Medical field is considered to be one of the most challenging for SEO promotion because it is related to the vital topic of health. Search engines have particularly high requirements to medical websites.
Special SEO methods are needed in order to make a website of medical institution stand out from the competition and bring it into the top 10 of SERP. What are they precisely and what results do they help to achieve? Let’s take an in-depth review together with the Big Lab.
Why is SEO needed for the websites of medical institutions
The main SEO task is to improve the ranking and visibility of the website in search engines. A SEO specialist does everything necessary to bring the website to the top-10 as well as to increase traffic and amount of visitors to the website.
This work brings the following results.
The awareness of the clinic and the brand increases. Presence at the top of SERP for relevant queries allows the brand to draw the attention of potential customers.
The interest in the services of the clinic increases. Customers who have found the website of the clinic on their query will come to the medical institution.
The number of visitors and patients grows. Thanks to digital technology, the audience of the medical institution can be multiplied.
As a rule, the first results of SEO become noticeable in the second or third month of the team’s work on the project. The growth of the website in the SERP requires compliance with a number of conditions since the medical field has special requirements from Google.
Important nuances of SEO for medical websites: expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness
Search engines have higher requirements for medical and health websites. In 2018 Google started to use a factor called E-A-T when ranking medical websites. This is an abbreviation of the words: Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
According to this criterion, not all medical websites can get into the top-10 of Google’s SERP. Due to the fact that Google categorizes such sites as YMYL (Your Money or Your Life), only those resources with expert, authoritative and trustworthy information may be ranked in the positions visible to a user. It must be prepared by or under the guidance of doctors. The more expert a medical institution’s website is, the better it will rank in Google.
User-friendliness
The medical website should provide convenient options for the potential customer:
book an appointment online;
order a callback;
ask a question as part of an online consultation.
The services provided by a medical institution should be described in detail, answering all of the user’s questions. It is necessary to specify the advantages and disadvantages of the service, tell about what results and in what time frame can be achieved as well as to specify the cost of the service and offer promotions and discounts.
Getting to know the doctors
One of the main elements of a medical institution’s website is the section devoted to the clinic’s doctors. This is a unique part of the website which should be given special attention. Detailed information about the specialists working at the medical center should be presented, their professional experience, education and special achievements should be indicated.
Doctors are the real “stars” of a medical institution. There are many people who prefer to go only to specific doctors based on recommendations and reviews. So they should be presented in the best possible light.
If you have truly excellent specialists working at your medical institution, you should create a separate page for each of them on your website — i.e. a description card with detailed information, photos, certificates and licenses.
Apart from that, you need to promote them externally. Organize appearances as experts in the media for them, mentions on popular medical websites, activity in social networks, all of these will provide fame to your specialists. The trust of search engines will follow immediately.
Useful, informative content
Special attention should be paid to useful content, in order for a medical institution’s website to meet the criteria of expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
The website structure should include “Q&A” and “Articles” sections. A blog with text and video content should be kept. It is necessary that articles about the diseases and their treatment were written by certified medical professionals. Only in this case the articles will be truly useful, informative and valuable to readers.
The times of articles written by copywriters and filled with keywords is gone. Of course, key queries may be present in the texts but it should be necessarily done in the form of natural inclusion.
Not only texts should be posted on the website, the videos with doctors talking about the symptoms and treatment of diseases should also be there. Google search algorithms, which are reverent about the factors of expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, will certainly appreciate this.
Reviews
You should pay attention to user-generated content. Create a “reviews” section of your website where you will post only real reviews from patients who have used services of your clinic. Help and encourage your customers to leave reviews on your website.
The problem with reviews is that users tend to leave negative ones much more often than the positive ones. To help generate positive reviews, you can offer your patients discounts on their next visit or some other bonuses.
The more useful and informative content is posted on your website, the more time users will spend on it, and the better it will be ranked in Google’s SERP which is attentive to such behavioural factors.
Moreover, the website should have a clear menu, a section with information about the medical license and convenient filters to search for services and doctors. The website should have high loading speeds both on desktop and mobile devices.
External SEO promotion of a medical website
The external promotion of the website and creating the reputation of the company has an impact on the website’s position in SERP. One of the important areas of work is control and attention to user-generated content on the feedback websites.
Potential customers often trust such an information more than the most tempting commercial offers. One or two negative reviews can severely undermine a medical institution’s reputation and negate all efforts for its promotion.
Never respond aggressively to negative reviews on third-party websites since your replies will be read by your target audience in the future. It is better to try to find the best solution to the problem and offer it to the author of a negative review.
You should also post information about the medical institution on Google Map and Google my Business as well as be active in social networks in order to have a direct contact with the target audience.
Medical field is considered to be one of the most challenging for SEO promotion because it is related to the vital topic of health. Search engines have particularly high requirements to medical websites.
Special SEO methods are needed in order to make a website of medical institution stand out from the competition and bring it into the top 10 of SERP. What are they precisely and what results do they help to achieve? Let’s take an in-depth review together with the Big Lab.
Why is SEO needed for the websites of medical institutions
The main SEO task is to improve the ranking and visibility of the website in search engines. A SEO specialist does everything necessary to bring the website to the top-10 as well as to increase traffic and amount of visitors to the website.
This work brings the following results.
As a rule, the first results of SEO become noticeable in the second or third month of the team’s work on the project. The growth of the website in the SERP requires compliance with a number of conditions since the medical field has special requirements from Google.
Important nuances of SEO for medical websites: expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness
Search engines have higher requirements for medical and health websites. In 2018 Google started to use a factor called E-A-T when ranking medical websites. This is an abbreviation of the words: Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
According to this criterion, not all medical websites can get into the top-10 of Google’s SERP. Due to the fact that Google categorizes such sites as YMYL (Your Money or Your Life), only those resources with expert, authoritative and trustworthy information may be ranked in the positions visible to a user. It must be prepared by or under the guidance of doctors. The more expert a medical institution’s website is, the better it will rank in Google.
User-friendliness
The medical website should provide convenient options for the potential customer:
The services provided by a medical institution should be described in detail, answering all of the user’s questions. It is necessary to specify the advantages and disadvantages of the service, tell about what results and in what time frame can be achieved as well as to specify the cost of the service and offer promotions and discounts.
Getting to know the doctors
One of the main elements of a medical institution’s website is the section devoted to the clinic’s doctors. This is a unique part of the website which should be given special attention. Detailed information about the specialists working at the medical center should be presented, their professional experience, education and special achievements should be indicated.
Doctors are the real “stars” of a medical institution. There are many people who prefer to go only to specific doctors based on recommendations and reviews. So they should be presented in the best possible light.
If you have truly excellent specialists working at your medical institution, you should create a separate page for each of them on your website — i.e. a description card with detailed information, photos, certificates and licenses.
Apart from that, you need to promote them externally. Organize appearances as experts in the media for them, mentions on popular medical websites, activity in social networks, all of these will provide fame to your specialists. The trust of search engines will follow immediately.
Useful, informative content
Special attention should be paid to useful content, in order for a medical institution’s website to meet the criteria of expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
The website structure should include “Q&A” and “Articles” sections. A blog with text and video content should be kept. It is necessary that articles about the diseases and their treatment were written by certified medical professionals. Only in this case the articles will be truly useful, informative and valuable to readers.
The times of articles written by copywriters and filled with keywords is gone. Of course, key queries may be present in the texts but it should be necessarily done in the form of natural inclusion.
Not only texts should be posted on the website, the videos with doctors talking about the symptoms and treatment of diseases should also be there. Google search algorithms, which are reverent about the factors of expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, will certainly appreciate this.
Reviews
You should pay attention to user-generated content. Create a “reviews” section of your website where you will post only real reviews from patients who have used services of your clinic. Help and encourage your customers to leave reviews on your website.
The problem with reviews is that users tend to leave negative ones much more often than the positive ones. To help generate positive reviews, you can offer your patients discounts on their next visit or some other bonuses.
The more useful and informative content is posted on your website, the more time users will spend on it, and the better it will be ranked in Google’s SERP which is attentive to such behavioural factors.
Moreover, the website should have a clear menu, a section with information about the medical license and convenient filters to search for services and doctors. The website should have high loading speeds both on desktop and mobile devices.
External SEO promotion of a medical website
The external promotion of the website and creating the reputation of the company has an impact on the website’s position in SERP. One of the important areas of work is control and attention to user-generated content on the feedback websites.
Potential customers often trust such an information more than the most tempting commercial offers. One or two negative reviews can severely undermine a medical institution’s reputation and negate all efforts for its promotion.
Never respond aggressively to negative reviews on third-party websites since your replies will be read by your target audience in the future. It is better to try to find the best solution to the problem and offer it to the author of a negative review.
You should also post information about the medical institution on Google Map and Google my Business as well as be active in social networks in order to have a direct contact with the target audience.
Автор -Written by Alexey Kormushkin
Copywriter. Works with web studios and internet marketing agencies. Writes texts about internet marketing, SEO and online sales tools.
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Автор -Written by Alexey Kormushkin
Copywriter. Works with web studios and internet marketing agencies. Writes texts about internet marketing, SEO and online sales tools.