It’s no secret that SEO is one of the most important factors when running a successful online medical practice. Although pay-per-click advertising is highly effective for obtaining new patients, it’s competitive. As a result, it doesn’t have a significant return on investment (ROI). Conversely, SEO is preparing for high ROI and longer-term success with digital marketing. Ideally, your medical practice should transition from solely PPC ads to a mix of SEO and PPC campaigns.
This article will walk you through an easy-to-follow checklist for on-page medical SEO. By following these simple tips, you’ll be able to improve your website’s ranking and bring more traffic to your practice. Optimizing your on-page content when beginning an SEO campaign is essential as Google’s algorithm weighs it the most.
Perform keyword research
Keyword research is the foundation of all SEO campaigns and the first checkpoint of on-page optimization. Moreover, it’s the basis for all content you create in the future.
Before you can start ranking for specific keywords, you need to know which ones will bring traffic to your website. Therefore, using relevant and high-volume keywords throughout your content is essential. They’ll help improve your ranking but also help you attract patients to your practice.
There are a few different ways to perform keyword research. The first is by using Google AdWords’ Keyword Planner. This free tool allows you to enter a seed keyword and get ideas for similar terms. You can also use it to see how much competition there is for each keyword and estimate how many performed searches each month. Additionally, paid tools include Moz and Ahrefs.
Another method is simply putting yourself inside your target audience’s mind. What questions would they have? How would they find answers to those questions?
Creating a few customer avatars is an excellent way to put yourself in their shoes. Remember to be specific when writing about interests, occupations, age, etc. You want to feel like you know and understand your customer avatars.
Create helpful, high-quality content around keywords
Once you have a list of relevant keywords, it’s time to start creating content. But not just any content — you want to focus on creating helpful and high-quality blog posts and lead magnets that will educate your target audience.
When writing this content, naturally include the keywords you’ve researched throughout the article. However, don’t stuff them in there, as Google will penalize you for it, and your readers will be able to tell. Instead, use them sparingly and only when they make sense.
According to Digital Authority Partners, ensuring your content is well-written and informative is also essential. For example, content full of errors or doesn’t offer anything new is offensive and unhelpful. Another way to think about this concept is by creating shareable content:
- It’s a great way to obtain backlinks.
- If you create content from this perspective, you’ll also achieve other goals like providing real value to readers and ranking higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Include intriguing headlines, call-to-actions, and subheadings for the ultimate blog post.
Format your content for both users and search engines
When creating content, you want to ensure it’s formatted correctly for both users and search engines. On the user side of things, you want to make sure your articles are easy to read and understand. Breaking up paragraphs, using bullet points, and adding images are all excellent ways to do this. You also want to use headlines and subheadings to help readers quickly scan your article and find the information.
From a search engine perspective, you want to ensure your website’s code is clean and free of errors. Additionally, proper title tags, meta descriptions, header tags (H1-H6), and alt tags will help search engines understand your content and determine where to rank it.
Create seamless navigation for your content
You’ve created unique content that’s informative, well-written, and easy to read. But if your website’s navigation is confusing or non-existent, no one will ever see it. So creating a seamless navigation experience for users should be a top priority.
Aim to make it easy for users to find the information they want without clicking through multiple pages. An easy way to do this is by using a sidebar on each website page and including links to popular articles and lead magnets. You can also use breadcrumb navigation which helps search engines understand the hierarchy of your website and makes it easier for users to navigate around.
Ensure you have fast site speed, an SSL certificate, and are mobile-friendly
Users expect websites to load quickly; if yours doesn’t, they’ll likely click back to the search engine results page and find a different website. Not only will this hurt your chances of ranking higher, but it will also decrease the amount of traffic your website receives.
You can test your website’s speed using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. This tool will give you a list of things you need to improve to increase your site speed.
Additionally, make sure your website has an SSL certificate. This certificate encrypts the information sent to and from your website, making it more secure. Search engines also prioritize websites with SSL certificates, so it’s a good idea to have one even if you’re not handling sensitive information.
Finally, you need to make sure your website is mobile-friendly. More and more people are using their phones to browse the internet, so your website must be easily viewable on a smaller screen. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to test your website’s mobile-friendliness.
Bonus tip:
Using images and videos on your medical website will give you an advantage over competitors. It’s no secret that humans are visual creatures, so including photos and videos will help your content be more digestible.
Takeaways
Following the tips in this article will optimize your medical website for both users and search engines. Creating informative, well-written, and easy-to-navigate content is essential for a successful website. Additionally, ensure your website is fast, secure, and mobile-friendly to give users the best experience possible. While this may seem like a lot of advice, it will dramatically increase the likelihood of success with your SEO campaign.
