SEO is a process by which a site can improve its position in the search engine results pages (SERP) for certain queries. Search engine optimization is an important part of any digital marketing strategy for healthcare providers. By optimizing your website and content for the search engines, you can improve your chances of ranking higher for relevant keywords and phrases, which can ultimately lead to more website visitors and patients.
If you don’t have any SEO knowledge, a healthcare SEO company can help you. They have a team of healthcare SEO experts who can help you create a result-driven SEO strategy and rank your website at the top of search results. However, before you go ahead, you need to know the top 7 SEO tactics healthcare providers follow to rank their websites.
So, here are 7 actionable SEO tactics for healthcare providers:
Identify Target Keywords and Phrases: The first step in any medical SEO marketing strategy is to identify target keywords and phrases. These are the terms and phrases that you want your website to rank for in the search engines.
There are a number of ways to identify target keywords and phrases. One method is to simply think about the types of searches that potential patients might be entering into the search engines. For example, a patient might search for “healthcare provider near me” or “best healthcare provider in [city name].”
Another way to identify target keywords and phrases is to use keyword research tools. These tools can help you to identify the most popular and relevant keywords and phrases for your healthcare website.
Optimize Your Website for SEO: Once you have identified target keywords and phrases, you need to optimize your website for the search engines. This means ensuring that your website is structured in a way that is easy for the search engines to understand and crawl.
Some of the things you can do to optimize your website for SEO include:
- Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions
- Use keyword-rich headings and subheadings
- Use keyword-rich content
- Include alt text for images
- Create XML sitemaps
- Use robots.txt files
Optimize Your Content for SEO: In addition to optimizing your website for SEO, you also need to optimize your content for the search engines. This means creating high-quality, keyword-rich content that is relevant to your target audience. You can also hire the #1 SEO agency in healthcare to write attention-grabbing headlines and content for your website.
Some tips for creating optimized content include:
- Write for your audience first, not the search engines
- Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions
- Use keyword-rich headings and subheadings
- Use keyword-rich content
- Use images and videos
- Optimize your website for mobile
Promote Your Content: Once you have created optimized content, you need to promote it to get it seen by your target audience. There are a number of ways to promote your content, including:
- Social media
- Email marketing
- Pay-per-click advertising
- Banner advertising
Local Search Marketing: If you want to attract local patients, you need to do local search marketing. This involves optimizing your website for specific geographical locations. You can do this by including your city and state in your title tags and meta descriptions. You can also create location-specific pages on your website and list your business in online directories.
Build Links: Another important SEO tactic is to build links to your website. Links are a key ranking factor for search engines, so the more links you have to point to your website, the better.
There are a number of ways to build links, including:
- Guest blogging
- Directory submissions
- Forum postings
- Social media
Monitor Your SEO Progress: Once you have implemented all of the above SEO tactics, monitoring your progress is important to ensure that your efforts are paying off. There are a number of ways to do this, including:
- Use Google Analytics to track your website traffic
- Use Google Webmaster Tools to monitor your website’s search engine rankings
- Use a tool like Moz or Ahrefs to track your website’s link profile
The Bottom Line
SEO is crucial for all types of industries, including healthcare. However, if you don’t have the time or knowledge to implement all of the above SEO tactics, you can always hire a healthcare seo agency to do it for you. They have a team of SEO experts who can help you to identify target keywords, optimize your website and content, build links, and track your SEO progress.