Posted on February 7, 2023
Is Your Medical Website Optimized? 11 Proven Strategies for Fine-tuning Its Performance
The digital medical marketing field is constantly evolving, and it’s important for healthcare websites to keep up with the latest trends and strategies in order to stay competitive and attract patients. Here are some proven strategies for optimizing the online performance of your practice’s website this year:
1. Conduct Thorough Keyword Research
By understanding the keywords and phrases that patients are using to search for medical services, you can optimize your website content and metadata to try and rank higher in search engine results for patient queries.
2. Review Your Website’s Structure and Design
A unique, easy-to-navigate website design can greatly improve the user experience and increase the chances of patients converting into leads. It also represents your practice branding and builds the perception of your practice and the services performed by your staff. Take some time to go through your desktop and mobile version of your website and make sure you can easily get to the main areas of your website. Check your analytics. Are certain pages getting zero traffic? It may be a sign the page is not easily found by users or search engines, or that the content needs to be repurposed elsewhere on the website.
3. Invest in High-quality, Informative Content
Patients are looking for trustworthy and reliable information when searching for medical services. By providing detailed, in-depth content on your website, you can establish your practice as a credible source of information and attract more patients, while also boosting your visibility in search engine results. This can include blog posts, videos, infographics, patient testimonials and other forms of multimedia that provide valuable information to the users.
4. Increase Your Conversions with Calls to Action
If your practice is using platforms that allow patients to book online appointments, make sure those calls to action are clearly visible on your website. Google will not favor sites with overly aggressive and intrusive popups, so things like engagement panels and a button in the header of a website are more effective strategies. Are your pillar pages using symptom simulators and self evaluation forms? These are interactive lead generation tools that can increase your number of potential patients.
5. Utilize Social Media to Drive Traffic and Engagement
In today’s digital age, social media is a powerful tool for reaching out to potential patients. Active posting, and creating a strong presence on specific social media platforms can increase brand awareness and drive more “top of the funnel” traffic to your website. Not all social platforms are worthwhile for your efforts. Understand your audience and focus on the few platforms that can drive qualified leads.
6. Build Quality Backlinks
Backlinks from other reputable websites can greatly improve your website’s authority and search engine rankings. Focus on building quality backlinks from relevant and credible sources such as medical journals, news websites and other authoritative websites. This can be done by guest blogging, sponsorships, and creating unique, high quality content and imagery on your website that attracts other sources to reference your work.
7. Track and Analyze Your Progress
Regularly track your website’s performance and analyze the data to identify areas for improvement. Use tools such as Google Analytics to monitor your website’s traffic and conversion rates. This can provide valuable insights into how users are interacting with your website, allowing you to make data-driven decisions about how to improve the user experience.
8. Utilize Schema Markup
Schema markup is a type of structured data that can help search engines understand the content on your website more effectively. As search engines move towards semantic results and machine driven, using schema markup to help algorithms understand what your website and service is focused on can help get your website placed in the correct search results areas.
9. Tailor for Local SEO
Optimizing your website for local SEO can help your practice show up in search engine results when people search for medical services in your area. This can be done by creating a Google My Business listing and by including your practice’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on your website. Additionally, you should focus on building citations and getting listed in local directories such as Yelp and local chamber of commerce directories.
10. Make Sure Your Website is Responsive
With the increasing use of mobile devices, it is crucial to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile. This includes using a responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes, and using a mobile-friendly layout that is easy to navigate on smaller screens with legible font size and accessible contrast. Additionally, make sure that your website’s load time is fast, as slow loading times can significantly decrease the user experience on mobile due to weaker signal connections. Optimizing your website for mobile can also improve your search engine rankings, as most search engines have now moved towards crawling mobile versions of websites rather than desktop versions.
11. Check Your Website for Accessibility
It is important to ensure that your website is accessible to users with disabilities. This includes providing alternative text for images, using proper semantic html structure, and ensuring that your website can be navigated using a keyboard. Ensuring accessibility not only benefits a wider range of users but also aligns with the legal standards and regulations.
