SEO IN MEDICINE

MEDIC SEO WORK

The field of medicine on the Internet is developing rapidly. More and more clinics are adapting to the new conditions created by the pandemic and are transferring some services online. As a result, a dense competitive environment has been formed today, in which only those clinics that meet all the canons of his Majesty Google can win.

HOW TO ACHIEVE SEO IN MEDICINE?

In August 2018, Google released a major algorithm update. In the USA, it was called “Medical Update”. Some sites benefited from this, but many, on the contrary, lost a significant amount of traffic.

For the most part, the algorithm update has hooked sites related to health and healthcare (clinics, medical centers, sites about diet and healthy lifestyle). But traffic surges were also on sites of other topics – for example, e-commerce or finance. It reminds us of something, doesn’t it? Yes, those who closely follow the updates from Google have learned the YMYL algorithm in Medical Update.

What is YML and E-A-T?

The concept of YMYL (“Your Money or Your Life”), which appeared in the instructions for Google assessors, means “Your finances or your life”: Google has begun to analyze thematic content in more detail that can affect people’s security, financial stability, happiness and even health. We are talking about such categories as news, review materials, legislation and politics, finance, data on products and groups of people, as well as health topics.Later, the algorithm was transformed into E-A-T. “Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness” (expertise, credibility, trust) is a ranking algorithm in Google that evaluates the quality and usefulness of content.

In the context of medicine, this means the following:

Expertise: it is very important that articles or page texts are written with a deep knowledge of the subject.
Credibility: the personality and merits of the author of the material play an important role.
Trust: if the article is expert and written by an authoritative author, then it can be trusted, Google thinks, which means that the user is not in danger.

What indicators can be used to determine the expertise of content in medicine?

Google’s algorithm updates are another step towards understanding the user’s intent. It is extremely important to constantly monitor them, since the company almost never announces planned updates in advance.

The structure of the presentation of the idea of the text.
Answers to the user's questions.
Regular publication of materials on the website.
The presence of the site in social networks, on trust medical aggregators, in resource lists and reference books.
Thematic medical sites that link to the resource.

Core Web Vitals and medical-related websites

Google regularly checks the quality of published content and tries to ensure that the search results satisfy user requests. The logic here is simple: if a person finds relevant content, he will not use other search engines and will return again. Since Google’s earnings are based on advertising, the number of views affects revenue. It is important that the sites work quickly and attract the attention of users for a long time, because income depends, among other things, on embedded advertising banners.

Many Google parameters remain unclear to the site owner. For example, why the portal is hidden or located at the bottom of the output with impressive investments in SEO. But since May 2021, the factors affecting the ranking are easily measured using Core Web Vitals, and the evaluation criteria are available for everyone to study. There are three of them and they are all related to site speed – load measurement, interactivity and stability. It may seem that the algorithm specifically complicates the work of webmasters. However, with the right approach, you can benefit from it.

Good websites should have the following qualities:

FAST LOADING

The main content, including the visual component, loads quickly.

CONTENT INTERACTION

Interaction with the content begins immediately, without a delay of several seconds.

DISPLAYING ELEMENTS

All elements are clearly visible in any version (PC, mobile device); they do not interfere with viewing the page materials and interacting with them.

MEDIC SEO WORK

SEO REPUTATION IN MEDICAL INTERNET RESOURCES

The role of a person’s or company’s reputation has played an important role in relationships of any format for centuries, and the medical field is no exception. Moreover, it is for this area that reputation is critically important. Competitive advantage, patient loyalty, informativeness and openness – all these factors are the key engine for the development of the clinic. Just 7 years ago, a popular phrase was: “If you are not on the Internet, are you there at all?”. Today, this phrase sounds like this: “Does the clinic have reviews?”. Users trust companies that have been verified by other users, and the clinic that has these reviews will receive patients.

But what if the clinic is at the initial stages of development? Or just haven’t dealt with reputation before? The answer is simple: start doing SERM. This type of promotion also includes PR articles and work with negativity. Negativity (in reviews, articles, social networks) is a strong blow to reputation. Without working with him, the clinic loses the trust of patients.

When working on our cases, we monitor the situation with clients’ SERM on a weekly basis and make a plan to displace negativity. Usually, the strategy includes the formation of PR articles on trust resources, the formation of positive reviews on social networks, as well as pumping existing and new positive articles to keep them in the top. So one of our clients came to us with an indicator in Google reviews of 3.5 in early August. Today, this indicator is 4. It would seem that only 0.5 increased the indicator. But the difficulty lies in the fact that Google reviews are carefully moderated and it is almost impossible to leave your opinion artificially. Therefore, promotion specialists form real live reviews that successfully pass moderation.

An integrated approach, taking into account the overall promotion strategy, is the main success factor. It is always worth remembering that publicity and top positions can have the reverse side of the coin – negativity and haters. This is why it is important to work in two directions at the same time – SEO and SERM.

Frequently Asked Question

Questions that are relevant for clients and beginners.

What is EAT in medical SEO?

E-A-T is one of the algorithms for evaluating the quality of content in Google, the abbreviation stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. If the site does not meet these criteria, the search engine assigns a low rating to the resource and it is highly likely to fall out of the top of the output. Yandex does not have this algorithm, but the search engine also pays attention to the quality of the content.

Is reputation and rating important in medical resources?

In the medical field, reputation is very important — before making an appointment, most users look for information and reviews about a specialist. Unfortunately, people are more willing to leave negative reviews: if a visitor did not like the service, he wants to share his dissatisfaction, if he liked the service, it is taken for granted. Therefore, even good clinics with excellent service can form a negative reputation background if they do not make efforts to collect positive feedback.

What kind of content can hinder the promotion in the search?

You should not post on medical-related websites:

links to resources of questionable quality;
a large number of links;
brand names (for example, drug names);
recommendations for treatment (if you write recommendations, be sure to indicate that their use should be coordinated with the attending physician);
specific number of medications, dosages;
references to folk treatment, especially if it refutes official medicine.
Also make sure that there are no spelling and punctuation errors in the texts, and the articles contain appointment buttons or contact details.