As a physician, you might not have even come across the term “search engine optimization.” You have more important things to think about.
At the same time, you need clients coming in and out of your door. Whether you’re losing clients to competing clinics or due to the fact that people don’t know your practice exists, doesn’t matter.
One clear solution to the problem is search engine optimization. We’re going to cover SEO for doctors in this article, giving you some insight into ways that you could be bringing in more clients.
SEO for Doctors
If you’re new to search engine optimization, it’s not a huge issue. We’re going to go over the fundamentals in addition to how you can tweak your efforts to better suit a medical practice.
This article won’t be able to give you specific guidance on navigating different programs and platforms involved with search engine optimization, but it will give you a broad picture of the task ahead of you.
Hopefully, you’ll be able to take the first few steps into finding more web traffic once you’ve finished reading.
SEO
Think of search engines like stores that all sell the same product. We normally don’t think this way because search engines seem like they’re inherently part of the internet.
They are, in reality, competing entities. Their goal is to create the most relevant search results for their users. When you type in “surfing tips” into Bing, you’re going to get similar results to the ones you would get with Google.
They’re different, though. The format of the page is different, the order of the page’s listed in the results will be different, and you’re going to have different experiences.
The real focus is the search results, though. Search engines use algorithms to get the most accurate results possible. These algorithms are extremely complex and run a keyword search against all of the sites in a search engine’s index.
That number of sites can reach into the billions and trillions. Search engine optimization, then, is the process of trying to understand the algorithm and make your site fit its preferences.
Tips for Physician Sites
Before you start to optimize, you need to think about a goal. What’s the goal of your site, and how can you optimize to achieve that goal?
It’s likely that your intentions are to bring awareness to your practice and direct people into your doors should they need any medical help. They can’t come in if they don’t know you’re there, and creating a successful website might be the answer to that.
Generating awareness is going to entail different SEO methods than, say, trying to sell a product. In order to get people to know your name, your efforts should consist of a close relationship between your site and your social media account.
1. Utilize Social Media
Create social media pages on the platforms that your target demographic is using. You won’t have too many people following you at first, but that’s OK.
Once you’ve clearly identified who your target demographic is, it’s time to start going into the backend of your social media sites and using PPC. PPC (Pay-Per-Click Advertising) is an essential way to spread your brand around to different people on social media.
Because social media collects so much demographic information, it’s extremely easy for them to pinpoint specific groups of people and place your advertisement in front of them. If you do this on all of your social media platforms, you’re going to start seeing a lot of results.
2. Create Keyword Optimized Content
The primary connector between your website and your social media accounts is going to be the content that you create.
When you post content from your blog on social media, users are directed back to your site in order to read that blog. You have to start creating content that they want to read, however, and that can be tough.
This is where keyword optimization comes in. Use tools like Google Adwords to research the keywords that are popular in specific niches. For example, you might find that your target demographic is searching a specific keyword at a very high volume.
Next, use a program that can help you see who is ranking for those keywords already. Either that or make a search of those keywords and look at which pages are ranking for them. It’s suggested that you use an incognito page when searching for keyword rankings because your existing search preferences could affect the results.
You’ll want to aim for the sweet spot of keywords that people are searching but haven’t been heavily optimized for by other sites. Once you’ve identified the words you want to use, you’ll start creating the content.
3. Creating Content for Blogs and Social Media
You should be writing blogs and posting them almost, if not every day. The more regularly you’re creating keyword optimized material, the more opportunity you give people to find you and visit your practice.
The content you make is going to be heavily influenced by the keywords that you’ve researched. In fact, you shouldn’t be creating content about ideas and things that you find interesting or think are relevant. Ideally, you will be creating content about those keywords in response to the research you’ve done.
That way, you are creating material that you know people are currently interested in. Additionally, you’ll want to add those keywords into a few areas of your content. Methodologies range on how many keywords you should use and where you should place them, but the baseline thing to remember is to have at least two.
Need Some Help with SEO?
We understand that SEO for doctors might seem like something you don’t have time for. We get it, you’ve got patients to take care of.
It might be easier for someone else to take care of SEO and digital marketing for you. Contact us to learn more about how we can optimize your site and market your practice.
