Have you ever wondered how a cardiologist business rises to the top of its competition in the same industry? It’s through a marketing plan. Just like a human body, a marketing plan is made up of small working parts that must all work together in order to be successful.
It might seem like medical practices don’t really need to market themselves — since they’re so specialized wouldn’t any medical practice be sufficient enough? That is not always the case, especially if you are a heart specialist, for example, located in a large city with lots of other competition, or if you specialize in a very specific kind of cardiology.
One of the best practices a cardiologist business can integrate into their marketing plan is local SEO. It will help bring more local traffic to your website while raising the number of conversions so Google ranks your website higher on the search engine result page. If this sounds like gibberish, don’t worry. In this article, we will explain more in-depth what local SEO is, why local SEO is important for a cardiologist practice, and some best local SEO tactics to get to that number one ranking on Google.
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What Is Local SEO for Medical Practices?
So, you want to expand your SEO efforts for your cardiologist practice. Well, learning about local SEO is the first step. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the practice of improving the quality and quantity of your website content to increase conversions and website traffic through search engine results. SEO targets organic search results rather than paid search results.
What are these conversions we speak of? Conversions occur when a user completes a desired action on your website, whether it be a purchase, signing up for an email newsletter, or filling out a survey. This is also called a “call-to-action.” Whatever the action is, the website conversions show when a user becomes a customer or a regular visitor. They must actively engage with the call to action to make a conversion. Conversions will ultimately help raise your website’s search engine result ranking.
Local SEO is the same idea as SEO, but with location-based targeting attached to it. That means you are focused on targeting a local audience within a set area. For example, someone may search “cardiologist near me” or “cardiologist practice within 10 miles.” Those keywords tag it as a local search with physical and geographical boundaries. So, a cardiologist practice two cities over does not appear on the search result page. If you have already conquered the nationwide audience but have not yet gained the support of the locals, or you are just starting your cardiologist business, then local SEO for doctors is a great tool to help get you started.
Why Is Local SEO Important for a Cardiologist?
A successful cardiologist business means a reliable stream of returning patients and new patients seeking treatment. Just like any other medical practice looking to expand its market base by gaining more customers, it is so important to promote your cardiologist business in a time when the medical competition is extreme. You will need a hefty toolbox of SEO techniques for doctors to make your medical practice stand out from the crowd.
With local SEO for doctors, you can bring better leads and patients to your practice with the use of marketing techniques. SEO provides a higher ROI as well as increases credibility, visibility, traffic, branding, and reputation. That’s why the traditional marketing tactics like TV and print media are becoming less popular – because the ROI is much lower than using SEO. With our lives being primarily online these days, it’s important to have a good grasp on how you can use that to your advantage to skyrocketing your cardiologist practice’s traffic.
Visibility
The primary reason local SEO is important for heart specialists and other doctors is that potential patients can locate you easily on the internet if your business is listed under the first three results on Google, called the local pack. This raises your website’s visibility majorly as it is the first set of results a user will see on the search result page. People also tend to perceive the first results as more credible than the results below it. We’ll explain more in a bit why the local pack is so principal to getting more website traffic.
Credibility and Reliability
Local SEO for doctors helps cement the credibility and reliability of a heart specialist. Like we said before, the higher up your website is on the search result page, the more credible and authoritative it is perceived to be by users. A potential customer is more likely to click on your website as a result even if they know nothing about your medical practice. A vote of confidence can be linked directly to Google’s website rankings.
Spend Less Money
One of the best parts about utilizing local SEO is that it focuses primarily on organic search results, not paid search results. That way, you spend less money on acquiring new patients. This is because other forms of advertising are much more expensive than the SEO techniques we will show you later. Also, with local SEO, it means a customer is already looking for your service or product, so there are no resources wasted.
Best Local SEO Techniques for Cardiologists
Getting started with local SEO for a medical practice may seem daunting because you don’t know where to start. There is not really a wrong place to start with promoting your cardiologist business. Still, starting off on a strong foundation will be very beneficial. Here we have listed the best, most useful local SEO practices for your cardiologist business.
Relevant Keywords
Keywords are going to be your saving grace with local SEO. We could even argue that they are the backbone of all the best local SEO techniques that will be beneficial for your medical practice.
Keywords are the words you include in your website content that are related to your business. For a heart specialist located in Seattle, some keywords would include, “Seattle,” “heart specialist in Seattle,” “Seattle cardiologist,” and the like. Keywords are important because when Google sends its web crawlers to comb through websites that relate to a user’s search query, it will look for these keywords in your website content or Google My Business profile. If it contains a keyword, Google will tag it and index it. Then, it will present it to the user on the search engine result page. The more keywords you have, the higher up Google will display your website.
To choose relevant keywords, you have to understand how your potential patient thinks. Start with selecting the most relevant keyword a potential patient might use when searching for a heart specialist.
Web Development
The user experience is so often overlooked but do not doubt it. A potential customer will leave your website if it takes longer than a few seconds to load. That’s why it’s essential to make sure your cardiologist website development is the best it can be.
Web development also includes web design, meaning the layout and accessibility of your website. You want your website layout to make sense and look attractive, whether that’s the actual color scheme you use or the relevancy of the menu options. Your website must also be user-friendly and accessible. That means no extra pages that don’t really make sense to your medical practice or a difficult layout to manage. It is also imperative to make sure your practice is optimized for mobile users. More often than not, people are searching for local businesses on their phones. Making sure your cardiologist website can be mobile will make a world of difference.
Original Content
Don’t take content from other heart specialist practices. Doing so will damage your reputation and your Google search engine ranking. Rewriting content is acceptable to keep your patients engaged, however, but the best strategy is to write your own original content to distinguish your cardiologist practice from others.
Title Tags
Title tags are the short descriptions of a webpage and play an important role in SEO. Every cardiologist practice should have a description and title tag with a keyword in the beginning. This is important as most search engines display only the first 60 characters.
Google My Business
Google My Business is great because it allows you to tie together all the previous best local SEO practices. This is a profile you can create on Google for your cardiologist practice. Within the profile, you can include:
- Medical practice name
- Website link
- Physical address of the practice
- Hours of operation
- Contact information (phone number, email, etc.)
- Business category
- Photos and reviews
All of these will aid in the credibility and authority of your medical practice. Incorrect or missing information means missing out on potential customers.
Time to Put It All to Use!
Now that you have the basics on how to utilize local SEO for doctors, you can put it to good use to bring in more patients and gain website traffic and conversion!
We know this was a lot of information all at once. But don’t worry about having to learn each new local SEO technique, that’s what SEO Design Chicago is for! We will do all the work for you so you can continue expanding your business and making the lives of those around you just a little bit better. SEO Design Chicago has worked with heart specialist clients in Chicago and across the country providing marketing, consulting, and digital strategy services. You don’t want to miss out!
FAQ:
- What is local SEO?
- Why is local SEO good for medical practices?
- Why should I optimize my medical practice website?
- What are title tags?
- What are good keywords for cardiologists?
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