Local SEO in Healthcare
When it comes to expanding your healthcare business on the internet, having the right mindset is crucial. It is important to think globally while focusing on local engagement, specifically within your immediate area or neighborhood.
To put it simply, mastering local SEO is crucial. This strategy concentrates on enhancing your website and online visibility, aiming to improve its position in search engine results for healthcare services relevant to local searches.
By utilizing it, you can establish connections with potential patients residing in your vicinity, enhance your online presence, and drive more traffic to your website.
A comprehensive local SEO strategy includes optimizing your Google My Business (GMB) profile, incorporating relevant keywords into your website’s content, utilizing social media and online reviews to enhance your online presence.
However, if you implement the appropriate strategies and methods, you have the ability to draw in a larger number of patients, enhance your online reputation, and establish your healthcare business as a respected and reliable figure within your local community.
Local SEO Matters For the healthcare industry
Local SEO has become an essential tactic for healthcare businesses due to the continuously growing digital sphere. Were you aware that 77% of individuals initiate their patient journey using a search engine? Additionally, approximately 7% of all Google searches are related to health worldwide. (Digitalis.)
Later on, we will delve into the specific advantages of local SEO for the healthcare industry; however, it is essential to understand that it holds significant importance for companies in this field. The success of your business can greatly depend on it. An optimized strategy has the potential to enhance your online presence in terms of visibility, reach, trust, authority, and position.
If you need more evidence, there is no issue. Simply review the following statistics:
According to Software Advice, 90% of patients utilize online reviews when choosing a healthcare provider.
After reaching the top positions in the SERPs (search engine result pages), you will start gaining backlinks at a monthly rate of 5 – 14.5% (according to AHRefs), making it a self-sufficient marketing strategy.
Almost half (48%) of healthcare companies have basic address errors in their local listings, regardless of this.
Almost one in three healthcare brands, or 31.5%, lack a local listing altogether.
Why optimize your healthcare site for local SEO
Local SEO is a legitimate game-changer if you want to expand your healthcare business.
Optimizing your healthcare website for local SEO offers several advantages such as attracting a larger number of patients, boosting your online presence, and solidifying your brand’s reputation as a reliable local healthcare provider. Below are the primary benefits of optimizing your healthcare site for local search engine optimization.
Healthcare local SEO: The key benefits
Targeted reach
By utilizing local SEO, you can effectively reach out to individuals seeking healthcare services within your specific geographic location. This enables you to engage with potential patients who are actively searching and increases the likelihood of nurturing a loyal patient base.
Enhanced online visibility
By implementing efficient local SEO tactics, your healthcare company can achieve better positions in search engine results pages (SERPs). This enhanced visibility guarantees greater organic traffic to your website, thereby expanding your brand’s reach to a broader audience.
Improved user experience
By optimizing your website for improved user experience, such as ensuring mobile responsiveness, fast page load times, and easy navigation, local SEO aims to enhance user satisfaction, prolong site visits, and enhance the likelihood of conversions.
Reputation building
By utilizing local SEO, you can effectively oversee your online reputation by monitoring patient reviews and ratings. Favorable reviews and impressive ratings have the potential to enhance your credibility, inspire confidence in prospective patients, and set your healthcare brand apart from rivals.
Cost-effective marketing
Local SEO provides a cost-effective means of advertising your healthcare business when compared to conventional marketing outlets. By focusing on particular local keywords and enhancing your online visibility, you can generate valuable leads and optimize your marketing return on investment.
Getting started with local SEO for healthcare
1. Use local keywords
2. Develop your google business profile
To enhance your visibility in local search results and enable patients to easily find important information, it is crucial to establish a strong Google My Business profile and regularly update it with accurate details such as address, phone number, business hours, and services. Furthermore, you can boost your local rankings by prompting patients to leave reviews on your Google profile.
3. Focus on local visibility
Make sure that your business information remains consistent on various online directories and listings. This consistency helps establish trust with search engines and enhances your local search rankings. Ensure that your name, address, and phone number (NAP) details are correct and up to date on Google, Yelp, Bing Places, and other platforms specific to your industry.
4. Manage local listing of your healthcare practice
Patients often find it challenging to find the right doctor, so it is important not to add to their difficulties by providing inaccurate local listings or poorly organized local citations.
You will find online profiles of your practice on directories such as Yelp, HealthGrades, Vitals, rateMDs, Google Business Profile (GBP), etc. You need to take the initiative to claim these profiles and thoroughly examine them for accuracy and consistency.
Ensure that the information of your practice is both up-to-date and consistent on all listings. By providing accurate local listings, it will become easier for prospective patients to find your practice’s location. These are the key details that should always be accurate.
- Practice’s name
- Physical location
- Business hours
- Services provided
- Contact information (phone number, email address, etc.)
5. Protect your practice’s reputation with patient review management
Healthcare providers must prioritize generating and responding to patient reviews in local SEO as it is a vital approach. This is primarily because the majority of patients (84%) rely on online reviews to evaluate and select physicians.
However, in order for this strategy to be effective, it is necessary for you to take initiative and actively request patients to leave reviews after each new interaction. Numerous contented patients would gladly provide feedback if you motivated them and clarified the steps involved.
Ensure that you address all online feedback without exception, even the negative reviews. Express appreciation towards those who are satisfied with their experience at your establishment for their kind words.
When dealing with unsatisfied patients, it is important to handle them carefully. Begin by offering an apology, and then suggest having a private offline conversation to resolve the issue. Utilizing a specialized tool for managing reviews can be extremely valuable when dealing with data from various platforms such as Yelp, Healthgrades, and Google Business Profile.
6. Optimize your website for better conversions
By utilizing local SEO, the objective is to attract individuals to your practice’s website prior to enticing them to visit your actual physical location. Nevertheless, if visitors undergo an unsatisfactory experience, a staggering 88% of them may never revisit the website again. Thankfully, by enhancing the User Interface design, you can increase your website’s conversion rate by a remarkable 200%.
Below are some recommendations to enhance the healthcare local SEO of your website.
- Ensure your NAP details and hours of operation are consistent and visible on the site
- Incorporate branding into your website design
- Add CTA buttons in multiple locations
- Simplify navigation for users to find services, practice information, and other details quickly
- Incorporate responsive design to maximize your practice’s mobile exposure
- Add engaging visuals like images and videos
7. Produce educational SEO content for local patients
In order to establish yourself as a credible healthcare provider, it is important to share precise health-related information that is sought by local patients on digital platforms. To optimize your presence in local medical search engine results, it is crucial that the content you offer is authentic, pertinent, and effectively utilizes keywords. Some recommendations for healthcare content may include:
- Blog article about coping with a condition that’s prevalent in your area
- Announcement about an event you’re hosting or participating in, such as flu shot events
- Feature an article about a new member of your caregiving team
- Videos to explain new treatment or technology being used by your practice
- Website content on a new medical service
- Video on healthy lifestyle choices for summer or winter
- Practice-sponsored medical events like health fairs
8. Optimize Inbound Links & Interlinking Across the Website
High-quality link-building throughout your practice’s website is an essential investment in healthcare local SEO, as it has the potential to generate long-term value.
BrightLocal states that having a well-organized internal and backlink structure is responsible for 13% of the impact on your local pack rankings and 31% on local organic rankings. Moreover, it has the potential to enhance the domain authority of your healthcare website.
When devising your link-building strategy for maximum local visibility, remember these factors.
- Incorporate high-authority inbound links to boost your local pack and organic rankings
- Incorporate high-authority backlinks to the landing page added to your practice’s GBP profile
- Include plenty of relevant internal links across your website
- Make sure the anchor text of inbound links incorporates relevant keywords
- Optimize the number of inbound links from locally-relevant sources
