Healthcare SEO Services: how to improve your organic performance
For many healthcare organizations, attracting new patients is more difficult than ever before. Given the plethora of options available to people when choosing a healthcare provider, hospitals and clinics must provide a competitive digital experience. Given that most patients use search engines to find new providers, investing in SEO is the first step in creating a digital experience that will draw clients.
Healthcare SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the process of optimizing your website to attract more of the people you want to reach through organic search results. In practice, that means optimizing your website so Google and other search engines show your site to potential patients searching for services like yours.
According to Google, searching online is by far the preferred way for patients to find healthcare SEO services providers: online search drives three times as many visitors to hospital websites compared to other sources. To attract new patients, your site needs to be optimized so it shows up at the top of search engine results pages, making SEO an important investment for any medical practice, clinic, or hospital.
How can the healthcare industry benefit from search engine optimization?
Grow your patient base
Online search is the main way patients research new healthcare providers, book appointments, see provider reviews, and find valuable information. To provide the best possible digital experience to your patients, you need to invest in healthcare SEO, so your site appears at the top of their search results—ultimately growing your number of patients.
Show up for local searches
Another benefit of healthcare SEO services is showing up in local searches. Many patients search for terms that are specific to where they’re located, like “physical therapist in Nashville.”
To show up for those geographic-specific searches, your site needs to be correctly optimized. Once it is, you can tap into highly relevant, local searches from potential patients looking for services just like yours.
Rise above the competition
Healthcare is a competitive space, which makes investing in SEO all the more important. If a patient is searching for a hospital in their area and your main competitor shows up as the first or second search results, while your hospital isn’t even on page one, you’re going to lose valuable growth opportunities.
Investing in healthcare SEO services is a great way to differentiate yourself from your competition, and if you follow that up with a high-quality website experience and online services, you’ll be well ahead in offering a digital experience patients will want to come back to.
Look into your site’s speed and mobile usability
Website speed and mobile usability are now factors in Google’s SEO ranking algorithm, making it an important player in your SEO performance.
Mobile usability
1. Use responsive web design. Make sure the design of your website adopts and responds to the type of device users are on
2. Make sure all content, including video, images, etc. is viewable on a mobile device
3. Avoid pop-ups or other overlays, as they take up a huge amount of screen space on mobile devices
4. Don’t use very small or thin fonts that force users to zoom in all the time on their mobile devices
5. Make sure the elements on your site that are touch-responsive are easy to tap on a mobile device by spacing them out
Site speed
Most users will leave a site if it takes longer than 2-3 seconds to load, which is a high bar to reach! But to provide the best patient experience and improve your SEO rankings, you need to invest in a fast site. Here are a few things to keep in mind when working on your site speed:
1. Most of a page’s loading time is spent downloading its components, most of which require an HTTP request. Reduce the number of components on your page to reduce the number of HTTP requests and speed up your site.
2. Reduce the number of redirects your site uses, as they create more HTTP requests and slow down your site.
3. Broken links create a poor user experience, but they can also cause your site to lag.
4. Reduce the file sizes of your images. Big file images will increase the total size of your page—and the larger your page, the longer it takes to load. Optimize your image files using a free online image optimizer.
5. Video files are even larger than image files, so don’t upload them directly to your web page. Use a video hosting service to host your video, then embed them on your site, which saves space and speeds up load time.
Investing in both a faster site and a more mobile-friendly site will create a better digital experience for potential patients, help your organization appear more trustworthy, and boost your SEO rankings—so it’s not something to be ignored.
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