When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) and health care, only two statistics matter: (1) More than eight out of 10 patients use Google as their first step in researching a medical condition or selecting a physician1; and (2) Fewer than one in 100 patients will ever click through to page 2 (or beyond) of Google search results.2
SEO, in a nutshell is the process of getting your practice on that first page of Google search results.
The aim of SEO is to boost the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s unpaid results—often referred to as natural, organic, or earned results. Most SEO strategies use a combination of keywords, images, links, and social media activity to drive traffic to a given website; these items are all designed to get the specified web page higher in the list of search engine results.3
Your practice’s ability to appear high in organic search engine results is crucial for patient acquisition and growth. If your practice website does not appear on page 1, you’re missing out on patients and revenue.
To help physicians and their marketing managers stay on top of the latest developments in SEO, here are several actionable tips and insights that practices can use to respond to market changes, stay on top of their online presence, and keep acquiring patients from organic search.
FIXING GOOGLE INDEXING BUGS
What Happened
In September, Google experienced an issue with websites dropping from its index entirely, causing major declines in traffic for websites that usually ranked on page 1. Google took more than a week to admit that it was experiencing an issue. The company then noted that the problem was twofold: one issue had to do with canonicalization, or how Google decides which content is most authoritative, and the other was related to mobile indexing.
Why It Matters
Organic search is the largest source of website traffic for most practices, so even a temporary removal from Google’s rankings could have an outsize effect on patient acquisition. Although issues like these are rare, it is important for practices and their marketing teams to ensure that their website was not affected.
What You Should Do
In response to the indexing issues, Google tweeted, “There’s no action to take with these issues on the part of site owners. We apologize for the issues here and are working rapidly to resolve them.” Still, any time an indexing error occurs, it is wise for marketing managers to check their website analytics platform (eg, Google Analytics) and Google Search Console—first, to verify whether they were affected, and second, to continue to closely monitor any pages that were affected to ensure that they fully recover.
If you find that your practice website was affected by the September incident, there is no need for action, but you will want to monitor the affected pages closely to ensure that they get put back into the index, as Google claims they will.
CONSEQUENTIAL CHANGES MADE TO SEARCH TERMS REPORT
What Happened
In September, Google notified advertisers on its Google Ads platform of an impending change. The company stated that, going forward, the Search Terms Report will “only include terms that were searched by a significant number of users.” The Search Terms Report shows advertisers the real-world Google searches that triggered their ads. It is an incredibly valuable source of keyword ideas for advertisers and marketers, as well as for SEO efforts.
Importantly, this policy change by Google lacks transparency. What exactly is the threshold that constitutes a significant number of users? The fewer data the Search Terms Report contains, the less valuable it is to advertisers. Google’s policy change here ostensibly enhances user privacy, but it also has the potential to make billions of dollars in advertising spending invisible to advertisers. This is of enormous significance to practices engaging in paid advertising or SEO.
Why It Matters
Although this change primarily affects practices that pay for advertising on Google Ads, it also has outsize effects on practices that engage in SEO efforts. The Search Terms Report is one of the best ways for practices to identify new keywords, as it uses real-life data to show which searches triggered their ads. The Search Terms Report can be a great tool to help practices identify and target new organic keywords as they try to increase their share of voice and build brand awareness in their local markets. Google’s changes enhance user privacy somewhat, but practices may now need to go elsewhere to find new keyword ideas.
What You Should Do
Regardless of whether your practice’s patient acquisition efforts hinge on organic or paid traffic, if you use Google’s tools you may need to get more inventive going forward. Be sure to analyze past data in your Search Terms Report, as those data are likely as good as they’re going to get. Download the data as a spreadsheet to retain the insights and minimize the risk of data loss. Consider using Google’s Keyword Planner Tool (also in Google Ads) or third-party tools such as Ahrefs or SEMRush as sources of ideas for paid and organic keywords.
Moving Forward
Change is the only constant in the SEO world, and these changes can be difficult to navigate. As Google seeks to improve the experience and results it surfaces for its 1.7 billion daily active users, health care professionals must stay on top of these changes and adapt to continue serving their patients and growing their practices. Hopefully this SEO roundup will help.
1. Weaver J. More people search for health online. NBC News. July 16, 2020. www.nbcnews.com/id/3077086/t/more-people-search-health-online/%23.Xvn216dh1pQ#.Xyq7sRNKg3F. Accessed September 20, 2020.
2. Dean B. We analyzed 5 million Google search results: here’s what we learned about organic click-through rate. Backlinko. August 27, 2019. https://backlinko.com/google-ctr-stats. Accessed September 20, 2020.
3. Crawford I. A short course in branding your practice. Cataract Refract Surg Today. June 2018. https://crstoday.com/articles/june-2018/a-short-course-in-branding-your-practice. Accessed November 30, 2020.
