5 effective ways to utilize SEO and increase local traffic to your healthcare website

By Irene Namarah 

Online visibility for healthcare providers or businesses can prove to be extremely challenging mostly because consumers are usually in hurry. By the time someone is searching online for a healthcare facility or service, they are desperately in need so they want information and they want it now. So how is your healthcare business going to be the one they view amidst a million others? 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is proving to be a highly effective online marketing strategy. Since consumers are looking towards the internet for information, a website or page which is ranked higher on searches usually gets the most traffic. More importantly, healthcare consumers are usually looking for services that are closest to home. 

Consider these relatively easy tips you can use to improve your website visibility on the local market.

1. Prioritise Local Search

Optimization for local searches is one of the most effective strategies when it comes to healthcare providers. Thus your business will benefit significantly from local high rankings. Ensure that your business’ name, precise address, phone number and any other contact details, are updated on Google business account, Foursquare Page are on your website’s footer across all pages. SEO providers Safari Digital suggest this information will help Google associate the correct location with your business. 

Because Google business local Page is important for ranking purposes in Google, keep to monitoring the reviews posted to your page to ensure they aren’t negatively affecting your rankings.

2. Related Keywords

Make a list of related keywords and phrases that you think people might type in while searching for healthcare services. Conduct a local survey where you ask people what they usually search for. Once you have around 50 keywords, use Google Keyword Planner to find which keywords get the most monthly traffic. This tool can even let your search for new keywords and develop PPC (pay per click) campaigns. 

Collaborate with team members to ensure that the list is comprehensive. Once you’ve fully filtered your list, begin to incorporate these keywords organically throughout the various relevant web pages on your website and within a variety of quality blog posts or other pieces of content.

3. Excellent Original Content

Content is the front yard garden of every online marketing strategy. It must not only be regularly watered but also strategically planted. This is something that many healthcare providers underestimate. They believe that healthcare consumers only need details of their services but the picture is far from that. 

With the keywords you gathered from the Google Keyword Planner, create content that makes your business standout like that house with the greenest front yard garden in neighborhood. Publish content that not only builds credibility and authority as an expert in your area but also educates, entertains, and makes the customer feel personally attached to your brand. 

The content may include: blogs, case studies, patient testimonials, staff achievements, medical breakthroughs, current news in the medical field, interviews, infographics, and conversations about the healthcare industry. Endeavor to use correct grammar and punctuation as Google prioritizes good content over poorly-written or spun content.

4. Take Maximum Advantage of Technology 

It is not enough that you’ve created this eye-catching content for your website; you also need to see a higher ROI and give your competitors a run for their money. Now you need to dig into different corners of the innovative technology goldmine. But don’t let this make you sweat… There are experts whose job it is to do the sweating for your website on this. 

You can hire a company like Linkflow to give you a comprehensive site analysis, build back links, and make the most of digital transformation. Not only does this improve your company’s visibility on the local market, it also propels you into spaces you haven’t even began to dream of. Here, all you have to do is let someone else do the audience-gathering for you through high-peak optimization. 

5. Incorporate Social Media to Drive Rankings

Social media is an effective tool for local healthcare online marketing especially because of its algorithms that bring together people in the same areas or of similar interests. People may click the video and image that will in turn drive them to your site thereby increasing traffic. It also helps facilitate two-way conversations between your organization and the audience. 

Utilize social avenues like Facebook, Twitter LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+ to build an audience and spread your unique healthcare services and knowledge of the industry. Ensure your social media account settings have the right information e.g. name of your practice, bio, and description. This gives search engines as much information as possible to assist them in ranking your social profiles.

And when it comes to SEO, Google and other search engines take into consideration hundreds of factors including social media when determining the quality of a web page. Say if a page on your website is shared across social media, the search engines take this as a signal that that particular page on your website is quality information on your expertise. Now you know why you need quality content on your website.