What is Healthcare SEO? A Comprehensive Guide for Providers
As a private practice or consultancy owner, the dual role of healthcare provider and business owner presents unique challenges for anyone. Balancing the demands of delivering high-quality patient care with day-to-day business operations is no small feat, particularly when meeting the growing demand for healthcare providers to have a solid online presence.
However, busy healthcare providers moonlighting as business owners may find little time to grow their online presence despite patients' growing reliance on the internet for health information and provider selection. With online visibility for health and wellness services more crucial than ever, what’s a small business owner to do?
There are several solutions for optimizing your healthcare business’s online presence, from DIY SEO to freelancers and agencies. However, one absolute is that opting out of digital marketing as a healthcare business is no longer a viable business model. So, what is healthcare SEO and how can it help you?
Through a detailed exploration of SEO practices, from on-page optimization to technical SEO considerations, this guide aims to equip healthcare professionals with the tools to improve their search engine rankings and establish a digital extension of their practice that is informative, accessible, and aligned with the highest standards of patient care.
Table of Contents
Fundamentals of Healthcare SEO
Conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment as Part of Your SEO Strategy
Advanced Healthcare SEO Strategies
Content Marketing for Healthcare SEO
Navigating Compliance and Ethics in Healthcare SEO
Measuring the Success of Your Healthcare SEO Efforts
SEO Statistics for Healthcare Professionals
Frequently Asked Questions
Fundamentals of Healthcare SEO
Keyword Research
The foundation of any successful SEO strategy lies in understanding what your potential patients are searching for. This involves conducting thorough keyword research to identify the terms and phrases most relevant to your services.
For healthcare providers, this means going beyond generic terms to include symptom-based queries, treatment-specific language, and location-based keywords. Tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush can provide insights into search volumes and competition levels for these keywords.
My tip: Most of my clients don’t think to go for the low-hanging fruit keywords first. If you’re using a basic tool to target keywords, which I definitely recommend if you’re doing your own SEO(see Google Keyword Planner or Keywords Everywhere), look for keywords with a low keyword difficulty score(usually denoted as KD).
If you can find keywords with a low KD and a high search volume, you’ve hit the jackpot - but this won’t always be realistic. So, rank for the keywords that are easy to rank for first, such as those low KD keywords. As you rank for more keywords, build on that success and start targeting harder, higher search volume keywords.
On-Page SEO
Once you've identified your target keywords, the next step is to optimize your website's on-page elements. This includes crafting titles with a target keyword that actually make people want to read your article and meta descriptions that accurately reflect the content of each page.
What is a meta description? I’m so glad you asked. It’s this part of what you see on a Google search page.
The tiny words under “Google” are the meta description. Ironically, Google prefers a meta description that is short enough not to be cut off like the one above. It should have your target keyword in it and be compelling to readers. However, I’m slow to believe meta descriptions will make or break your search ranking. Should they be optimized? Yes. If they’re not, will it injure your chance of ranking? No.
Headers and subheaders (H1, H2, H3 tags) should be used to structure content in a way that’s easy for readers and search engines to understand. Many people choose headings that are aesthetically pleasing to them instead of the ones that follow page hierarchy.
I’ve seen clients make every heading an H3 because they like the look of it better in their chosen font. I get it! I do. However, Google does not; your readers may not find it clear either. Additionally, ensure that your website's content addresses patient's questions and concerns with clear, authoritative information.
Technical SEO
The technical aspects of your website play a crucial role in your SEO success. I look at technical SEO like this: it won’t stop you from ranking but won’t help you rank highly. A website that has never touched technical SEO in its life may have such a bad user experience that it doesn’t matter if it ranks on the first page; no one will stay on the page because it loads so slowly.
Ensuring your website meets technical SEO standards includes ensuring fast loading times, as search engines and users prefer sites that load quickly. Your site should also be mobile-friendly, considering the increasing number of smartphone users who access the internet. Secure, encrypted connections (HTTPS) are another critical factor, particularly for healthcare websites where users may share sensitive information.
My other note about technical SEO is that it is an ongoing need. Not one that should cost you thousands of dollars, but site health does need monitoring as you continue to add new pages to your evolving website.
Conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment as Part of Your SEO Strategy
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s discuss how to ensure your website effectively meets your specific audience's needs. In addition to creating comprehensive buyer personas, healthcare professionals can benefit from a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA).
By systematically identifying and analyzing the health needs of your community, you can tailor your website's content to address those specific issues, concerns, and questions. This approach improves the relevance and usefulness of your site for local patients, increasing the chances of enhanced visibility in search engine results for local and condition-specific searches.
Incorporating insights from a CHNA into your content strategy ensures your healthcare services and information align closely with the actual needs of your community, ultimately driving more targeted traffic to your site and increasing patient engagement.
Forbes Advisor; Google is overwhemingly popular as a search engine.
Advanced Healthcare SEO Strategies
Structured Data & Schema Markup
Structured data, often implemented through schema markup, is a powerful tool that I liken to a digital label maker for telling search engines exactly what your content is about. For healthcare providers, this could mean marking up information about services, locations, and healthcare professionals, making it easier for search engines to display this information in rich snippets or knowledge graphs.
Implementing schema for FAQs, medical conditions, and treatments can significantly enhance visibility and click-through rates from search results.
Why? Because sites with specific structured data, like those for reviews and ratings, can be featured in rich snippets. Rich snippets are like tiny summaries of information Google collects in response to a user’s inquiry. If you have something that can be used in a rich snippet, you may be featured even above the first search engine result or be given multiple ranking spots for the same keyword.
Schema.org is extremely helpful to those who don’t code when creating structured data for our websites, or a web developer or SEO can quickly implement a markup on certain pages.
Local SEO and Google My Business
For healthcare providers, local SEO is critical to online visibility. Most patients are looking for services within their geographical area, which means your practice needs to appear prominently in local search results. Claiming and optimizing your Google My Business listing is critical, allowing you to manage how your practice appears on Google Maps and in local search results.
Regularly updating your listing with accurate hours, services, and contact information and encouraging satisfied patients to leave positive reviews can significantly improve your local SEO performance and consistently bring in new patients from your community.
Reputation Management
Monitoring and managing online reviews across platforms like Google, Yelp, and health-specific review sites can help you maintain a sense of trust between you and your current and future patients. When I was training to be an EMT, we were told to expect a malpractice suit at some point in our career. I expect any clinician has been told that or experienced the end of a patient’s ire, rightfully deserved or not.
There’s no world in which transparency due to the incredibly fast spread of information is going away anytime soon. The best thing anyone, provider or not, can do to maintain the sense of trust between them and their audience is to be proactive about monitoring their online presence - including online reviews.
Responding professionally to positive and negative reviews demonstrates that you value patient feedback and are committed to improving service quality. Proactively seeking feedback from satisfied patients can also help build a positive online presence.
Link Building
Earning backlinks from reputable sites is a testament to your website's authority and trustworthiness. For healthcare providers, this could involve contributing guest posts to reputable journals, podcast appearances, writing journal articles for more consumer-facing magazines like Scientific American, participating in local health events and getting mentioned on event websites, or creating shareable, valuable content that other sites want to link to. Quality is much more valuable than quantity when it comes to link building.
Here’s another of my secrets: If you can’t focus on both at once, focus on building organic traffic first. Then link building.
Would you like personalized insights into where your website stands? Take this 5-minute quiz to learn how to boost your website’s online presence.
Content Marketing for Healthcare SEO
Blogging
When asking what healthcare SEO is I often hear what does a blog have to do with an SEO strategy? My answer: everything. A regularly updated blog is the cornerstone of any content marketing strategy. It drives traffic and establishes your site as a thought leader in healthcare, gaining respect from patients and colleagues as an authority.
Blog posts can cover a wide range of topics, from health tips and disease prevention to patient care stories and advances in medical technology. The key is to create content that is engaging, informative, and tailored to the questions and concerns of your target audience.
Video Content
Videos are an increasingly popular way to consume content, and they offer a unique opportunity for healthcare providers to connect with their audience. Educational videos, Q&A sessions with healthcare professionals, and behind-the-scenes looks at your practice can make your website more engaging and shareable, boosting your SEO efforts.
Not sure where to start? I, for one, have never been a huge video content person myself. Look at the length of this article for god sakes. Here’s a hint: do what one of your competitors is doing, but better. Here’s another one: use Instagram’s reel templates. Reels get a lot of engagement and are usually pretty easy to throw together when using a template.
Infographics
Healthcare topics can often be complex and overwhelming when presented to lay people - especially in an era of rampant mistrust and misinformation. Infographics are an excellent way to break down complicated information into digestible, visually appealing pieces.
They're also highly shareable, increasing the likelihood of backlinks and social media shares, which can boost your SEO. Infographics are also versatile, which I love that they can be inserted into an article to break up the text, used on Instagram or LinkedIn, or printed out as a physical handout, making them friendly for almost anyone in your demographic.
Navigating Compliance and Ethics in Healthcare SEO
Healthcare SEO isn’t just about driving traffic(I hope that’s obvious by now; it’s about building trust, attracting clients you’ll love working with, and becoming a leader in your field), AND it's about doing so ethically and in compliance with regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States.
Ensuring patient privacy means any patient information collected through your website must be securely stored and used in a manner that complies with legal standards. The nature of your patient relationships should underscore every marketing effort you make, ensuring you’re compliant and viewed as trustworthy.
Moreover, marketing practices should be transparent and truthful, avoiding promoting unverified treatments or misleading information about healthcare services.
Your office is a space where your patients can feel cared for. Your online space should be the same, giving patients reliable, informative information and reassurance that their private information is safe and sound.
Measuring the Success of Your Healthcare SEO Efforts
To ensure your healthcare SEO strategy is effective, tracking its performance using key metrics is crucial. These might include organic traffic, keyword rankings, conversion rates, and bounce rates. What key metrics should I track, you might ask? I would tell you it depends on your ultimate goal.
If your goal is to gain 15 new patients over the next 6 months through online bookings, then that would be your main KPI: the number of online bookings made. Other KPIs could support this effort—how many patients visit the online bookings page, what their journey through your website is like, what blogs are leading them to book, and whether organic traffic is going up overall. After all, you must cast a wider net to catch more fish.
Tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Semrush offer insights into how users find and interact with your site and what they do once they’re there. This allows you to adjust your strategy as needed. Regularly reviewing these metrics can help you understand what's working, what's not, and where there's room for improvement.
SEO Statistics for Healthcare Professionals
72% of consumers use the Internet to gather health information
7% of Google’s daily search queries are related to health
46% of all Google searches are local
Almost 64% of customers are likely to read Google reviews before visiting a local business
Healthcare businesses with a blog are 13 times more likely to see a positive ROI
There are 100 billion searches for healthcare on Google alone each year
What does this mean for you, whether you’re a large hospital or a small practice? With 900,000 healthcare businesses currently operating in the U.S., you’ve got to go where your clients are—online. Word-of-mouth marketing is still a powerful tool for healthcare businesses. Still, it’s not enough anymore, with so many people using the Internet to look for a trustworthy provider. It’s now important to be present with your patients in person and online.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much time and money should I put toward an SEO campaign?
Agencies, on average, charge $3200 for comprehensive SEO plans, while freelancers tend to charge less. Based on conversations with colleagues, I can safely say that I hear $2500 as the rate for many freelance SEO campaigns. Time-wise, I expect to see results within 6 months. Many people will promise them sooner. You may get results sooner. But deep, lasting change takes time, and so does implementing that change.
Is it worth it for my practice to do this?
The better question is, is it worth it for you to opt out of digital marketing? You never know what will happen if you don’t market your services online—and the consequences of not being willing to keep up with changing consumer demands.
What if I can’t afford SEO services?
Many SEOs will provide a la carte or reduced services to meet you where you’re at, budget-wise. Some examples may include only doing optimized content production, setting up a content strategy but not executing it fully, providing you with optimized article outlines, doing keyword research, or doing monthly website maintenance. In fact, our monthly SEO services can be catered to your needs right here at Camille Prairie Creative Co.
Enhance Your Online Visibility When You Use SEO Services to Your Advantage
When you work with Camille Prairie Creative Co., you’ll get tailored support for your SEO needs from professionals who work with small businesses to increase organic traffic and online visibility and turn first-time website visitors into lifelong patients.
We’ll work with you to create a customized SEO strategy to meet your goals and boost your online presence. Learn more when you book a 30-minute meeting with us today.
