Why Location-Based SEO Works Better for a Healthcare DTC Brand
Jun 12, 2023
10 min read
The mass digitization of commerce has widened the market globally. The consumer’s attitude has undergone a huge transformation as well. While people still value word of mouth favourably, the population that has turned to the internet for suggestions has soared exponentially. According to a study, 82.8% of patients rely on search engines to discover and connect with healthcare professionals, it has become crucial to secure top rankings on prominent platforms like Google and Bing.
Previously, achieving a coveted position in the top five search results demanded high-authority backlinks, substantial organic traffic, and an impeccable reputation. However, with the advent of Google's local 3-pack and the growing significance of local SEO, even smaller medical practices can now emerge at the forefront of search engine results pages (SERPs).
By following our expert advice and implementing these strategies, healthcare providers can harness the full potential of local SEO to significantly enhance their online visibility and successfully attract a steady stream of patients.
What is Local SEO?
Local SEO, also known as local search marketing, plays a crucial role in optimizing your website and directory listings to drive targeted local traffic. By targeting users with local intent, such as those looking for local services or businesses in their area, local SEO increases the likelihood of conversions, such as scheduling appointments or making purchases.
While local and organic SEO are interconnected, they require different strategies and optimization techniques. Local SEO primarily focuses on location-specific optimization, ensuring your business appears prominently in local search results. On the other hand, organic SEO focuses on overall content optimization to improve your website's visibility in search engine results.
To maximize the effectiveness of local search marketing, it is essential to work with a marketing team that specializes in your industry and possesses expertise in local optimization. Their deep understanding of your local audience will enhance brand awareness, increase recognition, and elevate your business listing to the coveted position in Google's Local Pack. Securing a spot in the Local Pack significantly boosts your visibility and increases the chances of attracting relevant local customers.
Local SEO and Healthcare Providers
Effective implementation of local SEO can greatly enhance the overall online experience for patients, from initial research to appointment scheduling. By incorporating various strategies, healthcare organizations can ensure a positive user experience. These strategies include maintaining complete and accurate directory and local pack listings, developing an informative and user-friendly website, creating localized website content, optimizing the website and blog with relevant keywords, implementing robust technical SEO practices, and establishing a prompt review and response strategy for patient feedback.
For healthcare organizations managing multiple locations, local SEO plays a crucial role in building trust with the local audience. The primary objective is to boost the visibility and credibility of each practice and physician by providing consistent and accurate information.
When healthcare clients enlist the expertise of our healthcare SEO professionals to enhance their local search marketing, we typically initiate the process by optimizing the Google Local Packs. These packs comprise a collection of similar businesses that appear prominently on Google's search results page. For instance, if a user searches for "Women's Health in Los Angeles, CA," a group of businesses matching that description within a mapped area will be displayed in the Local Pack.
Why do Healthcare DTC Brands need Local SEO?
The growth of the healthcare industry is closely tied to the increasing significance of online visibility for healthcare providers. In the digital era we live in, an expanding number of patients rely on search engines to discover local healthcare options, making a robust local SEO strategy essential for healthcare providers to connect with potential patients.
To emphasize the importance of local SEO for healthcare, here are some compelling statistics that highlight the need for optimization in marketing strategies:
- Approximately 46% of all searches conducted on Google are specifically seeking local information. This demonstrates the substantial portion of users actively looking for healthcare services within their local area.
- An overwhelming 92% of users tend to select businesses that appear on the first page of local search results. This emphasizes the significance of securing a prominent position in local search rankings to attract potential patients.
- Research indicates that 80% of consumers utilize search engines to find local information, including healthcare providers. This underlines the prevalent reliance on search engines when it comes to seeking healthcare services in the local context.
- In today's digital landscape, a significant portion of patients, around 33%, use mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones to research and book appointments. Optimizing for mobile search is crucial to cater to the growing number of patients using these devices.
- Personalization is increasingly important in advertising. A substantial majority of smartphone users (67%) and tablet or computer users (72%) expect advertisements to be tailored to their specific zip codes or cities. Implementing local SEO strategies enables healthcare providers to deliver targeted and relevant content to their intended local audience.
These statistics underscore the importance of incorporating local SEO techniques in healthcare marketing strategies.
How Can You Rise to the Top?
When users search for local healthcare services, Google presents a user-friendly map with three conveniently pinned local businesses. The selection of these businesses is determined by Google's local algorithm, which takes into account three critical elements: proximity, prominence, and relevance.
- Proximity refers to how close your business is to the user's current location. The closer you are, the higher the chances of appearing in the Local Pack.
- Prominence is a measure of your business's popularity and reputation in the local market area. Google considers factors such as online reviews, ratings, and overall online presence to assess prominence.
- Relevance is determined by how well your products and services align with the user's search intent. Ensuring that your content is relevant and meets the needs of your audience is crucial.
- Local SEO requires more than just targeting the right keywords. One needs the importance of high-quality, relevant content. Putting yourself in your audience's shoes and providing the best answers to their questions is key.
To achieve visibility in the Google Local Pack, it is important for your business to appear whenever users in your local market area search for the products or services you offer. Let's explore the top ranking factors that can improve local SEO for your brand.
1.Google Business Profile (GBP)
A Google Business Profile is a valuable asset for people in the healthcare industry. It allows nearby customers to easily find your business when they search for relevant keywords. Your GBP provides essential information about your offerings, such as services provided, operating hours, location, contact details, and more.
2.Reviews
Patient reviews have a significant impact on local SEO. Google's algorithm considers the quantity, quality, and freshness of reviews when ranking businesses in the Local Pack. Implementing a review strategy that encourages positive reviews can help boost your visibility and credibility.
3.On-page SEO
On-page SEO involves optimizing the content and structure of your website to improve visibility in search engine results. In the context of local SEO for healthcare, it's crucial to incorporate relevant keywords and phrases throughout your website's content. Focus on using keywords that reflect the services you provide and the locations you serve.
4.Links
High-quality backlinks are important for both organic and local SEO. When reputable and trusted websites link back to your healthcare website, search engines consider it as a signal of your website's authority and value. Building relationships with authoritative healthcare websites, local directories, and industry influencers can help you acquire relevant backlinks.
In Conclusion
The space of healthcare is vast, that is not news to anyone. Optimizing your website for local SEO is essential to secure a top position on search engine results pages. By implementing the strategies we've discussed, you can drive increased website traffic, phone calls, and valuable new leads. To effectively monitor your progress, it's recommended to utilize reliable rank-tracking tools that provide actionable insights.
While the world of SEO can appear daunting, the time and effort invested in local SEO for your medical practice will yield significant long-term benefits. However, if you find yourself in need of additional time or expertise to manage your SEO campaign effectively, it may be worth considering a partnership with a managed SEO expert. They can offer specialized guidance and support to propel your healthcare DTC brand to new heights.
For a comprehensive SEO website audit and to discover how Saffron Edge can assist you in improving your medical practice's online visibility and attracting more patients, we encourage you to schedule a practice acceleration session with one of our team members. Together, we can ensure your brand stands out and thrives in the competitive healthcare market.
12 ways a VMO can help plan marketing strategies for your healthcare brand
Each and every business is being subjected to varied problems in today’s depressed economy and these problems can be related to marketing, communication, customer relationships, and many other aspects of the business. Well, in such a situation, the first thought that pops into the mind of most of the business owners is how it will affect their overall brand and what will be the impact of these small problems on the short-term goals. Well, the same goes for healthcare firms as well including the dental healthcare sector. Building a strong brand in the dental healthcare sector is extremely crucial in today’s competitive landscape. There might not be very complicated procedures and services entailed in the dental healthcare sector but still, people are extremely discerning and specific when it comes to choosing any type of healthcare service. If you are struggling to build a strong brand and not able to get palpable results from your efforts then the one thing that can help you stay afloat is a VMO. An expert, experienced, and specialized VMO can help you in planning marketing strategies for your dental healthcare brand in various ways. Let’s take a look at how VMOs can be of help- Advice on service branding A VMO will make you realize that building a service brand in the dental industry is not restricted to putting a big logo on the high traffic roads and making people realize that you are offering dental services at low prices. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Service branding is everything that you are offering to the customers and a VMO will advise you on all those aspects. From how your front desk executives communicate with the patients to how to reduce the waiting time, a VMO will help you in many ways. Evaluate patient experience The experience of the patients is crucial in every industry and when it comes to a service-based industry like dental services, keeping tabs on the patient’s experience will become a matter of paramount importance. Right from seeing your Ad on a social media site to sitting on the chair in your clinic, all this will contribute to the overall experience of the patient and a VMO will use various methods to know what the patient feels about the clinic and its service. This will help you in making the right changes in your approach. Build a responsive content plan Responsive content is basically designed to suit the individual needs of every site visitor and this means that different users will see different content on the basis of their location, uses, and device they use for visiting your website. Such type of individual content based plan will help you in serving the patient’s needs in a much better way and this is what a VMO will advise you on. Optimize website/apps in line with prospective searches If your customers search for ‘cheapest dental services’ and you are trying to rank your website in line with ‘famous dental services’, you will never be able to drive relevant traffic to your dental service website. But when you start working with a VMO, they will not just rank your website on the top but they will optimize your app and website on the basis of the prospective searches. This will help your website and app to rank for the right keyword that is being used by the patients or their family members. Utilize PPC or Display ads It’s true that there are many ways you can advertise your brand for free on the digital platforms but the right way to do it is through PPC ads. PPC ads are one of the most dominant forms of marketing and a VMO has specialization in using PPC ads for driving traffic to your website and making more people aware of your dental services. From paying only when people click on your ad to being immune to SEO changes, a PPC ad used by a VMO can benefit your brand in many ways. Help leverage social media platforms A VMO will have good command over different types of social media platforms and this is why they will be able to use most of the social media platforms for improving your digital presence. From Facebook ad campaigns to building a community, social media will be used by a VMO in many different ways, and all of this under an economical marketing budget. Follow up on patient feedback and regulate strategies If you are still not asking your patients about how they felt about the services offered by you, you are missing out on a big opportunity for improvement. A VMO will first start a follow up on patient feedback and will build different strategies in line with the same. A VMO will regulate them after analyzing the feedback from the patients and help you to optimize your services. Help leverage traditional media There are many dental clinics that have completely forgotten about the use of traditional media because the current landscape of digital platforms is overshadowing it. But a good VMO working for your dental services will never let you miss on the big opportunity created by traditional media. Radio, television, print media, billboards, cold calling, door to door calling, each and every type of traditional marketing technique will be analyzed by the VMO and then some of the best ones will be chosen for marketing your dental services. Entail doctor referrals, testimonials, and such in a marketing plan Incorporating doctor referrals and testimonials in the marketing plan can help you in building a reputed brand. This way you will be able to establish yourself as a trustworthy brand in the dental industry. VMOs specialized in the healthcare sector know the value of trust and that’s why they collect positive responses like testimonials and incorporate them in the marketing plan to get better results and build a more reputed brand. Help become an authority in dental space You might be highly educated, experienced, and trusted by many patients in the healthcare sector but have you ever thought of becoming an authority in the dental space? The easiest part is becoming an expert but the hardest part is being recognized and this is where a VMO will help you get. A VMO will allow you to focus on your expertise and will help you in listing what you are really good at. From writing an article to giving speeches, from listing yourself in directories to positioning yourself as an expert, there will be many ways a VMO will help you in making you an authority. Track marketing strategy VMOs will not just build a marketing strategy for your dental services, launch it, and then forget about it. They will keep track of all the marketing strategies so that they can understand their effectiveness instead of just making new strategies one after another. From Google Analytics to competitive analysis tools, there will be many different ways a VMO will keep track of the marketing strategies built by his team. Regularly audit the progress With the help of a marketing auditing process, a VMO will be able to not only analyze but also evaluate the marketing strategies, goals, results, and process. By using a well-built marketing audit process, the VMO will be able to keep tabs on the progress of the different strategies. This will help the VMO in reducing unnecessary marketing expenses and with minimal use of resources, you will get effective results. The dental industry is one of those industries in the healthcare sector that is facing a high competition rate at the moment and in such a situation, you can’t compromise on patient experience, marketing strategies, and progress. Well, working along with a VMO is the smartest thing that you can do to improve all the above-mentioned aspects of your dental services. Connect with our seasoned executives who specialize in healthcare marketing and get yourself a competent VMO now. Saffron Edge specialises in healthcare marketing and has an elaborate experience of over 12 years serving clients in the same domain. ...
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The Benefits Of Outsourcing Inbound Marketing Projects
Projects, especially in the marketing department, are demanding and expensive. Many a time you will find that you have more than one project to handle. This only slows down the department and the whole company eventually. This can easily be solved by outsourcing some of your inbound projects to other companies. <a href="https://www.saffronedge.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Outsourcing-inbound-Marketing.jpg" rel="attachment wp-att-7572"><img class="size-full wp-image-7572 aligncenter" src="https://www.saffronedge.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/blog_img_19.jpg" alt="Outsourcing-inbound-Marketing"> --> Outsourcing projects will present you with lots of benefits. Talent Access The biggest benefit of outsourcing your marketing projects is that you will be able to access so many talents at once. Unlike your marketing department that only has a few personnel, the marketing company you outsource to is fully equipped for this. That is, they have personnel particularly dedicated to marketing and nothing else. As a result, they have more personnel specialized in different areas of marketing thus making them much more efficient. Depending on what your project is about, you will get the best assigned to that project and the result at the end of it all will simply dazzle you. Experience Not that your marketing department does not have the necessary experience, by experience I mean the experience gathered by dealing with different project at different times. The company you are outsourcing to deals with many projects in a week. They have dealt with different companies, tried different methods and saw the outcomes they bring. As a result, this experience gives them the ability to determine the best method of carrying out the project to ensure that it yields the best results. This experience also makes it possible for the company you’ve outsourced to to handle the project in the least time possible. Cost Effective Outsourcing is cheap in every sense.The fact that it’s not your marketing department getting involved directly, you save a lot. First of all, you save on time. As the project is being handled by a different team, your team gets to focus on something else. You also save in terms of money. The company you outsource to will ensure the money you spend on the project is minimized. Since these companies compete for the outsourcing projects, therefore, they are constantly looking for ways to minimize the cost and still make their means efficient. This makes the whole project cheaper that it would have been if it was your marketing department handling it. The beauty of outsourcing projects is that you don’t even have to be in the same country or continent. As long as you have internet and phones, you can outsource from anywhere in the world. For instance, if you are in the US, you can easily outsource your marketing projects to a companies in APAC regions. There so many inbound marketing team to choose from and the service would be up to the task cheaper and even way better than in the US. You will have the quality results you are looking for at a price you can comfortably pay. During the project, you can communicate with the company you outsourced to via the internet or through phone calls. ...
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5 Proactive Content Marketing And Planning Trends To Follow
Digital marketing is the form of content marketing, marketing automation, paid advertising and mobile optimization will all continue to grow in the coming years. Some of the new marketing trends that’ll see the light of the day in 2016 are: 1. Digital Marketing is not a niche channel anymore Digital has become so mainstream and central to marketing, that it does not require niche treatment. Findings released by Gartner about their study concerning digital marketing clearly prove the above point. Marketers have stopped making a distinction between offline and online marketing disciplines. Today marketing is a mixed effort of both the platforms as people opt for digitally-led experiences and traditional advertising. B2B firms, like their B2C counterparts, have begun to realize that they have numerous tools, tactics, and channels to reach and engage their target audience. 2. Advocate Marketing Until now B2B marketers were focusing a lot of time and effort on the pre-purchase part of the customer journey. But increasingly, firms are realizing success by also concentrating their efforts and energy on providing value beyond the sale, with the aim that the client will turn into a promoter- an advocate who wilfully refers your business to others and provides references. Referrals have long been considered a valuable form of marketing, and are popular for delivering qualified leads that tend to become clients and are loyal to the business for a long period of time. While loyalty programs have become a staple in retail marketing, we are seeing a new version of them being adopted by B2B businesses. Advocate marketing software platforms such as Influitive and CustomerAdvocacy help marketers in building advocacy relationships with clients by increasing social media engagement, generating reviews for their products, and capturing referrals. These platforms make the use of customized portals and allow firms to invite their best customers to participate in challenges and provide feedback to earn gifts like badges, special event invitations, and award ceremonies. 3. Search Budgets Shift to Content A report released by PulsePoint and Digiday found that budget allocations for content marketing are bound to increase by 59 percent, far outpacing search and social budgets. Search engines are rewarding websites with high quality and relevant content much more than companies who have merely invested in the technical aspects of SEO. Today rankings are more independent of technical SEO and more about creating content that people are searching for in order to earn rankings. Rankings are also affected by providing content for long-tail keywords that now contribute to 70% of the search traffic. So while SEO and SEM will still have a role in a B2B marketer’s budget, the trend will be more about providing content that entices the target audience. 4. Online Advertising Disruption Even though Google is moving towards promoting display video ads in search engine result pages, the year ahead should make for some major disruption in the online advertising space. A recent report published by Pagefair and Adobe found that ad blocking in the US grew by 48% from last year and there are now almost 198 million active ad-block users around the world. Another major trouble to the B2B marketers was that click-through rates were massively declining across all ad formats and placements is only 0.06%. So this clearly reinforces that users are annoyed with content that is not relevant to them or that they don’t seek in the online space. Another trouble to the advertisers is caused by the Bot-frauds that have been estimated to cause a loss of $6.3 billion dollars to the industry globally. The research conducted by WhiteOps and the Association of National Advertisers recently analyzed over 3 million websites and found that bots accounted for 23 percent of video ad impressions, 11 percent of all display impressions, and 19 percent of all retargeted ads. Even after all this, online advertising is not going to disappear anytime soon, but ad-blockers, bot-frauds, and excessively low click-through rates are still going to haunt many B2B marketers. 5. Email Marketing is Alive! Many people predicted the death of email marketing, but the research data shows quite the contrary. According to the research conducted by Gigaom Research, marketers still rank email as the most effective tactic for conversions, awareness, acquisition, and retention. While many B2B firms have stepped up their email marketing campaigns, others have not leveraged email marketing to its full potential. In 2016, we’re going to see a trend towards more effective use of email marketing by B2B companies. There are many reasons to support the above statement such as better ROI, effectiveness, and measurability, but one noteworthy reason for them all is mobile. As B2B businesses have been wondering all the way long how to leverage mobile, the answer has been under their noses all this while. A study conducted by Moveable Ink found that in the first quarter of 2015, 67% of all US email opens occurred on a mobile device- and 75% of those were smartphones. While the data is variable in many studies, the growth in mobile email opens is staggering and the shift towards mobile opens is undeniable. While there are certainly other trends likely to appear in the B2B space in 2016, these five ought to stand out and for sure to happen. If we missed out on any of the happening trends around, let us know in the comments section. ...
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