SEO, or search engine optimization, has a significant influence on online businesses, including pediatric practices. If your practice has goals related to growth or attracting a wider pool of patients, you need to consider SEO as part of your marketing efforts.

While pediatric practices may not consider themselves similar to retail or eCommerce businesses, the reality is that SEO is just as important to healthcare as it is to online retail storefronts. Developing a better understanding of SEO can widen your practice’s reach, attract new patients, and improve patient engagement.

Jamie Parrish, Search Engine Marketing Manager at RemedyConnect, recently joined our podcast to explain how pediatric practices can embrace SEO and use it to maximize their marketing efforts. Here are just a few highlights of her chat with us.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

To those that are unfamiliar, search engine optimization is any strategy or marketing practice that improves a website’s visibility across search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Ultimately, the goal is to show up higher on search engine results pages (SERP) when patients and their families search specific keywords. As your SEO improves, so will your ranking on SERP for that keyword. The higher you rank, the easier it is to find you.

How Can Practices Improve Their SEO?

There are lots of steps that practices can take to improve their SEO. Here are some suggestions.

Create great content. Content like blogs, social media posts, and web pages are popular forms of content that people look for when they start an online search. Developing useful content that is rich in keywords but still reads well is a great way to attract people to your site.  

Focus on pediatrics keywords, local keywords, or both. The more you can pinpoint useful keywords and use them throughout your site, the easier it will be for your patients to find your practice. Some examples of useful keywords include:

• • • Doctor near me
    • Best pediatrician near me
    • Find a doctor
    • Doctor in [CITY or ZIP CODE]
    • Pediatrician in [CITY or ZIP CODE]
    • Pediatric specialists in [CITY or ZIP CODE]

These are just examples. Conducting keyword research is the most effective way to identify keywords that will work best for your practice. Here’s a helpful beginner’s guide to get you started.

Optimize the technical aspects of your website. There are lots of elements that impact your SEO, including technical aspects of your website like webpage meta descriptions, URLs, and image descriptions. Optimizing these with targeted keywords and simplifying them so they’re easy to follow will help make your website easier to navigate.

Claim your Google My Business profile. Claiming your Google My Business profile helps to ensure that your practice is easily located on Google and Google Maps. Practices should always check to make sure that their page has accurate hours and information, as most parents will look there first when they need a quick question answered.  

How Does SEO Benefit Parents and Patients?

There are some ways that SEO can benefit patients and their families.

Content: Providing a steady stream of relevant, useful content serves multiple purposes. It helps to improve SEO by offering more keywords for search engines, and it supports patients by offering content that answers their questions and delivers information on pediatric health.

Reviews: A Google My Business profile allows patients to view and write reviews. Reading independent reviews firsthand can help new patients decide whether your practice will be a good fit for their families. Additionally, practices that make a habit of regularly responding to reviews, both positive and negative, show that they are responsive to the concerns of their patients.   

When practices use SEO and care is more readily available and discoverable, pediatric success looks and feels more natural and easy. To learn how to improve SEO for your pediatric practice, check out the entire episode of  “SEO – Optimizing Parents’ Search for Care”.

RemedyConnect, an OP Company, is a leader in web services, reputation management, and SEO and findability for the healthcare sector. If you’d like to see what our company can do to help you market your practice and grow your business, contact us today for a free consultation.