When you’re trying to prioritize your health and wellness, you’ll often have to take matters into your own hands. It’s important that patients play an active role in their health. This can mean treating a current concern or taking proactive measures to reduce the risk of future concerns. This is what’s known as patient engagement in healthcare.
Patient engagement means that a patient is participating in their healthcare decisions by collaborating with their provider to determine what’s best for them. It’s about having empowerment and agency by providing options and setting personal boundaries. In addition,a patient’s online behaviors can also play a large role in their patient engagement. With the right search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, a healthcare facility’s site and online platforms can contribute to patient engagement.
How SEO can be a contributing factor to patient engagement in the healthcare space
Patient engagement should be practiced well before a person steps into your healthcare facility. This means that they’ve done their research to become well informed about what they need and how you can help them.
Patient engagement through SEO means helping current or potential patients find the information they need to address their health concerns or interests. SEO can boost patient engagement in a variety of ways, including:
- Targeting content for specific patient demographics that can benefit from your services
- Boosting your site’s rankings on search engine result pages for visibility and awareness
- Providing patients with real-time assistance through interactive content, such as quizzes
- Educating patients with content that showcases your authority and expertise
- Improving a patient’s understanding of relevant topics through internal linking
- Bolstering their confidence in decision-making using testimonials and reviews
How to boost patient engagement through SEO
Now that we’ve discussed how SEO can help your patient engagement, it’s time to explore the different ways you can accomplish it.
There are many different aspects of SEO that can encourage patient engagement. By figuring out how to incorporate them into your SEO strategy, you can put the right marketing efforts into motion. BURG+CO. can help you every step of the way by making sure that you cover all your bases for the best results possible.
Here are a few SEO focal points that can help your patient engagement:
- Keyword research — In order for your patients to engage with your site and online resources, they have to be able to find them. That’s why ranking high for relevant keywords on search engines can be essential in patient engagement. Use keyword research to find what people are searching for in relation to your practice or clinic, both locally and nationally. By tailoring content to these keywords, you can boost traffic and visibility.
- Balanced content creation — If a patient wants to gain information related to their health, they will draw from sources that are trusted by search engines. In the healthcare space, people want to be informed about their concerns without being talked down to. By creating content that’s educational and conversational, you can teach patients what they need to know in a way that resonates, such as how-to guides or eye-catching infographics. This also boosts your relevance and quality in the eyes of the algorithm.
- Review responses — While many people try to trust their gut when it comes to making decisions for their own well-being, such as their healthcare, getting nudges in the right direction can also help. Patient engagement means that a patient does their due diligence on researching a facility, such as reviewing testimonials. Responding to all reviews, both positive and negative, can help your SEO rankings by building trust and boosting your social appearance.
- Accessible content — If you’re trying to boost patient engagement, it’s essential that users are able to access the information they’re trying to engage with. Accessibility plays a significant role in user experience, which is a factor in SEO rankings. Make sure that you’re creating accessible content with features like transcripts for videos and readable fonts. You should also follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Want to attract new visitors to your website? BURG+CO. can help
Increasing traffic to your website plays a role in increasing conversions and leading to new clients. However, it’s difficult to attract visitors to your site when you don’t know what to do. Fortunately, this is what we specialize in at BURG+CO.
Our team has years of experience in helping businesses improve their digital presence to attract new leads and retain existing ones. If you’re looking to perform better in search engine results and attract more visitors 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.
