in the database. Most of such directories are free.

I recommend you to register your website only on free directories. When doing directory submission, Change your Title and description every time.

If you don’t have time to do all above exercise, you can hire an off page SEO service provider for building this kind of links for your website.

Mobile Apps:

Mobile apps are changing the world of health care. Demand for healthcare mobile apps are increasing day by day.

With healthcare mobile apps, the patient care can be simplified to a great extent. These apps have millions of active users. Registering yourself on these apps can help you to gain new patients.

Some apps also mention your website in their database with a dofollow link or some time it may be nofollow. But it is still worthy to register yourself in these mobile apps.

Creating your own app can help you to get boost in your search ranking. These apps can be designed to guide with indoor and outdoor navigation and share customized healthcare care plan with each patient.

Providing facility of online appointments with your mobile app is really a great idea as it is convenient for both patient and doctor.

Local SEO for Doctors:

Focusing on local customer is most important part of healthcare SEO. Register your healthcare website in local business directories.

Write guest post in local websites. Provide health care tips in your guest posts with links to your website.

Write testimonials for medical services and equipment providers in your practice area.

Online Appointments:

Studies shows that 17% patient booked an appointment through a mobile app or website past year. Research also indicates that young generation prefer online appointment.

If you are not giving appointment online, start giving it from today itself.

Patient’s time is just as valuable as yours. It will be time saving and convenient for your patients and you too. It also helps to increase average time spend on your website. As average time spend or dwell time is most important SEO factor.

Content for Healthcare:

Create content for your users, not for search engines. Healthcare SEO is all about focusing on need of your patients. Share valuable health related tips and precautions in your blog posts.

Try to create long forum with original content on behalf of your medical organisation. Long forum content does great when it comes to ranking high in search engines.

Do your research before creating your content.

Well researched and long forum content drive more organic traffic and it also leads to drive more backlinks pointing to your website.

Create different types of contents on your website. Publish your medical case studies. Case studies are great way to share your knowledge with your audience.

Write detailed informative post on your product to inform your patients, how to use them to get maximum benefits. Providing medication information is really helpful for your patients and you too.

Publish latest happening in your healthcare organisation. Share photos and story of your staff and patients in your blog posts.

Utilize Social Media:

Utilize social media network smartly. Create social media accounts around your website. Ask your happy patients to review your services on social media platforms and different healthcare mobile apps. Share your achievements on Facebook and Twitter.

Publish some facts of your case studies with link on social media networks. Such facts have great chances to get viral on social media networks.

Few month back, Dr. Naresh Trehan, a famous cardiovascular and cardiothoracic surgeon from India, share a case study on social media and it was a case study about effect of pollution on human. Everyone was sharing this case study on Facebook and Twitter.

Like that you can share your own successful case studies and guides on social media. It is easy and fastest way to get new patients.

Google Business Page:

Create a free account on Google my business. Share your location on Google map. It helps you to get location in Google local search results. It also helps your patients to find your hospital.

There are three types of Google plus pages i.e Person Page, Local Business Page and Brand Page. This post is really helpful for medical practitioners to set up their Google My Business who are working at common place.

Be sure to make large fan following for your Google Plus profile. It will help you to rank higher in local search results.

FAQ Page for Patients:

Create a Frequently asked Question page on your website. Encourage your patients to ask their questions and do answer their questions on the same.

Try to help them genuinely. It will encourage them to ask more questions.

Integrate Online Paid Campaign:

If you want more people to your healthcare website, you can run a PPC campaign for targeted keywords. Integrating PPC campaign with your organic effort can help you to get fast results.

You can also choose to run paid campaign on Facebook and Twitter to spread awareness about your health care services in your area.

Conclusion:

Managing all onpage and offpage SEO activities can be overwhelming for medical practitioners. Our Team of SEO experts help you to strategy your content and managing all onpage and off page activities on your website.

Let me know which of above strategies are you going to implement?