Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your website to be found in the search engines for relevant keyword searches. SEO is very important to every industry including medical startups. Say a patient is looking for a dentist in their area and you happen to fit the bill. You would like to come up first in the search results, right?
Well, that’s what medical startup SEO offers.
Tips to Getting Medical Startup SEO Right
Choose the Keywords
When thinking of which keywords to optimize, think which keywords people are most likely to search for when looking for medical services and healthcare facilities. When making a list of said keywords, make it as comprehensive as possible.
After compiling the list, test just how key they are by searching each of them in Google Keyword Planner to see which words and phrases have a decent amount of local monthly traffic. When doing the analysis, go for key words with 200-10000 local monthly searches.
After filtering the list, start naturally incorporating these keywords into your content on your website.
Define Metadata
The keywords should be present in both the content and the metadata of your content. Metadata just consists of the HTML meta tags that are in the opening and closing head tags in a document’s HTML code. Metadata helps search engines know what the page is about using the title tag, the meta description and headers.
Create Original Content
Create original content so your healthcare organization stands out amongst the competition. Original content will help you highlight your value and how good and experienced you are at what you do.
Publish content like case studies, blog posts, videos, and medical breakthroughs about the healthcare industry. This will help drive more value to your website and give you a boost in search rankings.
A great way to come up with quality content is to think of commonly asked questions in your field. For instance; as a cosmetician, a perfect question for content would be ‘does radiotherapy skin tightening hurt?’
Create content that answers these questions to drive traffic to your website with potential patients looking for that content.
Include a Sitemap of Your Website
Include a sitemap to help search engines understand how your website is laid out and what is connected to what. It can also help users better access your website.
Own Different Search Verticals
It is possible to miss an opportunity to rank highly for search related verticals like video and images even though you are doing just fine as a website. Leverage these other SEO verticals to drive highly targeted traffic to your website.
Local Search Marketing
Local search is a very important vertical for healthcare organizations because for patients to utilize the services, they have to visit the healthcare provider’s physical location.
Ensure your establishment’s name, address and phone number are correct and updated across your entire website. This information will help Google associate the correct location with your establishment.
Use Social Media to Drive Rankings
If a page on your website is shared across social media in an impactful way, search engines take this into account to signal that that particular page on your website is quality information on your expertise.
When setting up your social media accounts for the first time, fill out as much information as possible to give search engines enough information to help them in ranking your social profiles.
In-House Team or SEO Agency?
When it comes to medical startup SEO, you can do it yourself with an in-house team or hire a contractor.
In-house Team
Some of the pros of working with an in-house team include a smoother workflow because you all are in the same room. An in-house team also tends to be more committed and invested in the business because they have a better understanding of the brand, company and what you are selling.
The downside to an in-house team is they are limited by their skill set and ability to write.
SEO Agency
To begin with, an SEO agency will always produce more content over a month than an in-house team because how much content they can generate determines how much they earn.
Contractors can also work remotely so you get writers from anywhere in the world. It is much easier to let go of contractors if they aren’t up to standard than letting go of employees.
The con of contractors is they are less invested in your brand – you are just a gig basically.
