Medical SEO And Content Marketing Strategies For Healthcare

Healthcare may be progressing fast regarding technology and treatment available to the patients, but it is slow in digitization. Healthcare is not very digitally suave when it comes to marketing. It has been especially problematic due to the lack of a particular code or standard of data sharing. Also, digitizing decades’ worth of black and white data was a gargantuan task.

Right now, healthcare is all over the internet and that is understating it. From simple headaches to funny moles, people try to Google all of their symptoms and try to find out what's plaguing their health. Over 43% of the adults use Google on a daily basis to look up health-related matters. 24% of the adults use it for buying medication or learning about medicine. Investing in online marketing is no longer an option. Digital marketing companies, hospitals, and healthcare insurance providers need to be online to propagate business and eliminate competition.

Content marketing

You cannot survive in the present market without a content marketing strategy. Especially hospitals and healthcare providers need to update their content from time to time. If there are chances of getting any discounts or if there are new regulations for insurance claims, everything should be updated online. Content can include blogs, white paper and research reports on current social and health issues. Webinars are also good sources of content. You can add entire videos with written transcript for your users.

Content builds SEO

When you start working on your content, you automatically start working on your SEO. Every time you mention your company name in updates, event announcements, research pieces, products and technological trends, you are boosting your business SEO.

Healthcare generates the most amount of content among all sectors. From changes in policies, legislations, clinical trials, mobile innovations to health informatics, you can write on anything that will generate traction for your website.

Native advertising

You can even promote your site content via other sites through native advertising. It is a practice of online advertising where you can post as a guest author or share your posts. This will get you a new audience who will be interested in your product and services. That is why you should pick a platform that matches the intent and purpose of your website.

SEO for the healthcare industry

Many people are of the opinion that SEO is dwindling and keywords are not relevant. That is far from the truth. A website without SEO is a manual boat without oars. Your site will not have a direction, traction or mobility without its optimization. Google bots will only be able to find the right content if you use the right signaling system and that is SEO.

What is the correct way to get started with SEO?

If you are a medical practitioner or an HR in a hospital, you should start from the beginning of healthcare SEO.

All optimization techniques start from on-page SEO

1. Research your keywords: finding the correct keywords is quite easy. All you need is a state of the art keyword tool. You can start with free ones like UpSream and Google AdWords too. Check for trending keywords related to the topics you want to write on. Make a list of those keywords.
2. May a keyword list: this should also include all the keywords that patients are looking for. Keyword Planner is a very useful tool for creating such a list. This tool will also give you an idea of the monthly searches for each keyword you search.
3. Conduct regular keyword analysis: you should only choose keywords that are relevant to your website. Adding a random keyword like “Twerking” on a hip-replacement surgery will not get you the right crowd. It might give you immediately high website traffic. However, the conversion rates will be meager.

If you are a GP or a surgeon, SEO is going to be a little difficult for you. Since it is not a one-time thing, you will have to give at least an hour of your time each day for perfecting your website SEO. Since this is practically challenging for any practicing medical professional, you should try asking for professional help from a good SEO marketing company.

Bonus of working for a good SEO company

Most queries are shifting from text to vocal on Google and other popular search engines. People are likely to ask Cortana or Siri about the cause of their stomach pain than type the query. Most questions are now starting with "Hi, Cortana/Siri/Alexa."

An SEO company, which is committed, takes into account the invasion of AI into the online medical infotech domain.

• The use of virtual assistants is yielding only a few links and results since most websites do not have optimized content. If you optimize your content for AI, you will automatically be performed in a small competition zone. 
• You can seize this opportunity to develop highly personalized and efficient search results for impressive CTRs.
• Medical SEO developed for virtual assistants will bring higher traffic for the websites and boost the rankings of the site too.

Challenges of oncoming medical SEO

The most prominent challenges will include voice inflections and medical nomenclature.

Voice inflections: there are rising concerns about the ability or inability of a search engine and bots to understand the distress of the person. Responding according to the stress and danger level of the user is something voice search, and medical SEO is yet to master.

Medical nomenclature: most search engines can predict search terms and understand “misspelled" words. However, when the search is vocal, it might become challenging to distinguish between two phonetically similar words.

Medical SEO is still evolving. So if you are not yet on the digital marketing bandwagon, do not worry. You can quickly hop on the slow train to search engine optimization before some other tech giant comes with another virtual personal assistant.