SEO for Medical Websites - How does it work?

Search Engine Optimization can get you to the top of Google's search results, and it is necessary for your medical website because most patients look for a medical practitioner online. They also look up for the healthcare queries on the search engine.

Therefore, if your website does not appear within the top three results, you are giving up a number of potential patients to your competitors.Here are the ways in SEO for medical websites work:

1- It is a measurable and repetitive process

The first thing that you need to know about Medical SEO is that when your web page is optimized, it signals to the search engines that your page is worth enlistment in Google's index.

Google uses an algorithm, which is a complicated mathematical formula to give scores to all websites, and every search which people do to determine which site meets all the requirements of the people and therefore, ranks the best.

The algorithm gives you scores based on the overall quality of your site, the number of sites which link to you, and the authority of your site. When you optimize your website, you ensure that you get the maximum score in most of these points.

2- Search engine rankings

Ensure that your website offers something valuable, and unique to the users. Your focus should lie on making your site stand out from your competitors. Incorporate information related to diseases, diagnosis, and treatment in your website.

Even if you are providing excellent quality treatment to the patients, if the service description and content of your website is the same as all other websites, Google shall not be able to tell that your site is better than others.

Give them relevant information, be creative and highlight all those aspects which make your services the best. Get your patients to endorse your services on the website as well as social media. Do everything that shall make you unique, and better than all other search results.

3- Trust is essential for search engine ranking

Since Google yields the best search results, it is evident that it does not display any random website to the users. It always presents such sites which are trustworthy; this implies that if your website has too many negative reviews, it shall penalize your site and not display it.

It is essential to get the other authoritative sites to link to your site. Newspaper articles, pharmaceuticals, and other medical websites can help you to build credibility. Also, let other trustworthy sites link to you. Getting your partners, satisfied patients, and other healthcare industries to link to your site show that you are trustworthy.

4- On-site search engine optimization

It is essential for you to know the elements of on-site optimization. Incorporate the title tag, meta description, header tags, internal links, emboldened text, image name and ALT tags in all your web pages.

The title tag needs to be less than 70 characters. It should include the name of your brand and the relevant keywords. You need to put the tag between labels near the top point of the HTML code for each page.

The Meta-description of the website should include medical practices and other relevant information on your page. Ensure that you add all the essential keywords in the Meta-description.

If your medical blog is SEO friendly, the entry shall have three different levels of HTML header labels which shall break the content into different sections, and then let the search engine find what lies in each segment of the content.

The labels consist of the post title and there needs to be a single arrangement of for each page. The and tags can be used to add subheadings for each page. You can use them on multiple occasions.

When you use header labels, it becomes easy for the site-visitors and the web search engines to separate the content.

5- Internal linking

You can help visitors to gain more information from your site by internally connecting to the different pages on your site. Form links to your content, and connect them with the official website.

6- Emboldened text

When you bold an essential part of your content, it stands out and can be easily distinguished by your visitors.

Therefore, emboldening your keyword-related data and other relevant data can help the search engines to recognize them in the content of a particular page. Avoid keyword stuffing on your page. You should limit your usage to five keywords for each web page.

7- Authority and popularity

Google always displays the most popular websites to its users. So, it is vital to show Google that your site and the services that you offer are the best.You can focus on creating a chain of satisfied patients.

Build a robust social network by getting your patients to link to your website, leave testimonials, and share credible pictures. In this manner, you can prove to be reliable as well as authoritative according to Google.

8- Off-site search engine optimization

Off-site SEO, which is also known as link building, is a process of third-party referencing to maximize your traffic and improve your search ranking.

The external link building includes three types of links, namely, organic links, whitehat links, and blackhat links. You should stay away from blackhat SEO practices as they have low-quality and spammy links which can reduce the credibility of your website.

If you are unable to generate enough natural links to boost your search engine ranking, you can submit infographics or guest blog entries to prominent medical journals and blogs, and purchase advertising. Avoid a site that links to shady websites in the pharmaceutical business.

ConclusionSEO for medical websites can perform well if you implement it carefully. You should frequently monitor your SEO campaigns and their outcome.

Google Analytics or Authority Labs shall reveal how your SEO is working, and whether your website can climb to the top of the search results. You can use Google Analytics to determine the keywords which you can use to draw the attention of the patients to your website.

I'm a writer, blogger, social media activist, search engine optimization and content marketing consultant. With 5 years of experience in ranking websites in different search engines, I assist many small businesses, entrepreneurs, and doctors.