For a doctor, having an online presence is essential but the classic website that everyone now has is no longer enough. Patients need to find themselves among the many results of a search engine and that’s what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is for. In a nutshell, it means building or modifying your own website and other channels with which you can be found online, such as directories and review sites with a view to improving your visibility.
What do patients see when they look for a doctor in a local search?
The answer to this question changes over time, and we must therefore constantly work on SEO.
In fact, the Google search results pages continue to change and become increasingly dynamic with new elements, each with its unique ranking factors.
This makes it increasingly difficult to achieve high visibility especially for a specialist and competitive market such as healthcare.
If your website is a useful resource for potential patients, Google will reward it.
To position yourself to the best, your website must first of all be easily “understood” by Google and also by other search engines so as to be well indexed. There are “technical” aspects to be taken care of in this case such as keyword research, correct HTML coding, URL structure, image file names and outgoing and incoming links.
But when Google analyzes the content of a website, it looks much more than keywords. Frequently asked questions, the advantages of the procedure, the expected results, recovery times, testimonials, photos and videos are all types of content that Google rewards, because potential patients find this information useful, spend more time on these pages and interact with the contents (all ranking factors).
That’s why a well-organized page with detailed and diversified multimedia content (text, video, photos, etc.) is the key to visibility, as well as being crucial in converting visitors into leads.
If you regularly post new content on your website, Google will award it.
Google and other search engines constantly check that the website is active. This is a strong sign of a “healthy” and effective website. That’s why the blog part is still important. A constantly updated blog tells Google that the website contains new and relevant content. Consistent blogging also increases the “footprint” of the website, offering the possibility of gaining visibility in a variety of relevant research.
Furthermore, to maximize exposure and offer a higher ROI, other actions can be implemented like an additional campaign that exploits paid search results.
I will soon reserve a further study to this topic.
Stay tuned!