9 SEO Factors That Boost Your Search Engine Rankings Quickly

It’s accurate to say that Google is the number one search engine, and it’s clear that in the world of search engines, Google has the final word when it comes to instituting ranking factors. The other search engines out there- Yahoo!, Bing, Safari- simply follow the big G.

Essentially, if your site ranks highly on Google, it will perform the same in other search engine results. But how do you ensure that your website actually ranks higher than your competition?

The rule is simple:

“Optimize your website for users FIRST, and Google will reward you with a higher ranking. Why? Because Google makes decisions based on user’s behavior within the search results, when they land on your page, and when they leave your web page.”

However, Google ranking factors do change from time to time so it’s important to stay on top of all the latest information. In this article, let’s look at the major factors that dramatically improve your search rankings right now.

But before we dive into this, it’s important to understand why Google rankings matter. First, whenever someone needs to find information online, they almost always start with Google. In fact, about 93% of online experiences begin with a search on Google. Online users go to the search engine to find everything from groceries to the best hair salons to information about diseases or look up the latest news on their favorite pop star.

People believe that Google can help them find the very best of what they are looking for. Therefore, it’s no wonder that Google now processes more than 40,000 searches per second, equaling out to roughly 4.7 billion searches per month.

You just can’t neglect online searchers as potential customers in the current digital age because some of them are actively seeking what you offer! If they can find you in Google search engine results, then this is the first step in establishing a relationship. Maybe they’ll even take action by calling you immediately if they’re in the vicinity.

Research by Chitika shows that the websites on the first page of Google organic results get 91.5% of the total website traffic for that search.

If you can get your website to the top, you will increase organic traffic, leads, and grow your sales. More traffic means more people will access your website and learn about your company, which then increases your chances of converting visitors into buyers. When enough of this action occurs, soon you will see an increase in your profit margins.

So, how do you get your content pages to that very top page of organic search results? Aside from using trusted SEO company best practices, you also need to stick to these Google ranking factors that have long-term effects on any website.

Here are some of the most important factors you should know:

1. The Architecture and Security of Your Website

A powerful Google ranking factor is a logical trait in site architecture. To a large extent, the structure of your website is what determines whether or not users will have a good experience.

And what’s Google without the end users? That’s why Google exists — to serve the users. If your site is designed for their use, there’s no reason why Google shouldn’t give some love back to yours.

Your website architecture matters to users and Google alike. And once your pages are well laid out, Google spiders (or crawlers) can easily fetch information from it and your users will easily be able to navigate through and consume your content.

Most marketers structure their pages according to the target keywords. Here’s an example:

When laying out your pages, your website needs to be divided into sub-directories and its URLs need to have clear strings about what the page content is about so that Google can easily understand it.

The URL you use on your web page needs to be crawlable by Google bots, meaning that it can easily index your fresh content pages and identify the parts that are the most relevant to the search query.

How Do You Enable This?

Have a robots.txt file on your website and a perfect sitemap.

To explain: If you have a website about home décor and living spaces, for example, and you have several categories covering the living room, bathroom, and kitchen, your sitemap will be made up of the main website domain followed by the category and the specific topic.

An example of a good URL demonstrating this is: www.homeandliving.com/livingroom/revamping-living-space

More importantly, Google cares about the web visitor’s security. With so many viruses making rounds on the internet, many people are very careful and afraid of getting hacked. Therefore, most people avoid all websites marked as insecure and Google now marks all websites that are not using the HTTPS protocol as insecure. It even warns users to NOT enter their sensitive information.

Especially if you’re capturing credit card information, you need to make sure that you have an Https protocol.

Site security is a big factor in the search engine ranking algorithm. Use Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS) on your websites to increase the likeliness of people visiting them. You can get affordable SSL encryption solutions from NameCheap, GoDaddy, and other providers which can help improve your search rankings.

2. On-site Content Optimization

Google its values customers by sifting through the billions of web pages and deciding which is the most relevant and helpful information to be promoted on the web.

Therefore, the only way to ensure that your content page is deemed relevant is by optimizing for the right keyword and creating useful content that gets noticed by Google.

What would you search for if you were looking for your own product? For example, if you’re a surgeon in LA and you’re eager to see which position your website appears in Google, what would you search for?

I bet you’ll search for these terms:

Best surgeon in LA
LA top surgeons
Los Angeles Surgeons

To get ranked for these keywords, you need to these phrases on your website in a natural way. This is the starting point of On-Page SEO.

In optimizing your pages for your target keywords, make sure they come across natural and not spammy in the content because the latter will land you in trouble with Google. Do keywords research before creating content for your pages because it’s very important to get the keywords right in your headline, and within the content of the page. Don’t just stuff the keywords on your page in a bid to get Google to reward you with a higher ranking because it might raise a red flag and they might penalize you for it.

Rather, provide useful information with the keywords used in places where they’re relevant, natural, and valuable.

Long gone are the days when Google just analyzes a page to determine how many times a keyword appeared and then make decisions on ranking purely on that. Now, Google looks at the relevance of the keywords, the authority of the page, inbound links pointing to the page (if any), and how well the content aligns with the user’s intent. When creating content for your website, design matters so format it accordingly. Delivering a good user experience should be primary and keywords inclusion should be secondary. Other than the main keywords, Google also looks for variations on those primary keywords or what most people refer to as LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords.

These are mostly keywords that are related to the target ones. To find related keywords, simply search for your main keyword in Google, then scroll down the page to find these variations. Here’s an example:

Optimizing your pages for these related keywords is a step towards ranking higher for not only your primary keyword, but for several keywords.

Content is truly king. Users are simply the queen. Impress her with authoritative content that’s well-researched, properly formatted with headings, subheadings, visuals, and appealing elements. When users are happy, Google will know because users spend more time on your site when they click-through from a search result. When that happens, you’ll get the reward of… higher organic ranking for your website and possible sales.

3. Inbound Links

Google values what others have to say about you, so it looks elsewhere on the internet for links pointing to your website.

These are mostly referred to as inbound links. It’s important to have many trusted inbound links directing users to your website to improve your Google search ranking.

To Google, quality links weigh more than the number of links. This article also points to some strategies for getting trusted backlinks.

In other words, Google rewards your site for getting around 5 links from trusted sites like Inc, Entrepreneur, Problogger, Moz, and MarketingProfs, especially your site is in the digital marketing industry — as compared to 20 links from new websites or PBN sites.

So how do you get high-quality inbound links?

To be honest, it’s kind of difficult. Link building is hard work. Not many businesses are able to do it effectively, which is why they outsource it.

If you don’t have the time or you don’t know how to build the right backlinks, our team at Atlantic Digital Marketing Company can help you. Get a free consultation today.

There are many link building strategies that range from link reclamation to guest blogging as well as fixing broken links and link roundups.

Guest blogging is effective because it involves creating an original article for another website. The site owner or author gets to publish your article with a link back to your website which is basically free publicity.

When it comes to link building, there’s no one-size-fits-all. You need to use more than a strategy to get earn as many inbound links as possible.

Remember that links are also an integral part of your marketing just as SEO is. Ensure that the inbound links come from relevant websites that have the audience you’re interested in.

The best way to do this is to connect with websites and blogs that offer somewhat similar products and services like yours. For instance, a dental clinic website could benefit from having its inbound link come from an eCommerce site that sells medical products.

Outbound links are also important because it shows Google that you’re an authority in your niche and willing to promote other businesses that complement yours.

When you share useful links with your visitors, Google will happily reward you for it. Also, consider having links pointing to your old posts within your domain which will tie

the content of your website together — thus helping visitors get all the information they need and increase Google organic search ranking.

4. RankBrain

RankBrain is a ranking system based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). Through the Google Search Console, Google can tell how people interact with your website by looking at the number of people who click on your page in the search results.

The more clicks your website gets in the organic listings, the higher the ranking because Google then considers the site to be useful, relevant, interesting, and well-designed.

Increasing your clicks in the organic results also lead to more traffic to your website. Because now it’s no longer about the paid results but the organic ones, considering 70% of links users click on are organic.

When people click to your website from a search result, what happens next? Do they spend a reasonable amount of time on your site? If the latter is true, you’ll get a higher ranking.

Another action that people are likely to do is call or come to your physical storefront after finding you on Google. Google has a way of monitoring this and uses the information to come up with the best websites to send to the top.

The rest of the indexed pages can drown in the results and subsequent page; Google doesn’t care!

So how do you ensure that RankBrain works for your site?

It all boils down to making the user happy.

You need high-quality content for this. Combine text, images, and videos to create engaging content that’s informative appealing, and holds the user’s attention. Create content that makes them want to stay longer on your website.

Remember that clear call-to-action messages drive conversions and people will start to trust you, as will Google.

Online reviews have also impacted SEO services rankings, therefore encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews online with their experience related to your business.

5. Mobile-friendliness Factor

88% of Google users conduct searches using their mobile phones and Google acknowledges that by ranking websites that are mobile optimized higher than those that are not.

There’s a concept known as Google’s mobile-first index that lists mobile-optimized sites before considering others. Therefore, one proven way to improve your search visibility is by ensuring that your website is optimized for mobile use.

Use a mobile-responsive theme if you’re a WordPress user and you won’t have any issues because website should automatically resize to the device’s size and the fonts automatically comply to be large enough to be read even on small screens.

Look at the placing of ads on a smartphone, making sure that they don’t block important content on mobile devices. A good website that can be viewed on a desktop as well as a phone is not only good for Google but also for your visitors.

6. Page Speed

This refers to how fast your website loads when a user clicks on it from Google search results.

Although this depends on many factors, as the website owner you need to ensure that you optimize your page loading time as users expect a page to load up completely in as little as 3 seconds.

More so, research shows that reducing your page loading time by 100 milliseconds will increase conversions by 1%.

Fast-loading websites create a better user experience and with Google monitoring this, it affects your page ranking.

There is even a new algorithm by Google that focuses on how fast the site loads on mobile.

To put it simply, the faster your website loads for users the higher it will be ranked.

Another good way to ensure that your website loads fast is by using the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for landing pages. This initiative between Google and Twitter involves using a light form of HTML to create pages that load fast.

What’s nice about it is that it will always load landing pages fast on mobile, tablet, and desktop. It works by loading the text and then the images load later when the user scrolls towards them.

Another way to improve speed is to compress images so they are in small file sizes (under 1 MB). This is both beneficial for the user and Google spider crawling your website to determine your page optimization.

7. Google My Business for Local SEO

With statistics show that as high as 4 in every 5 consumers search online for things they need locally, you know that local SEO should be one of your top priorities.

Therefore, you need to make it very easy for people in your area to find you on Google. And 3 in 4 local customers are more likely to visit stores in person.

With over 80% of ‘near me’ related searches coming from smartphones, the first thing you need to optimize your site for mobile users.

A good way to do this for local SEO optimization is to have business information on your website.

To be effective, every business website must have:

Name of the business
A physical address and phone number
Reviews on directories like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and related sites.
Opening hours
Local search terms

Consider claiming your business on Google My Business and once you do that, list the same contact information you have on your website in the same manner, making sure it’s consistent across the web.

After a successful listing, your chances of showing up in the Google Map Pack for local searches related to your business are high.

To use this, create your local listing with all the information relevant to your business including the business category, relevant keywords, operation hours, and website link.

Photos and contact details are good to add in as well. Just remember to verify the listing so that everyone who sees it knows that it’s safe to visit.

With a Google My Business listing and utilizing other local search engine optimization strategies , your business will rank highly in local search results. You will increase traffic to your website and get people to visit your store in one fell swoop.

8. Metadata

The metadata factor may not directly have a strong impact on search rankings, but it matters to search users because it tells them exactly what your page is about.

The metadata of a page is what people see when your page appears in the organic results, meant to give a glimpse of what the article on that page is all about. Therefore, it’s important that the metadata text is relevant, clear, and has your keyword naturally included.

Google considers the metadata as a great factor in ranking and there are 2 important aspects you need to focus on to rank highly, which are:

Title tag
Meta description

i). Title tag: The title tag is the blue clickable link that is seen on search engine results pages, like the headline for your website. Your title tag needs to be enticing to the reader so that people want to click on it.

It should also have the keyword in it for it to rank highly and be descriptive of the content of a page.

ii). Meta description: This is the text that appears below the clickable title tag in the SERPs. It’s supposed to summarize the content inside the page.

Your meta description may or may not be keyword-optimized but you should never forget to fill this out. Pages with appropriate meta descriptions rank higher than those that do not and having relevant keywords in your description helps with your ranking too.

A good meta description explains why the link is worth clicking on to find the information that the web searcher is seeking.

A meta description should be short (about 160 characters) otherwise, it’s likely to get truncated in the search results and confuse the reader.

Not many website owners take Image Alt tags seriously, but they should. Alt tags are useful because they help Google understand and interpret images because otherwise it’s hard for Google crawlers to decipher it. The use of Alt texts, aka, small tags of relevant and descriptive text that act as labels for images, will help Google read your web pages correctly in order to rank you higher in search engine results (just don’t overdo it).

9. Social Media Factor

Google says that social media presence does not directly affect its ranking of search results. However, it’s evident that the pages that rank higher generally have a huge social media following and viral presence.

So, what is Google not telling us?

Since a huge part of SEO is authoritativeness- a by-product of building a community- social media can’t be left out. If inbound SEO company marketing strategies improve search visibility, then social media is essential too. [source]

Nowadays, even social media pages show up in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), so an effective social media campaign just helps to boost your brand presence.

How do you ensure that you have a good social media presence? Start off by creating pages and/or accounts with your brand name on major social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Remember to include information like your business address, working hours, website, and contact details. Depending on what kind of business you’re in, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram are common platforms for most businesses. Come up with engaging content using pictures, images, and text to inform your followers of what it is you do, and the best part about it is signing up is free.

You can also advertise your social media pages to get more followers and advertise on the social media platforms to lead people back to your website. Just note that building a social media following takes time. Avoid buying followers and/or likes as this usually creates more harm than good. Just be social, positive, engaging, and passionate about your business and the followers will come in trickling. Encourage your followers to like, comment, and share your posts.

This increases traffic to your social media page and eventually your website which is good for RankBrain. Social media reviews are also important for Google ranking as it shows you’ve tried to build trust.

Then enjoy direct benefits like increased clients and improved search engine rankings.

Conclusion

With these 7 Google Ranking Factors, you will surely have a website that climbs the charts in the organic listings, thus driving traffic, leads, and sales.

What are you waiting for?

Get started today and optimize your website so Google notices and pushes your exciting and wonderful content to the first page of the search results.

And if you want to develop a winning SEO strategy that will catapult your website to the top of Google in a shorter amount of time, utilize the experts at our digital marketing agency to get started. Contact us today!

7 SEO Strategies to Drive Leads to Your Medical Practice Website

For your medical practice, driving leads to your website translates to driving more customers into your business.

And one of the best ways to generate qualified leads is to use search engines. Check out our SEO services or ask us any question here.

Many of your potential customers use search engines to find medical professionals and suitable practices for them.

So our question to you is: is your website optimized to show up in searches and attract leads looking for your practice?

Trying to figure out search engine optimization can be frustrating if you don’t know where to start.

Fortunately, using the right Healthcare SEO strategies can ensure your website appears for the right keywords and will boost the number of qualified leads coming into your business.

In this post, I’ll show you 7 SEO strategies you can use to improve your visibility in search engines and bring in more leads:

1. Keyword Research

When your medical practice website appears for the wrong keywords, there’s a higher chance of visitors bouncing out and decreases the chance of converting search engine traffic into leads.

The first place to start is to perform a keyword search to figure out what terms potential patients are using to find your business online.

By targeting the right keywords that show the nature of your business, you can start showing up and improving your search engine rankings.

Since many medical practices are local businesses, it’s important to target local keywords in your medical marketing campaign. These are keywords that include the city of your practice. Examples are:

[city] medical practice
Medical services in [city]
Medical doctor [city]
[city] medical doctor

Guesswork can lead you to target the wrong keywords and so it’s good to carry out your keyword research using specific tools available. Some of these include: SEMrush, Ahrefs, CognitiveSEO, KeywordTool.io, and UberSuggest.

With whatever tool you choose, start with a single keyword that defines your business.

For instance, a term like “medical treatments” will appeal to someone looking for medical treatments or information about that product or service. A keyword research tool will also show you similar terms that users search for.

These useful, medical marketing, tools show how often users are searching for these terms and the search volume and how competitive they are. Make sure to target keywords with a high search volume and low competition.

Here’s an example of using KeywordTool.io for research:

This shows similar keywords to a specific search term. These are keywords pulled from Google Autocomplete:

Here’s an example of how it works in Ubersuggest:

It shows details about your keywords like the search volume, SEO difficulty, paid difficulty, and cost per click (CPC):

You’ll also get a list of similar keywords when you click on “Keyword Ideas”:

You can also access to SERP analysis which shows you the current pages ranking for that particular keyword:

After performing your keyword research, you should get a better sense of what keywords you should bid on or target in Healthcare SEO strategy. For more advanced work you can contact Healthcare Marketing Agency.

2. Produce Long-form Quality Content

To spend your money wisely and have a better chance of ranking for your target keywords, you need to produce quality content that inspires people to click into your website.

For website blog topics, make sure they are detailed, which means you want to produce longer page and ad titles, or long-form content (1,000 words or more).
A snapshot of a million Google search results by Backlinko found that pages that rank Number 1 for Google search results contain an average of 1,890 words.

This is not a fast rule or a magic number, but you do want to make sure that you are providing enough content that solves your visitors’ problems or at least answers their questions or concerns in detail. Producing relevant and quality content is an important step in Medical Marketing strategy.

You’ll probably have an easier time creating more content on broad topics compared to a niche one, but it’s good to create content about both.

How to optimize your content for a keyword

To target a keyword within a blog post, make sure your keyword is in the following parts of your post:

- The headline
- The URL
- The first few paragraphs
- Image name
- Image alt text
- Subheadings

Here is an infographic that shows an optimized page:

However, make sure to add keywords into your posts without a negative impact on its readability. Keyword stuffing can make your post unreadable for visitors and earn you a penalty rather than a higher rank.

When Felix Tarcomnicu created quality content and built backlinks for his website, he got a 210% increase in organic traffic.

3. Submit a sitemap for proper indexing

The first step of showing up in search engine results is having your web pages chronicled in the Google (and other search engines) index, which is done through a sitemap.
This is a document that contains your website URLs and presents them to search engine bots, making it easier for search engines to crawl your web pages.
To submit your sitemap, go to the Google Search Console dashboard. Click on “Sitemaps”.

Enter your sitemap address and click “Submit”.

You can also enable robots.txt on your website. If your website runs on WordPress, install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin. After it’s downloaded, click on “SEO” and then “Tools”:

On the next page, click on “File Editor”:

If you don’t have a robots.txt file on your website, click on “Create robots.txt file”:

Then save your changes by clicking on “Save changes to robots.txt”:

Then check the number of your pages indexed on Google by going to your Google Search Console dashboard and clicking on “Coverage”:

This will show you pages with errors, pages indexed, pages indexed with warnings, and pages excluded.

It’s important to look at pages with problems so that you can fix them and boost your Healthcare SEO ranking right away:

By submitting a sitemap and other strategies, the roofing websiteRoofCrafters had a 4,342% increase in organic traffic and a decrease in bounce rate in a period of 6 months:

4. Build Backlinks

A backlink is a mention of your homepage or internal pages on another website with a link back to your website.

This is one of the main signs that shows authority and trustworthiness of your website.

In fact, Google search quality analyst, Andrey Lipattsev, revealed that content, backlinks, and Rankbrain are the 3 most important ranking signals when determining how high a website should be in any given search result list.

However, getting backlinks to your medical practice website is no easy task. Our medical marketing company can give you full backlinks building service. Here are some basic tips on getting backlinks:

Guest posting: Submitting complimentary posts on other websites is an opportunity to show your expertise as a medical professional and drive people back to your website through an author bio. This also allows you to reach a wider audience than those who are already familiar with your business.

Here is an example of a guest post by chiropractor Dr. SharonroseSamelak, about chiropractic care for women…you can also see the backlink to her website in the author bio:

Posting on forums: With forums, you can discuss with like minded people in the medical profession and take the opportunity to share your website through networking online. Providing answers to medical questions asked shows authority and trust in your expertise. In some cases, you can create a blog post that answers a question in detail and give a brief answer on the forum with a link to the full post for further reading.

Here is an example on the popular forum Quora:

Neil Patel provided a brief answer to the question and a link to a post on his blog that answers the question in detail:

Participating or hosting local events: showing up at events is another way to meet fellow professionals and locals who might be potential customers.

If you host an event, local websites and journalists might also show up and promote your business.

Here is an example of Dr. Shoshany getting featured on PRWeb for his role in updating the NYC Marathon Readiness Protocol. If you look closely, you’ll notice that there are 3 backlinks to his website in the press release:

Appearing on podcasts: podcasts are also becoming a popular way to advertise your services as research shows that 26% of Americans listen to podcasts monthly. You can appear on a podcast in an interview and be rewarded with a backlink to your website.

Here is an example of Brian Dean appearing on a podcast with a link to his website:

5. Add your medical practice to local directories

The best types of leads for your medical practice are those living within a certain proximity to your practice which means that local search important for your business. For your website to show up for more local searches, you need to add your business to as many local online listings as you can.

For instance, BrightLocal found in a study that businesses that show up in local searches have an average of 85 local citations. Some local directories to consider adding your business to could include general directories, the online Yellow Pages, Angie’s List, and medical-related directories.

Some examples of directories for medical practices are:

ZocDoc
Rate MDs
Healthgrades
Wellness.com
Doctor.com
Dr. Oogle
UCompareHealthCare
WellnessDirectoryOnline.com

Ensure consistent NAP

To give your local listings the biggest impact possible, it’s important to have the same business name, address, and phone number across all local listings.
This consistency makes it easy for search engines to establish the credibility of your practice.

Whereas having different details on different listings can lead to confusion for search engines and your customers who don’t know who the authoritative source is. Consequently, this could see your website go down in local searches.

Google My Business page

This is one of the most important listings you can add your practice’s website. Without this page, it’s almost impossible for your business to rank in the Google local map pack.

A Google My Business page contains details about your practice like NAP, website, pictures, operating hours, reviews, etc.

To create a Google My Business page, go to the website and click on “Start Now”:

Then enter your business details and verify your practice:

After completing this process, keep your page updated with posts about new developments and promotional offers. Here is an example of Tisch Hospital Google My Business page:

6. Encourage reviews

One way you can interact and increase engagement with your patients is through their reviews (it also helps to attract more leads to your website).

In fact, BrightLocal found that 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. However, people don’t always write reviews even if they love your service.

If you have happy customers, remind them to write reviews for your practice on your local listings. Here is an example of reviews on Tisch Hospital Google My Business page:

7. Improve website speed

Slow websites lead to a poor user experience and high bounce rates. When visitors find you through search engines and bounce after a few seconds, it tells search engines that your page is not providing value for its users.

And that leads to a lower rank for your web pages.

One study found that your website could have lost as many as 25% of your visitors if it the landing page takes more than 4 seconds to load. But in order to improve your website speed, you need to know what your current website load speed is.

Some tools available to test website loading speed include the: Google mobile speed test, GT Metrix, and Pingdom- one of the most popular speed test tools.
To use Pingdom, go to the website and enter your address. Then select the test server closest to the location of your ideal patients:

Click on “Start Test”. This will show you the performance results of your website including the load time, page size, number of requests, and other details.

This shows elements in your website you can correct to improve your website speed:

Conclusion

Driving leads to your medical practice website through search engines requires time and patience, but it’s not rocket science.

When you follow these proven strategies, you’ll gain more visibility on search engines and capture more qualified leads.

Millennials are reshaping the medical industry. How and why this matters

There was a time when Baby Boomers were the largest segment of the U.S. population, but that time has passed. There are now some 83.1 million Millennials in the U.S. today (people born between 1982 and 2000) according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That’s nearly 8 million more people than there are Baby Boomers.

Looking at it differently, Millennials make up around 25% of the total U.S. population, and by 2020 will account for more than $1.4 trillion in spending per year.

Those who were around to remember it, recall that the influx of Baby Boomers impacted and changed how the world worked. Well, history seems about ready to repeat itself as these millions of Millennials are set to disrupt the world as we know it.

The healthcare industry is not immune.

Millennials have grown up in a world where technology is the norm, on-demand is expected, and where consumers have far more control over their relationships with brands. How does this mindset transfer over to the medical world? Here is what our orthopedic marketing agency has to say:

Millennials demand technical innovation in healthcare

Millennials grew up with technology. Many of them don’t remember life before smartphones or the internet. They expect others will rely on the same digital technology they do – including their doctors.

Take a look at this graphic by Goldman Sachs:

Millennials are, generally, more health-conscience, which is great. But it also means they’re willing to invest in technology that helps them merge their health goals into their normal everyday lives.

It’s true that Millennials aren’t heavy users of healthcare at the moment, as they’re still young and healthy. But as they turn to medical professionals more and more, they’re starting to demand tech-savvy doctors who know how to integrate the latest technology to deliver the best possible experience.

What could this look like?

Some of the solutions you should already be looking into, and offering, include:

Health portals
Self-serve options
Online appointment scheduling
Electronic medical record review
Online payment options
A mobile app to allow patients to manage care, review records, and schedule appointments

Integrating technology and digital marketing for your pain management clinic has a couple of benefits.

Firstly, this technology does, in fact, help you better serve your patients. More transparency and convenience are surefire recipes for cultivating a healthier mindset for your patients.

But there’s also the credibility factor. The medical industry is among the most technologically dependent industries on the planet. Each day, new devices and treatments are devised to help us all live healthier, and longer.

It can be disarming to a Millennial to walk into a doctor’s office and be forced to step back into time, into a paper-heavy world. If you want to attract, and retain, your Millennial patients, you have to speak their language.

Millennials and an on-demand medical service

A growing number of millennials are a part of the freelancing gig economy. What that means is they often work from home (or anywhere, really) and have work days that never truly end. This puts a lot of stress on the importance of each minute of each day.

That’s why such services like Netflix, TiVo, Hulu and Sling (TV) are so popular. Millennials don’t believe they should have to mold their schedule around other services. It should be the other way around.

And they bring that same perspective into their healthcare expectations.

A 2015 PNC Healthcare study found that Millennials are twice as likely as Baby Boomers to use retail clinics and acute care facilities for speed and efficient care. Only 61% of Millennials visited their primary care physician (compared to 80% of boomers, and 85% of seniors).

Walk-in facilities, like MedPost (seen below) have seen a steady increase in traffic across the nation, with Millennials being a large percentage of their patients.

Our medical marketing agency can’t help but pay special attention to the big CHECK IN ONLINE button on the homepage of Atlanta’s MedPost – a call-to-action that speaks directly to the expectations of Millennials.

Why visit the doctor when we have video for that?

Millennials love video. Facebook reports that post with videos perform head and shoulders above other posts.

And livestream videos? Well, they’re in a class of their own.

But video isn’t just about Snapchat stories or YouTube. Video and livestream have found their way into the medical industry, in the way of telemedicine.

A 2015 study by Salesforce.com found that nearly 60% of Millennials have an interest in telemedicine.

The key here is that telemedicine means so much more than connecting with patients via a choppy Skype call.

“Millennials won’t accept choppy or disjointed video from their healthcare provider like they do with Skype,” wrote Tony Zhao, CEO of real-time communications provider, Agora.io. “They expect reliability from any service where they’re paying significant money.”

In other words, telemedicine should already be a part of your conversation for growth. What types of technologies can you rely on to provide the best possible, and seamless, experience for your patients?

Investing in telemedicine can be intimidating. But it’s important to remember that this technology not only benefits your patients; it benefits your practice as well.

The U.S. spends over $2.9 trillion on healthcare every year, more than any other developed nation. An estimated $200 billion of those costs are avoidable.

Telemedicine has the power to cut healthcare spending by reducing unnecessary ER visits while making patient-doctor visits more efficient.

Telemedicine also increases patient engagement. Telemedicine allows them to connect with their doctor more frequently, in a convenient way. This means more questions asked – and answered, as well as a stronger doctor-patient relationship.

Word-of-Mouth marketing

For all this talk about technology and digital connectivity, it might seem surprising to partner up Millennials and something old-school like word-of-mouth marketing.

But be aware: this isn’t your run-of-the-mill word-of-mouth marketing we’re talking about. This is a new and improved version.

That same Salesforce report revealed that 76% of Millennials value online reviews from other patients when selecting a doctor.

The key term here is online review.

A large percentage of Millennials turn to medical-based review sites like HealthGrades to make their healthcare decisions, but they also turn to less expected places, such as Yelp.

And, to complicate things more, what Millennials really like is to hear from their closest friends or family members about trusted physicians (via platforms like Facebook).

In other words, if you want to build the trust of your younger patients, you need to improve your online reputation game.

Learn more: Reputation Management for the Medical Industry

This includes creating both a proactive and reactive reputation management strategy for your medical or healthcare marketing campaign. Through your proactive strategy, you’ll be able to grow your reviews across key platforms and channels, while your reactive strategy will help you address any negative reviews or issues in a timely fashion.

It’s not so much catering to Millennials but …

This article is painted as a how-to guide to help you attract and retain Millennials. That’s important, seeing as Millennials are the largest population in the country.

But it’s a bit of a disservice to suggest that the shifts we discuss above are aimed only to serve Millennials.

That’s simply not true.

Millennials are without question reshaping the healthcare industry, but not just for themselves. For everyone.

They may be in the driver’s seat, but we’re all along for the ride. The world as we know it has changed. Smartphones. Mobile apps. Virtual reality. All of these technologies come with their fair share of pop-culture coolness factor, but in reality, they represent an important shift, and advancement, in how we all care for ourselves and our patients.

A couple of times in this article, we referenced Salesforce’s report, the “State of the Connected Patient“. That same report found that many Millennials have limited, or non-existent relationships with their primary care doctor.

In fact, 40% reported that their PCP would not recognize them walking down the street. What an incredibly different world we live in from just 10 years ago! It’s important to note that many of these Millennials are ok with this type of non-relationship with their doctors. They’d rather engage with physicians through digital means.

You, then, have two choices. You can try to hold onto the way things were before the technological revolution, or you can embrace more social, mobile, and cloud solutions in your patient engagement repertoire.

The choice is yours.

The Impact of Amazon Breaking into Telemedicine – the 1492 Effect

Amazon, the e-commerce company widely known for selling virtually everything under the sun, has reportedly created a secret lab (called 1492), aimed at bringing the massive company into the healthcare technology space.

More specifically, the 1492 team is reportedly looking into ways to make electronic health records, or EHRs, more accessible to both doctors and patients, while also investigating options for developing a robust telemedicine platform.

According to MedCityNews, when Amazon was contacted regarding 1492, a spokesperson said that the company does not comment on rumor or speculation.

The news of Amazon’s interest in telemedicine should catch the attention of medical professionals and healthcare marketers across the globe.

Telemedicine, in general, has been around for decades. It’s not uncommon, for example, for patients to receive a phone call from their doctor’s office to discuss the results of a test. However, the real benefit of telemedicine is in the concept that patients and their doctors can communicate with ease without the need for a physical visit.

Not only is this more convenient, but is also a cost-effective method of patient management.

Telemedicine is generally practiced from a hub, where a distant practitioner delivers service and advice through a telecommunications system. It’s generally straightforward – through the use of webcams or other types of communication hardware, a patient can speak directly to a doctor from the comfort of their home (or, essentially, anywhere in the world).

But when it comes to scaling telemedicine, this type of setup isn’t ideal. There’s still the need for a singular doctor to offer advice and direct support to an individual patient.

Enter Amazon.

Now, while 1492 is still yet to be confirmed, we can make many assumptions about how Amazon might revolutionize the telemedicine world.

How Amazon knows what you want to buy – before you do

A few years back, Amazon got a patent for an algorithm built around the concept of “anticipatory shipping.” The goal of this algorithm was to be able to trim delivery times by shipping products to different areas of the country based on the shopping habits of the people who live there.

The new system was expected to use previous searches, purchases, wish lists, and how long a user’s cursor hovers over an item online to determine what items get shipped where.

To simplify this, what we’re saying is Amazon has entered a new space in the shopping ecosphere: a space where data takes the decision making out of everyone’s hands. Now, we don’t think that this anticipatory shipping strategy has a place – yet – in medicine. But it demonstrates Amazon’s penchant for developing formulas to increase efficiency and decrease waste – two important keys in the medical field.

They – and Netflix, mind you – have already used data to predict what we want, before we want it. Take a look at this product we shopped for on Amazon:

Amazon uses its algorithm to help us determine what other products we might need to complement this purchase:

Not only that, but they also let us know what other products customers like us have purchased:

While this is all speculation, it’s fun to imagine that Amazon’s 1492 platform might offer the same type of functionality for physicians and patients.

Instead of a “gear backpack” as our initial search, what if we searched, instead, for “Throbbing Neck Pain.”

From then, Amazon’s platform could come back with a series of potential conditions, each with a list of symptoms (rather than features, as is done with products). We as the patient browse each condition and choose the best symptoms that match our own. The more conditions or symptoms we choose, the better refined the platform’s responses would become.

Instead of “Frequency bought together” like above, 1492 could say “Symptoms often correlated with one another.” And, instead of “Customers who bought this item also bought,” the platform could say “People who suffer from these conditions often suffer from …”

We can envision a scenario where the patient begins to whittle down his or her symptoms to allow doctors on standby to respond with a far more focused approach.

Now, we don’t think Amazon will try to help patients self-diagnose. Rather, we can assume that they’ll help patients document each of their symptoms. This documentation will then be fed into an algorithm that will alert the platform what next steps should be taken, including:

Offering at-home remedies to start
Talking directly with an online doctor
Making an appointment with a doctor

In addition, patients and doctors would then have an easy way to manage their records and correspondence. It’s fairly simple to log into Amazon and see your past purchases; there’s no reason to assume a telemedicine platform would be any different.

In fact, Amazon uses our past-purchase history to remind us of items we may need. We can definitely see that function serving a purpose in telemedicine. Say, for example, that a patient complains of – or is documented as having – high blood pressure. Amazon’s new telemedicine platform could remind this patient to check his or her pressure, or could suggest certain supplements or dietary changes to help lower it.

Should we embrace Amazon’s entrance into this field?

There’s no question that medical professionals are strapped for time. That’s a shame, because more so than any other profession, the healthcare field should remain focused on the individual.

But a pre-technology approach to medicine isn’t the solution. The old way can’t keep up with current demands. And the current state of telemedicine isn’t necessarily the magic pill either. With one of the largest corporations in the world entering this space, it’ll be exciting to see how Amazon can push the envelope of innovation and create a platform or process that makes telemedicine efficient without compromising the patient-physician relationship.

Can Marketing Automation Help Doctors Improve their Patient Relationships?

Physician Dr. Sonia Henry recently published an article, on http://kevinmd.com, titled Doctors: Don’t lose your humanity, in which she discusses how important it is for professionals in the medical field to retain their humanity.

As Dr. Henry states:

“A doctor without feeling is a canvas without a painting – the day we lose our ability to engage with our emotional responses to difficult situations is the day we lose our patients, even the ones who are still alive.”

Long before technology entered the fray, doctors risked losing that human-to-human interaction that’s needed in the medical field. But as technology has become prevalent in the field, it’s easier now, more than ever, for doctors to “lose their humanity” and forget that the people they’re dealing with are more than just patients.

Apps. Computer screens. Tablets. These devices and software are intended to improve the efficiency of the healthcare field, not dehumanize it.

Yet dehumanization is exactly what we risk unless we find ways to regain that doctor-patient relationship. This doesn’t mean foregoing technology; rather, it means finding ways to use technology to make the medical industry more personal.

That’s why marketing automation is so effective. Not only can it help your practice stay in-touch with your patients, but it can do so with very little effort on your part.

Improving your patient relationships with marketing automation

Unlike a retail business or another type of brand, patients actually wantto hear from, and know more about, the people in charge of their health. It’s far more welcoming for a patient to come see a doctor whom they feel they know, rather than a stranger they only hear from once a year or during a health scare.

With marketing automation, you can tear down the barrier that exists between you and your patients, while providing them content and information they actually value.

Here are a few ways to use automation to your advantage:

Emails

Take some time to create pre-made emails that you send to your patients based on certain parameters.

For example, your practice could have a setup in place that registers when patients come to your office. This system could then trigger a follow-up email to them a day or so following their visit that lets them know that if they have any specific questions or concerns to feel free to reach out to your team. This little follow up – that would be signed and sent by the doctor who saw them, is enough to make them feel like they were more than just a number.

While you’re at it, you could also encourage them to write a review on behalf of your practice, which would then improve your overall marketing efforts.

Nervous about getting bad reviews?

Not a problem. In your email to your patients, you could create a safeguard against negative reviews. Something like the image below is a good example of what you could do:

In this instance, if the patient clicks YES, they’ll be taken to a review site of your choosing (Healthgrades, Google, Facebook, etc.). If they click NO, they’ll be taken to a landing page where they can fill out a form to air their complaints. That form is sent directly to you, rather than going live to a review site.

There is no limit to the level of personalization you can do with your emails. You could have a standard follow-up email for every possible scenario your facility faces: annual checkups; emergency calls; parents of children, and so on.

You could then set up emails to mark certain milestones or events. For example, it’s not uncommon for a car dealership to reach out to a car owner after a few years to remind them of the need for a tune-up.

You can take that same approach with your patients. For example, many health professionals believe that people should get their first colonoscopy at the age of 50. Since you have the date of births of your patients, you could trigger an email to patients who are nearing 50 that wishes them a happy birthday and reminds them that it’s time to consider scheduling a colonoscopy.

You could keep on providing health advice to your subscribers, based on their age, on the reason for their last visit to you, and more.

The average person interacts with their healthcare providers or specialists only when they have to. This type of relationship doesn’t forge a lasting bond of trust and transparency.

As a medical professional, you want to be seen as the trusted resource of medical information for your patients. You can achieve this through a periodic newsletter emailed to your patients.

Newsletters allow you to remain top-of-mind of your patients and provides your readers with valuable information.

Updates to your facility, healthy living tips, patient testimonials and stories – each of these can become a fabric of your organization’s newsletter. In fact, the content pieces that make up your newsletters can be used in many different ways for your medical or dental online advertising efforts.

For example, let’s say that you run a monthly newsletter for your hospital. As part of that newsletter, you conduct a Q&A each month on a different doctor. Aside from adding that Q&A in your newsletter, you can also post it on your website, and share it on social media. This is an amazing healthcare social media advertising strategy.

In other words, your newsletter becomes the anchor of your content marketing efforts. All of the articles and social updates you post feature elements of your newsletter, but at the same time, serve to strengthen your relationship with your patients.

Below is one page from a newsletter published by North Cypress Medical Center of Texas.

You’ll see that this page focuses on Prostate Cancer Screening. Not only does it serve as an informational piece for readers, but it’s also valuable digital marketing for hospitals: it promotes the upcoming free screenings.

Regain that personal feel of your practice

It might seem ironic to look toward technology to get more personal with your patients, but that’s exactly what automation aims to do. By setting up workflows and processes up-front, you can engage in ongoing conversations with your patients, with little effort on your part. By reaching out to your patients with content they value, and that’s relevant to them, you’ll stand apart from other medical professionals and will build the trust that is so vital toward the patient-doctor relationship.

Create Paid Ads that Build Trust with Your Prospective Patients

[feat-text]Since the dawn of marketing, customers have mistrusted paid advertising. They know better than to believe that 3 out of 4 dentists choose one toothpaste over another, and they know better than to think that a bottle of beer will transport them to an island paradise. [/feat-text]

That’s been true since the time when radio and TV reigned supreme, and it stands true today in the digital age, particularly as social media ads and sponsored content have become more and more prevalent.

But brands rely on paid social advertising to reach prospects at every step of the buyer journey. Advertising on sites like Facebook is key to your long-term growth, but with every ad you produce, you risk introducing negative feedback from your prospects.

Here’s how our pay-per-click agency avoids creating ads and sponsored content that do more harm than good.

Stay true to your branding

It’s not uncommon for companies to use click-bait type content to increase the conversions on their ads. Avoid this practice. A good rule of thumb when promoting any editorial-based content (like blogs) is not to try to “sell” to your reader. Don’t force conversions on them.

Instead, boost and promote content that will entertain your readers and give them something of actual value.

Our goal here is to demonstrate our value to our audiences – we know how to help you protect your reputation, and here are a few tips you can do on your own.

When you follow this approach, your readers will walk away feeling like they just got their hands on some quality content from thought-leaders in the field. This, in turn, could lead toward a conversion – or at least the start of a brand-prospect relationship.

Deliver on your headline promises

The headline of your paid ads and sponsored content speak volumes to your readers. In our example above, our headline is 3 simple steps to help you analyze, respond to, and resolve negative tweets and reviews on Twitter.

We’re pretty confident our audiences know exactly what to expect when they click on that post. So, we better deliver on that promise!

Here’s a nifty trick you can do to ensure your headlines live up to your content: present your headline to someone who’s not directly affiliated with your business. Have that person write a brief synopsis of what they think the content will be, based on the headline alone.

If you find that their assumption is not in line with your content, then you should adjust your headline (or, if necessary, content) accordingly.

Never stop refining

Social advertising is all about test-and-learn. This will ensure that your ad dollars are spent wisely. Use each network’s analytics to analyze engagement signals and click-through-rate (CTR). You’ll want to replicate what works and refine what doesn’t.

Be on the lookout for what’s known as audience fatigue, which could come in the form of a decrease in CTR or an increase in cost-per-click (CPC).

Know what to optimize your ads toward

We’ve seen far too many businesses harp on vanity metrics like click-through-rate to determine the effectiveness of a social ad.

Steer away from this practice. Instead, establish measurement benchmarks that signal a qualified (and high quality) visitor to your site.

If you’re promoting editorial content, it’s a good idea to measure elements such as time on site and page views. For advertorial and direct response ads, you’re likely better off measuring the number of email signups, form completions, and purchases.

Simple clicks on the ad won’t tell the full story. To truly know if your ad – and ensuring landing page (if applicable) – are working, you’ll want to measure how many people sign up from this ad.

That’s the number that matters most.

Work hard to make your ads less … adversarial

Just like it’s in a wolf’s nature to shy away from humans – after centuries of experience with them – it seems like people have the same relationship with ads. We’ve all been burned before; we didn’t ask for this ad to pop up in our face, so we block it out, ignore it, or associate the advertiser with negative connotations.

But follow the tips above and you should find yourself creating better user experiences for your viewers and the ads you produce.

Tips to Grow Website Conversions for Your Medical Practice

[feat-text]Take a few minutes to google “how to boost website conversions” and what you’ll likely come up with are hundreds of posts talking about running A/B tests and changing web copy on your landing page.[/feat-text]

But those actions, alone, aren’t enough to boost your website conversions. While changing your call-to-action button color to red, green, or polka dots might help, if you really want to grow your website conversions and get more prospective patients for your practice, you need to focus on the types of offers you’re promoting.

Folks who visit your site come in many shapes and sizes. Some visitors are ready to convert and will click on the “Contact Us” link or “Schedule a Free Consultation” button. Others, however, are not quite ready for that commitment. They’re looking for more information; they’re still chest-deep in research and comparing your practice to your competitors.

If you want them to become a lead, you can’t just promise them a free consultation – they’re simply not at that point in their journey yet.

You need to offer them something of value that they’re willing to provide contact information for, in order to receive. You need to offer them a compelling lead magnet.

But to know what types of offers your audience values, you first need to know a bit about them.

Get to know who your audience is

Making a valuable lead magnet requires you to know exactly what type of information your audience is looking for.

Fortunately for you, there are tools that can help you get to know the folks who visit your site. Google AdWords Keyword Planner, for example, allows you to see the volume for keyword phrases that people are searching for. It can also offer you related suggestions. Using the information from Google AdWords Keyword Planner, you can then get a clearer picture of which keywords and concepts are creating a buzz.

Buzzsumo is a great app to help you search specific topics and see how popular these topics are at the moment.

Here we performed a simple search on Buzzsumo for “plastic surgery.” While many of the results are irrelevant to our needs, there is one that’s intriguing: “Lip Reduction is the New Plastic Surgery Trend.”

With 65,000 total shares to date, this is clearly a trending topic. In other words, people are interested in this subject, making it a viable lead magnet focal point. Perhaps you can create an eBook. Perhaps you can create a checklist (“How Do You Know if Lip Reduction Is Right For You?”). Perhaps you can create a video that shows what patients can expect before and after a lip reduction procedure.

Regardless of the type of content you produce, your goal here is to create gated material that your visitors will have to exchange information for, in order to access. This digital marketing strategy is great for hospitals or medical practices that specialize in a specific service,

Ensuring your lead magnet is a useful resource

Even after you use tools like Buzzsumo, that doesn’t mean you’ll create a lead magnet that encourages conversions.

You must ensure that the content you produce is something your audience wants to consume. Tip sheets, research reports, webinars and more are all potential lead magnets, but knowing which one to use means understanding the mindset of your visitors.

If you believe that your visitors are in a rush to find answers, then a research report isn’t your best bet – perhaps a tip sheet is. If you believe your visitors are looking for in-depth data and evidence, then yes, a research paper could be your best option.

Beyond the type of lead magnet, in order to boost conversions, you’ll want to spend some considerable time with your landing page.

Your landing page – where your lead magnet offer will live – should match exactly what the users are expecting to see. It should also be free of distractions that confuse the visitor. Take, for example, our landing page for a reputation management guide for orthopedic surgeons:

The content of our landing page focuses specifically on the guide’s messaging and purpose. We also deliberately added an image of the guide (rather than some type of stock footage) to keep our visitors focused. And then, of course, is the red CTA button, which not only stands out on the page but uses wording that encourages a conversion.

Your CTA button’s text should reflect what the visitor will get once they hit that button. In this case, they’ll receive a free report. Studies show this type of specificity (vs., say, “Get It Now”) increases conversion rates.

Next, you have to sell your offer

Just because you created a lead magnet and landing page, doesn’t mean anyone will actually see that offer or make a conversion.

You have to do a bit of selling.

Social media is a tremendous way to sell your offer – specifically Facebook. You can create targeted Facebook ads to show up in the feeds of users who match your specific audience. For example, if you’re a plastic surgeon and designed a lead magnet tip-list called How Do You Know If Lip Augmentation is Right for You?” you can create an ad that promotes that offer and target it to Facebook users who have expressed some type of interest in plastic surgery (such as if they like or follow one of your competitors). This is a great strategy to get new clients with digital marketing if you’re a plastic surgeon.

You might also consider creating a custom cover photo for your Facebook page that promotes the offer. Pro tip: when you upload this cover photo, within its caption, add the link to your landing page to make it easier for prospects to convert.

Guest blog posts are another way to amplify your offering. You can mention the lead magnet in your post, or drop a link to its landing page in your bio.

Never stop promoting your lead magnets

One of the trends we see our medical clients practice when they market on their own is they develop a fairly impressive – yet short-lived – strategy to promote their lead magnet offers. But chances are your lead magnets have a long shelf life. Make sure to develop and ongoing schedule that ensures your team markets your offer throughout the year and beyond. That way, this once piece of content will continue to gather up leads and conversions with little effort on your part.

Medical Related Voice Search is on the Rise – Here’s How to Adapt

[feat-text]Thanks to such devices as Amazon Echo and Google Home (not to mention Siri, Cortex, and others) the way people search for information online is shifting. [/feat-text]

A recent report publicized by Search Engine Land suggests that more than 60% of searches are now performed on a mobile device. With more mobile devices in use, your potential patients find it easier to use their voice to conduct a search rather than type on a tiny screen.

That means you, as a medical marketer, need to start thinking about SEO and content marketing a little bit differently.

Voice search is a hot topic in the world of SEO.

Earlier this year, at SMX West 2017, Benu Aggarwal held an entire conference on the topic: Optimizing Content for Voice Search and Virtual Assistants. Here are some of the topics she discussed which might benefit you as you grow the reach of your medical practice.

How You Can Optimize for Voice Search

Siri, Cortana, Alexa, and Google Assistant are making it easier than ever for people to ask a question. Studies show when we use our voice–rather than our fingers–to conduct a search, the way we search becomes a lot more conversational. In addition, voice search is far more likely to be locally focused (because most folks are on their mobile devices when they conduct these searches).

For example, if you’re traveling with your family from Chicago to Phoenix, your phone will know where you are. So, when you search for an urgent care facility, your phone adapts your search for local urgent care facilities near Phoenix. Because voice searches are more conversational, they often tend to be longer than typical text keyword search queries.

Search engines try to provide the best results for searches, so it’s important to match your optimization with the types of content people are searching for. When optimizing your website, it’s important to think about what information people are searching for and how are they searching.

Here are a few things you can do to optimize for voice search:

Claim and Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing. Your Google My Business listing is a great way for Google to learn more about your practice, including the type of business you run, your address, phone number, business hours and more.

This Google My Business listing should help you rank higher when a voice search is conducted relating to your specific niche.

Turn Keywords into Conversations

When you think about optimizing your content with keywords, think of this new formula: long-tail+. That “plus” represents those conversational phrases you need to add to show up for voice searches. Here’s an example:

Where can I find a doctor who treats severe sunburns?

This keyword phrase is far more robust and complete than what a traditional searcher might have typed into Google:

Doctor for severe sunburns

In other words, your keyword strategy should mimic how people talk and ask questions. We recommend you start thinking about the types of questions you and your team get when patients call your offices or talk with you directly. Start documenting and recording these words used. You can then create a list of questions your patients pose and start creating content pages that focus on those longer, more conversational search terms.

Create FAQ Pages

One of the most effective ways to use this data compiled from your patients is by creating FAQ (frequently asked questions) pages that focus on these long-tail phrases. Try to ditch the old way of optimizing web pages and shift to more hyper-specific searches. For example, searches like “best pediatrician” will start to disappear, replaced by searches like “Siri, where can I find the best pediatrician for my son?”

Offer quick answers to these questions and you might not only rank higher on SERPs, but you might also increase your chances of appearing in a Google “Featured Snippet.”

Call Tracking – The Perfect RX for Your Medical Marketing Strategy

[feat-text]Consider all of the ways your prospective patients embark on journey toward your services – imagine all the steps they might take before they call your offices: they go on Google, browse on social media, watch TV, read the newspaper, and more. [/feat-text]

How can you tell which of your marketing strategies are working effectively?

That’s where we recommend call tracking to most of your medical professional clients. Call tracking analyzes individual phone calls based on how the callers accessed the phone numbers they’re dialing.

That little piece of added tracking data is enough to clear the fog often associated with last-minute attribution. By implementing call tracking into your marketing mix, you can gain a better understanding of where in the journey your patients decided to convert, and what led them there.

Take, for example, a patient who calls a specific phone number displayed on an ad or search page:

With call tracking, you can look back at the patient’s path as well as gather insights from the call itself.

Using dynamic phone numbers and keyword tracking for your medical marketing

Dynamic phone number tracking uses different forwarding numbers for every space on the web where your practice is found. For example, you’d have one number displayed on Facebook, and another on a Google search ad – but these numbers would lead to the same place.

Here’s why this is so helpful to giving you the insights you need to optimize your campaigns:

Let’s say that a patient who browses from their phone for a local pediatrician lands on one of your service pages. They call the number displayed on that service page.

Call tracking will tell you exactly which page the patient saw that led them to place the call.

On top of that, keyword-level tracking lets you know what terms callers searched for to access contact information. When your prospective patients visit a website, they’ll see a unique phone number tied into the pages they browsed and keywords they used.

For example, someone who searched for “foot doctor in Atlanta” will see a different phone number from someone who searched for “top orthopedic surgeons near me.”

Let’s notch up this data to the next level: when your patients and prospects call your office, your team can see exactly which keywords the patients used that led them to this call. This could come in handy in your efforts to deliver the best possible experience for your clientele.

Making the most of your marketing budget with call tracking

It’s pretty clear from what we outlined above that call tracking is a great way to improve interactions with your prospective patients. But it’s also a powerful tool to help you manage your digital marketing campaign budget by showing you which strategies are leading patients to your office, and which are not.

For folks in the medical world, a phone call (to book an appointment, schedule a consultation, or get more information) is the best indicator that this prospect is ready to become a patient. With call tracking in place, it’s easy to see which channels are your blue chips driving conversions.

Let’s use this as an example: a prospective patient searches for “top orthopedic surgeon near me” before making a call. If keywords about location or type of service are leading to more conversions, you know that you should guide your healthcare paid search strategy in that direction and create more content around that topic for SEO purposes.

If, for example, your print ads aren’t doing their job of getting folks to call your office, (you’ll know this because you used a dynamic number), then you know you can scale back that marketing effort and move your dollars elsewhere. You can instead try a healthcare SEO strategy that will give you long-term results.

Once the call is made

Call tracking is incredible at helping you understand how your patients got to make the call to your office. But it can also help you dive deeper into the patient journey by showing you how your patients interact with your clinic.

Call tracking technology can automatically transcribe recordings and organize strong insights without any additional effort on your part.

By analyzing calls you can measure the success of your current campaigns by evaluating real feedback from your patients. You can get a firm grasp of patient awareness of your office, and understand the language used and pain points experienced by your patients.

Summing it all up

Call tracking might seem like a tool used only by medical teams with a full suite of online marketing solutions at their disposal.

But that’s the beauty of call tracking – it’s an easy-to-implement and affordable platform that will help you better understand your patients, condense your marketing strategy, and increase your conversions.

Medical Marketing: Make Long-Form Content Work for Both Google and Your Web Visitors

[feat-text]There was a period of time when digital marketers and SEOs swore by the shorter-is-sweeter approach to content. Articles and blogs that hovered between 300-600 words seemed to be long enough for search engines to find them, but short enough for people to appreciate them.[/feat-text]

But these little blasts of content aren’t always effective, particularly for folks in the medical field. More and more, we are discovering that long-form content delivers some pretty impressive results when we execute SEO campaigns for medical practices.

Long-form content is typically defined as content that exceeds 1,000 words in length. And, contrary to popular belief, Google loves long-form content. Using SERP data from SEMRush, Backlinko’s Brian Dean discovered that the average Google first page result contains 1,890 words.

Of course, ranking high on Google is just one piece of the puzzle. Sure, search engines might like long-form content because of all the rich information found in these articles. But if you want to add long-form content into your medical digital marketing strategy, you have to figure out a way to tackle the human element.

It’s common knowledge now that the human attention span is in a steady decline, so much so that many studies suggest that goldfish have a longer attention span. In other words, it’s in our modern human nature to merely skim and scan long pieces of content. Rather than fight against this urge, your goal should be to assist that behavior.

Here are a few tips that might make your long-form content useful to both Google and your readers.

Help Your Readers Get Back to the Top Again

Always give your readers a way to return back to the top of the article. It can be as simple as having a “return to top” link at the bottom of major sections of your piece, or you could do what the Washington Post did with this 5,000-word article on cycling.

At the top of the image above, you’ll see the word “STAGE.” Each number signifies markers that take the reader to each major section of the article. If the reader wants, they can click on “1” to return to the top.

Of course, to further help the user along, the Post also added a more traditional “Back to Top” link at the end of the article:

While this article focuses on cycling, the approach can be used in the medical world. Imagine, for example, if you created a 5,000-word article on the many stages that a cancer patient goes through during a specific type of treatment. Using the Post article above as a foundation could help make your article far easier for your readers to consume.

The fact that there aren’t many (if any) articles online – in the medical industry – that mirror this approach means there’s a tremendous opportunity for your practice to stand out from the rest of the pack.

Help Your Readers Pick and Choose What They Want to Read

If you resign yourself to crafting long-form content to market your practice, then you must accept that most people won’t read every word. In fact, there may be entire sections that your readers have little interest in.

Your goal is to make it easy for them to find the sections that do matter to them. And for that, you need an interactive table of contents.

The way it works is readers skim the table of contents, then click on an entry that interests them. They are then taken directly to the section of the content they want to read (with easy access “back to the top” if you followed the suggestion above).

An interactive table of contents isn’t all that hard to create. You just have to break your content into chapter titles or subheaders and then create links that connect your title or subheader to the corresponding section in your table of contents.

Most folks think of links as a way to connect two different web pages together. But with a little tweaking – even if you’re an HTML neophyte – you can create an interactive table of contents that your readers will love.

Interactive tables of contents are also great to use for long-form digital documents you send to your patients or team. No one wants to have to scroll through endless pages to find what they’re looking for.

Give Your Readers a Break

Depending on your technical know-how (or access to web-savvy folks) you might also consider adding bookmarking capabilities to your long-form content. In this scenario, your reader is digesting your content but wants (or needs) to take a break. They’ll be able to click an icon to bookmark the exact spot they left off, so they can pick up without a problem later on.

This little feature will strengthen their trust with you and could very well lead to a relationship of continual conversions for you and your practice.

Is Long-form Content Worth the Effort for Medical Professionals?

As we discussed earlier, most of Google’s first-page entries are considered long-form content. In addition to that little perk, however, long-form content offers a few other benefits for your online marketing goals if you’re a plastic surgeon or a medical professional:

Increased time spent on your site: If your content is written well, readers will spend far more time on your site (a good sign for Google) and will be more likely to browse other areas of your site.
Social media friendly: Inbound links are huge for your rankings. And, simply put, content with more words brings in more links, particularly due to the social shares this type of content gets.
Flex your authority: Medical reputation management is everything, particularly in the healthcare field where prospects make decisions based on what they find online. Long-form content helps you portray your expertise in a specific field. A dermatologist, for example, with vast experience using Mohs Micrographic Surgery, could demonstrate her knowledge with longer pieces of content that delve into this form of skin cancer treatment.

Factors to Consider When Creating Long-form Content

Outline your goals. Ask yourself why you want to create this piece (is it to build name recognition? Is it to connect with your patients? Grow your email list? Get leads?).
Choose whether your content will be gated or ungated. Gated means folks will have to provide contact information to download the content, while ungated means the content can be accessed freely. Our advice? When in doubt, go with ungated. You’ll increase your chances of shares.
Choose your topic carefully. Consider keyword research, factor in the needs of your target audience, and research what type of content already exists out there.
Design. Make sure that you design for both appearance and practicality. Make it easy for your readers to bounce around the page, share pieces of your content on social media, and more.
Create a promotion strategy. Creating long-form content (even if you’re not going to write it yourself) is a major commitment. Make sure the commitment pays off by creating your marketing strategy before the piece is published. Consider implementing a mix of strategies including paid ads, a pop-up on your website, a direct mail campaign and more.

With all that being said, the first step to creating long-form content that’ll bring in traffic, prospects, and prestige is to get started. Find a topic you’re comfortable with, and then figure out how to create a new and unique angle on that topic.

If your content is written and designed to guide your users from start to finish, then chances are you have an extremely valuable marketing asset at your fingertips.