Where are patients searching for practices today? Online marketing strategy. Whether we like it or not, we’re living in a ‘digital-first’ era. And the much-coveted top spot on the first page of Google in an actively seeking patient’s search results is the name of the game. More digital visibility means more traffic to your website, and more traffic over your local competitors means notable advantages for new patient acquisition, thereby serving as an engine for your practice’s growth. So how does a practice owner create digital visibility in search engines like Google, Bing, etc.? This article will help you understand the core elements of building up your practice’s digital visibility to dominant search results in your local community.

It’s difficult to acquire new patients in today’s cutthroat healthcare market. Nonetheless, the majority of thriving medical practices recognize that attracting new patients on a recurring monthly basis is essential for growth and prosperity.  On the digital front, one of the most powerful methods to acquire patients involves enhancing your practice’s online visibility in a search engine’s unpaid organic results section; this is known as search engine optimization (SEO).
Why should architecting a robust SEO strategy be a component of a medical practice’s patient acquisition strategy? Think about this:  on a daily basis, over 1 billion searches on Google are linked to healthcare, over 93% of all visits to websites originate from search engines, and nearly 90% of all patients use search engines to initiate and/or execute appointment scheduling.  Thus, it’s imperative that your practice ranks highly on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).

Let’s dive into some key elements that help boost your SERP rankings:

Page title tags: The majority of seasoned SEO experts will inform you that title tags are essential to the success of any SEO campaign. Considering how much of an impact they have on website traffic and organic rankings, they require very little work. Nevertheless, despite being such a crucial ranking factor, they are frequently disregarded or not given the attention they merit.  Title tags are HTML elements that specify a website page’s title and are intended to give a clear and succinct description of the page’s content. Title tags are the clickable headline that appears on SERPs, when you conduct a search.

The following are some guidelines for optimizing your title tags:

• Length of title tag: Avoid using all caps and limit your character count to 50–70 characters.
• Prevent keyword stuffing: You should refrain from using too many of your keyword(s) in a title tag. Rather, consider the experience of a potential patient and what would entice them to interact with the content on your website.
• Make sure every page has a unique title. This will let search engines recognize the value and uniqueness of your content. Moreover, it promotes increased click-through rates.
• Lead with important keywords: Although you shouldn’t overuse keywords in your titles, you should make sure that the term or service you are attempting to rank for appears first.
• Compose titles for your patients: SEO benefits greatly from title tags; however, their main purpose is to encourage prospective patients who will find your content useful to click through toward scheduling an appointment. When they discover you through a search result, this will typically be their first impression of your practice, so you must make sure your message is accurate and persuasive.

Now, let’s move on to other essential best practices when it comes to SEO optimization:

Page speed: A slow website is disliked by all, prospective patients and search engines alike.  In fact, nearly 40% of your website visitors will simply leave your website and jump onto a competitor’s website if it takes longer than three seconds to load.  In addition to your 40% lost traffic, Google considers page speed a major factor in their ranking algorithm, so a slow loading speed will jeopardize your searchability and rankings as well. How can you assess your page speed? You can use free search engine tools like Google Page Speed Insights to assess the speed and performance of your website and identify areas for improvement.  Keep in mind, the SEO areas for improvement populated by Google Page Speed Insights serve as notable guidelines; however, SEO experts using more advanced SEO tools may have particular reasons for not modifying certain general elements that Google Page Speed Insights suggests to remedy.
Content development:  Since the inception of internet, the slogan “content is king” holds true.  The production of consistent, ongoing new content is vital for SEO rankings.  In addition to engaging your patients with your content and positioning yourself as a community thought leader, regularly producing unique, pertinent content that responds to the queries of your ideal patients raises your website’s search engine visibility and attracts more targeted visitors, yielding more patient inquiries that convert into consultations and procedures.  Due to Google’s continually advancing algorithmic processes, original high-quality content written in natural language patterns has become far more important for SEO rankings than large quantities of low-quality, keyword-stuffed content.  In fact, poorly-written or duplicative content (often pulled from ChatGPT or other AI content tools), can actually decrease your rankings, or even worse, get your website de-indexed from search engines altogether!  For this reason, many practices benefit from and opt to have a professional SEO writer who knows how to properly use AI helm their digital content strategy.

NAP consistency and citations:  Remember receiving the big, heavy Yellowpages book in the mail prior to the early 2000s?  This is the purpose of business citations today.  They are online directories and listings that contain a business’s name, address, phone number (NAP) and other pertinent contact as well as general information.  While there are 10s of 1000s of online directories, there are only a couple 100 or so online directories with a strong enough domain authority on which you can create backlinks that lead to your practice website and actually helps your SEO; online directories such as Healthgrades, Google Business Profile, Vitals.com, Bing Places, RateMDs, Merchant Circle, Superpages, FourSquare, Yelp, and yes, Yellowpages Online, etc.  These citations are often pulled from aggregated sources and populate across numerous directories online.  Therefore, inaccurate or outdated information may confuse both search engine crawlbots as well as potential patients, negatively impacting your SEO as well as patients’ ability to find you.  Thus, ensuring accuracy and consistency of the information across all platforms is crucial. You can use the free tools provided by Moz and Yext to look through your local listings and create a baseline SEO citation strategy.  However, professional SEO agencies like Curato Health will use robust SEO tools to scan and aggregate digital data to optimize for accuracy across your most important citations, updating your company information in real-time as your business information changes or the directories themselves undergo updates.

Investing in a Paid Search (or Pay-Per-Click, PPC) strategy is a crucial component in a medical practice’s active efforts to populate immediately on Google search results pages. The number of prospective patients conducting health research is trending upward year after year, so it’s critical now more than ever for practices to implement a deliberate search engine dominance strategy.

The top few results on a search engine results page are usually of great interest to researchers. In fact, nearly 80% of of all clicks occur within the top 3 Google search results.  This highlights the significance of using an efficient PPC strategy to promote your practice and generate new patients.

Let’s start by talking about the architecture of the Google search results page. Three main sections are present:

• There may be up to seven website placements in the paid section: three locations at the bottom of the page and four placements at the very top.
• Up to four website placements are allowed in the map section, which is normally located beneath the paid section. This can be expanded to show more geographically relevant results.
• Below the paid and maps sections will be listed roughly ten website placements in the organic section.

The key takeaway is that you can take advantage of the chance to appear at the top of Google search results by making full use of the sponsored search section – while SEO is a mid to long term strategy to rank higher overtime, a well-designed PPC strategy can yield Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) within weeks!  

So how would a practice set up a Google Ads Campaign? It can be very challenging to craft and maintain a successful campaign, but the below guidelines will give a strong start:

1. Generate long-tail keywords: This is a great way to maximize the effectiveness of your campaign. While targeting more general search terms like “skincare” may result in more clicks, it’s possible that the customer isn’t actually interested in the particular service you provide. Longer-tail search phrases, such as “best dermatology practices for acne near me,” suggest that the user is more focused on seeking a solution for a particular challenge and is ready to act.
2. Create ad copy that appeals to both search engines and consumers: This is one of the first things you should do to optimize your PPC campaign because it will help it work more efficiently overall. You’ll usually see a lower-quality click share if your value proposition isn’t tailored to your intended audience and your ad copy is unclear. When it comes to ad copy optimization, less truly is more. Simple PPC advertisements can be some of the most successful ones. Keep in mind that you don’t have much time to make an impression, so use every word carefully!
3. Multivariate test to identify and iterate toward top performing campaigns: The ability to track all aspects of user data flows is one of the most valuable elements in digital marketing. From impressions, to clicks, to conversions, you can observe what is and is not effective. Start concentrating more of your efforts on the search terms or keywords that are working well, disregarding the less effective ones, as soon as you identify them. Remember, anything that can be measured can be enhanced!

Use these tips to craft a powerful, continuously evolving PPC campaign that draws in more new patients for your practice.

When it comes to healthcare providers, patients have more options than ever before. They also want to choose wisely, it’s their health on the line after all. Thus, when selecting a provider, it is imperative that they utilize reviews.

The following statistics reveal the importance of online reviews in healthcare:

• Roughly 85% of patients start their search for a new doctor by reading internet reviews.
• Over 50% of patients will be willing to go out-of-network for a physician that’s rated one-star rating higher than the best choice in-network provider.

Q:  What makes reviews so important?

A:  The power of social proof.

Patients are interested in hearing directly from other patients about their experiences and the results that physicians have delivered.

So how can you enhance your online image to the point where patients choose you over and above your geographic competitors?
The first step is to claim all of your major review site listings:  Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Yahoo Local, Facebook, Yelp, Healthgrades, Vitals, RateMDs, WebMD Care, and so on. This ensures that whenever review activity occurs on your most visible profiles, you are automatically are notified.

Increase your online reviews by not assuming that your clients will leave a positive comment. Request and appreciate feedback. Recency and quantity of positive reviews help you appear more credible to patients who are researching you online, and their sheer quantity can shield you from having one bad review lower your rating.
Make the review process easy for yourself by requesting reviews right away after an appointment. The patient’s memory of the event is still vivid. Writing the review can easily occupy a waiting period that would otherwise be idle in the office (waiting for post-appointment lab work, scheduling a follow-up appointment, etc.). Additionally, a survey discussed in Medical Economics has revealed that reviews gathered in the office are typically more favorable than those gathered later.
Post-visit patient surveys: Provide satisfaction surveys to all patients, and if they haven’t already, ask positive reviewers to post their comments online. Take prompt action to address survey participants’ unfavorable comments in order to reduce the possibility of them posting the unfavorable reviews on the internet.  In many instances, surveys deter patients with negative feedback from leaving their negative reviews online because they feel that they have already expressed their grievances.
Create a response strategy by assigning someone in your practice to monitor activity on your listings. This should be the same person who owns or has access to your listings (typically an office manager, marketing director, or administrator). Key questions to note when handling reviews include:

• How will the practice handle reviews—both good and bad—and other matters?
• Who knows the framework decided upon to handle reviews?
• Who is actually going to respond?

Track activity on your listings by keeping an eye on your online reviews. Moreover, you can keep an eye on online discussions by using Google Custom alerts. Physicians have the option to enter the name of their medical practice or their own name. An email alert is sent to the practice whenever these names are mentioned online. Any positive or negative online news will be available to you as soon as your name is mentioned.
Be Responsive: Give a clear, succinct, and polished response to each and every new online review, whether it is favorable or negative. Additionally, remember to comply with HIPAA when responding. Even if the reviewing patient does reveal their own personal health information (PHI), you should never include PHI or care details in your responses.

• Positive feedback: Appreciatively thank the patient for trusting you with their care.
• Negative feedback: Don’t be afraid to reply to reviews that are negative. Patients, both past and present, will observe that you pay attention to their concerns and handle them with professionalism. Studies reveal that merely addressing a patient’s unfavorable feedback can almost double their satisfaction ratings.

Recognize how to handle negative reviews: The fact of the matter is that, in healthcare, some negative reviews are an inevitably. In fact, a small handful of negative reviews can actually serve your practice because it shows that you haven’t artificially manufactured only positive reviews.  Hundreds and hundreds of only 5-star reviews looks fake and rises suspicion in the eyes of searching patients.  This can invalidate your practice rather and defeated the whole purpose of positive reviews.  This is why the most trusted practices online have hundreds of positive reviews that average out to fall in the range of 4.4 to 4.9 stars (out of 5).

The critical question, herein, is how to address negative reviews; here are a few general guidelines:

• Respond to unfavorable reviews within one to two business days.
• In your response, thank the reviewer, apologize, and acknowledge their concerns using a firm but gentle tone.
• Express apologies for any inconvenience the incident may have caused, provide an explanation of what went wrong and why, and display gratitude to the reviewer for providing you with the chance to resolve any possible issue.
• If the exchange continues goes on, you may potentially suggest getting in touch with the patient directly so to end the exchange and move it offline.

Generate more positive reviews: Get more positive reviews to drown out and dilute the effect of negative ones. If you do this, the positive content will eventually overtake and bury the negative reviews. Have your staff ask happy patients for reviews.  You may opt to invest in an automated review request follow-up tool post-appointment so to gather a larger volume of positive reviews.

Remember, reviews serve a critical role in your ability to attract new patients for a number of reasons. Firstly, in online searches, even before clicking into your website, a searching potential new patients will first encounter your star ratings on Google and other reviews sites that appear in the search.  Therefore, this is your true first impression!  Secondly, a large number of positive and recent reviews signals to search engines like Google to rank your practice higher you’re your competitors so that you get found easier.  Your online reputation serves as a validation function for your practice so be sure to direct your efforts toward enhancing them.

It’s crucial to highlight the experience and thought leadership positioning of your clinicians on your website in order to draw in new patients. Ailments are Googled by patients. They are interested in reading about common medical conditions and how to treat them. They want to know what your doctors have to say about the newest practices and how well your group is using state-of-the-art technology and research to meet their needs. The best way to accomplish this is to create regularly updated content, which is typically in the form of a blog or detailed web pages regarding conditions, procedures, treatments, and other services.

In particular, healthcare marketing blogs help a medical practice succeed by achieving a number of objectives:

A practice can demonstrate its thought leadership on processes and results by using blogs. You want to demonstrate to your patients the depth and scope of expertise within your practice; this can be achieved by explaining the steps involved in a particular treatment, sharing before-and-after pictures/case studies of consenting patients, and/or by creating WebMD-like articles on your site about conditions you treat and their associated symptoms, causes, diagnostics, and treatments.  Over time, blogs will support both current and new patients. Writing regularly and informatively—one to four times a month, for instance—allows you to address a wide range of commonly asked questions, debunk rumors and stereotypes, or just impart knowledge in your area of expertise. These blogs can be shared through sponsored advertisements, social media posts, monthly e-newsletters, and other formats.

With the help of blogs, search engines can more easily comprehend the purpose of your medical practice website, which makes it easier for them to index your content and present it to the appropriate audience when they’re looking for it. Regularly updated blog posts on pertinent, engaging, and targeted topics serve as the catalyst for prospective patients to naturally find your content and feel comfortable contacting you to schedule an appointment with your medical practice.  The blogs that feature quotes from, or even original writing from, your doctors are generally the most attractive types of content for healthcare marketing. Having said that, it’s no secret that doctors are incredibly busy and that their time is valuable. To get around this, there are ways to efficiently create a lot of worthwhile content every month without having one person work nonstop.

Herein, a content calendar is essential. It’s recommended for bloggers to plan out their blog posts once every six months. Several subject matter experts should be brought in to facilitate a brief 15-30 minute brainstorming session about the subjects that patients would most like to read about.  After creating a six-month content calendar with 12 distinct topics, it is critical to determine which subjects ought to be written by a doctor and which ones can be written by a marketing agency, marketing expert, or employee.  To extract quotes from the doctor, have an employee conduct a recorded interview with the doctor for 15-30 minutes on the relevant topics so to pull out golden gems of content to embed into the blogs.  Ensure verifying everything for accuracy by the doctor prior to publishing.  This process will allow for the creation of impactful posts without consuming the doctor’s precious time!

While drafting your content, be mindful of utilizing core keywords (phrases that patients tend use while searching for topics relevant to your practice) because Google and other search engines will automatically index your content according to the keywords that your potential patients are probably using.  Therefore, you should be aware of the most important keywords for your medical practice.  For example, a cardiology practice in Houston, TX may focus on keywords such as “heart disease doctor in Houston, TX” or “hypertension treatment Houston”, etc.  This stated, make sure to use keywords within your content in a natural language pattern; avoid “keyword stuffing” (force-fitting in keywords into your content just so you have more hits of the keywords for search engines).  Not only does this make for a terribly unprofessional reading, it also results in Google devaluing your content, and potentially even de-indexing it altogether (the very opposite of what your goals is)!

You’ve successfully built a strong foundation when your practice has a professional, secure, hyper-fast, mobile-friendly website with exceptional user experience and top-notch content. Unfortunately, this however, is not quite enough to get you ranking at the top of relevant Google searches:  it’s likely that you’ll need to keep investing more time/effort/money on creating new pages for your website if you want to rank highly in Google searches.  Below are two core types of landing pages you’ll want to regularly add and update to signal to Google that you are continuously expanding your site for your specified solutions in your geography:

Individualized medical service landing pages: Let’s say you’re a highly-trained Otolaryngologist (ENT) that wishes to rank for five core keywords, for example:  balloon sinuplasty, rhinoplasty, throat cancer, hearing aids, and Botox.  You’ll need to create separate pages for each of these services in order to rank for these services. You can strongly indicate to Google that you provide that service by creating distinct service pages with in-depth content on that given subject or service. As a result, your chances of ranking for that subject or service in your local market will be improved.

Geo-localized market pages: Assume you provide services to a number of local communities. These communities are frequently located many miles apart. For example, let’s say your office is located in Washington, DC and you wish to also be serving clients in Bethesda, MD, Potomac, MD, Arlington, VA, and Mclean, VA; you might not rank well in these neighboring cities that have distinct geographic digital signals from the market in which your physical office is located. Herein, it is ideal to create distinct local pages that summarize your website content so to help you get higher search engine rankings in these particular localities.So keep in mind that while laying the groundwork for your website is important, you must also keep adding new pages if you want to see a steady flow of organic traffic to your website.

With these mechanisms to enhance your practice’s digital visibility in place, the second article in the series will take a deep-dive into building your practice’s brand awareness so to engage prospective patients.