Title: What’s The Right Way To Do SEO For Health & Wellness Providers
Guest: Paul Lee
Paul: Saw a report recently that said that eighty percent of people that are looking for medical care do research online before they make an appointment.
Peter: Welcome to the Biz and Life Done Well podcast, where we explore what it means and what it takes to do business and life well. I’m your host, Peter Wilson. If you’re like me, you’re intrigued by stories of common people who have achieved uncommon success in business and life. Join me as I interview fascinating people about how they got started, their successes and failures, their habits and routines, and what inspires them.
Peter: Today, our topic is SEO for Health and A Guide to What Matters Most. My guest is Paul Lee, who is our SEO expert, and he wrote a great article about what it takes to show up in Google search results if you are a health and wellness provider. So Paul, who are we talking about when we say health and wellness providers?
Paul: That’s really a big industry. I mean, obviously it’s a multi billion dollar industry and we’re talking about obviously medical doctors and all the different specialties, particularly specialties like say cosmetic surgeons or dermatologists or things that are more competitive, I suppose, rather than being centered from a hospital. And then of course we’re talking about people like chiropractors, we’re talking about people like dentists and dental practices. That’s incredibly competitive field. Then you’re looking at people that are doing like medical spas, people that are doing other kinds of treatments, nature paths, different people that are any kind of situation where they’re trying to help you live a better life and not selling you a bike or a widget or this or that, but they’re selling your services to help you healthy, healthy, be well.
That’s what we’re talking about.
Peter: Great. So one of the points that you make right away is that it’s highly competitive in these fields on Google search results. And do you want to just talk about that for a moment? Just how competitive you’ve seen it?
Paul: Well, I mean, know, we always know that that that there’s a fight for the front page, you know, there’s only, there can be only one, you know, the front of the number one on high level.
Peter: On the search results.
Paul: Yeah, there’s a, there can only be number one. And there are usually a lot of people competing for that spot. And so resources are piled towards because it works, because the people who are in the top get the most clicks and because the people that are looking for those services are searching, you know, so that I saw recently. Yeah, they have an intent. I saw a report recently that said that 80% of people that are looking for medical care do research online before they make an appointment 80%.
So you’re reaching the people that are actively looking. And if you’re not there, you’re missing out.
Peter: Right. So health and wellness SEO is similar in many ways to other forms of search engine optimization or SEO that you’re doing. So let’s talk about how it’s the same for, you know, a health and wellness provider versus just a somebody who’s doing other providing other types of services.
Paul: Sure. I mean, because it’s not a reinvention of the industry. Is the same principles apply whether you are a podiatrist or you’re a plumber. Want to do the right things. Still SEO is SEO in the sense that you know it’s about sending the right signals to Google so that Google will rank you highly in the search results.
The same things generally apply. Want to have a site that is mobile friendly and very fast. You want to have titles and descriptions and all the content on your pages optimized and focused on your keywords that you’re trying to rank for. There’s other things I’m getting all your details of your phone number and your address and the name of your business correct consistently, getting reviews, getting and all those things that we associate with SEO are the carry over into medical SEO. I think the biggest difference starts to be when you talk about emphasis, which ones matter the most.
Yeah, I think that really So starting to get into
Peter: one thing I did want to touch on here, just speaking about SEO, you mentioned make your site error free, mobile friendly and fastest lightning. One of the things that we’re seeing with a lot of our clients is that 70% to as much as 90% of the traffic to their website is coming from a mobile device. And one of the things to think about is that speed, especially on mobile device, is really a search ranking that Google is going to use. I can’t emphasize enough, regardless of what you’re doing, making sure your site is fast is super important.
Paul: So I think 2021 I think is probably the year of speed this week. Everybody needs to get their their sites faster. Yeah. Every kind of industry does and especially on mobile, as you mentioned, because we all the times will test on desktop and we’ll say all these are good times, but we don’t test on you know people don’t test on mobile, you need to test on mobile because it’s very different experience. And so, and Google is actually upping their game as far as this ranking factor It’s going to be even more important starting in I think June, they just announced that they’re expanding their rankings to include factors like do the elements on your page move around while your page loads and things like that.
So they’re getting very, very serious about speed and the user experience of using your website,
Peter: right? So so we we started talking about so yours. What what you’re saying is that what makes SEO for health and Wellness different is that the relative importance of the different factors seems to come into play here. One of the things that I’ve noticed is that one of the things that all of these people have in common, all of the health and wellness providers is they have a location, right? Versus a lot of the clients that we work with outside of this field are mobile or service area providers like a roofing company, right?
Come to you, they don’t have their own, well, do have a physical location, but it’s not as important in the way that people look at who they should buy from versus the location signals. And it looks like you’ve got number one here in terms of those three things that make it different. Directories still matter. Let’s talk about that a little bit and how that comes into play.
Paul: Yeah, yeah. And a few years ago, web directories sites that kind of aggregate tons of listings of information were incredibly important for us. Yeah. So it was very vital that you got your site listed in as many directories and citations as Yeah.
Peter: So there are specific sites for medical and then there are generalized business ranking sites or directory sites. Yelp is one clearly. Yeah, there are sites like Yelp. Yep.
Paul: Yeah. And so so in the past, it was very important that you get your listing into every directory and that has waned somewhat. I mean, Google values, though, still it’s still a ranking factor, but it’s not nearly as important as some other factors. But in the case of the medical profession, reason why Google isn’t ranking those as much or isn’t paying as much attention is because people don’t actually go visit those directories all that often. But in the medical field, they do for health care providers.
Do. Go and look and they see what other people have reviewed and they see what other people have said and they see what your description is and what you say you do. They look on and for that information. So it’s going to help your ranking. But it’s also and this I would argue is actually more important which sounds strange to say from an SEO guy is that the ranking is not the end.
The ranking is just the beginning. You want to rank of course but you want sales is what you want. You want people to come become customers become patients. So these directories are a vital part of that. So some businesses you could probably the directory becomes a lower priority, something you want to fix, but something and make sure is right.
But it’s not the first on the list, but from healthcare providers, the directories are quite important. So we want to make sure that those are done and done right and very thoroughly.
Peter: Yeah, some that I was thinking of are vitals.com, healthgrades.com. Those are just a couple that come to mind that you’d want to look at for your practice. There’s always ZocDoc as well. That does have some fees built into it. So you have to kind of be careful about that.
But yeah, those are a couple of them. So those are the directories. And really what we’re talking about is web directories. Make sure you’re listed there. Make sure that you’re listed correctly.
That’s actually a service that we provide if you need that. Or you can do it yourself. It’s pretty time consuming, probably not the highest and best use for a doctor to be messing around with that. It’s probably better to leave it to the experts like us to do that. So the second thing that we talk about here is reviews.
So just give us some insights into how reviews are going into play here.
Paul: So reviews are important for, as we mentioned, you know, this is something that everybody wants to do in their SEO. But for a doctor or for a medical provider, it’s even more so. The study I saw said that on average, patients look at at least seven reviews before they make an appointment. So I mean, so they’re digging in. They want to know.
I mean, obviously this is a big decision when people decide to go to somebody who is going to be poking them, prodding them, hopefully helping them. They really want to know so they’re going to check more than they’re going to be looking at. If they’re buying a printer or a fax machine well I don’t know who buy a fax machine, but they’re going to be looking deeper and so they’re looking at the reviews, they want to see what other people’s experiences were So Google knows that Google knows that that people value reviews and that’s why they’ve made it an even bigger ranking factor over the years. It’s much more important, but also for for your own connection with people, you need to have those reviews. So not only does it every review boost your ranking a little bit with Google, but it also boosts the confidence that people have in you as a provider.
So it’s a win win. You need reviews, you need lots of reviews and of course, good reviews. And of course, that’s something that that biz marketing is very into and provides services for and solutions for is to and it supports SEO, but it supports the business just in general as well. Getting good reviews, you’ve got to have them.
Peter: Yep. So the third thing that you talk about with respect to medical service providers and SEO is content. Let’s talk about that a little bit.
Paul: Absolutely. This is the absolute most important thing, I think, of the of the three that I’m mentioning. Content is the most important because again, this is an important decision that people are really putting their lives into your hands in a lot of ways. They are going to do more research.
Peter: So what is content?
Paul: Content is things like blogs, articles, the actual pages on your site that describe the services that you provide videos, which are super important, And more and more people should be doing videos and then transcribing the videos. Infographics or other kinds of things that educate patients and educate people on the way that procedures or the way that you do things, different conditions. All that text, all that copy, all that information is got to be focused primarily on answering questions from people. The kind of questions that people are frequently asked. We used to always have websites.
Still mostly do have frequently asked questions. You have to think of your content strategy basically as an expanded version of frequently asked questions because people are constantly asking questions. I’m going to a to a dentist, I want to know what kind of techniques does he do? Is he is he a specialist in this kind of field? Does he know what he’s talking about?
Or if he’s an orthodontist, is he what type of techniques does he use or equipment that is he used? I need to know. So if I’m left to guess, I won’t. I will go to another guy that says exactly what he’s
Peter: right. One of the most powerful tools we’ve seen also is conditions writing about conditions.
Paul: Yes.
Peter: Back pain, neck pain.
Paul: Yeah. Yeah. Explaining explaining how where does where sciatica come from and how can you how can a chiropractor help you with it? Right. You know those kinds of things unpack the kind of questions that people have the conditions that they’re probably struggling with or are considering coming to.
This something I need to even worry about or is it something that even can somebody help me with this? And if you say yes and you explain why they’re going to trust you on that. And that’s building that trust and that authority and that value to them that helps them step over the line and make that call. You know, you need them. You need them to feel like they’ve already started a relationship with you before they even make the call to actually start the relationship with you.
Peter: So one that that makes a lot of sense. So one thing that I was that I did want to cover as well is if you are a medical provider, health and wellness provider, and you wanted to get started. Sort of what is the path to success if you’re going to work with an SEO company? What’s step one? That’d be an audit, I’m guessing?
Paul: Yeah, absolutely. Step one is an audit. Let’s see what you’re doing already. What’s working, what’s not working, what’s broken competitors. Competitors.
Let’s look at who you’re trying to outrank and what they’re doing. Let’s look at areas that your site is outperforming and the areas where it’s underperforming. You need that full view of everything so that you can make a plan to go forward. And that because maybe maybe you’re you’re you’ve got everything, but you don’t have content, you know, maybe you’ve got content, but you don’t have. Good technical on page seo there’s just totally different paths that we’re going to take depending on what you are so a one size fits all solution is never really it.
It all starts with the audit, and then we can make a road map from there.
Peter: Got it. And there is one area that we neglected to talk about that I really think we should mention. It’s Google My Business and the importance of your Google My Business profile and getting all of that right. Google My Business profile is when you the easiest way to see it is Google the name of your business. It will on a desktop computer, it’ll normally appear in the right side of the search results.
You’ll see a map perhaps, pictures, details about your business. Nearly every business, whether they know it or not, has a Google My Business profile, and that seems to be the direction that Google is going for. They are wanting to have really well put together Google My Business profiles.
Paul: So, yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned before, most health care providers are local. They have an office, they have a place and a location that they operate from. You’ve got to have your Google My Business nailed if you have a location. So you need to have that perfectly optimized.
You need to be using it to its fullest and be leveraging it. We see too many businesses that haven’t even claimed their their listing. Google creates one for them. It’s a guess on Google’s part. Have to if it’s ensure the owner, you can claim it and then now you can take control of it and you can explain what your what your business does, describe it better, what your services are, what your hours are, keep that all up to date, answer questions, respond to reviews, all sorts of things all in that that Google My Business platform.
And what that also does is it cements that location to Google so that they know you are a doctor in this place so that searches come from that area, they’re going to be referring them to you.
Peter: And the completeness of that profile is one of the factors, the ranking factors that allows you to show up in that the map listings or the what they call the three packs. So if you’re on a desktop computer and you search for a dermatologist near me, very often you’ll see three listings with a map. Those are, we call that the map listing or the three pack, and that is super critical. You could actually be number one in the overall Google search results for what they call organic listings and still people aren’t going to click because you didn’t show up in the map listings. So, now we’re getting down into the weeds here, but this is really what can make a difference.
And this is why we feel and we’re not. It’s not self serving here. We just feel that it’s if you really want to rank there, it’s important that you hire some professionals to get it done for you.
Paul: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. SEO is, you know, we’ve expounded on this in some other areas, but SEO is a thing that you can do mostly. There’s a lot of things, but generally people don’t. They don’t follow through and SEO becomes a source of guilt rather than a source of sales.
Peter: Right. Yeah, and it’s all about consistency, adding new content and new reviews. So just to wrap up here, we’d like to offer a reviews special if you’re interested. We have a reviews service that’s called Reviews of Us, which helps you get more positive reviews for your practice and hopefully stop negative ones giving you the feedback directly rather than seeing it posted online. And we’re offering two months free of our review service.
If you get the setup in the first month, we will, go ahead and, pay for month two and three. Those are free. That’s $190 value. If you’re interested in taking advantage of that offer, please go to the website, bizmktg.com, and book an appointment with us and, book a consultation with us and mention this, podcast offer, and we will make sure that you get it. Paul, is there anything else you want to add?
Paul: No, I just encourage people to do that. I’ve seen the reviews platform work. I’ve seen the difference that it makes in people’s rankings when they start feeding reviews that are positive into the system. This is not a way of manufacturing reviews. This is not a way of anything like that.
I just want to make sure that this is just doing good businesses, business practices to help businesses get reviews from the happy customers they already have.
Peter: Get the fair share of reviews of positive reviews they deserve is what I like to
Paul: say. That they deserve. That’s good. That’s good. Yeah.
And I think when you do that, you’re not gaming the system. Nobody’s interested in gaming the system. We’re interested in doing is the right business practices that get rewarded. Do it. Think the reviews thing is a massive bargain at the price that is asked for.
Peter: Right. Well, thanks, Paul. I can’t wait to talk about some more SEO issues and opportunities with you next time.
Paul: Okay, sounds good. Thanks, Peter.
Peter: Thanks for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms. Please tell your friends about us and leave us a review so even more people will find out about us. Thanks again.
Peter: We’ll see you soon.
