My name is Frank. I’m the founder of Sagapixel, and in this article and video, I’m going to share 15 tips for local SEO for healthcare providers, dispel some of the common misconceptions out there, as well as give you a few hard-learned tips.
At the end of this video, I’m going to include a link over to our on-page SEO checklist, and I have accompanying videos for each one of the steps, so make sure you check it out.
All right, so let’s get into it.
15 Local SEO Tips for Healthcare Providers
1. Blogging is Probably a Waste of Time for Your Local Medical Practice
The simple act of blogging is not going to help you to show up in the map results, and it’s not going to increase your search rank when people are performing all of those “things that you do plus location” queries.
Now, blogging might be able to earn you backlinks if you do it right. So, if you’re doing any blogging, it should be because it’s part of your link acquisition strategy.
2. Extend Your Local SEO Strategy Beyond Your Website to Local Directories
Your local SEO strategy should extend beyond your actual website and over to the local directories that are ranked for your target keywords.
Let’s say, for example, you want to target the keyword “dentists near me.” You have all the local dentists in the map results, but as soon as you scroll down to the blue links, you’re going to see that Yelp is actually the top result.
The reason why Google includes a directory like Yelp in the search results for this search is that its AI has learned that some people want to go to Yelp when they want to find a dentist.
And if you are a local dentist in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where I am, and you’re not listed on this Yelp page, you’re probably missing out on new patients.
3. Fully Complete Your Google Business Profile
You need to completely fill out your Google Business Profile (GBP).
Now, this isn’t a video on completely optimizing and setting up your Google business profile—we have a video on that, and I’m going to link to it in the description.
But the short of it is: you want to make sure that every single applicable field is filled out. You want to add pictures that show potential patients what your facility looks like, who works there. If you can share before and afters, if applicable, include them.
Basically, you want to get anything onto your Google Business Profile that’s going to get people to want to engage with it, and if they’ve clicked on you, to actually book a consultation or an appointment.
4. Perform Keyword Research to Find Out How People Search for Your Healthcare Services
Now, some of these are going to be obvious, like in the case of the dentist, ranking for a keyword like “dentist Cherry Hill New Jersey” makes sense.
But if you do a little bit of keyword research, you’ll probably find queries like “dentist that accepts Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield” or “holistic dentist NJ.”
In other areas of healthcare, you’re going to find some cases where people don’t even know how to look for what you do. You’ll find this in home care. We see crazy searches like “sitters for elderly,” “companions for seniors,” “caretakers for elderly,” “home care agency + city,” and the list goes on.
5. Implement Solid On-Page SEO for Identified Keywords
The aim of on-page SEO is, first of all, to maximize the relevance of the content on the page to the search that people are performing—in other words, the searches you identified through your keyword research. And again, that checklist at the end of this video will walk you through that.
6. Build Location-Specific Pages for Better Local SEO
A major part of local SEO for healthcare providers is to build out location-specific pages. So, let’s take, for example, a plastic surgeon around San Francisco.
They would want to rank for keywords such as facelift San Francisco, but there’s nothing keeping someone from driving from Mountain View into San Francisco.
So, ranking for a keyword such as facelift Mountain View, facelift San Jose, facelift Los Gatos are all going to get your plastic surgeon’s landing pages in front of people that would likely drive the reasonable distance into San Francisco. I mean, in this case, we’re talking about a major surgery.
Now, a word of caution about location pages: First, the content needs to be completely unique.
Aside from the likelihood of even getting them ranking, if all you do is change out the city and maybe swap around a couple of the words, I’ve seen cases where this wasn’t done right, and the search rank of the entire website got dinged overall.
So don’t get lazy; don’t cut any corners. I have a video on location pages. I’ll link to it in the description.
7. Use a Local SEO Plugin with Good Schema Implementation
Make sure that whatever local SEO plugin you’re using with your website has some sort of really good schema implementation. Schema is code that Google uses to understand different context about your business and what the website’s about.
Very often, it helps with disambiguation, but in other cases, it just provides information about things like your latitude and longitude, your physical location, the proper phone number to set an appointment versus your billing office.
There’s a lot of information that you can provide to Google through your schema, and I’ve found that the SEO plugin Rank Math does a much better job of this than the more popular Yoast plugin.
8. Build Local Citations
This pretty much means that there are websites where you want to make sure that your website is listed. I would start off by looking at the local market and seeing what directories are on pages 1 through 3, and making sure that your website is listed there.
If there’s anything that’s industry-specific—like if you’re a plastic surgeon, you should have a listing on RealSelf. Home care agencies can benefit from being on all of the different senior care directories.
I’ve seen lots of cases where even unlined mentions on these directories have had a positive impact on the search visibility of websites that I was working on.
There is no reason to go crazy and get your website listed on 200 different directories, though. It’s probably a waste of your time and money. Just stick to the important ones.
9. Use Social Media to Support Your Local SEO Efforts
Your social media can actually help with your local SEO. Google wants to show online what people want in the real world, and a local healthcare provider that has a strong social media presence is going to result in people looking for you by name, and Google sees that.
So, if you’ve been on the fence about posting regularly to local Facebook groups, getting active on TikTok or Instagram, just know that there can be a local SEO benefit for a healthcare provider.
10. Leverage Google Posts
Now, the simple act of using Google posts is not going to simply make you start popping up in the map results. That’s not going to happen. I’ve seen a ton of studies that have basically proven that.
They will, however, possibly result in more leads.
The thing about the map results and SEO in healthcare is that people are going to click on more than one result and kind of poke around your profile.
If they see posts that are sending them over possibly to a social media profile or a video that you shot that entices them to want to actually contact you and book with you, it’s going to drive you more leads.
And second, I’m in the camp of SEOs that believe that Google pays attention to how people interact with your Google Business Profile. If you have posts that people are interacting with, it might actually help your visibility in the local map results.
11. Gather Online Reviews from Trusted Google Accounts
Now, this doesn’t mean that you definitely need to get 2,000 reviews for your local healthcare practice, but as people are leaving reviews for you and they’re including keywords, the types of things that you do, they’re going to help you rank better.
I can tell you that when we first started out, the first time that we showed up in the local map results for a query was when one of our clients actually left a review that said something along the lines of SEO services.
This got us into the map results in Philadelphia, the sixth-largest market in the country, and it probably wouldn’t have happened if it was a Gmail account that had opened up a week earlier.
In other words, try to encourage your patients to use keywords—it’s going to help your local SEO.
12. Monitor Your Online Reputation
Now, I’m sure that you’re doing this anyway. Answering negative reviews—it’s an art form.
This video is not going to get into that, but it’s something that you really need to learn how to do because inevitably, you will get negative reviews. There’s no business on the planet that makes everyone happy all the time.
13. Optimize for Mobile Devices
I can’t believe I have to say this, but you have to optimize for mobile devices. Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that Google will not even index your website if it’s not mobile-friendly.
In 2024, if people can’t easily book an appointment with you or if they have to zoom in and zoom out with their fingers to read the content on your mobile-unfriendly website, you’re going to miss out on new patients.
And building a mobile-friendly website is so incredibly easy—there’s absolutely no excuse not to have one in this decade.
14. Partner with Local Businesses for Backlinks
Partner with some local businesses. Sponsor the local Little League, run events with complementary businesses. If you have a medical spa, do an event with a popular hair salon.
And while all this is happening, try to make sure that you’re getting backlinks from those websites over to your website.
When those organizations link over to your website, Google sees that kind of like a vote of confidence.
I mean, it’s actually a lot more technical than that, but it sends relevant signals that are going to increase the likelihood of you showing up in the local map results as well as the blue link results below the maps.
15. Measure and Analyze Your SEO Efforts
Learn how to measure and analyze the results of all of your SEO efforts.
Google provides tools that you can use to get insights into how people are finding your business, how many times they’ve looked for directions to your business.
Tools like Google Search Console will tell you everything about your regular website’s performance in the search results, not just in the map results.
Learning how to do this is going to help you understand whether your efforts are bearing fruit or not, which is especially important if you’re working with an SEO vendor—which, let’s be honest, most of them don’t know what they’re doing.
Get Your Healthcare Pages Ranking with Local SEO Tips From Sagapixel
I hope this video was helpful.
Here is our on-page SEO checklist.
It’s going to take you over to a page where you can give us your email, and we’re going to email you the Google Doc that has links to all the videos that we’ve shot about each one of these steps.
If you do this in 99% of the markets across the United States—if you do it right—you’re probably going to get those pages on page one of Google.
If you’d like to book a call with me, you can schedule a time here.