SEO for Doctors | Grow Your Medical Practice in 2022

Need help doing SEO for doctors? No idea where to start with marketing your medical practice on search engines?

Search engines are a powerful tool that many potential patients use to find doctors and other medical practitioners. And if you want to be among the first results on these search engines, you need to be doing SEO for doctors.

Here’s how you can get started today!

What is SEO?

SEO refers to search engine optimisation. There are certain strategies and tactics you can use to optimise your website for search engine algorithms. This is what SEO is all about.

How It Works

Search engines have algorithms that use bots to crawl through all the data on the internet and find relevant search results for their users. When someone types something into a search engine, these algorithms are made to deliver the best results possible.

While these algorithms are extremely sophisticated and difficult to “trick”, there are some strategies you can use based on these algorithms’ ranking systems to help your website rank higher on search engine results pages.

Search engine algorithms rank websites based on factors including:

• High-quality content including text and images
• Bounce rates (number of people who instantly leave your website)
• Ease of website navigation
• Websites free from errors or duplicates
• Keywords from the search
• Number of links to and from the website
• Geographic specifications

So, if you make sure that your website is optimised for search engines using SEO for doctors, you’re giving your medical practice much better chances of being found on search engine results pages.

Why is SEO important?

Before we get into how you can do SEO for doctors, perhaps more important is why you should be doing SEO in the first place.

There are 3 main reasons to do SEO for doctors:

• Generate organic traffic
• Build authority for your medical practice
• Find new patients

Let’s go over each of these benefits in a little more detail.

Organic Traffic

Likely the main reason to incorporate SEO for doctors is to generate organic traffic for your medical practice. Since lots of people use search engines to find doctors and health practitioners, SEO can help you rank higher on search engine results pages.

However, instead of paying for ads to come up first in search results, you’ll be able to optimise your website so that you show up higher in organic rankings. This means that without paying for ad placement, your website has better chances of showing up on the first few pages of search results on its own.

Organic traffic is the best kind of traffic and it’s the most trusted by consumers. While many people do click on paid ads if they answer their search query, many tend to scroll past the ads and find the top results that come up organically.

In other words, it can’t hurt to do both paid ads and SEO for doctors.

Build Authority

Next, SEO for doctors helps to build your authority online. Authority simply refers to whether or not people trust your expertise based on their digital experience with your brand.

Let’s face it – you could be the best, most knowledgeable doctor in town but if your website is clunky and doesn’t have any useful information to provide, then users aren’t likely to trust you or your medical practice.

As you’ll see in the sections below, SEO for doctors is all about improving your website’s content, functionality and usability. In other words, high-quality websites meet search engine standards and therefore rank higher based on the algorithm’s ranking system.

So, when doing SEO, you’ll be improving your online presence using proven strategies to build authority in your niche and encourage a more trustworthy reputation when users interact with your website.

From expert articles to an easy-to-navigate experience on your site, building authority is another important reason to do SEO for doctors.

Find New Patients

As you generate organic traffic and build authority as a medical practice, you’ll get the added benefit of finding new patients.

Again, many people search for new medical providers on search engines. So, if you have medical services to provide, you want to show up on those results pages.

However, it’s key to use a blend of content marketing and strong SEO strategies to make sure that people not only find your website but that they convert into patients. At the end of the day, doctors always need new patients to keep their business running.

So, if SEO for doctors can help you do that, it’s a no-brainer to get started. By focusing on optimising your website for search engine algorithms, your medical practice will be booming in no time.

How to Do SEO for Doctors

So, how does one actually do SEO for doctors?

Let’s go through some of the main features of search engine optimisation to help you get started.

Keyword Research

Keywords are words or phrases that you can add to your content to improve your search engine rankings.

One of the pillars of SEO for doctors is a solid keyword research strategy. But why would you need to research keywords in the first place?

Well, search engine algorithms find keywords within your content and match them with what people are searching for. In other words, it makes sense that you’d want to make sure that the exact keywords that people are searching the most are the ones you’ll include in your content.

However, there are certain keywords that so many people search for that it makes it almost impossible to compete. So, when you do keyword research, you want to find words and phrases that not only have a decently high search volume but also low competition.

It means you’ll actually have a chance of ranking for those keywords that lots of people are searching for.

You’ll also want to ensure that the keywords you choose are actually relevant to the products or services you offer. In other words, just because the keyword “coronavirus” is trending doesn’t mean you should try to rank for it if you offer nothing to do with the pandemic.

All in all, keyword research is all about finding relevant keywords with high search volumes and low competition so that you can incorporate them into your content and rank higher on search engine results pages.

Content Strategy

Content strategy is another huge aspect of a solid SEO strategy. And when doing SEO for doctors especially, you need to make sure your content is not only relevant and interesting, but also accurate and informative.

One of the trickiest parts about doing SEO for doctors is that your content often comes with a lot of pressure. After all, you don’t want to mislead anyone or send them in the wrong direction about their health. So, it’s key that your content strategy works for you – not against you.

When doing SEO for doctors, your content strategy might include:

• Website content
• Blog posts
• Articles
• White papers
• Metadata
• URL slugs

These are all styles of content that you can optimise for search engines so that you’re more visible on their results pages. From there, if you do your SEO right, you’ll not only earn more visibility, but more clicks and conversions too.

Teeming with opportunities, SEO for doctors is an amazing way to grow your medical practice since a huge percentage of people search for information about their symptoms before booking an appointment.

So, if you can solve those search queries while also leading them in the right direction to book an appointment at your practice, it’s clear that the growth opportunity is there for the taking.

Link Building

While link building can be a little more complicated, it’s another important aspect of doing SEO for doctors. Link building is about making sure that other websites are pointing towards your website.

In other words, there are two types of links. Inbound links that come from other websites, leading users to you and outbound links which are links to other reputable sites from your website.

Search engines use these links as one of the ranking factors to categorise websites as more or less trustworthy. The idea is that the more links point to a website, the more trustworthy it is and the higher it’ll appear on search engine results pages.

So, link building is about ensuring that other websites are linking to your website. To do this, you might:

• Write guest blog posts that link to your site
• Link to your site on doctors’ personal websites or social media pages
• Add your website links to reputable directories for medical practices

By using link building strategies and creating relationships with influencers and others in your community, you can improve your overall SEO for doctors.

On-Site Optimisation

When doing SEO for doctors, on-site optimisation is also something to consider. While on-site optimisation technically includes the content on your website, it also includes things like:

• Improving page load speeds
• Removing any duplicate content
• Improving the navigation, flow and design of your website
• Removing any errors
• Adding SEO alt text
• Incorporating SEO metadata

By improving your overall website, you’re therefore reducing your bounce rate. Your bounce rate is the rate of people who click on your website but then immediately retreat as they didn’t like what they found.

When you have a website that’s highly functional with zero errors, easy navigation, quick page load speeds and the answer to the user’s initial issue, it all helps with SEO.

So, by not only optimising the content on your website but the user experience as well, you can reduce bounce rates and help search engine algorithms rank your website higher than your competitors.

Google Analytics

These days, there are quite a lot of SEO analytics and reporting tools out there. But, one that you should definitely get familiar with when doing SEO for doctors is Google Analytics.

As Google controls around 70% of the market share of search engines, the data you can gather from Google Analytics is invaluable information about your users. With Google Analytics, you can learn:

• User demographics
• Bounce rate
• Most popular pages
• Least popular pages
• How long users spend on each page
• Where your traffic is coming from

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Google Analytics is downright overwhelming with how much information it offers.

Still, it’s a hugely beneficial tool when doing SEO for doctors that can help you see what your website does well and which pages need a little more work.

Work With an SEO Agency

Last but not least, if you need SEO for doctors, your best bet is always to work with an SEO agency like Maple Cloud.

If you’re a doctor or you run a medical practice, you’re definitely going to be busy doing much more important things. While yes, SEO for doctors is certainly important as it can help you serve more patients and help more people, let’s just say that your skills are best used elsewhere.

When you work with an SEO agency, you’ll get expertly crafted strategies that come from years of experience. We’ve worked with everyone from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies as well as other medical practices worldwide.

In other words, we know what we’re doing. It’s our job to serve you.

So, leave it to us. And you can focus on continuing to provide your patients with the best of the best medical care. Ready to get started with SEO for doctors. Book a free consultation with our SEO strategies today!

Best SEO Agency for Doctors

If you decide to work with an SEO agency, you’ll need to know what you’re looking for. After all, it’s pretty noisy out there and you’ll want to make sure the SEO agency you go with can offer real results.

Here, we’re going over what to look for in an SEO agency and why Maple Cloud SEO Agency Sydney stands out.

What to Look For

The top things to look for in an SEO agency include:

• A proven track record of success
• Trustworthiness
• An understanding of the medical niche
• Data-driven results

Proven Track Record

Start by sorting through SEO agencies with a proven track record. That means scouring testimonials and checking out some of their other clients’ results. During your consultation, ask them about their previous numbers to get an idea of what they can do for your SEO for doctors.

When you start with a track record of success, you can assume that they’ll be able to create the same success for your medical practice.

Trustworthiness

SEO can sometimes be seen as scammy. So-called SEO gurus have been known to scam businesses out of their money, promising organic traffic but either not delivering or delivering by using ‘off the books’ tactics.

You’ll want to triple check that the SEO agency you decide to work with only uses white hat strategies that are on the record and completely safe. No spammy backlinks or sketchy tricks. You want to know that their SEO strategies won’t come back to bite you later on.

Understanding of the Medical Niche

Doing SEO for doctors definitely also requires an understanding of the medical niche. While a lot of digital marketing and SEO wizards are clever with their words and creative with their content, often, what works best for a medical practice is a clear, concise style.

In other words, SEO for doctors isn’t about flashiness. It’s about clearly communicating what potential patients want to know in a way that’s easy to understand and helps them feel confident enough to book an appointment.

Long story short, you want an SEO agency that’s done SEO for doctors before.

Data-Driven Results

Lastly, make sure your SEO agency can offer real, data-driven results. By that we mean that your SEO agency should let the numbers do the talking.

Instead of simply helping you rank on search engine results pages, they need to help you generate real leads and actual conversions. We’re talking actual new patients that are booking appointments and coming back again and again.

So, make sure that when you get an agency to do your SEO for doctors, they have reporting tools and analytics that you have full access to.

The Maple Cloud Difference

So, what makes us here at Maple Cloud SEO Agency Sydney stand out? Here are a few reasons.

Experience with SEO for Doctors

At Maple Cloud, we have experience doing SEO for doctors (and for many other kinds of businesses too). Our content writers and SEO strategists can execute your brand voice and help you generate not only traffic, but new patients as well.

SEO Professionals

While lots of people like to call themselves SEO gurus and digital marketing wizards, the truth is that not everyone can live up to their own hype.

At Maple Cloud, we have a team that can truly call themselves SEO pros with years of expertise working with everyone from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. In short, we know what we’re talking about and we have countless results to back it up.

White Hat Tactics

Last but certainly not least, Maple Cloud only uses white hat SEO tactics that are completely on the books. We’re disgusted by scammy SEO tactics as much as the next person and we’d never put your medical practice in jeopardy due to slimy SEO for doctors.

Our SEO strategies are unique and you can’t get them anywhere else. But what they’re not is scammy and unreliable. We’re as trustworthy as it gets and we feel confident making that promise to you above all else.

Final Thoughts

SEO for doctors is one of the most important aspects of any medical practice’s digital marketing plans. By generating organic traffic via search engines, you can find new patients and grow your practice exponentially.

Book a free consultation with Maple Cloud SEO Agency Sydney today to learn more!