Unbeatable Local SEO Strategies for Healthcare Businesses

April 9, 2024 / SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Sometimes, it becomes a gigantic task to target potential customers in your demographic region for your healthcare business. You might have formulated solid SEO strategies to acquire customers across your country. But what if you’re still not able to capture the people around you?

This is exactly where you need foolproof local SEO services for your healthcare business. Whether you’re a healthcare manufacturer, dentist, ophthalmologist, or other medical professional, promoting your business in your city is non-negotiable. Only the people around you have an innate potential to drive repetitive business with a high customer retention rate.

Still not convinced? “Near me” searches for healthcare services have doubled since 2015. In fact, 44% of Internet users search for doctors and other medical professionals online before getting treatment.

Investing in healthcare SEO services is a golden ticket to attracting local patients and increasing your healthcare business’s credibility and authority in your city. This guide discusses the best local SEO strategies to boost your healthcare business.

What is Local SEO for Healthcare Manufacturers and Businesses?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an organic marketing methodology that makes your business discoverable and drives quality leads. As the name suggests, Local SEO is an SEO segment that focuses on targeting people who live in the vicinity of your business location.

Local SEO is a no-brainer practice for healthcare businesses, manufacturers and medical professionals, such as doctors, laboratories, dentists, etc. Since healthcare businesses run offline, local SEO forms an integral part of such local-functioning businesses to lure patients and customers living in proximity to your locations.

Talking about digital marketing strategies for healthcare businesses, splurging on local SEO services is a must.

Why is Local SEO Important for Healthcare Businesses?

Thriving in the healthcare landscape is a daunting task, considering unparalleled competition. This challenge calls for a solid local SEO strategy. The reasons why local SEO is significant for a healthcare business are mentioned as follows:

• Since the offline mode operation is the primary business setting, having a local SEO strategy is important.
• It is important to stand out from your local competitors to thrive in the healthcare industry.
• 97% of users read online reviews for local businesses. Therefore, having a credible online presence is important.

Top-Notch Local SEO Strategies for Healthcare Practitioners

Now that you understand the importance of local SEO, let’s discuss some sureshot local SEO tips for healthcare businesses.

1. Optimized Profile for Local Search Directories

Since people have turned to Google to search for local doctors, dentists, or healthcare providers, numerous citation websites have listed these businesses. Therefore, it is important to optimize your business profile for such listing websites.

Some of the listing sites for healthcare and medical businesses in the USA with high domain authority include vitals.com, wellness.com, healthsoul.com, holisticdir.com, etc. Ensure you provide all the right information to these local business directories to make your healthcare business discoverable.

You must include the following details of your business in these listing websites, such as:

• Business’s name
• Your complete address of the business
• Contact number and email
• Business hours
• Services offered
• Good business reviews

2. Ask for Reviews for Google Business Profile

According to Podium, 9 in 10 users make buying decisions based on online reviews. Out of all the popular online review sites, Google is a clear winner. It is home to a staggering 75% of all online reviews!

This is the reason why it is important to claim and optimize your Google Business Profile. By being listed on the Google Business Profile, customers will be able to search for your business on Google and Google Maps.

As in the above image example, there are a significant number of reviews for dentists in Houston, Texas.

You can encourage your visitors to post reviews on Google. One of the best ways to do this is to reach out to your patients through Gmail to fill in a review for your business. Don’t forget to add a link to your Google Business Profile.’

If you’re new to Google Business, you can get started with it by following the steps mentioned below:

• Go to Google Business Profile and sign in with your Google account.
• Sign up by entering your business name.

• Choose your business category, location, mention service regions, and add contact information.
• Complete the verification process and complete your profile.

3. Leverage Local Keywords

You can’t survive in any business scenario without having an online business presence. Therefore, it is vital to have your own business website. The website must be optimized for local keywords. This means that the content on your website, such as service pages, about us, contact information, and other navigation pages, must contain local keywords.

For example, if you’re a dermatologist practising in Nashville, you must work on keywords, such as ‘best dermatologist in Nashville’, ‘cosmetologist in Nashville’, ‘dermatologists near me’, ‘skin doctors in Nashville’, etc.

This practice allows your potential patients to discover your business online. Ensure that you’re resolving customer queries and not just stuffing keywords in your website. Post relevant blogs with transactional and informational keywords to help you outrank your competitors.

Speaking of competitors, it is a crucial practice to perform competitor analysis and look for keywords with less keyword difficulty (KD). When you work on user-intended keywords, Google also ranks your page well based on the content value.

4. Optimize Your Website User Experience

Your website creates the first impression of your business. Therefore, ensure that you follow the best practices for local SEO for healthcare businesses. Some of the important SEO practices to keep in mind are as follows:

Your website’s UI/UX should be intuitive, seamless and navigational in nature. Make sure that you’re using the HTML tags to give your website a visual structure and optimize it from a technical point of view. For example, the HTML tags for a WordPress website look as follows:

• Remember to mention your healthcare business’s Contact Us section and your clinic’s working hours in the footer section.
• Use your primary and secondary brand colours in the pages, image themes, and texts.
• Ensure that images and videos are used to break the monotonous text and enhance the user experience of your website.
• Add relevant Call-to-Actions (CTAs) in each element of the website to prompt users to contact your business.
• Your website must be optimized for both web and mobile experiences. It must have a responsive design.

5. Link Building Focused on Locals

Backlinks are indeed the backbone of the entire local SEO strategy. You can increase your website’s domain authority and accountability by getting recognition from other well-established websites.

You can contact various local health organizations and partner with them through guest posting. You can also start posting and promoting your healthcare business on community websites to get high-quality backlinks. Treat backlinks as digital word-of-mouth, where your business gets backed by renowned websites and personalities.

The goal is to boost your search authority with the help of high-quality backlinks.

Note: Do not engage in spammy backlinking practices, as Google’s AI is smart enough to identify them. Google also degrades the ranking of websites that purchase backlinks.

6. Befriend Informational Content

Content is the ultimate driving force for a website’s ranking on the search engine. Quality content is also the stepping stone to beating your competitors in the market. To gain relevant traffic, you can post informational blog posts on your website.

For example, Dr. Behrooz Torkian is a plastic surgeon practising in Beverly Hills. He has a dedicated website with high-quality content. The following blog post on his website is an informative post for ‘lip fillers aftercare’.

Therefore, one must have an active blog page on their website to rank well on Google.

7. Schema Markup is Important

Utilizing schema markup is an imperative practice in technical SEO. It is nothing but lines of code that help Google understand your content better. Structured data follows a standardized format containing information about a web page and categorizing the content.

Stay Ahead of the Curve with Healthcare SEO Services

Local SEO is an indispensable practice for healthcare professionals and businessmen. It helps local people gain online visibility, therefore opening the doorway to generating consistent revenue. You can refer to this guide to gain insights into local SEO for healthcare manufacturers and medical professionals.

We understand that SEO is easier said than done. Implementing all the above-mentioned practices takes hands-on experience. This is why it is vital to invest in a reliable digital marketing agency. Established for over 18 years in the industry, Deftsoft is a renowned healthcare SEO agency.

We have a team of professional SEO experts, digital marketers, UI/UX designers, and marketing analytics professionals to help you soar your healthcare business. Our clients are a living testimonial to our helpful services.

Contact us now to make your healthcare business mainstream!