As a healthcare professional who wants to help others live their healthiest lives, you should take pride in knowing that you provide great healthcare to patients. But those patients have to find you first to receive your support for their wellness journey. That’s why on-page search engine optimization requires adequate time and resources to help connect you with the individuals who can benefit most from your care.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of trying to get your site to rank as highly as possible on relevant search engine results pages, or SERPs. There are many contributing factors to your ranking, including how well your webpages appeal to both the algorithm and potential patients, known as on-page SEO.
If you’re trying to amp up the efficiency of your on-page SEO to get the rankings and conversions needed to meet your practice’s growth goals, read on to learn a few tips that may help.
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Optimize your content as much as you can
One of the key elements of SEO is focusing on the last word: Optimization. Every part of your site should be optimized to appeal to the algorithm while still focusing on what the patient is looking for.
Creating content for SEO means connecting a specific search query to the services and support your practice provides. You can optimize your content in a variety of ways for increased ranking and conversion rates, including:
- Using credible sources
- Creating compelling title tags and meta descriptions
- Utilizing a readable content structure, such as including heading 1s and 2s
- Incorporating multimedia elements, such as videos or infographics
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Get specific with your keyword strategy
When people search for a keyword that’s relevant to your practice, SEO can help get your site in front of their eyes. That means that you have to know what keywords to focus on and incorporate into your site, URLs and Google Business Profile descriptions. When you’re creating a keyword strategy, it’s important to focus on highly specific, relevant terms that reflect the exact services or conditions your practice supports.
Focusing on specific, relevant keywords helps you to appeal to patients with particular concerns, such as knee pain while walking. It shows that they aren’t the only ones experiencing an issue, and that you’re able to personalize care to whatever unique circumstances or symptoms they have.
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Choose the right SEO service provider
SEO is often a service that is outsourced as part of an overall marketing strategy because it’s a specific process that requires expertise and insight. But that also means that choosing the right SEO provider for your healthcare practice can play a significant role in your digital marketing success.
If you’re looking for an SEO service provider, here are a few things that should be on your checklist:
- They offer specialized services for healthcare providers.
- They provide regular metric tracking and reporting.
- They offer comprehensive SEO packages, including content creation and Google Business Profile support.
Spoiler: BURG+CO. checks all of those boxes.
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Prioritize user experience on your site
If a patient can’t easily navigate your site and find the information that they need, they aren’t likely to engage with your content. Even though the goal is to always get them to complete a conversion, such as booking an appointment, you also want to prioritize their user experience, even if that means providing them with insight that they won’t use at that moment.
That’s why it’s important to design a website experience that speaks to your patients’ needs and preferences. Key areas to focus on include:
- Accessibility
- Valuable content
- Engaging design
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Keep it (mobile) friendly
The chances are good that you’re viewing this article on your phone—just like most patients do when searching for care. On average, people in the U.S. spend more than five hours per day on their smartphones.
Also, Google usually uses the mobile version of a website when determining rankings, called mobile-first indexing. This fact makes mobile-friendly design even more important. Since Google uses your site’s mobile version to determine rankings, optimizing for smaller screens isn’t just helpful for users, it’s essential for visibility.
Thus, if you want to appeal to Google’s algorithm while meeting patients where they are, then it’s important to make your site mobile friendly.
Having a mobile-friendly website involves:
- Creating an adaptable, responsive site design for different screen sizes
- Choosing an easy-to-read font
- Prioritizing simple menus and navigation elements
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Speed it up
No matter how great your site is, or how informative your content is, people don’t want to wait for a page to load. People are likely to click off your site if a page doesn’t load in three seconds or less. This not only increases your bounce rate, but also decreases engagement and conversion rates. It can impact user experience as well.
You can run an audit on your site to determine your page load speed. A few factors that can impact it include:
- Media file sizes
- Quantity of HTTP requests
- Hosting provider performance
Want to attract new patients to your website? BURG+CO. can help you with on-page SEO
There are many SEO factors that impact your rankings and conversions, including your on-page SEO strategies. But by coupling these tips with the experience of BURG+CO., you’re able to increase your traffic and patient acquisition.
Our team has years of experience in helping healthcare brands improve their digital presence to attract new patients and retain existing ones. If you’re looking to perform better in search engine results and attract more potential patients to your site, we’re ready to talk to you to see how we can help.
Contact our team today for more information about digital marketing or to schedule a complimentary consultation.
