Why A Medical Clinic Must Use SEO for Marketing

Using Google or any other search engine to attract more patients has been a common practice for as long as search engines have been around. As someone responsible for keeping the practice running, you might have heard of SEO, but you’re just not sure, exactly, why you need it for your clinic.

Now you probably have more than enough jargon in your life, being in healthcare, so this short but sweet introduction to SEO for a medical practice is meant to break it down for you as straightforwardly as possible.

What does “optimising for search” even mean?

Sorry, even marketing can’t help having a modicum of jargon. Still, search engine optimisation, or SEO, is, very simply, making it easier for potential patients to find your clinic every time they use Google, specifically to look for the healthcare service your clinic provides.

Now you’re probably thinking of ads and things, or the banners you see on certain websites—there is something called “paid search”, but that’s not SEO. See, the folks (who might even be other clinics, or your competitors) PAY Google or a search engine for those ads and things to be shown. With SEO, you don’t pay Google for that—in fact, you can’t.

What happens is that you show Google why your clinic deserves to be shown to people who have a very high chance of visiting your clinic and becoming your patient. You do all you can, or optimise your clinic’s website, to prove to Google that yes, your clinic is worthy of consideration by potential patients.

Why does Google want to “show” deserving clinics to patients?

Well, it’s not just out of the goodness of Google’s algorithm-driven heart—the search engine does have a vested interest in serving up the best quality results it can when people search, because that’s the only way people are going to keep using it.

If people use Google to look for things—and a lot of the time, they’re super important things like, say, a doctor for chronic, debilitating pain—and they find nothing but garbage? Those users will use something else for their search. It’s that simple.

Given the thousands of other clinics and medical service providers out there, all competing for just one more patient (who could well be yours), Google has its work cut out for it to choose only the best of the best clinics for whatever problems people have.

And that’s why there’s an order, or “ranking” for the results, or the clinics Google shows people who search. And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, people who search usually end up going to the clinic that appears first, or at the top of the results.

That’s why optimising your clinic’s website is an absolute must.

Even with TikTok, YouTube, and other social media platforms being used for search these days, Google and other search engines remain the primary go-to options when seeking medical help. After all, a video showing you how to use your inhaler can only take you so far—before long, you’re going to need to find a doctor or a clinic to go to.

There’s a lot that goes into “doing all you can” to “prove to Google that you’re worthy” (and a lot of jargon that goes with it), but it can all arguably be boiled down to

• Having superior quality content (that helps or is useful to people)
• Providing a superior user experience (for people who use or visit your website)

You should be aware that Google has strict standards for websites of all kinds. Still, they’re doubly (actually quadruply) strict when it comes to healthcare (and other industries or verticals that “have a real, major impact” on a person’s life—apart from healthcare, finance is another example). 

Get help from a specialist today.

And that’s why there are specialised digital marketing agencies like The Marketing Clinic that aren’t just well-versed in SEO, but also optimising websites specifically for clinics and other healthcare service providers.

Just as you wouldn’t go to a podiatrist for cataracts or a dermatologist for a root canal, a practice like yours needs specific expertise and the experience of a medical digital marketing agency. Just don’t wait too long to start optimizing—other clinics with services similar to yours are already ranking.