The Importance of Healthcare SEO – How To Ensure Organic Success

As one of the world’s most important and rapidly evolving industries, both B2B and B2C healthcare are competitive fields, and, as a result, a strong and optimised online presence is vital for business success. With approximately 7% of all daily Google searches being health-related, whether you’re a hospital, clinic, medical device manufacturer, or pharmaceutical company, your website is often the first point of contact with potential patients, customers, investors and partners so you need to ensure you’re putting your best foot forward.

With complex regulations and a focus on accuracy and trustworthiness in the industry being critical for the reputation of your business, healthcare SEO requires a unique approach. In this article, we explore the importance of healthcare SEO, how it differs for B2B vs B2C, and how you can decide between in-house vs agencies for this work. So, whether you’re just starting out or looking to improve your existing healthcare SEO, read on to learn how to get it right.

What is Healthcare SEO?

Healthcare SEO is the practice of optimising a healthcare website’s profile and presence (both onsite and offsite) to improve your overall visibility on search engines. This includes anything that could drive more organic traffic to your website and improve keyword rankings, including content, structure, backlink profile, directory listings and more.

What Makes Healthcare SEO Unique?

Healthcare SEO is unique as the SEO strategy that is applied needs to be tailored to specifically accommodate the unique challenges that can be faced, such as strict regulations, medical terminology, sensitive information, country-specific laws, a delicate balance in caring but authoritative tone, and a higher than average requirement for accuracy.

It also has to be considered that the healthcare industry itself is very diverse. From GP surgery websites that need booking functionality to medical equipment suppliers who need e-commerce, every healthcare business has slightly different requirements and goals all of which have to be considered when putting together an SEO strategy that will get results.

SEO for B2C Healthcare Businesses

B2C healthcare businesses offer medical and healthcare services directly to their customers. This includes GP surgeries, hospitals, home health support services, aesthetic medical procedure clinics, mental health services and dentists, to name a few.

Healthcare SEO is essential for B2C healthcare businesses if you want to attract and retain potential patients. In 2023, 82.8% of patients use search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) to find a healthcare provider, highlighting how, in order to stay competitive, businesses need to ensure they have an effective SEO strategy that both puts their business where their customers are searching online, and can convince them once on their site that they are the business to chose through trust and clear authority.

Local SEO is important for B2C healthcare businesses especially as the majority of people are looking for somewhere nearby for healthcare services, however, national and even global SEO should not be discounted. For specialist offerings such as cosmetic dentistry, specialists in specific medical fields, aesthetic medical practices etc. people are no longer restricting themselves to their local vicinity and will instead travel if they can find the right business to address their needs.

SEO for B2B Healthcare Businesses

B2B healthcare businesses offer medical and healthcare services to other businesses. This includes medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and healthcare software providers, to name a few.

For B2B healthcare businesses, SEO is just as important as it is for B2C businesses. Just like potential patients for B2C businesses, oftentimes search engines are one of the first places that other businesses’ procurement teams or buyers will head to, to source new equipment, tools or software. As a result, having an organic presence and ranking well on search engines can be the difference between making a sale or signing a contract, or your competitor getting it instead.

If your business largely works on proposals and tenders, remember that they will likely search your business on search engines to gain extra information. Appearing well in search results with a strong online presence, good reputation, strong and authoritative content that highlights you as experts in your field is going to give a good impression.

The Importance of Healthcare SEO

So we have already ascertained that SEO is so important for B2B and B2C healthcare businesses, with both patients and other businesses increasingly turning to the internet to find the services, tools and equipment they are looking for. SEO for healthcare is unique in that the SEO strategies used must consider the bespoke demands that this industry has.

The Importance of Factually Correct SEO Optimised Medical Content

‘Content is King’ is a common phrase used in SEO, referring to the idea that high quality and relevant content that demonstrates E-E-A-T (one of the main factors for Google when determining overall Page Quality Rating) is the most important factor in achieving search engine success. Healthcare SEO is no different – high-quality content is vital for online success, but with the caveat that it must be completely factually correct if you want to ensure a good reputation in the industry. One piece of false or misleading advice in this industry can have devastating consequences when it comes to both patient health and brand trust.

At Solve, we would always suggest a content strategy for our healthcare SEO clients as it demonstrates your wealth of knowledge in your industry, presents you as an expert and aids in brand awareness, all of which is going to further pull organic traffic into your site and result in more customers or leads. We understand thought that we have to make careful considerations within this industry and allocate more time and resources to it than other industries may need.

This doesn’t just mean content such as blogs or articles however, but also your service and general business information pages need to provide accurate, up to date and in-depth information. Studies have suggested that 71% of patients will search for a new provider if the website is lacking information which is an awful lot of potential business to miss out on.

SEO strategies in this industry have to consider the use of an expert for writing and checking content, and put in place a stringent review process prior to anything being published. Even once published, content must be continually kept up to date when new ideas or facts are established. Differentiating between fact and opinion, using statistics, data and studies to validate what is being said, understanding the laws in your target country and abiding by them are just a few of the factors that make an SEO content strategy that much more time-consuming and intensive, but rewarding if you get it right.

The Importance of an Authoritative Backlink Profile

Backlinks are links from other websites pointing towards yours. Backlinks are an essential part of any SEO strategy with search engines using them as an indication of your site’s authority or credibility – after all, if a high authority website is willing to trust sending their users to your site, then your site is likely to be trustworthy itself right?

It is important to note that not all backlinks are created equal. Backlinks from high-authority and relevant websites are considered to be more valuable than those from low-quality or irrelevant websites – low-quality backlinks can even have negative impacts on your sites credibility with search engines. Coming again back to that trust that is so vital for healthcare businesses, SEO strategies in this industry have to be extra careful and put more work into gaining backlinks from other strongly authoritative sources, as well as being hot on monitoring potentially spammy or negative backlinks and getting them removed.

The Importance of Trust Signals

We have already mentioned many times how important trust is in the healthcare industry and how trust impacts other aspects of an SEO strategy, but working on how trustworthy your site appears at first glance should be a section of a strategy in itself. As a business, you yourself may know that you are a trustworthy business to work with, but for new clients or patients, you have to prove this to them. Any SEO content is worthless if it is displayed on a website that doesn’t give people confidence in the source and therefore any healthcare SEO strategy needs to contain constant monitoring and updates of core website trust signals such as security badges, qualifications, testimonials, reviews, website usability and website speed (to name just a few).

The Importance of Offsite SEO, Reviews & Reputation Management

It is not just your own website that needs to be considered within a healthcare SEO strategy, but also your presence on other sources on the internet that may appear in organic search results is just as important. With 56% of patients consulting three or more different online sources when searching for a doctor, ensuring your business is accurately represented on other online sources, monitoring your online reviews, an authoritative social media presence can all help with your business’s overall reputation. Many potential clients or patients will look to other websites to backup what they find on your site for extra security so it all needs to match up and paint your business in a positive light. What’s more, in optimising your presence on other websites, you can secure more organic real estate in organic search, increasing your brand awareness and hopefully gaining you even more organic and referral traffic.

Once again, when people are looking for anything relating to their health and that carries risk if they don’t choose correctly, this trust is vital to secure business and therefore every aspect of your online presence needs to be optimised.

The Importance of Healthcare Local SEO

Local SEO is especially important for healthcare organisations with a physical presence, usually B2C businesses such as hospitals, clinics, and private practices, and yet 31% of healthcare providers do not have a local listing. Local SEO tactics, such as optimising Google Business listings, creating local content, and building local backlinks, can help improve visibility and attract more local patients. Of course, if you are not the only business in your area that offers your services, then you need to ensure your local presence outweighs your competitors, but even if competition is low, people are not going to visit you if they don’t know where you are.

Local SEO can also play into ensuring you deliver a good service to your patients which is, of course, vital for a good reputation in the healthcare industry. If your local business listings, for example, show the wrong address or opening times, it may lead to frustration and a loss in sales, all of which could be avoided with a good SEO strategy that stays on top of your local presence.

Choosing Between In-House vs SEO Agency for Healthcare SEO

When deciding between in-house vs SEO agency, often the choice is business dependent and each option will have its advantages and disadvantages.

In-house allows for your healthcare company to have complete control over your SEO strategy and content. You know your business better than anyone and what your priorities are so you know exactly how to target and position your campaign. What’s more, as experts in the industry you will know that the correct information is going out and you are portraying your company in the way in which you trust. However, an issue that many companies face when trying to opt for in-house SEO is time and resources. Many businesses will have all the right intentions and plans but other things become priorities, and SEO work is put on the back burner.

Of course, in opting for an SEO agency, you must ensure it is a company you can trust to deliver what your business needs and protect your reputation which can seem like a challenge, especially with how important this is in the healthcare industry. However, once you have found that agency, they can learn your business inside out and will have a team of experts in the field dedicated and focused on SEO so that it doesn’t get forgotten.

A Healthcare SEO Success Story

11 Healthcare SEO Statistics

Don’t just take our word for it. Data doesn’t lie and it can highlight just how important healthcare SEO can be for both B2B and B2C businesses

1. 7% of all daily Google searches are health-related
2. 82.8% of patients use search engines to find a healthcare provider
3. 56% of patients consult three or more different online sources when searching for a doctor
4. 83% of patients book a doctor’s visit through hospital websites
5. 31% of healthcare providers do not have a local listing
6. 48% of healthcare websites have basic mistakes with their addresses
7. 49.3% of patients wouldn’t book an appointment with a provider whose online listings were incomplete
8. 71% of patients will search for a new provider if the website is lacking information
9. “Near me” searches for healthcare services have doubled since 2015
10. Nearly 30% of healthcare businesses have an inaccurate phone number listed online
11. 90% of patients claim to use online reviews when selecting a healthcare provider

Concluding Thoughts – The Importance of Healthcare SEO

Healthcare SEO is set apart from other industries for one main simple reason – trust. Any SEO strategy has to consider the vital importance of putting across accurate information to keep your reputation positive and also due to the adverse risks that come with offering false information in the healthcare industry. From content to links, every aspect has to be carefully considered, risk assessed and triple checked which, although can be time consuming, is the only way to guarantee success.

Healthcare SEO is massively important for both B2B and B2C healthcare businesses to keep up with the times and compete with other businesses in the industry as the chances are the first place many of your potential customers, clients or patients are looking for what you offer – but only when done correctly.

If you’re a healthcare business looking for help with your website and SEO, why not get in touch with the team at Solve? We have a team of experts ready and waiting to propel you to online success!