If you are like most small medical practices, your success relies heavily on attracting locals to be your customers and patients. Depending on your specialty, “local” may mean your town, county, or region.
While it may be fun to see your website or social media attracting people from all over the country (or the globe), you can’t allocate valuable resources to speaking with people who can’t visit your practice.
Your focus should always be on sharpening your local search and gaining valuable attention from those who are ready, willing, and able to become your patient.
To step up your local search game, try these tips:
Optimize for keywords that target your region
South Florida is a highly competitive market for those in the medical field. Therefore, sharpening your geographic search parameters is a great way to start ranking for your keywords in your local community. Google, Bing, and Yahoo! are all used by consumers to search locally, and so you want to do all you can to appear in their results.
When creating your website content, make sure that your page title, URL, heading tags, and page content include relevant geographic keyword phrases, such as “Venice physical therapist” or “Board-certified Sarasota neurologist.”
You may have several towns or regions that you want to optimize, but if you do so, ensure that each piece of content is different enough, so you don’t have pages with duplicate content.
Post to your blog consistently
A healthcare blog is one of the best online tools to educate the public about your local medical services and commitment to your community. Most blogs (although not all) are written with a thematic structure in mind. That is, you may choose to provide case studies from actual patients and their success stories.
You may opt to write about the latest medical techniques and breakthroughs. You may use your blog to educate your patients about common ailments you treat – the symptoms, the treatments, and the alternatives. Typically, you will select a blog style that promotes the message you want to convey.
Blogs are a powerful way to provide new, relevant content weekly – which search engines love! So use the opportunity, with every piece, to add in your local geographic search terms. Consistency will boost your local ranking and generate traffic, clicks, and new patients.
Interact with city-specific websites.
You’ve heard it said before; you can’t forget the “social” part of social media. Interacting and engaging with other local experts and colleagues online puts your name out there in the community and positions you as a thought leader.
You’ll want to follow other local medical practices pages, make positive comments, and offer accolades on a job well done. Share relevant posts on your pages, and join local community pages.
Digital connections are the 2021 version of networking, and it is vital to your online reputation. When you consistently offer valuable content – and recognize other’s valuable content – you gain a valuable following.
Don’t limit your interaction only to colleagues – be active in other local area pages as well, such as news outlets, local charities, or community arts and activities.
Join ratings and review sites
These days, most consumers start their product or service research online, and this is true if they are looking for a dog trainer or a new medical practice. Positive peer reviews are one of the most effective tools you can have in your marketing toolbelt.
Knowing that fact, you need to ensure that your medical practice is listed on the top ratings and review websites and that you are encouraging your patients to review your practice when they are pleased with your service and treatment.
The main sites include:
Google Local: Google requires you to register your business online and verifies that you are the owner. Once registered, you will begin to appear in Google’s Local Business Results for a given search term. Your ranking is dependent on Google’s ranking algorithm that rewards well-optimized pages.
Yelp: Yelp has traditionally been the go-to review site for restaurants and entertainment venues but is beginning to showcase more listings and reviews in many other industries – including medical service providers. Yelp is hyper-local and can help you to reach an audience right in your hometown.
Read here to learn what to do if you receive a negative online review.
Facebook: Many people utilize Facebook to find a new doctor or medical practice because the platform is so geared toward social interaction and recommendations. Patients can rate your practice from one to five stars and leave long-form reviews for others to read. Facebook is one of the best-localized ways to promote your business to specific cities or regions.
Optimizing your medical practice for local search is relatively easy in concept but requires diligence and consistency. If you do not have someone designated for this task within your practice, ask for help!
Digital marketing agencies offer online expertise to help you to optimize your business and drive new business to your site. If you have questions or want to know more, call Aginto today.
If you are like most small medical practices, your success relies heavily on attracting locals to be your customers and patients. Depending on your specialty, “local” may mean your town, county, or region.
While it may be fun to see your website or social media attracting people from all over the country (or the globe), you can’t allocate valuable resources to speaking with people who can’t visit your practice.
Your focus should always be on sharpening your local search and gaining valuable attention from those who are ready, willing, and able to become your patient.
To step up your local search game, try these tips:
Optimize for keywords that target your region
South Florida is a highly competitive market for those in the medical field. Therefore, sharpening your geographic search parameters is a great way to start ranking for your keywords in your local community. Google, Bing, and Yahoo! are all used by consumers to search locally, and so you want to do all you can to appear in their results.
When creating your website content, make sure that your page title, URL, heading tags, and page content include relevant geographic keyword phrases, such as “Venice physical therapist” or “Board-certified Sarasota neurologist.”
You may have several towns or regions that you want to optimize, but if you do so, ensure that each piece of content is different enough, so you don’t have pages with duplicate content.
Post to your blog consistently
A healthcare blog is one of the best online tools to educate the public about your local medical services and commitment to your community. Most blogs (although not all) are written with a thematic structure in mind. That is, you may choose to provide case studies from actual patients and their success stories.
You may opt to write about the latest medical techniques and breakthroughs. You may use your blog to educate your patients about common ailments you treat – the symptoms, the treatments, and the alternatives. Typically, you will select a blog style that promotes the message you want to convey.
Blogs are a powerful way to provide new, relevant content weekly – which search engines love! So use the opportunity, with every piece, to add in your local geographic search terms. Consistency will boost your local ranking and generate traffic, clicks, and new patients.
Interact with city-specific websites.
You’ve heard it said before; you can’t forget the “social” part of social media. Interacting and engaging with other local experts and colleagues online puts your name out there in the community and positions you as a thought leader.
You’ll want to follow other local medical practices pages, make positive comments, and offer accolades on a job well done. Share relevant posts on your pages, and join local community pages.
Digital connections are the 2021 version of networking, and it is vital to your online reputation. When you consistently offer valuable content – and recognize other’s valuable content – you gain a valuable following.
Don’t limit your interaction only to colleagues – be active in other local area pages as well, such as news outlets, local charities, or community arts and activities.
Join ratings and review sites
These days, most consumers start their product or service research online, and this is true if they are looking for a dog trainer or a new medical practice. Positive peer reviews are one of the most effective tools you can have in your marketing toolbelt.
Knowing that fact, you need to ensure that your medical practice is listed on the top ratings and review websites and that you are encouraging your patients to review your practice when they are pleased with your service and treatment.
The main sites include:
Google Local: Google requires you to register your business online and verifies that you are the owner. Once registered, you will begin to appear in Google’s Local Business Results for a given search term. Your ranking is dependent on Google’s ranking algorithm that rewards well-optimized pages.
Yelp: Yelp has traditionally been the go-to review site for restaurants and entertainment venues but is beginning to showcase more listings and reviews in many other industries – including medical service providers. Yelp is hyper-local and can help you to reach an audience right in your hometown.
Read here to learn what to do if you receive a negative online review.
Facebook: Many people utilize Facebook to find a new doctor or medical practice because the platform is so geared toward social interaction and recommendations. Patients can rate your practice from one to five stars and leave long-form reviews for others to read. Facebook is one of the best-localized ways to promote your business to specific cities or regions.
Optimizing your medical practice for local search is relatively easy in concept but requires diligence and consistency. If you do not have someone designated for this task within your practice, ask for help!
Digital marketing agencies offer online expertise to help you to optimize your business and drive new business to your site. If you have questions or want to know more, call Aginto today.