SEO for doctors: 5 ways to boost traffic to your site

You’re a physician, not a techie. So why should you care about your practice's SEO? Or maybe, now that you stop and think about it, you’re wondering … what is SEO for doctors?

After all, you've been working on your practice's online presence. You have a medical website. That's a good thing for your practice — almost a requirement now in the medical industry. Unfortunately, unless you have an effective SEO strategy for your website, it's not likely to be found by potential patients and current patients.

Let's learn more about the importance of SEO for doctors and how to use a subset of SEO: local SEO.

SEO, search engine optimization, makes your website engaging and useful for readers and major search engines, such as Google and Bing. A well-executed SEO strategy means your site will get better search engine results and will be seen by more people.

The better you’ve optimized your site and content, the higher on the search results page it is likely to appear. It's important to attend to SEO on a regular basis in everything you do pertaining to your site.

SEO is, really, more of an art than a science. It’s not a one-and-done exercise; it's an ongoing process that keeps your site fresh and seen by the search engines. It's important to keep up with this. Search engines occasionally like to play with their algorithms and change their parameters.

SEO requires you to shift some paradigms about what you’re capable of doing. It’s not hard, even if it seems complex at first. Here are a few initial ways to improve your local SEO:

You've built your practice's website. Now, if they search for it, patients or prospects can find it. The next step is to move your site up in the rankings as local people search for your specialty and services. You'll want to set your site apart from other medical websites and those of local healthcare organizations. Let's look at 5 ways to do that.

To do solid medical marketing and connect with current and potential patients, post local and targeted healthcare SEO content. Offer medical information. Discuss the current health concerns in your community and ways to resolve them.

You already know that patients want their providers to care about them as individuals, rather than as a cohort. What are some of the concerns that your patients might have? Depending on your specialty, your patients might wonder:

Publish a blog post to your site every week, or even every other week. This demonstrates that you are concerned about what your patients need. The more frequently you publish new content, the more likely your search rankings will improve.

Keywords are those words or phrases that people consistently use when they are conducting web searches. Some of these, of course, are obvious. Say, you’re writing about how to identify symptoms that indicate a stroke. You already know that “stroke” and “stroke symptoms” will be words that potential readers will put into search engines. So you'll need to include those words in your blog headline and in your content.

Here’s a trick about that, though. When you write, make sure that your content matches the headline. Your subheadings should tie directly back to the topic of the post. How to do that? Be sure to include relevant keywords in some of your subheadings.

We've established that keywords are critical. You'll want to do some keyword research. And you'll want to go beyond the obvious when you're contemplating keywords related to your blog post. Also consider including:

If you’re feeling stuck or unsure about what keywords may be relevant, look at the search results for your topic. Rather than paying for a tool or a subscription, look below the paid ads. There, you’ll see a section called “related searches.” Use those searches to determine what additional words you can find and implement.

As a culture, the more mobile we get, the less we are able to focus. According to a recent study on attention, the average human attention span is only 8.25 seconds. 

Make sure that your website offers photos, charts, GIFs, and graphics — with the proper alt text — that support your content. Insert them throughout your blog post. They will help to keep readers engaged and on your site.

Why is this important?  You want folks to stay on your page for a longer time so that search engines will give you a higher rating. It indicates that you're giving readers what they want.

When you add media to your blog post, you should add a descriptor to assist visually or audibly challenged users. These alt text descriptors for images should:

You'll be offering solid medical content. Just as all budding medical professionals did in school, you'll want to cite your sources. On the web, you do this with hyperlinks to demonstrate your expertise and improve your SEO ranking. Include at least 1 or 2 quality external links — authoritative sources other than your own blog or site. And include 3 or 4 internal links — sources that lead people to related content on your website.

You can format your post in your medical website content management system. Be sure to look at the settings for each link. Make sure that each one opens in a new tab or window. This will keep readers on your site longer. 

Put a note in your calendar to update your practice blog posts 9 to 12 months after publication. If necessary, hire someone in the medical community to do your SEO copywriting for you. Refresh existing content with new research, and expound on what you previously published. When you do, you send a signal to search engines that your content is up to date. And you're using targeted SEO content. It's one of the SEO best practices.

There's an acronym for this: Medical E-A-T. It stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. You want both search engines and readers to know that you have those characteristics. Let prospective patients see your gravitas in their online search experience.It's important to optimize your site's searchability, but you'll also be enhancing patient experience at the same time. Check your SEO metrics regularly to determine if what you're posting is working to increase traffic on your site.

One of the best ways to develop an effective SEO strategy is to invite Google to crawl your site. Once this has occurred, your medical website can be indexed for local search results. 

If you’re unsure whether your site has been indexed, type site:yoursitename.com into your browser search bar and hit return. If the results displayed include individual pages from your website, your site has been indexed. You're ready to take the next step.

However, if you don’t get any results, don’t worry. Take these steps:

It isn’t uncommon for site owners to ask their site developers to include these blocks. Many think of them as a security measure. After all, in the medical community, patient privacy and site security are essential. However, refusing to allow search engines to crawl through your site is counter-productive. It doesn't even ensure your site’s security is effective.

These steps should resolve any issues with getting your site indexed. If they don’t, you will most likely want to get your site developer to create a site map. That will help to determine whether your site has any broken links.

Once you're sure that the site has been indexed, work to strengthen your SEO health. It's helpful to determine your SEO KPIs (key performance indicators). If this seems too far from your practice's mission of offering strong healthcare, look for SEO packages from companies that will ensure that you are using the best SEO software to accomplish your goals.

Many practices in the medical industry earn solid SEO ROI (return on investment) when they hire an experienced SEO company. They can offer SEO leads and strengthen the SEO value of the site.

Maybe you feel a bit overwhelmed by all of this discussion of web SEO. But it’s a necessary part of the business. You're doing the medical part well. To do the tech part, ask for help from an experienced SEO firm. You'll increase your local SEO, and as a result, more prospective patients will find your practice.