There are more than 192 million active websites on the Internet, as of October 2018, according to Netcraft, a U.K.-based internet services company. You took the time to create a medical website, but due to the sheer volume of competition, its presence alone doesn’t guarantee traffic.
When patients in your area conduct an online search, your practice needs to be one of the top results. Read on to learn how to outrank your competition in local search.
5 tips to write medical website content that ranks in local search
1. Speak to your target audience
Unlike retail brands with a national reach, your medical website isn’t effective unless it generates local traffic. Capture the attention of potential patients by understanding what they want and writing copy that meets their needs.
Accomplish this by creating patient personas that represent both your current patient base and those who fit into any additional segments you’re trying to enter. Taking your white coat off and viewing your website from your patients’ prospective will allow you to craft the kind of content they want to read.
Localize the copy even further by highlighting any issues specific to your local area. This will increase engagement from patients in your community, thus boosting search results.
2. Incorporate relevant keywords
After selecting keywords for your practice, it’s important to actually incorporate them into your medical website copy. This will help your site appear in searches conducted by prospective patients in your key demographic.
Weaving these words and phrases into the content organically is essential. If keywords are awkwardly stuffed into the copy, it will be difficult for prospective patients to read. Skilled SEO copywriters know how to insert these terms in an effortless manner that flows naturally.
Get help: How to optimize categories and keywords for medical marketing
3. Craft original content
If your practice website has nothing unique to offer, you won’t be able to engage prospective patients. Therefore, you need to fill the pages with helpful, distinctive content they can’t find anywhere else.
The content posted on your site is a direct reflection of your practice, so make sure you’re writing content that’s quality, relevant, and interesting. If you don’t have the capacity or skills to handle this yourself, hire a professional content writer to do it for you.
Don’t even think about trying to cheat the system by deliberately posting duplicate content across domains. Not only does this create a poor user experience, it can also negatively impact your Google indexing and ranking.
4. Get to the point
Prospective patients visit your website for a specific reason. If the pages are filled with an excessive amount of unnecessary information, they might have difficulty finding what they’re looking for, causing them to give up and head elsewhere.
Ultimately, you want your website content to show up in search results and bring in new patients. Focusing on too many priorities at once can hinder this initiative.
Before writing content, create a detailed outline that covers the main points you want to include on each page. This will help you stay on topic, so you don’t inadvertently crowd the page with irrelevant details.
Check out: 5 pages your medical website needs
5. Let your voice shine
You want your website content to secure a high search engine ranking, but don’t do it at the expense of sounding robotic. If it sounds cold and sterile, prospective patients will think twice about reaching out for treatment.
When writing content, think about the people who will be reading it. Use a warm and inviting tone that personifies your practice and makes them feel welcome. If written properly, the content should invoke an emotional response, prompting the reader to reach out and make an appointment.
Having a practice website is great, but if it barely ranks in search engines, it’s not an effective marketing tool. Your website copy will either make or break your performance in local search, so choose your words carefully.
Want more information on local search? Check out the blog post “4 opportunities for patients to find your practice using local search.”
