SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Learn the latest SEO tips for healthcare providers and healthcare professionals. It refers to increasing the Quality and quantity of traffic in the website with the help of different search engine results. In other words, SEO also refers to the process of optimization of the organization’s website – so that it appears on the first page of the search engine results when a user searches with similar keywords. For example, suppose an individual wants to explore a neurologist in a particular area and thinks there are five neurologists. In that case, SEO helps to make sure that a specific healthcare center or hospital with a neurologist in that area shows their website on top of the search results.
According to the Search-Engine-Journal, the leads in an SEO website have a 14.4% rate of closure. It means that 14.4% of the total users visiting the optimized website are converted to customers- whereas leads from other sources (Print Advertising etc.) have a closure rate of 1.7%. Today around 56% of adults in America use smartphones. It shows how important it is to optimize the website and rank higher in the search engine results for the prospective patients who use search engines for relevant healthcare-related searches.
SEO Tips for Healthcare Providers
1. Choosing the Right Keywords
The goal of optimizing the keywords of a website is to ensure that keywords that are chosen prove to be effective- that would help drive the right kind of traffic to the website. It also proves effective in driving maximum traffic to find the website rank high in the search results to quickly find the right type of traffic.
Choosing the right kind of keywords is very necessary for managing the website in the healthcare industry. First of all, making a list of the most searched keywords relevant to the website or the service provider is the primary task. The chosen keyword should make it clear to the algorithms of search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.)what the website is all about, what it contains, what type of services or products are featured on the website, etc. It also ensures in helping the search engines to understand for which kind of search queries the website should yield in top search results.
After making or compiling the list of keywords or search items- those have to be tested by searching each of the keywords in the Google keyword planner to find out which of these have a decent amount of local traffic monthly- also need to find out which of those phrases or keywords have less amount of competition from various advertisers. When analyzing the keywords – it is good to shoot for keyword phrases of 200 to 10,000 monthly searches locally. After completing the final filtered list preparation, it’s now turning to incorporate the keywords organically through relevant web pages through various blog posts/articles and other types of content.
As per Google, “77% of the people prefer to search before booking an appointment with google”. So, it’s necessary to incorporate the right keywords in the website development or management of a healthcare organization. The goal behind metadata management is to make it easier for an individual or a program to locate specific data. It also helps an organization in the establishment of policies and procedures to ensure that the information can be integrated, accessed, linked, and analyzed to provide the best benefits to the organization.
The Meta-data consists of the HTML meta tags between the open and closing tags in an HTML code. These tags help the search engine know what is there on the page with the help of metadata description, title tag, and headers. The title tag reflects at the top of the browser and acts as the page’s title and in blue text in the search engine results. They should be edited so that it is no longer than 65 characters and make sure that it naturally incorporates the keywords while naming the page. A meta description must not be more than 150 characters as it describes the content of the page. Benefits of Metadata management include:
- It helps inconsistency of the metadata definitions so that the terminology of variables doesn’t create any issues in data retrieval.
- Lessen down redundancy of the efforts and greater consistency across multiple instances of data.
- It maintains the information across the organization so that it doesn’t need to depend on a particular employee’s knowledge.
2. Defining Meta-Data: Title Tags and Meta Description
Metadata management refers to administering those data that describes other data. As per Digital-Commons reports, Meta-data helps address the problem of documenting multiple information systems and exchanging data between them.
3. Creation of Original Content
Creating original content for the healthcare service provider website is very important to stand out in the competition. There should be a professional representation of those contents to make sure that their completeness and accuracy get increased. By providing the right kind of knowledge and educating the audience, the website’s value and the institution receive increased. This also helps in gaining a high ranking in the search engines.
By publishing various types of content such as blog posts, videos, interviews, patient testimonials or videos, and other conversations and information about the healthcare industry, the website would drive more traffic- which has an excellent possibility for conversion into customers. A healthcare organization should try to answer the audience’s questions and queries, which would lead to driving more potential customers to the website.
4. Including a Sitemap for the Website
A well-executed technical SEO helps make the website crawlable. An HTML site map is one of the critical factors that help in achieving the goal. This allows the search engines to crawl the website- It means they send a boot to the webpage to read it. Google boot is then able to determine what’s there on the website. It leads to search engines showing the website in the search results. Site maps are helpful for users to access the website better. There are two types of sitemaps- HTML( Hypertext Markup Tools) and XML(Extensive markup language). HTML is highly recommended as it helps to make the website more user-friendly.
5. Own Different Search Verticals
Often, it’s seen that the website fails to rank itself in other search verticals such as in videos, slideshow, images, mobile, etc. For a healthcare service provider website and a good option to leverage the search as mentioned earlier engine verticals to get more and targeted audience/traffic to the website. For example, the presentations shared on slide-share can also be optimized- can help drive more traffic using relevant keywords or phrases for long-term benefits.
6. Local Search Marketing
Optimization of the website for Local Search Marketing is one of the most important things for a Healthcare Service Provider. Yet estimates that about 50% of the searches are being performed on mobile devices. So it’s highly recommendable for using a local mobile-friendly experience for the users for standing out in the competition. Healthcare providers can benefit tremendously from local high rankings.
Local search is considered one of the essential search verticals – as the patients have to visit the local healthcare professionals to avail themselves of the healthcare services. It’s necessary to ensure that the organization’s or the institution’s name, address, contact details are correctly updated on Google+ local page, Foursquare page, and on the organization’s website footer in the entire website. It’s also very important to continuously review the reviews posted on the Google+ Local Page to ensure there isn’t any negative review posted- which can adversely affect the website ranking.
7. Using Social Media to Improve Rankings
Various search engines such as Google, Yahoo, etc., consider a number of factors in order to determine the Quality of a website- Social Media is one of those factors. For example, if a website is shared across social media networks effectively, Google or other search engines take this into account. Social media platforms help in facilitating two-way conversations between a healthcare organization and an individual.
The impact of social media on SEO is basically link building. It also helps in driving more traffic to the website. Using Google+, Linked In, etc., are good social media platforms to connect with users and build an audience. They are focusing more on Quality than one quantity is one of the essential factors to be emphasized when it comes to Social Media Platforms.
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