The Top 10 Frequently Asked Questions About SEO for Doctors

Were you under the impression that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) doesn’t apply to the medical profession?

Well, gone are the days when your patients would find you through word-of-mouth marketing. If you’ve got a medical practice, then you need an online presence as well.

However, just being online isn’t enough. You are also required to be at the top.

SEO can help you get there—without any expensive ad campaigns or aggressive marketing strategies.

Got Frequently Asked Questions About SEO for Doctors?

We’re here to answer them all!


Frequently Asked Questions About SEO for Doctors


1. What Is Medical SEO?

Medical SEO involves a set of practices that can help medical websites/clinics rank higher on a Google search.

Medical SEO includes using targeted keywords, organic search queries, online reviews, backlinks, quality of content, listings, and more.


2. How Do I Decide Which Keywords to Choose for Medical SEO?

To choose the right keywords, start by understanding your potential patients better. Think about the terms they might use when searching for a doctor, clinic, or specialist. If you’ve got a dental practice, for instance, then your website content must be focused around the services you routinely perform, the symptoms you treat, special or any state-of-the art equipment that you have, etc.

If you’re confused about what to focus on, do a keyword research.


How Many Words Should Every Page of My Website Have?

It depends on what the page is about. For instance, a home page should have at least 1,000 words. And not just any content—this content needs to be relevant to your business. It needs to inform the reader about your services. Your service pages should have at least 500 words of content.

You might have heard that a higher word count is better, but that’s only true if the content is relevant. Nothing can bring your ranking down as filler content can. Worst case scenario, your website gets reported as spam.

The basic rule is that the reader should not require more than 30 minutes to read through your webpage.


4. Can I Copy Content From Other Medical Websites?

No. Using content from other websites can negatively affect your SEO ranking and the ranking of the website you’re stealing from.

You can avoid this by creating original content and then running a plagiarism check.

It is always better to write original content and optimize it for SEO, as this helps your page rank higher. Here’s a short guide on unique content and how it impacts your site.


5. How Long Does It Take for Medical SEO to Work?

Medical SEO efforts can take anywhere from four months to a year to take effect.

How quick your SEO strategy works depends on factors such as:

  • Competition
  • Location of your medical practice
  • Domain authority
  • Website structure
  • SEO strategy
  • Page load time
  • Content quality
  • Listings
  • Inbound and outbound links
  • Image and video tags
  • Website user experience

Check out these Google Ranking Factors for beginners.


6. Does Searching For My Own Medical Practice Every Day Help My SEO?

No.

Doing a Google search multiple times does not improve your SEO rank drastically, but it will reduce it. Here’s what happens when you Google your clinic’s name.

Let’s say you are curious about where your page ranks. You Google your name but do not click on your web page link. This might lower your ranking as the search engine thinks your web page isn’t answering the search query.

But that does not mean clicking on your link solves the problem.

Clicking on the link is a good step. But that’s not where the search engine’s job ends. The search engine now considers the time you spend on the website and how you interact with the page. If you leave without doing anything, the search engine considers it as a “bounce.” Check out more details on bounce rates here!

So be careful before searching your clinic’s name unnecessarily, as all of it affects your SEO ranking.


7. How Long Should It Take for My Webpages to Load?

Not more than 4 seconds.

If your website takes longer than that, then you’re losing potential customers to competitors. If it takes over 10 seconds, then you’re losing all your visitors.

Don’t lose customers to slow load speed after all the hard work you’ve put into website ranking. The best thing to do is invest in optimizing the factors that are affecting your page load time. Not sure what these are?

Some factors that can slow down your page load time include:

  • Size of images, files, etc.
  • Redirects
  • Browser cache
  • Server response time
  • Check out this guide to improve your page loading speed quickly.

Want to know how to resolve page load delay fast?


8. How Does SEO for Doctors Help Their Medical Practice?

Research from PatientPop shows that 3 out of 4 people have looked up a health practitioner or medical service online before making an appointment.

Let’s consider an example. When a patient searches for a dental practice near their location, they will get a list of all dental practitioners closest to them. The most relevant results will be on the first page, the less relevant results will be on the next nine pages. No patient will go beyond the top 4-5 results, and it’s even rarer for them to go to page 2 of the search results.

SEO used by doctors on their websites and content helps their website rank higher on Google, making it a cost-effective way to extend their marketing efforts. The result? You’ll gain new patients organically and compete with practices running expensive ad campaigns.

Search engines also rank a website by the number of visitors and the amount of time they spend on a website. Ranking higher increases the authenticity and authority of your webpage. Once your medical practice ranks at the top of a web page, customers trust your practice more. This, in turn, increases the probability of them choosing your practice over someone else’s.


9. What Is Off-Site SEO for Doctors?

Off-site SEO is the actions taken off your website that affect your search engine rankings. Some off-site SEO strategies include:

  • Google My Business
  • Forum Submissions
  • Social Media Engagement
  • Influencer Outreach
  • Guest Author Contribution

All these tools can help you build authority in your field on platforms other than your website.


10. Are there any effective ways to rank higher on Google quickly?

Well, yes. As a first step, list your medical practice on google. The next step is to “claim” your medical practice. Other aspects that help your rankings include providing complete information—for instance, name, address, phone number, category, etc. Need another tip? Use local addresses and phone numbers. Results for queries such as “doctor near me,” are based on relevance—distance being a key factor. Providing these details will help Google match your services to queries. Verifying your clinic’s location and giving accurate working hours are also crucial to your rankings, especially on Google Maps.

Don’t forget reviews. Ask your happy patients to write about their experiences and don’t forget to respond to their reviews when they do post them on Google. Nothing inspires more trust than a patient who feels valued.


Final Thoughts

We hope our answers helped solve some of your long-time queries and frequently asked questions about SEO for doctors.

And now that you know everything you need, you too can rank at the top organically. Add SEO strategies to your web content and help patients in need of your experience find you.