The medical profession is the noblest of all professions in this world. Everybody in the world fights for their individual lives. The doctor is the only person who fights the odds to save the lives of others. That makes the doctor second only to the Lord. It is rightly said that God cannot be everywhere, so he created doctors. We shall discuss some aspects necessary for local SEO for doctors.
Local SEO for Doctors
Get more customers by implementing simple SEO steps to Doctors.
ONLINE PRESENCE
Improve your Local Presence
Once you choose the medical profession, there is no looking back. You are available on duty all the time. In fact, duty would not be the proper term to use. As a doctor, you are passionate about serving people. Hence, make yourself known to everyone in the local neighborhood by improving your local presence. You can announce your services through medical journals or other popular magazines. Seeking local backlinks from prominent establishments in your area can take you to the top of the list. Participate in medical awareness promotional events. In fact, this profession is such that people will come in search of you rather than you seeking their attention. However, it does pay to announce and improve your local presence.
Scan Your Business Presence
AVAILABILITY
Always be There
The medical profession is one of the professions that do not have a holiday. A doctor is on duty 24 X 7 X 365. An emergency can arise at any time. Hence, he should be available for his patients all the time. Hence, it becomes imperative for a doctor to have a presence in all the local directories irrespective of the industry or sector. Having your name of these directories does not cost you much, but it can save many a life. Imagine the relief on a patients face when he sees you or speaks to you. He looks upon you as his savoir. You should not let him down.
Scan Your Business PresenceDoctors and SEO
Do doctors need SEO? Your guess is as good as mine. To put it very simply, the medical profession is after all a profession. The ultimate objective of any profession is to earn a living. It would be naïve on your part to expect doctors to offer their services free. After all they provide services and very essential services at that. Naturally, they need money as well just like you and I do. Therefore, it is imperative for the doctor to advertise his services through the internet. This substantiates the fact that doctors need SEO just like any other business in the world.
Doctors- Local Search
The profession is such that people come to the doctor only in a medical emergency. In an emergency, you would like to have access to a doctor as quickly as possible. This signifies the importance of the local search SEO. What is a local search? When you search for a doctor, a cardiologist in Phoenix, you type the words ‘cardiologist in Phoenix’ on the search bar of the internet.
Do you notice anything that stands out in the images? If you look at it closely, you will find the words AD written below the first three search results. Following this you have a map and three more names. Subsequently, you have a long list of entries. Why do they appear in this particular order? What does each group signify? What is the importance of each category of search result? We shall see these aspects when we discuss importance of local SEO for doctors.
Importance of Local Search
- The first category where you had the words AD written below the title stands for ‘Pay per Click’ advertisements (PPC). In effect they are paid ads. You pay a certain sum of money to have your ads listed in the top three SERP results.
- The second category is the Google My Business listing. This is a purely local listing. It lists out your search category specifically in your local area alone. There is a pure geo-search irrespective of what you type on the search bar of the search engine. This result lists the name of three cardiologists in the area you are located at present. Therefore, if you are in a particular locality in Phoenix, it will list out the top three cardiologists in your area and not Phoenix as a whole.
- The third category is the organic search results. This is more of a general result.
How to Improve Local Search
You have just seen the results you obtain when someone searches for a cardiologist in Phoenix. Your endeavor should be to figure in these searches at the top of the table. Let us see how it is possible. You need to take a series of steps. We shall list them out for you to make it easy.
Ensure the GMB Listing
This is the prime requirement for making your presence felt in the search engines. Everyone knows that Google is the most preferred search engine of all. Hence, presence on the first page of a Google search has more relevance. One of the first things to do is to claim your GMB listing. The best part of this exercise is that it is free. In addition, your listing appears in various other places such as Google Search, Google Maps, and Google +.
If you feel that the process of obtaining a GMB listing is tough, please put your fears to rest. It is as easy as checking the blood pressure levels, a task you do hundreds of times in a day.
Official Website
Visit the official website of Google My Business. Fill out the simple interactive application form with the necessary details such as name of business, category, address, and contact numbers. Submit the application and wait for the confirmation. It is over. You have claimed your GMB listing. Is it not easy?
You need to add some crisp images to distinguish your listing from the others. Having a placeholder on the map is a great idea to help patients locate you on the go.
The medical profession is different from other professions in many ways. Hence, you might experience special scenarios like the ones we are going to list below.
One location – One doctor
This is the simplest scenario of all. You are the only doctor in the dispensary. Hence, making your online presence should not be an issue at all. You have the entire GMB page dedicated to you and your practice. It becomes easy for the patients to locate you. You can give your personal mobile number as well for enabling them to contact you easily.
One location – Multiple Doctors
It is very common for many doctors to congregate and establish a polyclinic type of situation where they attend for a few hours to cater to patients. The advantage of the polyclinic is that patients can avail a variety of services under a single roof. It can become difficult for you to create a GMB listing, or is it? No, it is not. You can create an individual page for the practitioner that will contain the contact details of the practice, but the name of the page will be that of the practitioner.
One Doctor – Multiple Locations
This is also a typical scenario in many cities where doctors practicing various streams of medicine such as orthopedics, pediatrics, cardiology, pathology, etc come under a single roof and establish a mini-hospital type of scenario. There can be different hours of operation for each doctor. Under such circumstances it is better if each practice has its separate page along with the contact details of the practitioner.
There can be another situation where a single doctor moves to different locations during the course of his / her practice. It can become difficult for such doctors to register their GMB pages as they will be at different locations during the day. They can have multiple pages with facility to include ‘hours of operation’. The other contact details like name and phone numbers can remain the same. Under such circumstances, it is better to have the individual pages in the name of practitioner. One must admit that Google is also not very clear on this issue. This is a typical scenario applicable only to the medical profession.
Maintain Consistency of Information
This is important to discourage duplicate listing. It is essential to submit accurate information. Even a variation in the spelling of the street can cause problems. It is essential to have a small description of the services you provide along with the name of the city.
Google My Business listing can take care of your presence on Google. However, there are other search engines as well such as Bing, Yahoo, etc. They have their individual listing procedures. The basics are the same, but the listing websites are different. It will not take more than 20 minutes of your time to list on all these search engine directories. However, NAP consistency is of ultimate importance.
Discourage Duplicate Listing
This is important to discourage duplicate listing. It is essential to submit accurate information. Even a variation in the spelling of the street can cause problems. It is essential to have a small description of the services you provide along with the name of the city.
Google My Business listing can take care of your presence on Google. However, there are other search engines as well such as Bing, Yahoo, etc. They have their individual listing procedures. The basics are the same, but the listing websites are different. It will not take more than 20 minutes of your time to list on all these search engine directories. However, NAP consistency is of ultimate importance.
Fresh and Relevant SEO Content can do Wonders
Never underestimate the power of SEO content. Fresh content has tremendous value. Every search engine prefers to publish fresh content. Duplicate content is not only unadvisable but can also result in flagging down of your rankings.
Describe each of the services you provide on separate pages. Have a short and crisp title and Meta description to give your patients a good idea of what to expect from you. Patients will have lots of questions to ask. Pool in your experience and fill up the FAQ pages with such relevant questions. Having internal links to the services page from the FAQ pages is a sure way of providing the right information.
Keywords are Important
The optimum use of keywords is essential. People do not type medical jargon on the search bar when they search for doctors. Hence, keep your keywords simple. Have a mention or two about the medical keywords as well at strategic locations inside your content because certain patients type such keywords just to understand the problem better.
Supplementing content with adequate images can also help in improving your website. The more popular your website becomes, the higher is your ranking on the SERPs.
Provide accurate information in your content. If you engage content writers to draft your content, ensure that they present credible information. Your content can make the difference between life and death for someone.
Citations are Important in this Profession as Well
Citations and listing in local directories are essential for any online business. They are necessary for people to find you on the internet. We had just seen that nearly 97% of people search the internet for local businesses. The question is where do you obtain these citations from.
It should not be difficult at all. You have the medical journals, reviews and magazines that are published almost on a monthly basis. You have hospitals and polyclinics all over the place. There are pharmaceutical shops selling medicines. You have a large number of patients who might be influential and have websites of their individual businesses. There are Governmental organizations where you might be on the panel of doctors. The list is endless.
Multiple Sites for Multiple Locations
You have your principal practice in Phoenix. You might be providing your services at various polyclinics spread all over the city. How do you list all your service areas in a single listing?
It was possible in the earlier days to do so. You could list them on the webpage footer as a reference. Today, the search engines treat this as spam. The best solution is to have a separate webpage for every location. This will enable you to add accurate working hours, unique images, contact information, testimonials from satisfied patients, and so on. If you had a single location, it would have been difficult to include all this information because of the relevancy factor.
Social Media Interaction
In today’s times, any website is incomplete without the mention of social media. Having a social media presence is always a great advantage. List out your social media links on each webpage. This is one of the easiest ways to improve your local presence. Practically, every person in the world has at least one social media account if not more.
You will be able to connect to your patients better. This is a great place to promote your medical events. Sharing information about such events is easy over the social media. Join select social media groups that have only doctors as members. It can be tremendously useful for you to improve your knowledge as well.
Reviews Work Here as Efficiently
There cannot be a better assurance to any patient than seeing a fellow patient write positive reviews about the doctor. Personal experience matters a lot. Patients do go through the reviews before choosing to consult the specialists. They might not have time to do so in an emergency, but reviews do play a great part when patients search for doctors to seek second opinions.
You can ask your patients to provide positive reviews. You have hospitals and other websites that provide positive feedback. Medical review websites like WebMD are also useful.
Interference
Now, that you have seen the importance of local SEO for doctors, you will feel the need to have a dedicated website on your name. Creating an effective SEO marketing campaign should not be a problem at all. Following the above steps can easily ensure that your website ranks among the top in the SERPs.
How to Enhance Ranking of your Business ?
- Local SEO for doctors is essential
- Have a great GMB page listing
- Update your NAP information
- Have great and original content in all your search pages
- Seek authority backlinks from reputed websites
- Ensure your SEO citations are in order
- Have individual listing for each of your locations
- Positive reviews from patients and medical community helps a lot
List of Directories
The medical industry is one which really benefits from local SEO, as there are so many practitioners who offer services within specific local areas. Below are the top citation sites for Doctors.
